How to stop emails going to spam in gmail

Posted on 13, September 2018 by AllanIT

You need to follow these simple steps when youremail@gmail account incorrectly classifies email messages as spam and places them in your spam folder.

To tell your gmail account that these emails are not spam and that the sender is a safe sender you also have to add the senders to your contact list in order to ensure that future emails from these senders are never placed in your spam folder ever again:

Open your gmail webmail client on a laptop or computer (these instructions will not work on a phone) (see figure 1)
Click on the More menu item in the left column to reveal the Spam folder menu item
1. then click on the Spam folder menu item (see figure 2)
Select all the check boxes of the email messages that you feel are NOT spam
1. then click on the Not spam button (see figure 3)
Click to open each message
1. then add the sender to your Contact list from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the opened message (figure 4)

That is all to it!

NOTE: Same instructions again with helpful images below.

Figure 1 Open your gmail webmail client on a laptop or computer (these instructions will not work on a phone).

Figure 2 Click on the More menu item in the left column to reveal the Spam folder menu item then click on the Spam folder menu item.

Figure 3 Select all the check boxes of the email messages that you feel are NOT spam then click on the Not spam button.

Figure 4 Click to open each message then add the sender to your Contact list from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the opened message.

WordPress updates

Posted on 10, May 2018 by AllanIT

Each time you login to your WordPress site you should check for updates and install them if there are any.

In general there are two types of updates. WordPress updates which include WordPress its self along with theme updates. The second type of updates and the ones you will see most often are plugin updates. WordPress will notify you when updates are available for both of these categories of updates when you log into the Dashboard of your site. Continue reading →

Passwords do’s and don’ts.

Posted on 7, April 2016 by AllanIT

Don'ts.

Don’t use your username as your password.
Don’t use your name, your mother’s maiden name, your children’s name or your pets name as your password.
Don’t use your date of birth or any family members date of birth as your password.
Don’t use any word you can find in a dictionary as your password.
Don’t use the same password for multiple uses.
Don’t use an alpha or numeric sequence. eg: 12345 or abcde.
Don’t give anyone your password that you would not give $100,000 and an open ended around the world airline ticket to.

Do's.

Do make your password memorable to you.
Do make your password longer than 8 characters.
Do make your password a combination of upper & lower case letters, numbers and special characters eg !@#$^&.
Do use different passwords for each account or application.

Your password needs to be secure. Don’t underestimate the tenacity of the people trying to break your password. Hackers will spend months writing scripts trying to hack your password. You really do need to make your password as secure as you possibly can.

Spend some time and come up with a password pattern that you can change for each website or application that you need a password for. Changing your password for each site or application will make your passwords a great deal more secure and much harder to hack.

Sent from my Samsung device

How to change the ‘Enter title here’ text in WordPress dynamically.

Posted on 20, June 2015 by AllanIT

I am using the Pods Framework to developing a Content Management System (CMS) for a client. With Pods Framework plugin installed in WordPress, it’s possible to create Custom Content Types and Custom Fields. Usually this involves writing the PHP that you need by hand. With Pods, you can create all of the Custom Content Types and Custom Fields that you need from within the Pods plugin.

While developing the CMS I ran into a small issue. WordPress automatically displays ‘Enter title here’ text in the title field of any Post or Custom Content Types. When you create a new Post or Custom Content Type Pods does not correct this text to suit the Custom Content Type. Which is fine when the new Post is a Post. However lets say you are creating a CMS for a site storing customer information and the title field is being used for the Customers name then the ‘Enter title here’ is less useful and could be confusing to some.

I searched the internet looking for a solution to this problem. There were several approaches but where they all fell down was that they relied on a if/then statement for each Post, Page, or Custom Content Type. Which in its self is not a problem however every time you add a new Custom Content Type you have to add a new if/then statement. What I wanted was the replacement text to be created dynamically so that the function worked in all cases. So I wrote a function that will do exactly that.

The best part is all you have to do is copy the text below and past it in to the functions.php file of your child theme and it is done. From then on the ‘Enter title here’ text will be dynamically replaced through WordPress with something like ‘Add New Customer Here’

Functions.php

function change_default_title( $title ){
     global $post;
     $enter_title_text = esc_html( get_admin_page_title() ).’ Here’;
     return $enter_title_text;
}

add_filter( ‘enter_title_here’, ‘change_default_title’ );

Cron update after upgrading to Ubuntu 14.04.

Posted on 27, March 2015 by AllanIT

After a recent upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 to Ubuntu 14.04 I started to receive the email below. This email was being sent out by the cron system on a daily basis because the developers of Ubuntu are trying to make Ubuntu even more secure.

From: root@myserver.com
Subject: Cron <root@myserver> test -x /usr/sbin/anacron || ( cd / && run-parts –report /etc/cron.daily )
To: root@myserver.com

/etc/cron.daily/logrotate:

error: skipping “/var/log/apache2/access.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/apache2/error.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/apache2/other_vhosts_access.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/apache2/suexec.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/apport.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/aptitude” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/dpkg.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/alternatives.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/fail2ban.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/mysql.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/ppp-connect-errors” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/razor-agent.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/rkhunter.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/syslog” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/mail.info” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/mail.warn” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/mail.err” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/mail.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/daemon.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/kern.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/auth.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/user.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/lpr.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/cron.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/debug” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/messages” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/ufw.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/wtmp” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/btmp” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/named/security.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

error: skipping “/var/log/procmail.log” because parent directory has insecure permissions (It’s world writable or writable by group which is not “root”) Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/logrotate exited with return code 1

The important part is of all of those statements in the email is

Set 'su'

Set “su” directive in config file to tell logrotate which user/group should be used for rotation.

which means the “su” directive in the logrotate config file located at ‘/etc/logrotate.conf’ has not been set. As a consequence none of the logs mentioned in the email could be rotated. Log files need to be rotated at least once a day or they will bloat and eventually fill the entire hard drive.

The fix is really very simple. Open the file ‘/etc/logrotate.conf’ with your favourite text editor and add a few blank lines in the conf file just after

# see “man logrotate” for details
# rotate log files weekly
weekly

then copy the three lines of code below.

Add this code

# use the syslog group by default, since this is the owning group
# of /var/log/syslog.
su root syslog

and paste them in between the blank lines you just created. Don’t forget to save the file. Now the top of your ‘/etc/logrotate.conf’ should look like.

‘/etc/logrotate.conf’

# see “man logrotate” for details
# rotate log files weekly
weekly

# use the syslog group by default, since this is the owning group
# of /var/log/syslog.
su root syslog

# keep 4 weeks worth of backlogs
rotate 4

That is it the next time your cron system runs all of those logs will be rotated automatically for you.

Developing a website

Posted on 16, February 2015 by AllanIT

Developing a website is a great way to quantify your business. In many ways developing a website is the same as developing a business plan with out all those annoying figures. During the process of developing a website you will need to work closely with your web developer to identify and quantify exactly what your business does. So that your website will reflect what your business is actually about and present what you do to your visitors in the most professional manner.

To most business owners this process sounds daunting. However it can be an extremely liberating process because if you devote yourself to the process and you have an experienced web developer you will not only wind up with a professional website, you will also be clear about the direction your business is heading.

