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How to optimize your WordPress hosting – 9+ practical tips

Isn’t it true that, when you (start to) develop WordPress websites for clients, and you host them yourself, you find yourself in a situation where you need to know a lot about “stuff” other than WordPress development? In this optimize your WordPress hosting post, I provide 10 practical tips for you, to improve WordPress hosting performance. Especially useful for when you plan to host WordPress websites yourself. Read on to learn how I optimize my WordPress hosting, and how you can do the same.

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SSL in WordPress: how to move your WordPress site to HTTPS? The definitive guide

How to add SSL and HTTPS in your WordPress site, the definitive guide! Did you know that having an SSL certificate on your website is the de-facto standard nowadays? Google ranks sites having HTTPS -or an SSL certificate- higher in their SERP. But in WordPress, what do you need to do to set up and install an SSL certificate in your WordPress website? You’ll learn the important steps to move WordPress from http to https in this post.

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MySQL InnoDB performance improvement: InnoDB buffer pool instances – Updated!

Your MySQL Database at Warp Speed - img. credits: Christian Daryanto Limas @ flickr
Your MySQL Database at Warp Speed

Are you running into MySQL load problems? Learn how how I tuned my MySQL servers for a heavy InnoDB workload, by configuring innodb_buffer_pool_instances. Dividing the InnoDB Buffer Pool into multiple instances improves Disk I/O. By doing so, you run your website more efficiently and fast. Here is a little help for you.

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How to: Protect WordPress from brute-force XML-RPC attacks

The WordPress XML-RPC API has been under attack for many years now. Back in August 2014, WordPress released version 3.9.2, fixing a possible denial of service issue in PHP’s XML processing. There are brute-force amplification attacks, reported by Sucuri, and so on. So, how do you protect WordPress from these xmlrpc.php attacks, but still being able to use (some of) its functionality like Jetpack? This post gives you some insight.

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3 Important security measurements for Windows Server & IIS

Windows Server security: When you have just installed your new Windows Server, with or without IIS as web server, it is important to take a few extra security measurements. Securing your (web) server is important to keep hackers out and your data safe. Here are some steps you can take to secure and harden your Windows Server (IIS) web or file server.

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Check WordPress Core files integrity

Check the md5 checksum of WordPress Core files against WordPress’ checksums API, using this standalone PHP file. I chose to use a standalone PHP script to check the md5sum of WordPress Core files against the API so you’re not dependent on a possibly hacked WordPress installation. This kind of guarantees the result can be trusted, as opposed to using a WordPress plugin. I think this is a better integrity check of WordPress Core files.

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Joomla! (< 3.6.4) Account Creation/Elevated Privileges write-up and exploit

Yesterday, Melvin Lammerts wrote an article on the account creation with elevated privileges vulnerability in Joomla! < 3.6.4. And included a PoC exploit. This Joomla! vulnerability makes it easy for an attacker to create an user account, even when user registration is turned off. Yikes!

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Clear PHP opcode caches before WordPress Updates: ease the updating process

In various hosting environments, WordPress core-, plugin- and theme updates sometimes fail because of enabled opcode caches. Popular PHP opcode caches are OPcache, WinCache and APC. This little WordPress Must Use Plugin tries to flush opcode caches. Making your live a bit easier when updating WordPress Core, Plugins and Themes.

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