Security and setup warning for shared hosting

Server
1

Hello everyone,

I’m using owncloud since about two years now, it works quiet well on a shared hosting.
I’ve got a general background in computing and programming, but I’m neither a specialist in networking nor in database.

So, I would want you some advices to “enhance” my configuration.

In owncloud general settings page, I see theses warnings:

  • Transactional file locking should be configured to use memory-based locking, not the default slow database-based locking.
  • SQLite is used as database. For larger installations we recommend to switch to a different database backend. Especially when using the desktop client for file syncing the use of SQLite is discouraged. To migrate to another database (…)
  • We recommend to enable system cron as any other cron method has possible performance and reliability implications.
  • /dev/urandom is not readable by PHP which is highly discouraged for security reasons. Further information can be found in (…)
  • No memory cache has been configured. To enhance your performance please configure a memcache if available. Further information can be found in (…)

For the first and last point, I guess theses are impossible to change, because of the shared hosting.
For third point, unfortunatly, I have to choose “Ajax” option, because I can’t change cron tasks in my shared hosting admin (I didn’t pay for this option).
For second point, If I look in phpMyAdmin, I see:

Database server

  • Server: Localhost via UNIX socket
  • Server type: MariaDB
  • Server connection: SSL is not being used
  • Server version: 10.1.37-MariaDB-1~jessie - mariadb.org binary distribution
  • Protocol version: 10
  • User: xxxx
  • Server charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)

Web server

  • Apache/2.4.10 (Debian)
  • Database client version: libmysql - mysqlnd 5.0.11-dev - 20120503 - $Id: 76b08b24596e12d4553bd41fc93cccd5bac2fe7a $
  • PHP extension: mysqli mbstring
  • PHP version: 5.6.39-0+deb8u1

Always in myPhpadmin, in the Engines panel, I see:

|Storage Engine |Description|
|CSV |Stores tables as CSV files|
|SEQUENCE |Generated tables filled with sequential values|
|MRG_MyISAM |Collection of identical MyISAM tables|
|MyISAM |Non-transactional engine with good performance and small data footprint|
|InnoDB |Percona-XtraDB, Supports transactions, row-level locking, foreign keys and encryption for tables|
|MEMORY |Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables|
|Aria |Crash-safe tables with MyISAM heritage|
|PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA |Performance Schema|

The default one is MyISAM.
So, wich other one could be used to improve owncloud ?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot in advance!

2

Hey,

from what i know each of the message contains a link to the related documentation which gives you thoroughly information about each message and how to solve them. But if you’re on a shared hosting then i think you don’t have much possibilities to configure your environment and need to live with the messages and less performance / reliability of ownCloud. :slightly_frowning_face:

I don’t think that this message is related to phpMyAdmin at all. It looks to me that you’re not using MySQL and the slower SQLite where ownCloud is warning you about.

3

I Tom,
thanks for your help.
I my last message, maybe I haven’t been clear.
I use phpMyAdmin to manage the database. I seen an option called “engines” that look like that:

May be theses can be changed and works better for owncloud ?
What do you think of that ?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Pascal

4

Hey,

from what i know phpMyAdmin is a Tool to manage “MySQL” databases. As you’re currently running a SQLite database:

it probably won’t help to modify anything in phpMyAdmin as it doesn’t have any affect on SQLite.

Instead i think you need to re-install ownCloud and chose MySQL as the database during the installation:

https://doc.owncloud.org/server/administration_manual/installation/installation_wizard.html#database-choices

5

Hi Tom,
thanks for your reply.
I understand it could be better to start with a clean install of my owncloud.
If I choose Mariadb for example, will the database structure and tables will be the same as with SQLite ?
Indeed,
I have no other choice to backup the actual database with phpMyadmin by first export complete database to my local computer, then install new owncloud with the wizard (choose Mariadb…). When finished, go into phpMyadmin, import previously exported database to retrieve all my data…
I do that everytime I update my owncloud server !

6

Hey,

i still don’t think that you can manage a SQLite Database with phpMyAdmin as both are completely different technologies. Maybe you have backed up an unused / old database in the past which where never used by ownCloud?