Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition

By : David Mercer
Book Image

Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition

By: David Mercer

Overview of this book

<p>The book can be read from front to back, but each chapter is self contained so the reader can skip chapters to read those that they are interested in. Each chapter will move from basic to advanced where applicable and also relate what the administrator (reader) is doing to how this affects what the client sees on the site.</p> <p>So, for example, the customization chapter will start off with a discussion on the concept of design and how to relate this to your business. Once the reader has a clear idea of what they need to do, we look at some really simple changes such as modifying the site's language, before moving to some advanced modifications which may involve some PHP programming. At the same time the discussion will demonstrate how the changes made affect the site.</p> <p>Throughout the book, much consideration is given to the "right" way to doing things. Readers will have the great advantage that they begin, from the very start, doing things properly. This will save them a lot of time and effort in the years to come as they build on and modify their site. Utilizing best practices and sound methodologies is a great asset for beginners and experienced users alike.</p> <p>At all times, the coverage given in this book pays homage to the fact that, ultimately, the reader has a business goal in mind. To this end, the material never gets bogged down in technical issues or long discourses, but rather focuses on what is practically important for the online business and then moves on. To complement this, there are plenty of suggestions and hints as to how and where to look for further information.</p>
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Building Online Stores with osCommerce: Professional Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Foreword
Introduction
Index

Securing the Administration Tool


Without a doubt, one of the major potential security threats comes from using the administration tool over the Internet. Should someone gain access to this tool on your live site, they could cause untold mischief, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth will ensue. As a result, we are going to enforce the use of a username and password in order to gain access to the admin folder, as well as ensure that the admin folder is only available over the secure server HTTPS (which uses SSL to encrypt communications).

Note

You might also wish to change the name of the admin folder to something random, which will add a small amount of security in that it may not be immediately obvious to a potential hacker where this web-based tool is housed. If you do so you will need to edit config.php to reflect these changes as none of your file paths should contain the word admin anymore.

Before we do go ahead and secure the admin tool, it is worth considering that forcing communications...