www.elsix.org access request

(reopening this ticket which was opened on the old ibiblio Answers forum)

Hi,

I’m one of the admins of the www.oesf.org forum. We used to maintain a related website called ELSI (Embedded Linux Software Index), which was reachable via www.elsix.org. This website hosted a database of all the latest Linux software which runs on embedded devices, primarily on the Sharp Zaurus PDA. Since some years the site is not reachable anymore; we’d like to put it back online and upgrade it to a more uptodate interface. We’d also like to start hosting older open-source software for the Zaurus which are not available anywhere else anymore, in order to preserve them, plus packages for newer Linux distros running on the Zaurus. This is how the site looked like before it went offline:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160112003201/http://elsix.org/

I have tried to get the shell account details from the past admins (including the domain name’s owner), but to no avail. If the account still exists, could you please reset its password?

Thanks and regards,
Daniel Beorchia

Hello, that site has been chowned to root so we (or at least, I, a volunteer) have no record of who the owning account is/was.

At a glance I see: 2004-vintage PHP, a world-readable 2004-vintage phpmyadmin/ subdirectory, and a screenshots/ subdirectory into which a handful of PHP webshells were uploaded.

If you already have oesf credentials I can chown the elsix hierarchy to oesf, or we can set up an elsix account?

Don

Hi,

thanks for looking into this issue. I have the oesf credentials, but I’d prefer to keep this site separated from the oesf’s account, so could you please create a new elsi account and chown the files to it? From your description I’m fearing that the site has been hacked, especially after reading of those webshells. I hope that the webportal’s php files are still there, or that at least the database is still intact. The entire portal was written from scratch, this time we will use a readily-made and more secure php portal.

Thanks and regards
Daniel Beorchia

Hello, I got approval to create the elsix account (I’m just a volunteer these days so I only make system changes with explicit authorization). Could you send me the e-mail address you’d like to use to receive your initial password? I’m dls@ibiblio.org

Hi, I have sent you an email. Thanks

I have successfully changed the password in the new account. Looking forward for the old elsi account’s contents. Thanks!

I have now successfully retrieved all the files that were stored on the account. We’ll now evaluate what new CMS platform to install on Elsix and migrate all the old data there. Thanks for the help, much appreciated!