AskApache » htaccess

Advanced WordPress wp-config.php Tweaks

AskApache — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 07:23:37 +0000

The bottom line for this article is that I want to make WordPress as fast, secure, and easy to install, run, and manage because I am using it more and more for client production sites, I will work for days in order to solve an issue so that I never have to spend time on that issue again. Time is money in this industry and that is ultimately (time) what there is to gain by tweaking WordPress.

Note: I spent no time on readability, this is primarily a read the code and figure it out article.. This is for advanced users looking for a reference or discussion and for those of you looking to advance. Feedback would be great if you make it that far..

For a better handle on the way I like to structure web site directories, see Optimize a Website for Speed, Security, and Easy Management but note it is a bit outdated compared to what I’m doing now. I don’t have the luxury of using only one type of server, or hosting provider anymore, so I have been working towards making things even more portable in order to move from host to host from server to server without issues i.e. my portable .bash_profile.

So I’ve been basically experimenting various ways to accomplish that and thought I would share what I am currently doing for my benefit and hopefully get some input. All of my WP installs run the development version, and one main idea with my setups is that upgrading is automated. So I really keep the WordPress install clean and use plugins and wp-config.php to do all the customization.

Portability – Hands-free upgrades and easy to move
Security – Additional security and protection
Speed – Less CPU and Disk I/O
Customization – All my favorite customizations

wp-config.php

These are the main settings I use.. Seriously this is more like an interactive article, because to understand it you will need to do some code grepping. You may want to grab a jolt.

ASKAPACHE_ROOT

The ASKAPACHE_ROOT variable is just a better way for me to be able to include and access all the different files in my site tree. For instance, in my non-wp php files, I can do this:

!defined('ASKAPACHE_ROOT') && require $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . '/wp-config.php';
include(ASKAPACHE_ROOT . '/includes/custom-download.inc.php');

ASKAPACHE_LOCK

This is one of my all-time favorite hacks, that I think is one of the most useful methods I employ as a web developer. This allows me to use far-future-expire headers for optimum caching, while still forcing browsers to re-validate every day or so automatically, or forcing them to re-validate whenever I change the suffix. This takes advantage of the mod_rewrite trick that I use on EVERY site I run, definately worth learning. Because I practice best-practice web-standards, for every web site I create a single css file and javascript file, which I then add to the template like:

 Settings > General panel.
 */
!defined('WP_SITEURL') && define('WP_SITEURL', 'http://'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']);
 
/**
 * WP_HOME is another wp-config.php option added in WordPress Version 2.2. Similar to WP_SITEURL,
 * WP_HOME overrides the wp_options table value for home but does not change it permanently.
 * home is the address you want people to type in their browser to reach your WordPress blog. It should include the http:// part. Also, do not put a slash "/" at the end.
 */
!defined('WP_HOME') && define('WP_HOME', WP_SITEURL);
 
/** no trailing slash, full paths only */
!defined('WP_CONTENT_DIR') && define( 'WP_CONTENT_DIR', ABSPATH . 'wp-content' );
 
// full url - WP_CONTENT_DIR is defined further up
!defined('WP_CONTENT_URL') && define( 'WP_CONTENT_URL', WP_SITEURL . '/wp-content');
 
/** Allows for the plugins directory to be moved from the default location. @since 2.6.0 */
// full path, no trailing slash
!defined('WP_PLUGIN_DIR') && define( 'WP_PLUGIN_DIR', WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/plugins' );
 
/** Allows for the plugins directory to be moved from the default location. @since 2.6.0 */
// full url, no trailing slash
!defined('WP_PLUGIN_URL') && define( 'WP_PLUGIN_URL', WP_CONTENT_URL . '/plugins' );
 
/** Allows for the plugins directory to be moved from the default location. @since 2.1.0 */
// Relative to ABSPATH.  For back compat.
//!defined('PLUGINDIR') && define( 'PLUGINDIR', 'wp-content/plugins' );
 
/** Number of autosaves to save. TRUE is default and enables post revisions, FALSE disables revisions completely. */
!defined('WP_POST_REVISIONS') && define('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 150);
 
/* ini_set('memory_limit', WP_MEMORY_LIMIT); */
!defined('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT') && define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');
 
/** Only check at this interval for new messages. Default is 5min */
/** @since 2.9  */
!defined('WP_MAIL_INTERVAL') && define('WP_MAIL_INTERVAL', 3600); // 1 hour
 
/** Saves updated post values to post from edit window every x seconds. (default 60)
 * When editing a post, WordPress uses Ajax to auto-save revisions to the post as you edit. You may want to increase this setting for longer delays in between auto-saves, or decrease the setting to make sure you never lose changes.
 * @since 2.5.0 */
!defined( 'AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL' ) && define( 'AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL', 60 );
 
/** @since 2.9.0  */
/** Permanently deletes posts, pages, attachments, and comments which have been in the trash for EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS. */
!defined( 'EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS' ) && define( 'EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 300 );

Debugging WordPress

One of my secrets for getting really good at this stuff is to master debugging. There is really not ever a time when I am working on a site that I don’t have color-highlighted logs scrolling automatically in an ssh window. It’s really almost impossible to fix problems with wordpress or do any kind of advanced anything without being able to view debugging info. At first I relied heavily on a custom php.ini being available on the server, but after having to deal with many hosts who don’t allow php.ini files I now rely completely on setting values using ini_set for ultimate portability. Detailed towards the end of this article and is also included in this wp-config.php

/**#@+
 * DEBUGGING STUFF
 */
/** display of notices during development. if false, error_reporting is E_ERROR | E_WARNING | E_PARSE | E_USER_ERROR | E_USER_WARNING | E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR otherwise E_ALL */
!defined('WP_DEBUG') && define('WP_DEBUG', false);
 
/** The SAVEQUERIES definition saves the database queries to a array and that array can be displayed to help analyze those queries.
 *  The information saves each query, what function called it, and how long that query took to execute.  */
!defined('SAVE_QUERIES') && define('SAVE_QUERIES', WP_DEBUG);
 
!defined('ACTION_DEBUG') && define('ACTION_DEBUG', WP_DEBUG);
 
/** This will allow you to edit the scriptname.dev.js files in the wp-includes/js and wp-admin/js directories.  */
!defined('SCRIPT_DEBUG') && define('SCRIPT_DEBUG', WP_DEBUG);

 
/** Add define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true); to enable php debug logging to WP_CONTENT_DIR/debug.log */
//!defined('WP_DEBUG_LOG') && define('WP_DEBUG_LOG', true);
 
/** This determines whether errors should be printed to the screen as part of the output or if they should be hidden from the user.
 *  Add define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false); to wp-config.php to use the globally configured setting for display_errors and not force it to On */
!defined('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY') && define('WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY', false);

Ultimate Security Tweaks

Well, ultimate for WP’s built-in keys and password functions, this is all for wp-config.php keep in mind. This is a very neccessary and recommended step, and is one of the only things I modify for each new installation.

