How absolutely secure are VPS? Are they safe enough that you could test things you are not 100% certain are secure, without risking the other users who are on the server?

Hard to say without more information but in general the answer would be yes.

Should be yes.

I think so.

Depends. As rule that is secure. But to make sure - go with dedicated for testing as that is important for you

I mean for testing for instance, beta versions of software as they are being released. I am never a fan of testing them on any machine that I cannot be sure can survive it, and on something that could open up a vulnerability that could cause problems for other people. On a simpler level this includes the betas when forum software upgrades.

I think a VPS would be fine for what you describe.
They are essentially independant of the main server.

Ok thank you-so what about taking it another level. What if you were trying to develop your own software, and there fore knew that there was a good chance that there could be vulnerabilities that could be exploited-would you want to move testing for that kind of thing onto its own machine?

VPS is very secure, especially if it is Virtuosso.

Even scripts that are installed with Fantastico can become vulnerable.

I wouldn't even consider it an issue.

One thing to perhaps be aware of is that most hosting companies don't split the traffic going to the virtual server up. So your data is going down the same cable as someone else's. This is a potential security risk.

Also many hosts only offer unprotected SSH access which is a big security risk. We offer a Juniper SSL-VPN connection as standard with our VPS packages, giving you a secure, encrypted connection to your VPS.


MOD NOTE: Post edited for advertising content.

That's an interesting point, that the traffic travels the same route, and I wonder if that in itself could cause some vulnerabilities. It's certainly something to consider when potentially testing my software in this way. I don't want to hurt anyone else.

There are actions for the server and for the VPS account. They are different. So if you will try to do something for your own VPS account you won't hurt anyone else.

Your VPS will be secure if the services and sites your run on are secure, there is no such thing as security by default.

Just curious here, have you spoken with any hosting places about this or were you just inquiring here before hand? Sometimes we tend to get requests like this and try to help pre-clients out as best we can, I really wish more places did this type of thing (some pre-sales conversations have been bad from what clients have told me).

For what you are talking about, a VPS is an ideal route, however you can usually pick up a low end Celeron for under $60/month, so even going with something like that might be worthwhile. We do this on our own testing servers here rather than the VPS route.