To help you get your new website up and running as quickly as possible spend some time thinking about and where possible write your responses to the list of questions below. To assist in the process of developing a website at Binaryone we provide a free 1 hour consultation to get you started. Use our contact page to send us a message and we will arrange a time for your free consultation.

Website questions

1.   Is this a new site or a redesign of an existing site?
   a.   New
   b.   Redesign
       i.   What is the purpose of the redesign?
       ii.   Are there current specific issues with the current site you hope to improve or correct?
       iii.   What is the web address of your current website?
       iv.   What do you like and dislike about your current system?
       v.   What audience needs does your existing site do a good job fulfilling?
       vi.   What audience needs aren’t being met by your current site?
       vii.   Where does it fall short?

2. In short, what does your organization do?

3. Who is your organization’s target market?

4. Describe the concept, project or services this site is intended to provide or promote.

5. Who will Binaryone be working with to guide this project to completion?

6. How many people at your organization will be involved with the project?

7. Who is responsible for making the final decisions?

8. Who will be responsible for maintaining the site after launch for content and technical matters?

9.   To the best of your ability, describe the various groups that will use the site. What are they hoping to accomplish? EG:
   a.   Prospects seeking information about our company.
   b.   Customers who might purchase our product.
   c.   Customers looking for menu, hours and location information.
   d.   Donors who might contribute to our organization.

10. What are the general demographics of your audience (or site visitors)?

11. For the purposes of this site, which of these groups is the primary audience (the one you’d consider most important?) This can be difficult to identify, but it’s important to determine who the primary audience should be.

12.   What primary action do you want your primary audience to take when visiting your site?
   a.   Fill in a contact form.
   b.   Ask for a quote.
   c.   Call you.
   d.   Find out where you are located.
   e.   Purchase a product,
   f.   Sign up for a newsletter.
   g.   follow you on social media.

13. Describe in as few sentences the feelings you wish your site to evoke in your visitors.

14. Describe in as few sentences the brand attributes you want your site to convey.

15.   Using adjectives and short phrases, describe the site’s desired look and feel. Examples:
   a.   Easy to look at,
   b.   edgy,
   c.   classic,
   d.   up-to-date,
   e.   crisp,
   f.   modern,
   g.   traditional,
   h.   understated, etc.

16. Do you have a visual identity that you are happy with (including brand identity and logo) or is that something you need designed or evolved?

17. List around three competitors sites.

18. Also what you consider their strengths and weaknesses?

19. What differentiates your product, services or ideas from your competition?

20. Approximately how many pages do you think you will need on the site?

21.   What features would you like to be included on the site? Examples include:
   a.   Ads/Billboards
   b.   Blog
   c.   Community Forum
   d.   Company News
   e.   Custom Page Not Found Page
   f.   Customer Lead Form
   g.   Event Calendar
   h.   Google Map(s)
   i.   Mailing List Integration
   j.   Member/Staff Protected area
   k.   Multiple Location Listings
   l.   Online Payment/Donation
   m.   Photo Gallery
   n.   Podcasting
   o.   Selling Products or Services (Ecommerce)
   p.   Social Media Integration
   q.   Staff Listing
   r.   Testimonials
   s.   Videos

22.   Are there any third-party integration points we need to know about? Examples:
   a.   Interfaces to a CRM,
   b.   offsite e-commerce,
   c.   POS,
   d.   mapping solution,
   e.   social site or other use of a third party API, etc.

23.   How much of the site content is already created? Content includes:
   a.   logo,
   b.   titles,
   c.   headlines,
   d.   page text,
   e.   staff bios and pictures,
   f.   testimonials,
   g.   photos, etc.

24. Would you like assistance with content creation?

25. Are there any other technical requirements for the site that you haven’t mentioned so far?

Questions About Ecommerce Sites.

If you want an ecommerce site these are additional questions you should consider.

1. Do you already know what ecommerce solution you want to use?

2. What kinds of products will you be selling?

3. Do you currently use third party sites for sales (like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, etc.)?

4. Will you sell memberships or access to premium content on your site?

5. Will your site sell downloadable products?

6.   Will your products have multiple variations? Examples include:
   a.   sizes,
   b.   colors,
   c.   materials
   d.   price points.
7.   Roughly how many products will be listed on the site?

8. Do you want the web site to track inventory?

9. Do you have product descriptions available?

10. Do you have high quality photos available for each product?

11. Do you want to allow product reviews or ratings from purchasers?

12. Do you want to add social sharing icons to product pages?

13. Will you offer an affiliate or referral program?

14. Do you want to build an email list of customers for promotional purposes?

15. Do you offer quantity discounts?

16. Do you want to offer coupons?

17. Do you want to offer gift cards?

18. Do you want to offer wish lists or registries?

19. Do you need to generate invoices or packing lists?

20. Do you offer preferred pricing to certain groups?

21. Will you use PayPal to process paymnets?

22. Do you have terms of service and refund policies in place for the site?

23. How will you handle customer service inquiries? EG: Questions About Time & Money.

Should you kill or terminate a misbehaving process.

Posted on 4, September 2013 by AllanIT

Have you ever had a linux process that was not running but when you try to start or restart the process nothing happens. You may find that you need to kill the process before you try to restart it because the process is actually still alive and not responding or not actually alive but the pid (which is a unique identifying number that tells the kernel that the process has stated or is alive) was not removed when the process ended. So the kernel thinks that the process is working just fine when in fact it is not and won’t start it a new.

Before you kill the process you should always try to terminate it first. Because terminate tries to end the process gracefully and finish writing any remaining data that the process may have stored in memory as well terminate will finish writing any logging data to assist you to find out what caused the process to fail in the first place

The command to terminate a process is

Code

kill -15 pid

replace pid with the pid number

If your attempt to terminate the process fails then you will have to use the more powerful kill command which will bypass the process and ask the kernel to kill the misbehaving process directly.

The command to have the kernel kill a process is

Code

kill -9 pid

replace pid with the pid number

Before you can kill the process you will have to find its pid. To find out the pid of a running process in virtualmin you can go to

Webmin> System> Running Processes>

and select pid from the Display menu then scroll to find the pid of the process you are looking for. Click on the pid of the process you want to kill and you will be taken to a new screen where you can terminate or kill the process by clicking the matching button.

If you are not a virtualmin user you can open a terminal window and type

Code

ps aux | less

which will give you a list that looks something like

when you have the pid you need to kill the process. As mentioned above you should always try the terminate command first. In the terminal window type

Code

kill -15 pid

replace pid with the pid number

If the process does not terminate you will the need to use the more powerful kill command

Code

kill -9 pid

replace pid with the pid number

Is My Blog Down for Everyone or Just Me Site Checker!

Posted on 22, July 2013 by AllanIT

Have you ever tried to load your site or blog only to find it was down? Then you contact your service provider only for them to tell you that your site is up everything is running as normally. Your service provider tells you that the problem is with your connection or computer. Now you need a way to confirm what they are saying. There are a number of free services that can check your site for you.