Security KEYS

If like me you are familiar with password-cracking software like John the ripper, rainbow hash tables, l0pht-crack, etc.. then you will like to know that you can specify your own keys and salts for the encryption used by WP. They are AUTH_KEY, AUTH_SALT, SECURE_AUTH_KEY, SECURE_AUTH_SALT, LOGGED_IN_KEY, LOGGED_IN_SALT, NONCE_KEY, NONCE_SALT, SECRET_KEY and SECRET_SALT.

A random and long key gives you better encryption, and exponentially increasing that is using a random and long salt for the encryption. Encryptions with known salts are incredibly easy to decrypt compared to encryptions with secure salts, because the salt + key individually need to be guessed in order to find a matching hash, vs. just the key if the salt is known. See: Locating weak passwords.

A secret key is a hashing salt which makes your site harder to hack and access harder to crack by adding random elements to the password.

In simple terms, a secret key is a password with elements that make it harder to generate enough options to break through your security barriers. A password like “password” or “test” is simple and easily broken. A random, unpredictable password such as “88a7da62429ba6ad3cb3c76a09641fc” takes years to come up with the right combination.

For more information on the technical background and breakdown of secret keys and secure passwords, see:

I like to use the WordPress.org secret-key service 4 times. That’s because for each key and salt I like to do: (1 key from api +random keyboard input+1 key from api).

/**#@+
 * Authentication Unique Keys.
 *
 * Change these to different unique phrases!
 * You can generate these using the {@link https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ WordPress.org secret-key service}
 * You can change these at any point in time to invalidate all existing cookies.
 * This will force all users to have to log in again.
 *
 * @since 2.6.0
 *
 * Get salt to add to hashes to help prevent attacks.
 *
 * The secret key is located in two places: the database in case the secret key
 * isn't defined in the second place, which is in the wp-config.php file. If you
 * are going to set the secret key, then you must do so in the wp-config.php
 * file.
 *
 * The secret key in the database is randomly generated and will be appended to
 * the secret key that is in wp-config.php file in some instances. It is
 * important to have the secret key defined or changed in wp-config.php.
 *
 * If you have installed WordPress 2.5 or later, then you will have the
 * SECRET_KEY defined in the wp-config.php already. You will want to change the
 * value in it because hackers will know what it is. If you have upgraded to
 * WordPress 2.5 or later version from a version before WordPress 2.5, then you
 * should add the constant to your wp-config.php file.
 *
 * Below is an example of how the SECRET_KEY constant is defined with a value.
 * You must not copy the below example and paste into your wp-config.php. If you
 * need an example, then you can have a
 * {@link https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ secret key created} for you.
 *
 * Salting passwords helps against tools which has stored hashed values of
 * common dictionary strings. The added values makes it harder to crack if given
 * salt string is not weak.
 *
 * @since 2.5
 * @link https://api.wordpress.org/secret-key/1.1/ Create a Secret Key for wp-config.php
 *
 * @return string Salt value from either 'SECRET_KEY' or 'secret' option
 */
define('AUTH_KEY',        'jflkhaskljdfhkljasdhflkjashd;flkjhas;djfh;kajshdflkjashdlfkjhasdlkfhal?p[B+GR{@>{Yq`c|LnG;dvq#| %OA_cbBSU6,rICC1o/c)-|');
define('SECURE_AUTH_KEY', 'jflkhaskljdfhkljasdhflkjashd;flkjhas;djfh;kajshdflkjashdlfkjhasdlkfhal?Vp[Bb15baar8&R-r<[T|?(xhJJABGq+Ux+U$)-Hltp/');
define('LOGGED_IN_KEY',   'jflkhaskljdfhkljasdhflkjashd;flkjhas;djfh;kajshdflkjashdlfkjhasdlkfhal?Vp[B<5n6DG|YWnJ9tY2!M1L)`{-$LW~~Ia%.uCbn!P. 41o2$Z$4');
define('NONCE_KEY',       'jflkhaskljdfhkljasdhflkjashd;flkjhas;djfh;kajshdflkjashdlfkjhasdlkfhal?Vp[Bgu+wm 2)bS0Pd_+1rx0brX]ND8|');
define('SECRET_SALT',      '123423190847olqkfhladhfsldshafasdfasdf09a7f-90a87df98adfyapoiyaf9asd8f70a9s8d7f908a7sdf97W4qCdm2<>))U|sty)+4vpWooKls/^[vN');
/**#@-*/

Using SSL for Admin and Login

SSL is kinda required from my point of view, it is just way to easy to sniff data off the wire otherwise. At least with SSL you force them to use tools like burpsuite, paros proxy, webscarab, etc..

/** @since 2.6.0  */
!defined('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN') && define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);
 
/** @since 2.6.0  */
!defined('FORCE_SSL_LOGIN') && define('FORCE_SSL_LOGIN', true);

Mod_Rewrite to Force SSL

This is pretty cool, it forces non-https for all urls except for /wp-admin and wp-login.php, which both require https. It also checks for the logged_in_cookie, and if that is present in the request then it doesn't force non-https. Kinda confusing if you don't have a mod_rewrite cheatsheet.

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/(wp-admin|wp-login\.php).*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} ^.*wp_li_sadfsdfasdf11b361cdsdfasdfasd=.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [S=1]
 
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} =on [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.askapache\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]
 
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /(wp-admin/.*|wp-login\.php.*)\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule .* https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L]

File System Permissions

You can get a basic and solid intro on file permissions by reading: Changing File Permissions, or you can check out some of my file permission research.

/** The permissions as octal number, usually 0644 for files, 0755 for dirs.
 *  http://codex.wordpress.org/Changing_File_Permissions
 *  if ( !$wp_filesystem->mkdir($remote_destination, FS_CHMOD_DIR) )
 */
!defined('FS_CHMOD_DIR') && define('FS_CHMOD_DIR', (0755 & ~ umask()));
!defined('FS_CHMOD_FILE') && define('FS_CHMOD_FILE', (0644 & ~ umask()));
/**#@-*/
 
/** Define the timeouts for the connections. Only available after the construct is called to allow for per-transport overriding of the default. */
//stream_set_timeout( $stream, FS_TIMEOUT );
//!defined('FS_TIMEOUT') && define('FS_TIMEOUT', 30);
 
//$this->link = @ftp_connect($this->options['hostname'], $this->options['port'], FS_CONNECT_TIMEOUT);
//!defined('FS_CONNECT_TIMEOUT') && define('FS_CONNECT_TIMEOUT', 30);
 
// function get_filesystem_method($args = array(), $context = false) {
//  $method = defined('FS_METHOD') ? FS_METHOD : false; //Please ensure that this is either 'direct', 'ssh', 'ftpext' or 'ftpsockets'
//!defined('FS_METHOD') && define('FS_METHOD', 'direct');
 
