David Walsh :: Legendary scribbles about JavaScript, HTML5, AJAX, PHP, CSS, and ∞. » Apache / Server

Fix WordPress CRONs on Media Temple (dv) Servers

David Walsh — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:40:24 +0000

When I switched from Dreamhost shared hosting to Media Temple (dv) server hosting, I had a hell of a time trying to figure out why CRONs weren’t working correctly on the website. I had database backups being sent via CRON jobs so making sure CRONs were working was imperative. What’s great is that the way to make these WordPress CRONs work was by…setting up a CRON.

To get things working, you should:

Log into your Media Temple (dv) control panel.
Navigate to the domain and click the “Crontab” icon.
Click “Schedule a Task”
Configure the time and frequency of the CRON to any way you’d like.
Set the “command” value to:
```
wget http://12.23.56.78/wp-cron.php
```
Replace the fake IP in the command above with the IP address of your website.

That’s all! Hitting the wp-cron.php file with the CRON will ensure you database backups and other scheduled tasks will run at proper intervals!

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Fixing mod_rewrite and .htaccess on GoDaddy Hosting

David Walsh — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:24:52 +0000

I recently launched a new website on GoDaddy shared hosting. The website required mod_rewrite for SEO-friendly URLs. GoDaddy provides mod_rewrite but every time I tried to hit a two-deep URL, I would get a 404 error. Here’s what I had:

# Mod Rewrite
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

The fix to this problem was to add the following directive before my mod_rewrite directives:

#Fix Rewrite
Options -Multiviews

Tada! The URLs began working and the website’s SEO has taken off!

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Use FURL to Retrieve Website Headers

David Walsh — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:39:26 +0000

It’s important to know what headers your website and its files are communicating. For example, if your website is providing a 404 status, you’re probably streaking toward your computer to fix the problem. Using the FURL library, you may retrieve website headers from the command line.

The Shell Script

furl http://davidwalsh.name

Simple and quick — just like every shell directive.

The Sample Response

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:50:50 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.6
X-Pingback: http://davidwalsh.name/xmlrpc.php
Cache-Control: max-age=1, private, must-revalidate
Expires: Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:50:51 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

Don’t have FURL? Install it by scripting this:

sudo port install furl

How is this useful? I would use this to periodically (cron) check my website to make sure it was up. What would you use this for?

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XAMPP Lite, Windows Vista, and php5apache2_2.dll

David Walsh — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:06:21 +0000

I recently ran into a nightmare when needing to use my father’s laptop for development. My XAMMP Lite USB install, which worked perfectly on my Windows XP desktop, was giving the following error when trying to start Apache:

apache.exe: Syntax error on line 477 of E:/xampplite/apache/conf/httpd.conf: 
Syntax error on line 7 of E:/xampplite/apache/conf/extra/httpd-xampp.conf: 
Cannot load E:/xampplite/apache/bin/php5apache2_2.dll into server: The specified module
could not be found.

After 20 minutes of frustration, I finally found the golden solution. I needed to download and place msvcr71.dll in my \xampplite\apache\bin folder. Apparently it’s a Microsoft runtime file that Vista doesn’t have. Disaster averted!

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Set php.ini Values Using .htaccess

David Walsh — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:39:31 +0000

Did you know that you can set php.ini values right inside the .htaccess file? It’s actually very easy.

The .htaccess Code

#format
php_value setting_name setting_value

#example
php_value  upload_max_filesize  10M

Of course you could simply place these in the .htaccess file, but .htaccess is a viable alternative if your host doesn’t allow you to touch the php.ini file.

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Increase PHP’s File Upload Limit Using php.ini

David Walsh — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:01:19 +0000

The file upload size limit is usually set pretty low by shared hosting providers. Why? To save bandwidth, keep the server moving quickly, and think about it — how many customers really need a large upload limit? If you do need to increase the maximum upload limit, all you need to do is place the following code snippet in your php.ini file:

file_uploads = On
upload_max_filesize = 10M //needs to be in {x}M format

Note that not all hosting providers allow customers to increase the file upload limit. Take that into consideration when purchasing your customer’s web hosting.

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Advanced .htaccess Security – Allow or Block Specific IPs From Your Website

David Walsh — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:27:47 +0000

The more I use the .htaccess file the more I appreciate its value. My next valuable lesson in .htaccess security deals with allowing and blocking access to a web server from a specific IP address. Reasons for doing this include:

Keeping a known hacker/bot from accessing your website
Allowing only your IP address to view your website (while it’s in development, for example)
Allowing only trusted persons into your website (if your users’ IP’s stay the same, that’s more secure than user/pass)
Disallowing persons from a specified country (or any known location) from your website
Banning persons from your website

The Code


order deny,allow
deny from 202.57.377.22
deny from 8.77.88.33
allow from all

The above code bans the two IP addresses from accessing the website.

Chances are you wont do this often. I do, however, believe that you should use this for your development server. Allowing only LAN users to access your development server prevents a search engine or hacker from getting to your website:


order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from 192.168.0.0/24

Do you have any other reasons to ban IP addresses? Have any code to share? Please do!

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Advanced .htaccess Security – Block Unwanted Referrers

David Walsh — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 12:26:34 +0000

For some bloggers and web developers, Digg can be a huge boost in traffic and thus a huge bust in ad revenue. Unfortunately, the Digg Effect can kill a website’s bandwidth and get the website shut down. Wouldn’t it be great if a weary web developer could prevent his site from being shut down by blocking users referred by Digg, at least a while? Using a small bit of .htaccess code and mod_rewrite, the developer can do just that.

The Code

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} digg.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]

Say good-bye to Digg Death with this small, easy-to-place snippet of code!

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Advanced Branding – Give Your Pages A Custom Extension Using .htaccess SetHandler

David Walsh — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:50:02 +0000

A sign of a good website is one that does the “little things” to increase the usability or value to the user. There are other little things you can do to enhance your website, including giving your pages a custom extension.

The Code


  SetHandler  application/x-httpd-php

What the following code tells the server is to treat any file with the .blu extension as a PHP file, thus every .blu page is a PHP page.

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Hide Your .htaccess Settings Using … .htaccess

David Walsh — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:49:36 +0000

Your .htaccess file can hold a good amount of information about the structure of your website, some of which should not be exposed to users. These settings include mod_rewrite settings, php_flag/php_value settings, and SetHandler directives.

Luckily, you can use your .htaccess file to hide your .htaccess file. Here’s how:

The Code


order allow,deny
deny from all

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