Database Configuration for ISPs

Basically every client should get his own part of the database. Depending on the database system this is accomplished in two different ways: Either you have an own database file for each client or you have one big database for all users an connect with a different user name for each client.

Whatever you choose you can specify user-name, database-name, and database-password in the httpd.conf. You probably want to do this for each client separately by putting the directives inside a directory or virtual-server section.

 
   heitmldbname        DEMO
   heitmluser          DEMO
   heitmlpasswd        DEMODEMO

Please take care that you configuration file is read protected before entering database passwords! Also never put database passwords into .htaccess files.

Although this is all that needs to be done for configuration, being a database provider has some more problems

• Make sure that databases are backed up regularly. Be aware of the fact that your clients now might store valuable information on your server and that they might not have backups.
• Even if in case of frequent backups in case of a crash users might loose all modifications from the backup until the crash. For some users this might not be tolerable, e.g. a shop loosing orders. There are database systems that guarantee data consistency even in case of a crash.
• Make sure that your users do not store confidential information in the database and that they respect the privacy of others. You can use heitml for this kind of application if you connect to a professional managed database, that grants the Web server access to the public information only. However a database running on a virtual Web server is not the right place to store confidential information.
• Some databases do not support shared updates. Some database applications will not run with such a database if multiple users access it through the Web simultaneously. Please tell your clients what kind of database you support.