Security at RootManage

You give us access to your servers, so you should know exactly how that access works. This page describes what the system does today, in plain words. We have only written down things you can check for yourself in your dashboard.

How RootManage connects to your server

  • You install a small agent with one command. It only makes outgoing HTTPS requests to RootManage; it does not open any port on your server, so there is nothing for anyone to connect to.
  • Each server has its own secret token, created in your dashboard. If you ever want to cut access, create a new token for that server and the old one stops working at once.
  • Every agent has its own uninstall command, shown in the dashboard. Removing one agent does not touch the others.
  • The agent runs as a system service with root access, because it needs to read system health and run scans. It is kept light: the lowest priority, a CPU cap and a memory cap, so it cannot slow your site down.

What RootManage can and cannot do through the agent

  • The dashboard can only ask an agent to run one of a fixed list of built-in jobs: a health check, a security scan, a backup, a metrics sample or a LiteHouse report, plus the cleanup jobs of the Site Clean agent. There is no way to send it free-text commands.
  • One extra action exists for administrators only: stopping a heavy process on a server by its process ID. Every such action is recorded in the activity log.
  • The Health agent reports numbers about the machine (CPU, memory, disk, load, uptime, failed services, number of pending security updates, failed SSH logins, the busiest processes), not the content of your files or databases.
  • Backups go where you point them: your own SFTP or S3 storage, or the RootManage storage box on the plans that include it.

Who can see your information

  • Customers can only see their own servers, alerts, tickets and invoices. The database enforces this itself (row-level security), not just the website.
  • RootManage administrators can see customer servers, health data and tickets, because that is how we support you. They can also see a server password if you chose to save one in the dashboard.
  • Saving a server password is optional. We recommend SSH keys, or a temporary password that you change after the work is finished. Never reuse a password from another service.
  • The dashboard keeps an activity log of actions such as agent jobs and stopped processes. You can see the log entries for your own servers.

Your account and the connection

  • Everything travels over HTTPS (TLS), and the site tells browsers to always use HTTPS (HSTS).
  • Account passwords are handled by the sign-in service, which stores only salted hashes, never the password itself.
  • We send your sign-in and password-reset links by email and never ask for your password in a ticket, an email or on a call.

What we ask you to do

  • Use SSH keys instead of passwords, and turn off root password login once keys work.
  • Give each person their own server account. Remove accounts and keys of people who leave.
  • Keep your operating system and control panel updated. The Health agent shows how many security updates are waiting.
  • Keep backups somewhere other than the server itself, and test a restore now and then.
  • Install the agents only from the commands shown in your own dashboard, and treat the install line as a secret: it contains your server's token.

Found a problem?

If you think you found a security weakness in RootManage, please tell us through the contact page with the words “security report” in your message. Please do not test on other customers' data, and give us time to fix it before you share it.

You can follow the health of our own systems on the status page, and see how we help with Indian rules on the compliance page.