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
http://www.checksite.us/
http://downorjust.me/

Go to either or all of these checking sites and enter your sites or blogs URL and submit it. The checking site will confirm wether or not your site is running or not and report to you.

How to copy and save an image from a flash website.

Posted on 18, July 2013 by AllanIT

Lets say there is an Adobe Flash website with an image that you want to show to your graphic artist. This image is the type of image you are after for your website. With a normal website you could just right click on a photo and you would have the option to either copy the image or save it so you could send the image to your artist. But since it’s an Adobe Flash website, right clicking gives you two choices “Settings” and “About Adobe Flash Player” so you are unable to copy the image you so desperately want. Well there is a way to get the image you are after.

Below are the instructions for you to copy and save a flash image. Before you copy an image and use it you should consider any copyright implications. However if you are only using it as an example of the type of thing you are looking for you should not have any problems.

How to

1. Load the site with flash that you want to get an image from.

2. Find an image that you want and centre it on the screen, move the curser out of the way to one side or the top or bottom of the screen.

3.   Then Press the Print Screen key on the keyboard.
   a.   The Print Screen key is usually the next button to the right of F12 button, labelled something like ‘prt sc’.
       i.   What it does is copies the entire screen as it is at the moment you press it, so make sure the cursors’ is moved away from the picture that you want.

4.   Then load MS Paint.
   a.   To find MS Paint click Start> then run your mouse over the All Programs menu item.
   b.   Then move your mouse over the Accessories menu item.
   c.   On the Accessories menu that opens click the paint menu item to run the paint program.
   d.   When the paint program loads click Edit> Paste>.
       i.   Then click the select button on the side bar.
           (1)   Usually the top right button that looks like a dotted square.
           (2)   This will allow you to draw a box around the section of the image you want to keep.
           (3)   You will have to practice to get it in the write place.
       ii.   When you have the box around the section of the image you want to keep press Ctrl and click C to copy the section of the image you want to keep.
   e.   Then still in paint, select File> New>
       i.   when asked if you want to save click no. The image will close and a new blank canvas will open.
   f.   In the new canvas select Edit> paste>
       i.   You will now have the image you want.
       ii.   Then click File> Save>
       iii.   Then select the folder you want to save the image in.

Have your Jetpack and use Better WP Security too

Posted on 6, July 2013 by AllanIT

Recently I started using Jetpack for amongst other things the Publicize feature. Publicize
automatically share your site’s posts on a range of social media networks when you publish a new post. The time this saves makes Jetpack a worth while plugin on its own. Not to mention all of the other features you get when you install Jetpack.

After I installed and configured Jetpack to connect to wordpress.com and Publicize to my social media sites I published a Post and sure enough a post was sent to my social media sites. The next post which was after an update of Jetpack was not so successful. The post on my blog was fine but no publicization of my article to my social media sites. So commenced the reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, reading…

Then I came across the Jetpack Troubleshooting Tips page which states;

Jetpack Troubleshooting Tips

3. Check your XMLRPC file. You can do this by going to your web site URL and adding “/xmlrpc.php” to the end (without the quotes). When it loads in your browser, you should see “XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only.” on a line by itself.

If you see this message, but it is not on a line by itself, a theme or plugin is displaying extra characters when it shouldn’t. See points 1 and 2 above for debugging steps.If you get an 404 Error Not Found message, contact your web host. They may have security in place that is blocking XMLRPC.

4. Check the Known Issues list and make sure you aren’t using a plugin or theme listed there.

I ran the test for my self. I simply went to my home page and added “/xmlrpc.php” to the end of the URL in the address bar of my browser window (without the quotes) and sure enough I got a 404 error page, not the “XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only.” on a line by itself. So I clicked the Known Issues list link and the words Better WP Security immediately jumped off the page because I have the Better WP Security plugin installed. The Known Issues page states;

Known Issues

Known Issues
WordFence, Better WP Security, Login Security Solution

These plugins block access to your site’s XML-RPC file. This file is used by Jetpack to connect to WordPress.com, and must be accessible at all times. You will consequently need to deactivate these plugins to be able to use Jetpack.

My first thought was “I am not going to deactivate a plugin that provides the amount of security that Better WP Security provides with out first running some tests”. I then went over to my wordpress dashboard and the Better WP Security plugin and had a good look around. I had not had a look at the Better WP Security plugin for a while and did not remember all of its features.

Quite quickly I found what I was looking for on the Tweaks screen which ststes;

Remove EditURI header

Removes the RSD (Really Simple Discovery) header. If you don’t integrate your blog with external XML-RPC services such as Flickr then the “RSD” function is pretty much useless to you.

Warning: This feature is known to cause conflicts with some 3rd party application and services that may want to interact with WordPress.

I uncheck the checkbox and clicked Save Changes. Then I ran the “/xmlrpc.php” test again. This time it was successful I got “XML-RPC server accepts POST requests only.” on a line by itself.

Now to test if my posts are once again being published on social media networks I will post this Article but if it does not work I will continue searching for the answer and post it here as an addition to this post.

Google Analytics VS Awstats or Webalizer

Posted on 3, July 2013 by AllanIT

Who will be the winner?

First things first

Analytics is the study and analysis of data that has been collected. In the case of web analytics that is easily achieved because of the extensive amount of data that is written to log files or sent to a third party server (in the case of Google Analytics) each time the server takes any relevant actions.

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Update wordpress – WP Maintenance Mode – Internal Server Error – solution

Posted on 2, July 2013 by AllanIT

The problem

After updating your WordPress and/or WP Maintenance Mode plugin your site is running normally for a period of time eg between 6 and 18 hours. Then at some random time all that any visitor is able to see is an Internal Server Error message. To anyone trying to get to your site, your site appears to be broken. For more information open the section on Server Side Errors in my article, Where to find Apache response codes and how to determine their meaning.

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Fail2ban for the uninitiated.

Posted on 8, June 2013 by AllanIT

What is fail2ban and why you should install it.

In this day and age every web site owner or administrator is obsessed with improving the amount of traffic that flows to their site, even though little thought is given to weather or not, that traffic is of any use to their site or what harm it is potentially doing. Read why you need to consider who is coming to your site and what you can do to protect yourself from spammers and scammers.

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Where to find Apache response codes and how to determine their meaning.

Posted on 23, March 2013 by AllanIT

Locating your log file on your server.

Most logs files in Ubuntu are stored in /var/log/ and the folders under /var/log/ . To find all logs on your server got to a terminal window and type

locate log

then hit enter and all logs on your server will be listed.

In Particular have a look at /var/log/apache2/access.log and /var/log/apache2/error.log depending on the server your site is these logs may be in a different location.

In Virtualmin the job is much easer. After you have logged in to your Virtualmin console select Virtualmin> Logs and Reports> and then either select Apache Access Log or Apache Error Log and you will get a list of the last x number of records.

Finding the Apache response codes in your log file.

When checking your log files you will come across two sets of numbers that don’t seem to stand for anything. Have a look at these two example of standard log file entry.

