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I have transferred a PHP/mySQL site to a different ISP. The clients want to protect access. I don't really want to change the Admin login - that is programmed using salt.

I was thinking of creating a new u/p with admin (not root) privileges for them, and disabling the root password in their database.

Does anyone see any issues with this approach?

Many thanks

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1 Answer

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Creating a unique account for their database is a good idea, in fact I think this should be done with all applications as if one becomes exploited there is limited risk amongst the other applications and databases.

However I think you could be going a bit far by disabling the root user for their database, so long as the user has a very secure password and you can't access via a remote MySQL (port 3306) then it should be ok to leave the user with privileges.

In fact keeping the root user there can be very helpful if you need to add/delete/modify user privileges etc.

Basically keep the root user, however don't use it in the application or any other application, it should be purely as a 'super user' for administration.

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Thanks iTom (great name). However, at the moment, the original developer could access the site admin control panel using the original, encoded password, and potentially, this could lead to problems. (delete customers, delete orders, etc). If I disable the account (not delete), then if we need to activate it, we still could. What do you think? – David DelMonte Dec 4 '11 at 22:22
If your really against changing the password then yes that seems like a valid option. – iTom Dec 5 '11 at 8:36
I hear you but while I'm a reasonably good programmer, with this app, I do not know the overblown development well enough, and feel I only know enough to be dangerous right now.. We will hire someone soon.. – David DelMonte Dec 5 '11 at 12:55

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