/** These methods for the WordPress core, plugin, and theme upgrades try to determine the WordPress path, as reported by PHP, but symlink trickery can sometimes
 * 'muck this up' so if you know the paths to the various folders on the server, as seen via your FTP user, you can manually define them in the wp-config.php file.
 * FS_METHOD forces the filesystem method. It should only be "direct", "ssh", "ftpext", or "ftpsockets".
 * FTP_BASE is the full path to the "base" folder of the WordPress installation.
 * FTP_CONTENT_DIR is the full path to the wp-content folder of the WordPress installation.
 * FTP_PLUGIN_DIR is the full path to the plugins folder of the WordPress installation.
 * FTP_PUBKEY is the full path to your SSH public key.
 * FTP_PRIKEY is the full path to your SSH private key.
 * FTP_USER is either user FTP or SSH username. Most likely these are the same, but use the appropriate one for the type of update you wish to do.
 * FTP_PASS is the password for the username entered for FTP_USER. If you are using SSH public key authentication this can be omitted.
 * FTP_HOST is the hostname:port combination for your SSH/FTP server. The standard FTP port is 21 and the standard SSH port is 22.
 */
//define('FS_METHOD', 'ftpext');
//define('FTP_BASE', '/path/to/wordpress/');
//define('FTP_CONTENT_DIR', '/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/');
//define('FTP_PLUGIN_DIR ', '/path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/');
//define('FTP_PUBKEY', '/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa.pub');
//define('FTP_PRIKEY', '/home/username/.ssh/id_rsa');
//define('FTP_USER', 'username');
//define('FTP_PASS', 'password');
//define('FTP_HOST', 'ftp.example.org:21');
 
/**
 * Block requests through the proxy.
 *
 * Those who are behind a proxy and want to prevent access to certain hosts may do so. This will
 * prevent plugins from working and core functionality, if you don't include api.wordpress.org.
 *
 * You block external URL requests by defining WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL in your wp-config.php file
 * and this will only allow localhost and your blog to make requests.
 * The constant WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS will allow additional hosts to go through for requests. The format of the
 * WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS constant is a comma separated list of hostnames to allow.
 *
 * @since 2.8.0
 * @link http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8927 Allow preventing external requests.
/** @since 2.9  */
//!defined('WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL') && define( 'WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL', false );
 
/*
 * The constant WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS will allow additional hosts to go through for requests. The format of the
 * WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS constant is a comma separated list of hostnames to allow.
 *
 * @since 2.8.0
 * @link http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8927 Allow preventing external requests.
 * $accessible_hosts = preg_split('|,\s*|', WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS);
 * return !in_array( $check['host'], $accessible_hosts ); //Inverse logic, If its in the array, then we can't access it.
 */
//!defined('WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS') && define( 'WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS', 'askapache.com,askapache.org' );

Cookies!

There’s always a little comfort in having non-default cookies for security (against auto-bots), and using shorter names also means smaller HTTP Packets.

The $cookie_hash is my hack to get around the fact that COOKIEHASH isn’t definable in wp-config.

/**#@+
 * COOKIES
 * Used to guarantee unique hash cookies @since 1.5 */
$cookie_hash=md5(WP_SITEURL);
 
/** Set a cookie now to see if they are supported by the browser.
 * setcookie(TEST_COOKIE, 'WP Cookie check', 0, COOKIEPATH, COOKIE_DOMAIN);
 * @since 2.3.0 */
!defined('TEST_COOKIE') && define('TEST_COOKIE', 'wp_tc');
 
/* @since 2.6.0 */
!defined('LOGGED_IN_COOKIE') && define('LOGGED_IN_COOKIE', 'wp_li_' . $cookie_hash);
 
/* @since 2.6.0 */
!defined('SECURE_AUTH_COOKIE') && define('SECURE_AUTH_COOKIE', 'wp_sa_' . $cookie_hash);
 
/* @since 2.5.0 */
!defined('AUTH_COOKIE') && define('AUTH_COOKIE', 'wp_a_' . $cookie_hash);
 
/* @since 2.0.0 */
!defined('PASS_COOKIE') && define('PASS_COOKIE', 'wp_p_' . $cookie_hash);
 
/* @since 2.0.0 */
!defined('USER_COOKIE') && define('USER_COOKIE', 'wp_u_' . $cookie_hash);
 
/* ok unset this var, its not needed as COOKIEHASH will have this value, but is not definable in wp-config.php */
unset($cookie_hash);
 
/** @since 1.2.0 */
!defined('COOKIEPATH') && define('COOKIEPATH', preg_replace('|https?://[^/]+|i', '', WP_HOME . '/' ) );
 
/** @since 1.5.0 */
!defined('SITECOOKIEPATH') && define('SITECOOKIEPATH', preg_replace('|https?://[^/]+|i', '', WP_SITEURL . '/' ) );
 
/** @since 2.6.0 */
!defined('ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH') && define( 'ADMIN_COOKIE_PATH', SITECOOKIEPATH . 'wp-admin' );
 
/** @since 2.6.0 */
!defined('PLUGINS_COOKIE_PATH') && define( 'PLUGINS_COOKIE_PATH', preg_replace('|https?://[^/]+|i', '', WP_PLUGIN_URL)  );
 
/** @since 2.0.0 */
!defined('COOKIE_DOMAIN') && define('COOKIE_DOMAIN', $_SERVER['SERVER_NAME']);

/**
  * The WP_CACHE setting, if true, includes the wp-content/advanced-cache.php script, when executing wp-settings.php.
  * For an advanced caching plugin to use, static because you would only want one
  * if ( defined('WP_CACHE') )@include WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/advanced-cache.php';
  */
!defined('WP_CACHE') && define('WP_CACHE', true);
 
/** WordPress Localized Language, defaults to en_US.
 *
 * Change this to localize WordPress.  A corresponding MO file for the chosen
 * language must be installed to wp-content/languages. For example, install
 * de.mo to wp-content/languages and set WPLANG to 'de' to enable German
 * language support. */
!defined('WPLANG') && define ('WPLANG', 'en_US');
 
/** Stores the location of the language directory. First looks for language folder in WP_CONTENT_DIR
 *   and uses that folder if it exists. Or it uses the "languages" folder in WPINC. @since 2.1.0 */
//!defined('WP_LANG_DIR') && define('WP_LANG_DIR', ABSPATH . WPINC . '/languages');
 
/** LANGDIR defines what directory the WPLANG .mo file resides. If LANGDIR is not defined WordPress looks first to wp-content/languages and then wp-includes/languages for the .mo defined by WPLANG file.  Old static relative path maintained for limited backwards compatibility - won't work in some cases*/
//!defined('LANGDIR') && define('LANGDIR', 'wp-content/languages');
 
/** Stores the location of the WordPress directory of functions, classes, and core content. @since 1.0.0 */
//!defined('WPINC') && define('WPINC', 'wp-includes');

WPMU Stuff

I personally don’t use.

