How do you give someone access to your server.

[thecleaner]

How do you give someone access to your website without giving them access to your traffic stats?

I have to hire a coder to work on our database but I dont want them to have access to our traffic stats.

[coopster]

Can you dump the database tables that he/she will need to complete the coding request? I would think that would be sufficient ...?

[thecleaner]

where would I begin? Im an amature when it come to this. I know how to access cpanel and a little about frontpage. I can upload pages and all but I know little about most everything else.

[vincevincevince]

Tricky situation altogether I think. If you don't have the technical skills to create a development environment then you will have to hire a coder to do that for you... who will need full access to do his work.

Try asking your web hosting company for a solution. Here are some things you could suggest to them:
- If you use http to access site stats, then set up .htpasswd authentication with another password
- If site stats are available via ftp, use .ftpaccess to deny the ftp account used by your coder from reaching them
- Installing a web-based database administration system (e.g. phpmyadmin for a MySQL database) and then only letting the coder work through that (no control panel or FTP details need to be given)

[thecleaner]

Im hiring a coder to make a workaround for this for future maintenence on the website. Do you think the following will solve this problem?

***here was my coders reply**

OK, your host provided phpmyAdmin doesn't restrict a user.

I have another solution. I will get latest phpmyAdmin from their open source site.

I will setup phpmyAdmin on your host folder. I will customize that with LOGIN/PWD to work with your CPANEL mysql user/pwd system.

So a user can ONLY VIEW allowed database which you will control from your CPANEL, similar to FTP solution.

Summary: After this setup, you will not need to worry about CPANEL access. Others and I can work without using your CPANEL for DATABASE or FTP SITE management.

I will also provide instructions.

[lammert]

Im hiring a coder to make a workaround for this for future maintenence on the website. Do you think the following will solve this problem?

I will setup phpmyAdmin on your host folder. I will customize that with LOGIN/PWD to work with your CPANEL mysql user/pwd system.

If you trust someone, you trust him, if you don't trust someone you don't trust him. Life is as simple as that.

Letting someone install web-based software on your server and mess around with your login/password procedures is IMHO much more dangerous than access of someone to your statistics.

Every advantage has its disadvantage (Johan Cruijff, famous Dutch football player)

[thecleaner]

assuming he was honest, would this solve the problem? Could someone go through this new system and still gain access to my traffic stats?

[lammert]

Assuming the PHP installer is honest, it is possible to set it up in such a way that the user of PHPMyAdmin has only access to one database with rights you specify.

PHPMyAdmin can be configured to use a logon screen where a username and password must be entered before access to the database is granted. The access rights associated with that username in the MySQL user database control his behaviour. Apart from possible holes in the PHPMyAdmin code itself, it should not be possible to peek into other databases, or do anything on the operating system level like looking in files etc.

The user however HAS access to SQL statistics through the PHPMyAdmin panel. These are statistics about the uptime, number of SQL requests per hour, MB served by MySQL per hour etc. Although this is not direct HTTP traffic information, it can provide information about how popular your site is. It is however also information necessary for someone who is going to optimize the database.

[thecleaner]

thank you lammert, for your answer