[tech] Club Hosting: VPSs vs Integration

[Ash Tyndall]

Recently, the committee approved the provision of UCC services for paid club
hosting. The specifics of the prices and such have already been decided on,
however, there are some implementation issues that I think need discussing.

The initial thought of the committee was that a VPS system would be the
easiest for those clubs which need more than just web hosting services; it
isolates the clubs, allowing them to configure a myriad of services while
still being easily locked in case of non-payment.

However, VPSs come with certain security issues that make them not the most
ideal technology for club hosting, even if that club needs additional
services. The fact that they clubs are in charge of the security of the
server means such things may be neglected.

For example, the UWA Atheist & Skeptic Society, who are (beside CSSC) the
only club interested in this service, only need web hosting, some
procmail/postfix routing and a mailman instance to run on their domain
uass.asn.au.

In this case, configuration files would be in a variety of places on the UCC
servers, making account locking difficult if it needs to be done. VPSs solve
this problem.

However, on IRC, [JCF] has raised an objection to the necessity of VPSs,
even for the use case that UASS has.

It was suggested that due to the infrequency of the request, and the lack of
issues with account locking in the past, that the security benefits of
integration outweigh the advantages of VPS-based service isolation.

"We're probably better off sticking with what we do well rather than
introducing something we're less likely to maintain in the interests of
security."

I am personally for integration; it makes it much easier for the club, as
they don't need to perform software-based maintenance. What are other
people's opinions?

-- 
Ash Tyndall [ASH]
2011 Fresher Rep
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