/** Allows for the mu-plugins directory to be moved from the default location. @since 2.8.0 */
//!defined('WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR') && define( 'WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR', WP_CONTENT_DIR . '/mu-plugins' ); // full path, no trailing slash
 
/** Allows for the mu-plugins directory to be moved from the default location. @since 2.8.0 */
//!defined('WPMU_PLUGIN_URL') && define( 'WPMU_PLUGIN_URL', WP_CONTENT_URL . '/mu-plugins' ); // full url, no trailing slash
 
/** Allows for the mu-plugins directory to be moved from the default location. @since 2.8.0 */
//!defined( 'MUPLUGINDIR' ) && define( 'MUPLUGINDIR', 'wp-content/mu-plugins' ); // Relative to ABSPATH.  For back compat.

WordPress Database

This is usually the only thing I have to manually edit when creating a new site, unless I just use the same DB and modify the $table_prefix, (farther down). I run everything I possibly can in UTF-8, but if you don’t already know alot about character sets, wow it is one of the most confusing things so you may want to save learning about that topic for another day. Otherwise the following are helpful (and show how confusing character sets are!)

If you ever setup WP to use the builtin membership features, make sure you learn about the CUSTOM_USER_TABLE and CUSTOM_USER_META_TABLE constants, I’ve found them very helpful.

/**#@+
 * MySQL settings
 */
/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'askapachewpblog75');
 
/** The username to access the database */
define('DB_USER', 'askapache245d');
 
/** The password for the username to access the database */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'asdfklj2340');
 
/** The hostname to connect to the database at */
define('DB_HOST', 'mysql.askapache.com');
 
/** The charset of the database */
define('DB_CHARSET', 'utf8');
 
/** The collation of the database */
define('DB_COLLATE', 'utf8_general_ci');

$table_prefix

The $table_prefix is the value placed in the front of your database tables. Change the value if you want to use something other than wp_ for your database prefix. Typically this is changed if you are installing multiple WordPress blogs in the same database, and also for enhanced security.

Its a safe and good idea to change this value pre-installation to add more security to your WordPress blog. Exploits attempted against your WordPress blog by malicious crackers often are built with the premise that your blog uses the prefix wp_, by changing the value you mitigate some attack vectors.

/**
 * WordPress Database Table prefix.
 *
 * You can have multiple installations in one database if you give each a unique
 * prefix. Only numbers, letters, and underscores please!
 */
$table_prefix  = 'ar15_';
 
/** CUSTOM_USER_TABLE and CUSTOM_USER_META_TABLE are used to designated that the user and usermeta tables normally utilized by WordPress are not used, instead these values/tables are used to store your user information. */
//!defined('CUSTOM_USER_TABLE') && define('CUSTOM_USER_TABLE', $table_prefix . 'my_users');
//!defined('CUSTOM_USER_META_TABLE') && define('CUSTOM_USER_META_TABLE', $table_prefix . 'my_usermeta');

Setup PHP Ini Settings

 
/** Turns the output of errors on or off, you really never want this on, you should only view errors by reading the log file. */
ini_set('display_errors', WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY);
 
/** Tells whether script error messages should be logged to the server's error log or error_log. */
ini_set('log_errors', 'On');
 
/** http://us.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php */
ini_set('date.timezone', 'America/Indianapolis');
 
/** Where to log php errors */
ini_set('error_log', ASKAPACHE_ROOT . '/logs/php_error.log');
 
/** Set the memory limit, otherwise defaults to '32M' */
ini_set('memory_limit', WP_MEMORY_LIMIT);

Sessions are slow

So I only use sessions when I have a specific use… In this case I need sessions only when one of the tools in the /online-tools/ directory is being used. And that is for the captcha image. In the future I won’t ever use sessions.

if(preg_match( '#^/online-tools/#',$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'])) session_start();

Include Custom Files

Sure you could use the my-hacks.php that WP allows, or you can just stick your functions in your TEMPLATEPATH/functions.php file, but they are executed only after the wp-settings.php file, which may be too late for your file.

In the past I’ve also used the auto_prepend_file settings to run my script before anything (index.php) but I ran into some issues on different hosts, and it wasn’t as portable.

This is useful because you can have a file with globally available functions that you can use in non-WP areas as well as WP areas. I am moving away from this more and more as I learn more about classes and build plugins instead for portability.

include_once ASKAPACHE_ROOT . '/includes/myfunctions.inc';
 
/** Sets up WordPress vars and included files. */
require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-settings.php');
?>

Some Useful PHP

I am constantly trying to make my sites and code more portable, so I am using plugins alot more to accomplish things that I use to do with separate php. Here are some examples of minimal php.

add_filter("the_generator", create_function('$a','return "";'));
add_filter('the_content', create_function('$a', 'return ((is_feed())? $a."".get_the_title()." originally appeared on ".get_bloginfo("name")."." : $a);'), 99999);
add_filter('excerpt_length', create_function('$a', 'return 300;'),99);
add_filter('excerpt_more', create_function('$a', 'return "…";'),99);
add_action( 'wp_head', create_function('$a','echo "\n";'), 95 );
add_action( 'wp_head', create_function('$a','echo "\n";'), 96 );
add_action( 'wp_head', create_function('$a','echo "\n";'), 97 );
add_action( 'wp_head', create_function('$a','echo "\n";'), 98 );
add_action( 'wp_head', create_function('$a','echo "\n";'), 99 );

Debugging Note

If you read this far than you probably know how important debugging is, but I sometimes like to stick the best tips deep in my articles to make sure only YOU find it. GRTFM isn’t used on this site, it’s mostly a requirement because my writing can get pretty bad.. The point, debugging is more than a crucial requirement if you want to do anything cool. Don’t worry I got you.. check my AskApache Debug Viewer Plugin from the official WP site. It’s pretty close to providing as verbose amount of information that I could possibly figure out how to get out of php, probably more than you have ever seen at least, I focused on quantity. I use it all the time on new installs as there is no setup required and it tells me advanced information about the setup of the server, hacker code for sure.

Here’s a quick function to see set global vars, I just think this is interesting code.

function askapache_global_debug(){
  global $_GET,$_POST,$_COOKIE,$_SESSION,$_ENV,$_FILES,$_SERVER,$_REQUEST,$HTTP_POST_FILES,$HTTP_POST_VARS,$HTTP_SERVER_VARS,$HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA,$HTTP_GET_VARS,$HTTP_COOKIE_VARS,$HTTP_ENV_VARS;
  $gv=create_function('$n','global $$n; ob_start(); if ( is_array($$n) && sizeof($$n)>0 && print("[{$n}]\n") ) print_r($$n);return ob_get_clean();');
  foreach (array('_GET','_POST','_COOKIE','_SESSION','_ENV','_FILES','_SERVER','_REQUEST','HTTP_POST_FILES','HTTP_POST_VARS','HTTP_SERVER_VARS','HTTP_RAW_POST_DATA','HTTP_GET_VARS','HTTP_COOKIE_VARS','HTTP_ENV_VARS') as $k)echo $gv($k);
  print_r(get_defined_constants());
}

Also check the WordPress Codex page: Editing wp-config.php

Advanced WordPress wp-config.php Tweaks originally appeared on AskApache.

