The proprietary account control panel for GrokThis.net. GrokThis Manager 2.0 is a web-based account control panel allowing users to easily make changes without requiring the need for SSH, or (in some cases) root access. Originally, starting as a console-based application, we’re happy to see our little boy all grown up! Interestingly, it took less than 5 hours to convert the application from Python’s urwid library to web based by writing a module providing similar functions to urwid, but rendering to the web. Since then, we’ve removed urwid backwards compatabilityl, but we are planning to make a ‘return to the console’. As a web application, it is not difficult for us to now provide alternative frontends.
On feature of GrokThis Manager, of all versions to date, is the security aspect. We believe that our control panel is very secure, and due to the method in which we built it, we believe that it significantly more secure than competing applications. The application runs as the customer’s own user based on SuExec, and most operations are performed directly as that user. When necessary to have permissions other than that user, programs with setuid permissions handle the rest. When possible we avoid setuid root and opt for ‘setuid mysql’ or ‘setuid cyrus’. We believe that this significantly decreases the risk involved in providing such features directly to the user.
Documentation will be provided to hosting customers to allow them to build and customize their own frontends.
