How to install Elasticsearch on CentOS 6.7. Elasticsearch is a highly scalable open-source full-text search and analytics engine. It allows you to store, search, and analyze big volumes of data quickly and in near real time. In this article we’ll go over the steps to install Elasticsearch on CentOS 6.7. Did this post helped you…
The WordPress WP-Super-Cache cache plugin doesn’t minify HTML cache files, which I find a disadvantage. Knowing minify libraries, I went looking for an existing solution (why reinvent the wheel?), and found one: WPSCMin. Read on … Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North…
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Do you host your WordPress website on Windows Server IIS? And are you having trouble with your web.config? I often receive questions about how to use a web.config file in WordPress on Windows Server, and which settings are important for a WordPress site. Maybe it’s because I’m a WordPress on IIS enthusiast, so here is…
Deny direct access to PHP files in wp-content/uploads/ The following PHP function secures your WordPress website by disabling the execution of PHP scripts in wp-content/uploads, on Windows Server IIS web servers. It creates a web.config file for this purpose. Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins…
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Installing WordPress is one thing, keeping it up to date is something else. Each week brings new bugs or potential attack scenarios that will make a WordPress website vulnerable to hacks. Enabling automatic updates for all or at least most parts of WordPress solves a large number of problems with irregularly maintained WordPress websites. Did…
How to display WordPress tags with commas in them? Normally, in a WordPress post all tags are comma seperated: php, wordpress, functions.php. But what if you want to use a tag with commas in it? For instance cafe, bar, restaurants. Easy, create a filter in your WordPress functions.php, here is how. Did this post helped…
Learn how to replace content in your MySQL database in bulk with MySQL REPLACE. Sometimes it’s useful to know how to bulk edit content in your WordPress MySQL database, using MySQL’s REPLACE() function. Here is how to string replace content in WordPress wp_posts table to bulk edit WordPress posts through MySQL. Did this post helped…
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How to configure TLS for SMTP email in WordPress. I was suprised WordPress is not able to send email using an SMTP server out-of-the-box. Not to mention using authenticated SMTP or TLS transport for security. A quick Google search showed me multiple plugins to handle this, but I wanted to create something myself. Here is…
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WordPress xmlprc.php DDoS and brute-force attacks. How to identify, block, mitigate and leverage these xmlrpc.php scans, brute-force, and user enumeration attacks on WordPress sites… Secure WordPress xmlprc.php interface and reduce service disruption. Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins of the North with a direct donation…
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Learn how to optimize WordPress’ wp_options table for faster database results. This probably isn’t a big issue, but today I noticed a slow MySQL query coming from a WordPress database (WordPress wp_options table). This made me investigate and to optimize the WordPress wp_options table “autoload” feature. The autoload feature loads and caches all autoloaded options,…
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Chmod.php, change file attributes with PHP, to make files read only or normally accessible on Windows IIS servers. Sometimes you need chmod to make files read only on your website, or make them normally accessible in case they already are read only. For instance Drupal’s settings.php configuration file, or WordPress Contact Form 7 temporary captcha…
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If you run a WordPress blog where you display (parts of) source code, syntax highlighting is a must! It prettifies the code which makes it easier to read and it distinguishes code from text. However, most syntax highlighting is made available through plugins, and we all know too many plugins bring a lot of overhead…
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How to reset a lost WordPress password: If you’ve lost or forgotten your WordPress admin password, you can easily reset the password. Either use the following MySQL statement to reset your WordPress admin password, or change it through functions.php. Did this post helped you solve a problem? Or dit you find it interesting? Support Sysadmins…
An often heard solution to PHP cURL errors with SSL is to turn off CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER. Please don’t turn off CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, but fix your PHP config instead. This article provides you two solutions to solve CA certificate validation errors with PHP cURL and OpenSSL. For system administrators and end-users. Did this post helped you solve a…
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How to use GnuWin32 ported tools like grep.exe and find.exe for forensic log file analysis in Windows Server. In this article I’ll give some real live examples of using these ported GnuWin tools like grep.exe for logfile analysis on Windows servers. The article provides three example, as an alternative to LogParser, because finding spam scripts…
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