208.115.111.67 – – [28/May/2011:00:44:05 +0800] “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” 200 358 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Ezooms/1.0; ezooms.bot@gmail.com)”

208.115.111.67 – – [28/May/2011:01:33:53 +0800] “GET /WebDesign/WebDesign.php HTTP/1.1” 200 19388 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Ezooms/1.0; ezooms.bot@gmail.com)”

For this exercise ignore ever thing up to and including “GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.1” in the first log entry and “GET /WebDesign/WebDesign.php HTTP/1.1” in the second. What we are interested in here is the 200 358 and the 200 19388 in the two lines consecutively. To begin with I will deal with the second number first because it requires the shortest explanation.

In each case the second number represents the amount of data passed from your website (the server) to the computer requesting the information (the client). In other words the page passed back to the computer making the request or the client EG an error page. The first number is the Apache response code or the code for, what action the server took to the request from the client.

Response codes can be divided into 5 categories.

1xx:	Redirection	Further action must be taken in order to complete the request
2xx:	Success	The action was successfully received, understood, and accepted
3xx:	Redirection	Further action must be taken in order to complete the request
4xx:	Client Error	The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled
5xx:	Server Error	The server failed to full fill an apparently valid request
*	NOTE	Not all numbers in any category have been used.

100-199 Continue with Client Requests.

100	Continue	Means that the server has received the request and that the client should proceed to send the request body (in the case of a POST request).
101	Switching Protocols	Means the computer requesting the information has asked the server to switch protocols and the server is acknowledging that it will.
102	Processing (WebDAV)	A WebDAV request may contain many sub-requests so it may take a long time to complete the request. This code indicates that the server has received the request and is processing it. In laymen terms “please hold the line”.

200-299 Successful Client Requests.

200	OK	Standard response for success.
201	Created	A confirmation that a new page has been created.
202	Accepted	The client’s request was accepted, but it has not been processed yet.
203	Non-Authoritative Information	The server successfully processed the request, but is returning information that may be from another server.
204	No Content	The server has successfully processed the request, but there is no content to return.
205	Reset Content	The server has processed the request successfully, but is not returning any content. Unlike a 204 response this response requires that the client refresh the browser.
206	Partial Content	The requested file wasn’t downloaded entirely. The server is delivering only part of the requested file or page due to a range header (partial request – range of bytes) sent by the client. This is used by tools like wget to enable resuming of interrupted downloads, or split a download into multiple simultaneous streams. This response code is also returned when the user clicks the stop button before a page is loaded.
207	Multi-Status	The message body that follows is an XML message and can contain a number of separate response codes, depending on how many sub-requests were made.
208	Already Reported	The members of a DAV binding have already been enumerated in a previous reply to this request, and are not being included again. See also 102 Processing (WebDAV) above.
226	IM Used	The server has fulfilled a GET request for the file or page, and the response is a representation of the result of one or more instance-manipulations applied to the current instance. A response received with a status code of 226 MAY be used by a cache, in conjunction with a cache entry for the base instance, to create a cache entry for the current instance.

300-399 Client Request Redirected.

300	Multiple Choices	Indicates multiple options for the file or page that the client may follow. The requested address refers to more than one file. Depending on how the server is configured, you get an error or a choice of which page you want. For instance, it could be used to present different format options for video, list files with different extensions, or word sense disambiguation.
301	Moved Permanently	Moved Permanently This and all future requests should be directed to the new location of the file. If the server is set up properly it will automatically redirect the client to the new location of the file.
302	Found	The page has been found but not in the location requested by the client. The page has been moved temporarily, and the new URL is available. You should be sent there by the server.
303	See Other	The response to the request can be found at another URI using a GET method. When received in response to a PUT, it should be assumed that the server has received the data and the redirect should be issued with a separate GET message.
304	Not Modified	Not Modified Indicates the file or page has not been modified since the last requested. This code will be returned if the file has not changed since the date of the last request. Search engine robots may generate a lot of these response codes.
305	Use Proxy	The requested file or page MUST be accessed through the proxy given by the Location field. The Location field gives the URI of the proxy. The recipient is expected to repeat this single request via the proxy. 305 responses MUST only be generated by origin servers. Primarily for security reasons many clients such as Firefox and Internet Explorer do not correctly handle responses with this responses code.
306	Switch Proxy	No longer used. Originally meant “Subsequent requests should use the specified proxy”.
307	Temporary Redirect	In this case, the request should be repeated with another URI however, future requests should still use the original URI.
308	Permanent Redirect (proposed)	The request, and all future requests should be repeated using another URI. Response 307 and response 308 (as proposed) parallel the behaviours of 302 and 301, but do not allow the HTTP method to change. So, for example, submitting a form to a permanently redirected file or page may continue smoothly.

400-499 Client Request Errors.

