SuPHP and Ubuntu 10.10

@Sean_W:

no success
What exactly doesn't work? What kind of error messages (if any) do you get?

Also, are you sure you really want suPHP?

suPHP is slow, and its security benefits are usually quite small in a self-managed VPS environment. It won't make your PHP scripts any more secure; it merely tries to control the damage if and when a script is exploited. (Shared hosting companies use suPHP because it might allow them to keep servicing other customers even if one customer gets hacked.) If you want suPHP only because someone told you it's good, think again. There are better options, such as nginx and FastCGI/FPM.

I don't get any error messages. And as you mention, I'm finding out that suPHP is more of a pain than it's worth. Primarily, I just need to prevent an exploit from spreading from one user to another as I plan on hosting sites for close friends and family who aren't exactly tech savvy. So, I guess I could set up chjails to prevent that?

Run each site under a different user using fast cgi. If you're feeling paranoid set each users files so the others read bit is disable that way only the user and group can read them. Configure php's open_basedir. Vet your friends code and if they're using software like drupal/joomla make sure they keep it up to go.