Hello everybody,
I noticed that Hestia Control Panel installed and exposed phpMyadmin to the Internet. I always thought that exposing this application to the Internet was a security risk.
Do you happen to know the reason for such a design decision?
Do you have any recommendation regarding limiting control to it in some way?
Thank you.
In Hestia (and in most hosting panels), phpMyAdmin is available over the Internet by design because it’s a core convenience for multi-tenant web hosting. Exposing a service is not inherently “insecure”; it’s about the controls you put around it.
HestiaCP already monitors phpMyAdmin login attempts with a dedicated Fail2ban jail.
HestiaCP also provides the ability to change the phpMyAdmin URL, making it harder to guess.
And of course, creating strong passwords for your database users is always your responsibility.
With those measures in place, the residual risk is comparable to running any other web application. By the same logic, publishing any website at all would be considered a security risk—which is technically true, but in practice we mitigate those risks through layered defenses.
The default exposure of phpMyAdmin is a usability choice. Real security comes from defense-in-depth. If you don’t use it, disable it. If you do, harden it, and you’ll be fine.
Thank you.
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