nixCraft

Hi

I've discovered a large security risk on my apache server. I'm running a couple of PHP based websites and often makes small changes in the config file or some of the other php files. I do this over SSH using VI. But I've discovered that sometimes VI makes a temporary file with the same name as the orginal file but with a ~ at the end. This means that if I have edited my config file config.php there is a temporary file called config.php~ and this file can also be accessed and will not be parsed as a php file, hence everyone can see usernames, passwords and other goodies.

So my questions are:
- Is there a way to avoid that VI makes these files?
- Or is there another command line editor I could use instead that does not make them

Open your $HOME/.vimrc file and append following to disable backup option

You can also setup a backup dir to avoid problem in ~/.vimrc: This way, if you want your backups to be neatly grouped. It will create a directory called '.backup' in your working directory. Vim will stash backups there. The 'directory' option controls where swap files go. If your working directory is not writable, Vim will put the swap file in one of the specified places.



HTH

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Vivek Gite
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