Arcetec hosting clients — Thirty Client Sites Moved Off Shared Hosting

The challenge

About 30 sites and portals running WordPress, Joomla and Laravel shared a single WHM server: outdated PHP versions, files with no change control, and the risk that a breach in one site could reach all the others.

The solution

Each site moved to its own container, with a repository in Azure DevOps and a deployment runbook. DNS cutovers were done in batches, validated with identical database record counts and a homepage comparison. Along the way, sites were upgraded to WordPress 7.1 and to Laravel 13 with PHP 8.5, and the Joomla sites were rebuilt. When the critical PHP2Shell vulnerability appeared, with a CVSS score of 9.2, 15 clients were inventoried and patched the same day.

Technologies used

• Docker
• WordPress
• Laravel
• PHP 8.5
• Azure DevOps

Results

• 30 Sites and portals migrated
• 15 Clients patched the same day — In response to PHP2Shell
• 9,2 CVSS score of the vulnerability addressed