WordPress
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Send authenticated SMTP email over TLS from WordPress
Learn how to override wp-mail() and send secure email using authenticated SMTP and StartTLS from WordPress.
PHP
PHP on Windows & IIS Configuration Guide
Welcome to the PHP development and runtime optimization hub on saotn.org. While PHP natively powers a massive portion of the web, running it efficiently within a Windows ecosystem requires specific architectural considerations. FastCGI tuning, extension configuration, and memory management are critical to achieving Linux-equivalent performance on a Windows host.
This section delivers practical, server-side guides tailored for deploying, upgrading, and hardening PHP on Windows Server and IIS. Whether you are maintaining legacy environments, upgrading to modern PHP branches, or troubleshooting execution bottlenecks within production WordPress installations, these guides offer verified solutions for the enterprise sysadmin.
Core PHP Administration Pillars
To accelerate your web infrastructure deployment, our PHP technical guides are categorized by implementation focus:
- IIS FastCGI & Runtime Optimization: Maximize your request throughput. Learn how to correctly configure FastCGI handlers, manage process pools, and eliminate bottlenecks to ensure seamless communication between IIS and the PHP engine.
- Caching & Extension Management: Unlock high-performance execution. Discover how to leverage extensions like WinCache (Windows Cache Extension for PHP) and OPcache to slash database loads, optimize memory consumption, and dramatically improve WordPress execution speeds.
- Version Upgrades & Environment Migrations: Future-proof your web nodes safely. Master the step-by-step process of installing concurrent PHP versions, managing environment paths, and updating server dependencies without risking production downtime.
- WordPress Server-Side Hardening: Bridge the gap between the application and the OS. Secure your PHP execution parameters (`php.ini`) by disabling dangerous functions, setting strict memory limits, and optimizing file upload thresholds for content-heavy environments.
Browse the chronological feed below for concrete walk-throughs on PHP error logging, custom extensions compilation, and real-world web server performance tuning.
WordPress
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Huge increase in WordPress xmlrpc.php POST requests
How to identify, block, mitigate and leverage xmlrpc.php scans, brute-force, and user enumeration attacks on WordPress sites… Secure WordPress xmlprc.php interface and reduce service disruption.
Web applications
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8 Tips to improve Joomla performance
Learn how to speed-up Joomla performance on Windows Server IIS using these 8 simple, but important, tips. Add caching, gzip compression, set your sessions & optimize MySQL database functions.
Windows Server
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How to clean up Contact Form 7 temporary captcha files on IIS web servers
On IIS, Contact Form 7 captcha has one HUGE disadvantage: temporary captcha files placed in wp-content/uploads/wpcf7_captcha, are not automatically removed. Here is how to remove Contact Form 7 temporary captcha files on IIS…
Codebase
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Set or remove the read-only attribute assigned to files with PHP chmod
Change file attributes with PHP chmod to make files read-only or normally accessible on Windows Server IIS.
Codebase
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Connect to multiple MySQL servers in a for and foreach loop
Check the connectivity of multiple MySQL servers, and connect to the servers in a loop. Here are two example code snippets
Codebase
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Optimize all MySQL tables with MySQLi multi_query
PHP MySQLi extension supports multiple queries which are concatenated by a semicolon. We can use this to optimize all MySQL tables in one single multi_query statement.
Useful
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Don’t turn off CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER and fix your PHP configuration
Learn how to fix your PHP config instead of turning off CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER in php.ini and overcome certificate validation errors with cURL and PHP.
Codebase
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Connect to MS SQL Server with PHP 5.3+
As of PHP 5.3.2 you have to use the SQLSRV API functions to connect to an Microsoft SQL Server database from PHP. For example, use sqlsrv_connect() to create a connection resource and open a connection. Learn how to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server database using PHP 5.3+ and SQLSRV.
Web applications
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Create your own PHP based Origin Pull CDN
The advantage of having your website content hosted on a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is having your content distributed and stored across the Globe. Utilizing the network of the Content Delivery Network provider.
Windows Server
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PHP with WinCache on IIS
In this article you’ll learn how to install and set up PHP with the Windows Cache Extension (WinCache) on windows IIS web servers. WinCache enabled PHP gives a great PHP performance boost for your WordPress-, Drupal or Joomla website. This post will show you it’s not hard to set up high performance PHP hosting on IIS.
Web applications
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Filter web traffic with blacklists
Block and filter unwanted web HTTP traffic with blocklists, on both IIS and Apache. Protect your website easily with this PHP blocklist class. Create your own HTTP web blocklist filter.
Windows Server
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PHP on IIS: “No input file specified”
When you host your PHP website on Windows Server IIS, you may receive an “No input file specified” error message, when a HTTP request is made to non-existing .php files. When this happens you probably have no Request Restrictions configured in IIS PHP handler settings. Here is how to fix the “no input file specified error” with PHP and IIS.