400	Bad Request	There is a syntax error in the clients request and the request has been denied.
401	Unauthorised	The requesting header sent by the client did not contain the necessary authentication codes, and the client is denied access.
402	Payment Required Reserved for future use.	The original intention was that this code might be used as part of some form of digital cash or micropayment scheme, but that has not happened, and this code is not usually used. As an example of its use, however, Apple’s MobileMe service generates a 402 error if the MobileMe account is delinquent. In addition, YouTube uses this status if a particular IP address has made excessive requests, and requires the person to enter a CAPTCHA.
403	Forbidden	The request was a valid request, but the server is refusing to respond to it. Unlike a 401 Unauthorized response, authenticating will make no difference. On servers where authentication is required, this commonly means that the provided credentials were successfully authenticated but that the credentials still do not grant the client permission to access the file or page (e.g. a recognized user attempting to access that is restricted to their access level).
404	Not Found	The requested file or page could not be found but may be available again in the future. Possibly because the file or page was deleted, or never existed. Sometimes caused by misspellings of URLs. Subsequent requests by the client are permissible.
405	Method Not Allowed	A request was made of a file or page using a request method not supported by that file or page for example using a GET on a form which requires data to be presented via POST, or using PUT on a read-only file or page. The method the client is using to access the file is not allowed.
406	Not Acceptable	The requested file or page is only capable of generating content not acceptable according to the Accept headers sent in the request. The requested file exists but cannot be used as the client system doesn’t understand the format the file is configured for.
407	Proxy Authentication Required	The requested file or page is only capable of generating content not acceptable according to the Accept headers sent in the request. The requested file exists but cannot be used as the client system doesn’t understand the format the file is configured for.
408	Request Timeout	The server timed out waiting for the request. According to W3 HTTP specifications: “The client did not produce a request within the time that the server was prepared to wait. The client MAY repeat the request without modifications at any later time.” Request. The server took longer than its allowed time to process the request. Often caused by heavy net traffic.
409	Conflict	Indicates that the request could not be processed because of a conflict in the request, such as an edit conflict or too many concurrent requests for a single file by the client.
410	Gone	Indicates that the file or page requested is no longer available and will not be available again. This should be used when a file or page has been intentionally removed and the file or page should be purged. Upon receiving a 410 status code, the client should not request the file or page again in the future. Clients such as search engines should remove the file or page from their indices. Most use cases do not require clients and search engines to purge the file or page, and a “404 Not Found” may be used instead.
411	Length Required	The request did not specify the length of its content, which is required by the requested file or page.
412	Precondition Failed	The server does not meet one of the preconditions that the requester put on the request. A certain configuration is required for this file to be delivered, but the client has not set this up.
413	Request Entity Too Large	The request is larger than the server is willing or able to process. The requested file was too big to process.
414	Request-URI Too Long	The URI provided was too long for the server to process. The address the client entered was longer than the server is allowed to process.
415	Unsupported Media Type	The client has a media type which the server does not support. For example, the client attempts to uploads an image as image.xml but the server requires that images use a different format.
416	Requested Range Not Satisfiable	The client has asked for a portion of the file, but the server cannot supply that portion. For example, if the client asked for a part of the file that lies beyond the end of the file.
417	Expectation Failed	The server cannot meet the requirements of the Expect request-header field. The expectation given in an Expect request-header field could not be met by this server, or, if the server is a proxy, the server has unambiguous evidence that the request could not be met by the next-hop server.
418	I’m a teapot	This code was defined in 1998 as one of the traditional IETF April Fools’ jokes, in RFC 2324, Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol, and is not expected to be implemented by actual HTTP servers.
420	Enhance Your Calm (Twitter)	Not part of the HTTP standard, but returned by the Twitter Search and Trends API when the client is being rate limited. Other services may wish to implement the 429 Too Many Requests response code instead.
422	Unprocessable Entity (WebDAV; RFC 4918)	The request was well-formed but was unable to be followed due to semantic errors or syntax errors.
423	Locked (WebDAV; RFC 4918)	The file or page that the client is trying to accessed is locked by the server.
424	Failed Dependency (WebDAV; RFC 4918)	The request could not be performed on the file or page because the requested action depended on another action and that previous action failed. For example, if a command in a PROPPATCH method fails, then, at minimum, the rest of the commands will also fail with 424 (Failed Dependency).
425	Unordered Collection (Internet draft)	Defined in drafts of “WebDAV Advanced Collections Protocol” not yet in use.
426	Upgrade Required (RFC 2817)	The client should switch to a different protocol such as TLS/1.0.
428	Precondition Required (RFC 6585)	The origin server requires the request to be conditional. Its typical use is to avoid the “lost update” problem, where a client GETs a resource’s state, modifies it, and PUTs it back to the server, when meanwhile a third party has modified the state on the server, leading to a conflict. By requiring requests to be conditional, the server can assure that clients are working with the correct copies.
429	Too Many Requests (RFC 6585)	The user has sent too many requests in a given amount of time. Intended for use with rate limiting schemes.
431	Request Header Fields Too Large (RFC 6585)	The server is unwilling to process the request because either an individual header field, or all the header fields collectively, are too large.
432	Request Thrashed	The server has received too many requests and is currently busy trying to handle them, likely causing other problems. The server’s hosed.
444	No Response (Nginx)	Used in Nginx logs to indicate that the server has returned no information to the client and closed the connection (useful as a deterrent for malware).
449	Retry With (Microsoft)	A Microsoft extension. The request should be retried after performing the appropriate action. Often search-engines or custom applications will ignore required parameters. Where no default action is appropriate, the Aviongoo website sends a “HTTP/1.1 449 Retry with valid parameters: param1, param2, . . .” response. The applications may choose to learn, or not.
450	Blocked by Windows Parental Controls (Microsoft)	A Microsoft extension. This error is given when Windows Parental Controls are turned on and are blocking access to the given webpage.
451	Unavailable For Legal Reasons (Internet draft)	Defined in the internet draft “A New HTTP Status Code for Legally-restricted File or pages”. Intended to be used when file or page access is denied for legal reasons, e.g. censorship or government-mandated blocked access. A reference to the 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, where books are outlawed.
451	Redirect (Microsoft)	Used in Exchange ActiveSync if there either is a more efficient server to use or the server can’t access the users’ mailbox. The client is supposed to re-run the HTTP Autodiscovery protocol to find a better suited server.
494	Request Header Too Large (Nginx)	Nginx internal code similar to 431 but it was introduced earlier.
495	Cert Error (Nginx)	Nginx internal code used when SSL client certificate error occurred to distinguish it from 4XX in a log and an error page redirection.
496	No Cert (Nginx)	Nginx internal code used when client didn’t provide certificate to distinguish it from 4XX in a log and an error page redirection.
497	HTTP to HTTPS (Nginx)	Nginx internal code used for the plain HTTP requests that are sent to HTTPS port to distinguish it from 4XX in a log and an error page redirection.
499	Client Closed Request (Nginx)	Used in Nginx logs to indicate when the connection has been closed by client while the server is still processing its request, making server unable to send a status code back.

500-599 Server Side Errors.

500	Internal Server Error	A generic error message, given when no more specific message is suitable. EG: Internal Server Error. A nasty response that is usually caused by a problem in the Perl code on the server when a CGI program is run.
501	Not Implemented	The server either does not recognize the request method, or it lacks the ability to fulfill the request. In either event the request cannot be carried out by the server.
502	Bad Gateway	The server was acting as a gateway or proxy and received an invalid response from the upstream server. Or the server you’re trying to reach is sending back errors.
503	Service Unavailable	The server is currently unavailable (because it is overloaded or down for maintenance). Generally, this is a temporary state. Temporarily Unavailable the service or file that is being requested is not currently available.
504	Gateway Timeout	The server was acting as a gateway or proxy and did not receive a timely response from the upstream server. The gateway has timed out. Like the 408 timeout error, but this one occurs at the gateway of the server.
505	HTTP Version Not Supported	The server does not support the HTTP protocol version used in the request. The HTTP protocol the client is asking for is not supported.
506	Variant Also Negotiates (RFC 2295)	Transparent content negotiation for the request results in a circular reference. The 506 status code indicates that the server has an internal configuration error: the chosen variant resource is configured to engage in transparent content negotiation itself, and is therefore not a proper end point in the negotiation process. This proses could cause an infinite loop if the server does not stop it.
507	Insufficient Storage (WebDAV; RFC 4918)	The server is unable to store the representation needed to complete the request.
508	Loop Detected (WebDAV; RFC 5842)	The server detected an infinite loop while processing the request (sent in lieu of 208).
509	Bandwidth Limit Exceeded (Apache bw/limited extension)	This status code, while used by many servers, is not specified in any RFCs.
510	Not Extended (RFC 2774)	Further extensions to the request are required for the server to fulfill it.
511	Network Authentication Required (RFC 6585)	The client needs to authenticate to gain network access. Intended for use by intercepting proxies used to control access to the network (e.g. “captive portals” used to require agreement to Terms of Service before granting full Internet access via a Wi-Fi hotspot).
598	Network read timeout error (Unknown)	This status code is not specified in any RFCs, but is used by Microsoft Corp. HTTP proxies to signal a network read timeout behind the proxy to a client in front of the proxy.
599	Network connect timeout error (Unknown)	This status code is not specified in any RFCs, but is used by Microsoft Corp. HTTP proxies to signal a network connect timeout behind the proxy to a client in front of the proxy.