Protecting Files with Advanced Mod_Rewrite Anti-Hotlinking

AskApache — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 05:09:11 +0000

If you have files on your site that you don’t want indexed by malicious search engines, grabbed and leeched by malicious spammers, or stolen and made available elsewhere, you can use mod_rewrite to drastically reduce or totally reduce that activity.

The Worst Kind of People

Spammers, and Leechers. They operate like this: Let’s say you have some mp3 files on a server, and SOMEWHERE on the web there is a link to that mp3 file’s location. This includes in javascript files, css files, robots.txt files, the spammers and leechers robots check all those files looking for the type of link they are looking for. Then they try to request that file usually utilizing a number of different types of requests to get access to the file. Then they use it for personal gain, at your peril.

Some robots perform valuable services for the world wide web community, and other leeching programming is pretty cool, so not all these activities are perpetrated by nefarious spammers.

Blocking by IP COOKIE

Ok so if a link exists to your file, it is going to be requested by a robot eventually, so the way to defeat them is by doing something on your site that modifies the way a user would request it. Robots for the most part are not javascript-capable, so the most-common advanced method is to set a cookie using javascript, and then we can check for that cookie in the request for the file using mod_rewrite.

So if your site sets a cookie named fspammers, and furthermore gives that cookie a value of 445, then this is what the request sent by an HTTP Client like Firefox looks like.

GET /hotlink/lovefreedom.mp3 HTTP/1.1
Host: z.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.3) Gecko/20090824 Firefox/3.5.3 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Accept: image/png,image/*;q=0.8,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/wordpress/seo-in-wordpress.html
Cookie: fspammers=455

Mod_Rewrite HTTP Headers

The mod_rewrite module has access to ALL the HTTP Headers sent in a request, so for each of the HTTP Headers in the request example above, we can use mod_rewrite to validate.

Mod_Rewrite .htaccess Example

Finally, now that everyone is on the same page about what is really going on, here is the .htaccess code that blocks any requests for anything in the /hotlink/ folder.

Here are the triggers this code blocks access based on.

Cookie: Checks if fspammers cookie is present, and that it has the value of 445.
HTTP Protocol: Checks if HTTP 1.1 is being used (many robots use 1.0)
Host: Checks that the HOST Requested was z.askapache.com
Referer: Checks for Referring site is z.askapache.com or www.askapache.com

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*fspammers=445.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /(.*)\ HTTP/1\.1 [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^z\.askapache\.com$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www|z)\.askapache\.com.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^hotlink/.*$ - [F]

Protecting Files with Advanced Mod_Rewrite Anti-Hotlinking originally appeared on AskApache.

Crazy Advanced Mod_Rewrite Tutorial

AskApache — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:55:32 +0000

Are you an advanced mod_rewrite expert or guru? This article is for YOU too! Just make sure to read all the way to the bottom..

The following undocumented techniques and methods will allow you to utilize mod_rewrite at an “expert level” by showing you how to unlock its secrets.

Most if not all web developers and server administrators struggle with Apache mod_rewrite. It’s very tough and only gets a little easier with practice. Until Now! Get ready to explode your learning curve, I figured something out.

Why mod_rewrite is so tough

I have come to the conclusion, after many hours of zenful thought, that the reason mod_rewrite is so tough is pretty obvious, people are trying to apply regular-expressions to URLs and Variables that they don’t really understand. They understand what they want, but they don’t understand what the URLS and Variables are that they are trying to rewrite.

Hit-Or-Miss with mod_rewrite

A lot of the mod_rewrite “experts” and “gurus” floating around the net absolutely know their mod_rewrite, but what separates them from a beginner or novice is for the most part an understanding of what the URLS and Variables look like that are targeted by the regular expressions. Take this simple rewriterule that rewrites requests made without the www to www.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
 
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.askapache\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule .+ http://www.askapache.com%{REQUEST_URI}

Pretty simple right? WRONG. Most people could not figure that out..

Why?

The reason intelligent people can’t figure that out is because they have no idea what HTTP_HOST or REQUEST_URI actually looks like. How can you write a rule for something if you don’t know what it looks like? You can’t.

When Not To Use Mod_Rewrite

Ok so heres an important concept that alot of people haven’t heard. You should only use mod_rewrite’s rewriterule when you use a rewritecond or if you are rewriting internally like my feedcount hack.

If you are simply redirecting one url to another, you should definately be using the much easier mod_alias’s redirect and redirectmatch, which is enabled on most Apache servers.

When To Use Mod_Rewrite

So then, you should only use mod_rewrite’s rewriterule when you are checking against one of the Apache Environment Variables to determine whether to rewrite or not. This is where the Apache Documentation is grossly lacking. They don’t tell you what those variables look like, leaving us completely incapable of creating rewrites based on them. Not anymore.

Mod_Rewrite Environment Variables (The Secret)

Here’s the variables I have found accessible by mod_rewrite (both documented and undocumented). A thing to note is that you can set these variables early in an .htaccess file using SetEnv, RewriteRule, Header, etc.. and they will be accessible at the end of the .htaccess file.

API_VERSION
AUTH_TYPE
CONTENT_LENGTH
CONTENT_TYPE
DOCUMENT_ROOT
GATEWAY_INTERFACE
HTTPS
HTTP_ACCEPT
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE
HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL

HTTP_CONNECTION
HTTP_COOKIE
HTTP_FORWARDED
HTTP_HOST
HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE
HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION
HTTP_REFERER
HTTP_USER_AGENT
IS_SUBREQ
ORIG_PATH_INFO
ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED
ORIG_SCRIPT_FILENAME

ORIG_SCRIPT_NAME
PATH
PATH_INFO
PHP_SELF
QUERY_STRING
REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING
REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER
REDIRECT_STATUS
REDIRECT_URL
REMOTE_ADDR
REMOTE_HOST
REMOTE_IDENT

REMOTE_PORT
REMOTE_USER
REQUEST_FILENAME
REQUEST_METHOD
REQUEST_TIME
REQUEST_URI
SCRIPT_FILENAME
SCRIPT_GROUP
SCRIPT_NAME
SCRIPT_URI
SCRIPT_URL
SCRIPT_USER

SERVER_ADDR
SERVER_ADMIN
SERVER_NAME
SERVER_PORT
SERVER_PROTOCOL
SERVER_SIGNATURE
SERVER_SOFTWARE
THE_REQUEST
TIME
TIME_DAY
TIME_HOUR
TIME_MIN

TIME_MON
TIME_SEC
TIME_WDAY
TIME_YEAR
TZ
UNIQUE_ID

Decoding Mod_Rewrite Variables

So when I realized my problem was that I didn’t know the value of the variable being tested by the RewriteCond, I set out to try and discover how to view those variables.. Keep in mind you can also use RewriteLogging, but its only allowed for root users who can edit the httpd.conf, this is .htaccess.

