Ubuntu: Allow SSH access for ‘root’ user
KB ID 0001317 Problem First of all not being able to connect to your Ubuntu server via SSH as root is ‘by design’, and it’s a perfectly good security measure. I do find it interesting that every hosting company I ever used, spin up a new machine and then email me the root password and they’ve enabled it anyway? I needed to enable this recently and the internet is full of posts saying ‘just edit the...
Ubuntu: Setting Up a WordPress Website with LEMP – Part 1
KB ID 0001318 Problem At the time of writing this site is running on CentOS7 LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP). Well I’m actually using MariaDB not MySQL as it’s ‘supposed’ to be a little faster, but they are similar enough to be accepted. I’m planning to migrate to Ubuntu 17 LEMP (Linux ‘EnginX’ MySQL and PHP) again with MariaDB. As the site is getting more traffic I want to utilise the...
Migrating WordPress From One Server To Another
KB ID 0001315 Problem I have to say before I start, that most of the credit for this article lies with Allen White from www.techieshelp.com. Who gave me the three most important pieces of information that you need to migrate your WordPress site. Three Things You Need; The contents of your wp-content directory. The contents of the root of your site. A backup of your database, (this is a lot easier than you think). Now there may be a...
Using the VI Editor (For Windows Types)
KB ID 0001304 Problem I dont have a ginger ponytail, nor do I wear sandals, couple these two things together and you will understand why I find VI so confusing! Many times I’ve had to alter a config file on an appliance, or a Linux box, and sat frowning at VI wondering why I can’t change a one to a zero. Note: Nano is easier, if possible try nano {filename} to save hassle. But on hardened appliances for example, it wont...
Cisco AnyConnect – With Google Authenticator 2 Factor Authentication
KB ID 0001256 Problem This was asked as a question on Experts Exchange this week, and it got my interest. A quick search turned up a bunch of posts that said, yes this is possible, and you deploy it with FreeRADIUS and it works great. The problem was, a lot of the information is a little out of date, and some of it is ‘wrong enough’ to make the non-technical types give up. But I persevered, and got it to work. Disclaimer:...
CentOS 7 – Serving HTTPS with Apache2
KB ID 0001210 Problem This week I’ve been working on changing the site over to https. Buying a digital certificate used to be an expensive long winded affair, but not anymore. A quick internet search turned up a 3 year SSL certificate for less than 15 quid. Getting the certificate was the easy bit, getting it installed so that Apache would use it was another ‘challenge’. On a scale of one to ten, I’m about a...
Linux (CentOS 7) Generating CSR (Certificate Signing Requests)
KB ID 0001206 Problem If you want to use digital certificates on your CentOS server, then you will need to generate a CSR. It does not matter if you want to purchase a publicly signed certificate, or even if you are going to sign your own. Below is how to generate a CSR for a single web host. Note: Most cert vendors now require a minimum key length of 2048 so thats what I’m going to use. And I’m assuming you have openSSL...
Mac OSX and Linux – Quick and Dirty Web Server
KB ID 0001157 Problem I was clearing out some old emails yesterday, and saw one my colleague Steve had sent me. It was info on how to fire up a quick web server on your mac. It wasn’t until I took a look at it, I realised how handy it was. After some reading, I found that it was not only possible on a mac, but on other flavours of Linux as well, (as long as they support ‘python’ and have it loaded). WHAT USE IS...
Webmin – Read User Mail Error ‘The mail server in the module configuration was not found on your system’
KB ID 0000885 Problem While setting up and configuring a new Postfix mail server, I attempted to use the Webmin ‘Read User Mail’ module, and got this error. Module Config Read User Mail The mail server set in the module configuration was not found on your system, You will need to adjust the configuration to use the correct server. Solution At first I thought I needed to enter a servername into the config. However it seems...
Can I delete _vti_inf.html and the _vti folders?
KB ID 0000742 Problem I was doing some site tidying this week, usually If I don’t know what something is I leave it alone, but I was on a mission! I had a bunch of files/folders in the root of my website, that, a) I didn’t know what they were doing, and b) wanted to delete. File: _vti_inf Folders: _private, _vti_bin, _vti_cnf, _vti_log, vti_pvt, _vti_txt Solution As it turns out these folders are needed for FrontPage and...