Corrupt .htaccess file and Internal Server Error

Posted on 6, February 2013 by AllanIT

Ok So you are working on your wordpress site. Making changes and updating your site when all of a sudden you get…

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [no address given] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.2.18 (Ubuntu) Server at www.yoursite.com Port 80

Before the panic sets in go to your .htaccess file and check that all is as it should be. For example when this happened to me last time this is what my file looked like.

Corrupt .htaccess

# BEGIN # BEGIN Wo<IfModul<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ – [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfM# END W
# END WordPress

notice the first and second last lines

# BEGIN # BEGIN Wo<IfModul<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

</IfM# END W

well this means that during the last save your .htaccess file has become corrupt. There are a plethora of reasons why the .htaccess can become corrupt for example the .htaccess above was corrupted when my internet connection dropped out for a few seconds while the file was being written.

So how to fix this problem. You could try correcting the problem lines. If you know what the correct lines should look like. If you don’t know what the corrupted lines should look like you can delete the corrupted .htaccess file all together. Then in the wordpress dashboard open either a post or a page and save it, you don’t even need to make any changes and your .htaccess file will be re written. Simple huh?

How to Fix “mod_fcgid: HTTP request length 131619 (so far) exceeds MaxRequestLen (131072)” error on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) Linux.

Posted on 7, November 2012 by AllanIT

If you are trying to upload a file through WordPress or another content system to your web site and your website is running on Apache2/PHP5/mod_fcgid, and your browser displays the error:

Browser error

Internal server error

and in your Apaches error log you see something like

Apaches error log

[Wed Nov 07 13:12:45 2012] [warn] [client 192.168.XXX.XXX] mod_fcgid: HTTP request length 131619 (so far) exceeds MaxRequestLen (131072), referer: …

This error is because the default value of FcgidMaxRequestLen is 131072 which is very small see Apache Module mod_fcgid for more information.

First check in your php.ini that upload_max_filesize has a big enough value for your upload. The default in php.ini is upload_max_filesize = 2M which stands for 2 megabytes (MB). If it is not set, set it to

Set php.ini

upload_max_filesize = 2M

Next edit your file /etc/apache2/mods-available/fcgid.conf, or if you have Virtualmin installed go to Webmin> Servers> Apache Webserver> and select the Global configuration tab then click Edit Config Files. Now select /etc/apache2/mods-available/fcgid.conf in the dropdown list then click the Edit Directives in File button. Either way you should see something like this.

Current directives

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
FcgidConnectTimeout 20
</IfModule>

You now want to add the FcgidMaxRequestLen 2097152 directive to make the file look like this. NOTE: FcgidMaxRequestLen 2097152 = 2MB.

Edit directive

<IfModule mod_fcgid.c>
AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
FcgidConnectTimeout 20
FcgidMaxRequestLen 2097152
</IfModule>

Now save the changes and restart Apache with

Restart Apache

/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Or if working in Virtualmin there is a Stop Apache link in the top right hand corner of your screen click it and when Apache has stoped the link will change to a Start Apache link. Click it also. And that is it you will now be able to upload your 2MB files.

Ultimate TinyMCE Switching between the visual and html editor

Posted on 16, October 2012 by AllanIT

As seen on the wordpress forum…

Posted by allanit

When I switch between the visual and html editor the layout of the code in html editor goes to one line of code. If I switch back to the visual editor and then back to the html editor the layout is corrected.

Posted by Josh

I haven’t heard of this issue before. You might want to try the typical plugin routine to make sure it is not a plugin conflict.

Posted by allanit

Hi Josh

Turning off all the other plugins made this problem intermittent 🙁 Sorry I know this makes it worse.

AllanIT

Posted by Josh

Lol… yes, it does 😉

Let’s see…

Other than the options you have set for the buttons group one and the buttons group 2… go ahead and make sure all other options are NOT selected. This includes the options in the admin settings and the miscellaneous features.

Perhaps one of those options in the settings panel is interfering??

Posted by allanit

Hi Josh

I finally found time today to address the problem at the beginning of this thread. But something in the last two updates has fixed the problem in the Pages editor but not in the Posts editor.

AllanIT

Posted by josh

Hello Allan,

Okay. Let’s knock this out!

Can you post a link to a screenshot of the two instances you describe. One of the code in the pages… and another of the code in the posts.

Let me visually see what’s going on, and it should help.

Thanks.

Posted by allanit

Hi Josh
Here is the link to the two screen shots.

A beginners guide to writing SEO compliant keyword rich articles.

Posted on 14, October 2012 by AllanIT

Over the past several months I have been reading as many articles on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as I could get my hands on. There are many differing opinions out there on the best way to achieve good SEO. I am going to share my most important findings in this article.

Writing rich content will improve your SEO.

The most important SEO strategy that I found was either not in most of the articles or, in a list of 10 things to improve your SEO was at number 6 to 8 and barely rated a mention. Very few articles cover any aspect of writing the content of your post or page so that it is SEO compliant and keyword rich. Without good content the rest of the SEO is useless or leads to people taking up bad practices to attempt to achieve their desired SEO outcome.

Write for human readers.

When writing the content for your web pages or blog posts, just cover one or two related subjects in an article. Too many topics will confuse your readers. Keep your writing to the point and try not to stray off on some tangent. Write your page or post for a human reader and not for what you think a search engine is looking for in SEO because you will probably be wrong. Try to present your concepts simply so that you will appeal to a larger readership. You never know who is reading your work.

Many of the articles I read spoke about the importance of making your articles keyword rich on the one hand and how, if you are stuffing your pages and posts with too many keywords, your page ranking (PR) would likely fall on the other. My advice would be to forget about search engine optimisation altogether while you are writing your articles.

Write your post or page for the content, as thought you need to pass on information to someone who is on the other side of the planet and their only way of communicating with you is through the information you put on your website. Which in most cases is the truth.

Hone and polish your work.

Whether you are writing content for a page or a post, always write in a wordprocessor and run both spellchecker and grammar checker on your work regularly. Not all grammar checker suggestions will be relevant, however grammar checker can help you to polish your article. Don’t be in a rush to write and post your article. Spend a bit of time honing your content so that it is informative. Remember, you want to provide the other person enough information to get your point across. Also, don’t make your article so long that no one would ever finish it. Give your article a good clear conclusion. Don’t just trail off leaving your reader feeling like they have missed the point.

When you have an article that you are happy with read it out aloud to yourself. You will be surprised at how many minor mistakes you will pick up when you are reading your posts aloud. Then ask someone whose opinion you trust to proof-read your article, not just to read your writing but to read it with a critical eye, and to make suggestions that will improve your work. Consider their suggestions carefully and include any changes that improve your article.

Editing for human readability.

After you have finished your article and edited it several times, go over your work again. This time you are looking for words like “it, they, those” that you can change to more descriptive words. Change pronouns for nouns wherever you are able to and you will be on the way to improving your SEO. Be sure that the changes you make are improving the human readability of your work and not just for the sake of adding better keywords to your article. Search engines will know the difference. Never add keywords that are not relevant to your article just because you think they will improve your SEO.

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Setting up a wordpress installation ready for the inevitable upgrade.

Posted on 21, September 2012 by AllanIT

All websites have to be updated from time to time. If you read the documentation they tell you to install wordpress in the root directory, which is fine if you are never going to change anything. On the other hand you should be planning for the future.