Setting Environment Variables with RewriteRule

I discovered a multitude of methods to set and view apache environment variables, using various modules and some core tricks, but the method that allows me to view the most environment variables is RewriteRule.. I wanted to use SetEnvIf more, but its just not as powerful as mod_rewrite, due to programming.

This code sets the variable INFO_REQUEST_URI to have the value of REQUEST_URI.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REQUEST_URI:%{REQUEST_URI},NE]

Saving the Apache Variable Values

Now the trick is how to view that environment variable… The method I came up with is nice… We will send the environment variable value in an HTTP Header, as there isn’t much data manipulation/validation so you get an accurate look at the actual value.. At first I tried adding the variable value to a redirection using the query_string.. but a HTTP_USER_AGENT value doesn’t play well as a query_string.

Using RequestHeader in .htaccess

This code takes advantage of the incredible mod_headers apache module to actually ADD a whole new header to YOUR request. Seriously one of the coolest tricks I’ve found yet.. Its almost the same as being able to spoof POST requests! Since Headers can be protected data… especially the HTTP_COOKIE header..

RequestHeader set INFO_REQUEST_URI "%{INFO_REQUEST_URI}e"

Viewing the Variable Values

Now you can use any kind of server-run interpreter like perl, php, ruby, etc., to view all the variable values. All cgi-script handlers like those are able to view request headers..

PHP Code to access Apache Variables

Works even in safe-mode… any interpreter can view HTTP Headers! Note that each of these variables are added as HTTP headers to the request for the script.. kinda confusing.. So each variable sent as a header is prefixed with HTTP_ to denote it was a header.

$r)
{
  if(substr($v,0,9)=='HTTP_INFO')
  {
    if(!empty($r))$INFO[substr($v,10)]=$r;
    else $MISS[substr($v,10)]=$r;
  }
}
 
/* thanks Mike! */
ksort($INFO);
ksort($MISS);
ksort($_SERVER);
 
echo "Received These Variables:\n";
print_r($INFO);
 
echo "Missed These Variables:\n";
print_r($MISS);
 
echo "ALL Variables:\n";
print_r($_SERVER);
?>

Time to Get Crazy

Just create the above php file on your site as /test/index.php or whatever, then create /test/.htaccess which should contain the below .htaccess file snippet. Now just request /test/index.php and be amazed! If you’re looking for more general help check out this excellent mod_rewrite cheat sheet.

Ok, so I’ve prepared the .htaccess code you can use to view the values of all these variables. Just add it to a .htaccess file and make a request. For this test I created an index.php file that printed out all the $_SERVER variables, and made requests to it.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_API_VERSION:%{API_VERSION},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_AUTH_TYPE:%{AUTH_TYPE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_CONTENT_LENGTH:%{CONTENT_LENGTH},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_CONTENT_TYPE:%{CONTENT_TYPE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_DOCUMENT_ROOT:%{DOCUMENT_ROOT},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_GATEWAY_INTERFACE:%{GATEWAY_INTERFACE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTPS:%{HTTPS},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT:%{HTTP_ACCEPT},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET:%{HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING:%{HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE:%{HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL:%{HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_CONNECTION:%{HTTP_CONNECTION},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_COOKIE:%{HTTP_COOKIE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_FORWARDED:%{HTTP_FORWARDED},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_HOST:%{HTTP_HOST},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE:%{HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_MOD_SECURITY_MESSAGE:%{HTTP_MOD_SECURITY_MESSAGE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION:%{HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_REFERER:%{HTTP_REFERER},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_HTTP_USER_AGENT:%{HTTP_USER_AGENT},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_IS_SUBREQ:%{IS_SUBREQ},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_ORIG_PATH_INFO:%{ORIG_PATH_INFO},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED:%{ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_ORIG_SCRIPT_FILENAME:%{ORIG_SCRIPT_FILENAME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_ORIG_SCRIPT_NAME:%{ORIG_SCRIPT_NAME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_PATH:%{PATH},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_PATH_INFO:%{PATH_INFO},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_PHP_SELF:%{PHP_SELF},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_QUERY_STRING:%{QUERY_STRING},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING:%{REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER:%{REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REDIRECT_STATUS:%{REDIRECT_STATUS},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REDIRECT_URL:%{REDIRECT_URL},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REMOTE_ADDR:%{REMOTE_ADDR},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REMOTE_HOST:%{REMOTE_HOST},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REMOTE_IDENT:%{REMOTE_IDENT},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REMOTE_PORT:%{REMOTE_PORT},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REMOTE_USER:%{REMOTE_USER},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REQUEST_FILENAME:%{REQUEST_FILENAME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REQUEST_METHOD:%{REQUEST_METHOD},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REQUEST_TIME:%{REQUEST_TIME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_REQUEST_URI:%{REQUEST_URI},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SCRIPT_FILENAME:%{SCRIPT_FILENAME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SCRIPT_GROUP:%{SCRIPT_GROUP},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SCRIPT_NAME:%{SCRIPT_NAME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SCRIPT_URI:%{SCRIPT_URI},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SCRIPT_URL:%{SCRIPT_URL},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SCRIPT_USER:%{SCRIPT_USER},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_ADDR:%{SERVER_ADDR},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_ADMIN:%{SERVER_ADMIN},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_NAME:%{SERVER_NAME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_PORT:%{SERVER_PORT},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_PROTOCOL:%{SERVER_PROTOCOL},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_SIGNATURE:%{SERVER_SIGNATURE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_SERVER_SOFTWARE:%{SERVER_SOFTWARE},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_THE_REQUEST:%{THE_REQUEST},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME:%{TIME},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_DAY:%{TIME_DAY},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_HOUR:%{TIME_HOUR},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_MIN:%{TIME_MIN},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_MON:%{TIME_MON},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_SEC:%{TIME_SEC},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_WDAY:%{TIME_WDAY},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TIME_YEAR:%{TIME_YEAR},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_TZ:%{TZ},NE]
RewriteRule .* - [E=INFO_UNIQUE_ID:%{UNIQUE_ID},NE]
 
RequestHeader set INFO_API_VERSION "%{INFO_API_VERSION}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_AUTH_TYPE "%{INFO_AUTH_TYPE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_CONTENT_LENGTH "%{INFO_CONTENT_LENGTH}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_CONTENT_TYPE "%{INFO_CONTENT_TYPE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_DOCUMENT_ROOT "%{INFO_DOCUMENT_ROOT}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_GATEWAY_INTERFACE "%{INFO_GATEWAY_INTERFACE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTPS "%{INFO_HTTPS}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT "%{INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET "%{INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING "%{INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE "%{INFO_HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL "%{INFO_HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_CONNECTION "%{INFO_HTTP_CONNECTION}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_COOKIE "%{INFO_HTTP_COOKIE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_FORWARDED "%{INFO_HTTP_FORWARDED}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_HOST "%{INFO_HTTP_HOST}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE "%{INFO_HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_MOD_SECURITY_MESSAGE "%{INFO_HTTP_MOD_SECURITY_MESSAGE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION "%{INFO_HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_REFERER "%{INFO_HTTP_REFERER}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_HTTP_USER_AGENT "%{INFO_HTTP_USER_AGENT}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_IS_SUBREQ "%{INFO_IS_SUBREQ}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_ORIG_PATH_INFO "%{INFO_ORIG_PATH_INFO}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED "%{INFO_ORIG_PATH_TRANSLATED}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_ORIG_SCRIPT_FILENAME "%{INFO_ORIG_SCRIPT_FILENAME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_ORIG_SCRIPT_NAME "%{INFO_ORIG_SCRIPT_NAME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_PATH "%{INFO_PATH}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_PATH_INFO "%{INFO_PATH_INFO}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_PHP_SELF "%{INFO_PHP_SELF}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_QUERY_STRING "%{INFO_QUERY_STRING}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING "%{INFO_REDIRECT_QUERY_STRING}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER "%{INFO_REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REDIRECT_STATUS "%{INFO_REDIRECT_STATUS}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REDIRECT_URL "%{INFO_REDIRECT_URL}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REMOTE_ADDR "%{INFO_REMOTE_ADDR}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REMOTE_HOST "%{INFO_REMOTE_HOST}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REMOTE_IDENT "%{INFO_REMOTE_IDENT}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REMOTE_PORT "%{INFO_REMOTE_PORT}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REMOTE_USER "%{INFO_REMOTE_USER}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REQUEST_FILENAME "%{INFO_REQUEST_FILENAME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REQUEST_METHOD "%{INFO_REQUEST_METHOD}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REQUEST_TIME "%{INFO_REQUEST_TIME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_REQUEST_URI "%{INFO_REQUEST_URI}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SCRIPT_FILENAME "%{INFO_SCRIPT_FILENAME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SCRIPT_GROUP "%{INFO_SCRIPT_GROUP}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SCRIPT_NAME "%{INFO_SCRIPT_NAME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SCRIPT_URI "%{INFO_SCRIPT_URI}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SCRIPT_URL "%{INFO_SCRIPT_URL}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SCRIPT_USER "%{INFO_SCRIPT_USER}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_ADDR "%{INFO_SERVER_ADDR}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_ADMIN "%{INFO_SERVER_ADMIN}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_NAME "%{INFO_SERVER_NAME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_PORT "%{INFO_SERVER_PORT}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_PROTOCOL "%{INFO_SERVER_PROTOCOL}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_SIGNATURE "%{INFO_SERVER_SIGNATURE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_SERVER_SOFTWARE "%{INFO_SERVER_SOFTWARE}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_THE_REQUEST "%{INFO_THE_REQUEST}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME "%{INFO_TIME}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_DAY "%{INFO_TIME_DAY}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_HOUR "%{INFO_TIME_HOUR}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_MIN "%{INFO_TIME_MIN}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_MON "%{INFO_TIME_MON}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_SEC "%{INFO_TIME_SEC}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_WDAY "%{INFO_TIME_WDAY}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TIME_YEAR "%{INFO_TIME_YEAR}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_TZ "%{INFO_TZ}e"
RequestHeader set INFO_UNIQUE_ID "%{INFO_UNIQUE_ID}e"

Mod_Rewrite Variables Decoded!

[API_VERSION] => 20020903:12
[AUTH_TYPE] => Digest
[DOCUMENT_ROOT] => /home/user/www_root/askapache.com
[HTTPS] => off
[HTTP_ACCEPT] => text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
[HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=752ee6d56e15f305233e30045987e5ce568c034; __qca=1176541225-59967328-5223185;
[HTTP_HOST] => www.askapache.com
[HTTP_REFERER] => http://www.askapache.com/protest/index.php?askapache=awesomeness&you=rock
[HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16
[IS_SUBREQ] => false
[QUERY_STRING] => e=404
[REMOTE_ADDR] => 22.162.144.211
[REMOTE_HOST] => 22.162.144.211
[REMOTE_PORT] => 4511
[REMOTE_USER] => administrator
[REQUEST_FILENAME] => /home/user/www_root/askapache.com/protest/index.php
[REQUEST_METHOD] => GET
[REQUEST_URI] => /protest/index.php
[SCRIPT_FILENAME] => /home/user/www_root/askapache.com/protest/index.php
[SCRIPT_GROUP] => daemonu
[SCRIPT_USER] => askapache
[SERVER_ADDR] => 208.113.134.190
[SERVER_ADMIN] => webmaster@askapache.com
[SERVER_NAME] => www.askapache.com
[SERVER_PORT] => 80
[SERVER_PROTOCOL] => HTTP/1.1
[SERVER_SOFTWARE] => Apache/2.0.61 (Unix) PHP/4.4.7 mod_ssl/2.0.61 OpenSSL/0.9.7e mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 DAV/2
[THE_REQUEST] => GET /protest/adf HTTP/1.1
[TIME] => 20080820014309
[TIME_DAY] => 20
[TIME_HOUR] => 01
[TIME_MIN] => 43
[TIME_MON] => 08
[TIME_SEC] => 09
[TIME_WDAY] => 3
[TIME_YEAR] => 2008

Request using HTTPS

[API_VERSION] => 20020903:12
[AUTH_TYPE] => Digest
[DOCUMENT_ROOT] => /home/user/www_root/askapache.com
[HTTPS] => on
[HTTP_ACCEPT] => text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
[HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=752ee6d56e15f305233e30045987e5ce568c034; __qca=1176541225-59967328-5223185;
[HTTP_HOST] => www.askapache.com
[HTTP_REFERER] => http://www.askapache.com/protest/index.php?askapache=awesomeness&you=rock
[HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.16) Gecko/20080702 Firefox/2.0.0.16
[IS_SUBREQ] => false
[QUERY_STRING] => hi=you&whats=&you
[REMOTE_ADDR] => 22.162.144.211
[REMOTE_HOST] => 22.162.144.211
[REMOTE_PORT] => 4605
[REMOTE_USER] => administrator
[REQUEST_FILENAME] => /home/user/www_root/askapache.com/protest/index.php
[REQUEST_METHOD] => GET
[REQUEST_URI] => /protest/index.php
[SCRIPT_FILENAME] => /home/user/www_root/askapache.com/protest/index.php
[SCRIPT_GROUP] => daemonu
[SCRIPT_USER] => askapache
[SERVER_ADDR] => 208.113.134.190
[SERVER_ADMIN] => webmaster@askapache.com
[SERVER_NAME] => www.askapache.com
[SERVER_PORT] => 443
[SERVER_PROTOCOL] => HTTP/1.1
[SERVER_SOFTWARE] => Apache/2.0.61 (Unix) PHP/4.4.7 mod_ssl/2.0.61 OpenSSL/0.9.7e mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 DAV/2
[THE_REQUEST] => GET /protest/index.php?hi=you&whats=&you HTTP/1.1
[TIME] => 20080820015016
[TIME_DAY] => 20
[TIME_HOUR] => 01
[TIME_MIN] => 50
[TIME_MON] => 08
[TIME_SEC] => 16
[TIME_WDAY] => 3
[TIME_YEAR] => 2008