Start off by creating a folder in the root directory of your hosting package. The name of the directory is irrelevant so choose something that suits you. One word of warning, most will tell you to use something like wordpress. I, on the other hand, would use something else because you can only use it once. Choose something that when you update you can use the next one in the sequence. EG: “January”, “February” or “wordpress_2012”, “wordpress_2013”.

This directory is where you are going to install your wordpress. By setting up your wordpress in this way, in the future when you want to reconfigure your site, all you will have to do is create another folder (the next in the sequence) and install a separate wordpress in the new folder. While you are working on your site or new site you will be able to access it with the following url http://yoursite.com.au/yourfolder/wp-login.php. Of course you will replace yoursite.com.au with the url of your site and yourfolder with either of the folders your sites are in, depending which on which site you want to login to.

When you are ready to go live with your new site you will only have to change one line in the existing index.php in your root directory and update the .htaccess file and your new site will be live.

Below are the full instructions how to set up your site in this way.

1. Download and install the latest version of WordPress in a new directory on your web host plan. Eg: “yourfolder_2012”

2. Add or edit your robots.txt file in your root directory and block access to your new folder because while you are in the setup phase you don’t want search engines to crawl your site.

a. Add the following to your robots.txt file with each item on its own line.

i. User-agent: *

ii. Disallow: /yourfolder/

3. Log in to your dashboard and install the Maintenance Mode plugin

a. Search for “maintenance mode” in the plugin installer in your new wordpress site

i. WordPress> Plugins> Add New>

ii. Configure the maintenance mode plugin to block access to your new site.

b. Go to Maintenance Mode settings

i. Plugins> WP Maintenance Mode> Settings>

ii. Change Plugin Activate to “true”

iii. You can set any of the other features you want at the same time.

4. Each time you want to add content to your new site you will be able to go to

a. http://yoursite.com.au and click the link and login on the next screen or go directly to

b. http://yoursite.com.au/yourfolder/wp-login.php and login.

5. Add your content and code to your site

a. Test your site, make sure every thing is working the way you want it to.

i. When everything is working, and not before, move on to the next section.

ii. Remember test, test, test and test again.

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[Plugin: Ultimate TinyMCE] Table layout breaks with image. As on wordpress forum

Posted on 18, April 2012 by AllanIT

From AllanIT

Hi Guys

This is a bit complicated to explain so I will tell you the steps to create the problem and see if others can recreate it and help to fix it.

1. Create a page
2. In Ultimate TinyMCE create a table 8 colums by 20 rows
3. Select colum 6 and 7 in row 4 down to row 10 so you have a box 2 colums by 7 rows
4. Then from the tables dropdown menu select merge cells.
5. Place an image 300w x 600h in the merge cells.
6. Then in row 4 select colum 1 to 4 and merge the cells
7. Repeat step 6. For rows 6, 8 and 10.
8. In row 4 colum 1 which now spans 4 colums put one word eg TinyMCE and give the merged cells a background color.
9. Then in rows 6, 8 and 10 add a paragraph of text so that in total you have more text than the image is high.
10. Then save the page and view the page in a browser.

If you get the same problem in the browser row 4 will match the height of the image. Strange huh? Any one know how to stop this from happening?

AllanIT

From Josh Lobe

Okay, I tried to replicate this… and aside from feeling like I was playing a tetris video game… I was unable to see what you are describing.

Perhaps you can link to a screenshot where I can see what you mean?

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Additional Ubuntu Configuration.

Posted on 1, April 2012 by AllanIT

Continued from Install Ubuntu 10.04 server for an installation of Virtualin, Webmin Usermin.

2.    Additional Ubuntu Configuration.
a.    After the server restarts login using the Username and password you created above EG: Administrator
i.    NOTE: For each command line instruction below you will have to add the prefix of “sudo”.
ii.    Or you can become the root user
(1)    By typing “sudo su”
(2)    Or enable the root user by typing “sudo passwd root”
(a)    Then enter the password for Administrator
(b)    Next provide a password for the root user when prompted and re-prompted.
(c)    Next, to switch to the root user enter “su root” then enter the password for the root user.
(3)    NOTE: enabling the root user is not recommended by the developers of Ubuntu. See http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=765414

b.    Fail2ban.
i.    Fail2ban is not necessary (you do not have to install fail2ban to run webmin/virtualmin/usermin) however I always install fail2ban and then configure it after running install.sh and carrying out the post install configuration. I will give configuration instructions for fail2ban later in this tutorial. You can obtain more information about fail2ban at http://www.fail2ban.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
ii.    To install fail2ban type “apt-get install fail2ban” at the command line
(1)    When prompted enter y and fail2ban will install.
c.    Update the server just to be sure all software is up to date
i.    At the command line type “apt-get update && apt-get upgrade”
ii.    When prompted enter y to install the updates
iii.    This can take a few minutes depending on the number of updates.

Install Ubuntu 10.04 server for an installation of Virtualin, Webmin Usermin.

Posted on 31, March 2012 by AllanIT

This tutorial shows the steps to install Ubuntu 10.04 server in preparation for an installation of Virtualin, Webmin and usermin.

NOTE: I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you

Basic assumptions.
You have a CD with Ubuntu_10.04.iso on it or some other simular device.
You have set your CD drive or simular device to be the boot device.

All assumptions below are useful in this example. You will need this information to successfully install Ubuntu 10.04 server and webmin/virtualmin/usermin. I suggest you gather this information before you start. Then replace each assumptions with your information through the tutorial.

1    You want the server name (hostname) to be “server1.mysite.com”
1.1    NOTE Throughout this tutorial only enter what is between the quotes, and not the quotes.
1.2    “server1.mysite.com” must also be the name of your name server record (glue record) at your registrar.
1.3    NOTE: Often the name server record (glue record) looks like “ns1.mysite.com” but you can make the “ns1” part any thing you want so long as the server name (hostname) and the server record (glue record) are the same.
1.3.1    NOTE: server name (hostname) is on your physical sever at your home/office
1.3.2    NOTE: server record (glue record) is at your domain name registry company.

2    You are required to have an additional or second name server record (glue record) at your registrar.
2.1    You want the second server name record (glue record) to be “server1r2.mysite.com”
2.2    NOTE: Both “server1.mysite.com” and “server1r2.mysite.com” will point to your IP Address 230.0.0.0

3    You want to create several virtual servers
3.1        mysite.com
3.2        customer.com NOTE: the second Virtual server is optional.

4 You have a static external IP Address 230.0.0.0 and want to install Ubuntu with this IP addres.

5 Your internal IP Address is 192.168.0.10

6    Your Name server address are 192.168.0.10 your_external_IP_address Your_ISPs_NameServer
6.1    NOTE: three name server addresses separated by spaces.
6.2    EG: 192.168.0.10 4.4.4.4 8.8.8.8

7 Your hostname will be server1

8 Your domain name will be mysite.com

Steps to Install ubuntu for webmin/virtualmin/usermin.

1.    Install Ubuntu
a.    Insert your Ubuntu install CD into the CD drive on your server and restart your server.
b.    Select the language the install process will use then hit enter.
c.    Then the next screen is to start the install process but it needs some modification so that you can install ubuntu with a fixed IP address.
i.    To be able to set the IP address during the install process press the F6 button and a line of text will appear towards the bottom of the screen.
ii.    There will not appear to be a cursor, ignore this and type “netcfg/disable_dhcp=true” then hit enter.
iii.    Note: by typing “netcfg/disable_dhcp=true” to the end of the install command line you are telling the installer to ask for additional information during the install process.
d.    The next screen is to choose your language for the operating system, for after you have completed this installation. So select the language you want Virtualmin to run in.
e.    Then select your country territory or area.
i.    Note The installer may present you with 1 to 3 screens depending on your location.
f.    Then select your keyboard layout
i.    There are several ways to select the keyboard layout follow the best for you. ( 2 to 8 screens)
ii.    Info: I have a standard keyboard so I choose the keyboard myself it is much quicker,
(1)    At “Detect keyboard layout?” I select “no”
(2)    Then I select “USA” keyboard from the list presented.
(3)    Then again I select “USA” keyboard from the list presented.
iii.    The installation will then install the required keyboard drivers and other components.
g.    The installer will run for a while detecting hardware and other things.
h.    The installation then detects the network and will allow you to configure the network.
i.    Note If the next question the installer asks is not for your ip address then you need to restart the installation because there has been a problem with “netcfg/disable_dhcp=true”.
i.    Enter each of these.
i.    Ip address 192.168.0.10
(1)    NOTE: Your internal IP address.
(2)    Do not use an IP address that is already used
ii.    Net mask 255.255.255.0
(1)    NOTE: Usually the default is presented and should be accepted.
(2)    NOTE: The zero (0) on the end.
iii.    Gateway 192.168.0.1
(1)    NOTE: Usually the default is presented and should be accepted.
(2)    NOTE: The one (1) on the end.
iv.    DNS Name servers address 192.168.0.10 your_external_IP58.96.112.202 Your_ISPs_NameServer
(1)    NOTE: three name server address separated by spaces EG 192.168.0.10 4.4.4.4 8.8.8.8
v.    Hostname “server1”
vi.    Domain “mysite.com”
j.    The installer will then set up the clock and ask you for your city. Select your city from the list.
k.    Then you have to partition your hard drive
i.    Chose the method from the options that best suite you.
ii.    I chose “Guided – use entire disk” for formatting my hard drive.
iii.    The only thing I may change during this process is I use ext4 for the file system type, otherwise I accept all other options as presented.
iv.    The final screen of the partitioner will show you the configuration and ask you to write the changes yes or no
v.    If you select no the installer will return you to the beginning of the partitioner
vi.    If you select yes goto the next section.
l.    The installer will now install the base system. This may take some time.
m.    Next create a user account
i.    EG: Administrator (don’t use the user name “admin” as it is a reserved name in Ubuntu) Or you could use your name.
n.    Next create a user name for the new account,
i.    EG: Administrator (yes it can be the same as the account name)
ii.    Enter a password for the user name you just created
iii.    Reenter the password you just entered when asked to
o.    Next choose weather or not you want your home directory encrypted. I chose no.
p.    Then configure the package manager.
i.    Leave the proxy line empty unless you’re using a proxy server to connect to the Internet:
ii.    The installer will now configure apt to run on your server.
q.    Next, updates will be done through virtualmin/webmin so select “no automatic updates”
r.    Choose the software to install.
i.    NOTE: Don’t choose any use the tab key to move to the Continue button then hit enter.
ii.    The installer will then install all remaining standard packages
s.    The installer will then download and install the latest version of Grub boot loader
i.    Then the installer will ask if it is ok to install the Grub boot loader to the master boot record. If this is the only operating system on your server answer yes.
t.    The installation will then run until it has completed.
i.    When you see the “Installation is complete” message, remove the cd from the drive and select continue.

In the next section I will cover the additional configuration needed before installing Virtualin, Webmin and Usermin.

Update Services – ping lists.

Posted on 30, March 2012 by AllanIT

In my travels around the web I have found several ping lists that others use to notify of new posts on their blog. So I have been compiling a list that could be useful for others it includes the recommended ping list for WordPress.

Another must have ping tool you should have in your arsenal is to register with http://feedshark.brainbliss.com/ which will send out pings, RSS and podcasts.

Click the show button on the ping list below then select the entire list and copy it. Then got to your Dashboard > Setting > writing and scroll to the bottom of the page where you will find a description for Update Services. In the box below that description past the list then click the save changes button. Then the next time you post an article WordPress will automatically ping all of the address in the list.

Ping List

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.co.jp/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://audiorpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoles.net/notificacio.php
http://bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blo.gs/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://blogdb.jp
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogoole.com/ping/
http://blogoon.net/ping/
http://blogpeople.net/ping
http://blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://blogsearch.google.ae/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.at/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.be/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.bg/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ca/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ch/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.cl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.cr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.hu/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.id/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.il/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.in/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.it/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.jp/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.ma/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.nz/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.th/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.uk/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.ve/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.co.za/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.ar/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.au/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.br/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.co/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.do/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.mx/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.my/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.pe/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.sa/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.sg/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.tr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.tw/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.ua/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.uy/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com.vn/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.es/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.fr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.gr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.hr/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ie/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.in/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.it/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.jp/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.lt/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.nl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.pl/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.pt/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ro/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.ru/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.se/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.sk/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.tw/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.us/ping/RPC2
http://blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://blogsnow.com/ping
http://blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://blogupdate.org/ping/
http://bulkfeeds.net
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://catapings.com/ping.php
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://effbot.org/rpc/ping.cgi
http://feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://fgiasson.com/pings/ping.php
http://geourl.org/ping
http://hamo-search.com/ping.php
http://holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://imblogs.net/ping/
http://ipings.com
http://lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://mod-pubsub.org
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatt
http://mod-pubsub.org/ping.php
http://newsblog.jungleboots.org/ping.php
http://newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://packetmonster.net/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.blogg.de/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.blogoon.net/
http://ping.blogs.yandex.ru/RPC2
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://ping.fc2.com/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.feeds.yahoo.com/RPC2/
http://ping.kutsulog.net/
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.namaan.net/rpc
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.snap.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://ping.wordblog.de/
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://pingoat.com/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://pingqueue.com/rpc/
http://popdex.com/addsite.php
http://r.hatena.ne.jp/rpc
http://rcs.datashed.net
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.bloggerei.de/ping/
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.britblog.com/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.reader.livedoor.com/ping
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.twingly.com
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://wasalive.com/ping/
http://weblogues.com/ping/
http://weblogues.com/RPC/
http://www.a2b.cc
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.bloglines.com/ping
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogroots.com/tbpopuli.blog?id=1
http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping/
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.catapings.com/ping.php
http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://www.feedsubmitter.com
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/
http://www.imblogs.net/ping/
http://www.lasermemory.com
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/knapps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.octora.com/add_rss.php
http://www.pingerati.net
http://www.pingmyblog.com
http://www.popdex.com

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