Emulating ErrorDocuments with Mod_Rewrite

The ErrorDocument directive is helpful because an errordocument is called differently then a normal file, and it contains special variables to help an admin debug.

I’ve wanted to use a RewriteCond + a RewriteRule to cause an Apache ErrorDocument to be displayed for a long time… I finally figured it out. Simply use the HTTP STATUS CODE trick in combination with a simple RewriteRule to trigger an Apache ErrorDocument.

This code emulates the internal 404 process Apache goes through.. If the file is not found it requests the /test/trigger-error/404 internally which triggers the 404 ErrorDocument.

ErrorDocument 404 /test/errordocument/404.html
Redirect 404 /test/trigger-error/404
 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !=404
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .* /test/trigger-error/404 [L]

Big Deal.. you might say… well consider that this works with any status code, and using this method you now have the power to trigger any errordocument page based on any kind of rewritecond. I’ll be writing about some practical uses for this powerful method in the coming weeks, but heres a good example now so you can see how it can be used.

This bit of code Triggers the 505 HTTP Version Not Supported When a request is made to the server with a protocol other than 1.1.

ErrorDocument 505 /test/errordocument/505.html
Redirect 505 /test/trigger-error/505
 
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
 
RewriteCond %{ENV:REDIRECT_STATUS} !=505
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\ HTTP/(0\.9|1\.0|1\.1) [NC]
RewriteRule .* /test/trigger-error/505 [L]

YES! I realize I didn’t explain that very well, I didn’t realize it was that complicated.. I wanted to go into how to use these advanced tricks and methods to achieve some really cool stuff, but explaining just this little bit took me awhile and I’m out of page space!

So play around with this and I’ll post back some of the untapped sicknesses you can give a website with such powerful methods at your disposal.

Ralf S. Engelschall

/*
 *  URL Rewriting Module
 *
 *  This module uses a rule-based rewriting engine (based on a
 *  regular-expression parser) to rewrite requested URLs on the fly.
 *
 *  It supports an unlimited number of additional rule conditions (which can
 *  operate on a lot of variables, even on HTTP headers) for granular
 *  matching and even external database lookups (either via plain text
 *  tables, DBM hash files or even external processes) for advanced URL
 *  substitution.
 *
 *  It operates on the full URLs (including the PATH_INFO part) both in
 *  per-server context (httpd.conf) and per-dir context (.htaccess) and even
 *  can generate QUERY_STRING parts on result.   The rewriting result finally
 *  can lead to internal subprocessing, external request redirection or even
 *  to internal proxy throughput.
 *
 *  This module was originally written in April 1996 and
 *  gifted exclusively to the The Apache Software Foundation in July 1997 by
 *
 *      Ralf S. Engelschall
 *      rse engelschall.com
 *      www.engelschall.com
 */

Crazy Advanced Mod_Rewrite Tutorial originally appeared on AskApache.

mod_rewrite Fix for Caching Updated Files

AskApache — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:20:59 +0000

Web Developers sometimes use file.ext?v=137 as a version control system so they can force visitors to use an updated file. This is so terrible. Instead link to apache-003.css and set it to be cached forever. When you change the file you just change the links to apache-004.css.

Raw Speed Benefit

This eliminates millions of bandwidth and resource robbing 304 If-Modified-Since requests.

Renaming links vs. Renaming files

On the server my files are named apache.css and apache.js, but in the xhtml I point to them using the names apache-113.css and apache-113.js, after I change the file I just add 1 to the number, and the new file is cached. They are internally redirected to apache.css and apache.js (invisible to the user) The concept is similar to a “shortcut” in windows or a symlink in BSD. The trick is that I never actually rename the files on the server. I just rename them in the html. That means apache-135.css is served from the file apache.css but the browser/cache only see and know about apache-135.css.

XHTML

NOTE: You can do your own investigating of this sites source code and HTTP headers to see this whole system in action

mod_rewrite code for htaccess or httpd.conf

Updated: 10/20/2008

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^(GET|HEAD)\ /z/([a-z]+)/(.+)-([0-9]+)\.(js|css).*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule .+ /z/%2/%3.%5 [NC,L]

Alternate mod_rewrite code

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^([cij]+)(/?[a-z]*)/([a-z]+)-([0-9]+)\.([a-z]+)$ /$1$2/$3.$5 [L]

Ideal Caching Scheme

Ok so you want the xhtml to be the only file that isn’t cached without being validated, its simple to setup your own caching scheme.

Bad Cache information for a file with the `?v=foo` hack

This object will be fresh for 1 week. It can be validated with Last-Modified. This object requests that a Cookie be set; this makes it and other pages affected automatically stale; clients must check them upon every request. Because it contains a query (‘?’) in the URL, many caches will not keep this object.

mod_rewrite Fix for Caching Updated Files originally appeared on AskApache.

An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All

AskApache — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:59:07 +0000

So my blog as been rather quiet for almost a year now, and very few updates if any have been released for my Password Protection PLugin, my Google 404 Plugin, and definately not for my AskApache CrazyCache plugin, which I will be releasing last… So for all of you who’ve helped me out by sending me suggestions and notifying me of errors and sticking with it… Just wanted to say sorry about that, and thanks for all the great ideas.. Well, I’ve been sticking with it as well believe it our not. I manage to get free days once in a while, and then its time to jam.

I’ve used just about every CMS/Blog/Forum/Trac/Gallery/etc) and really didn’t like a lot of the way they coded… I could use php but I didn’t KNOW php.. so I’ve had to learn php also, and it was tough to learn the advanced class usage and all the other language specific (but similar) constructs for php. It was especially difficult (but fun and challenging) to program so as to be compatible with php4 and php5 (Such is WordPress). But I kept at it, and soon you can decide for yourself what to make of it.

I can code in plenty of languages (bash, lua, windows .bat and vbs, ocaml, big fan of all things shell) and can work my way through C and even sorta somewhat with assembly. Assembly is the hardest, by far, I’m into easy and powerful languages like Python, Javascript, perl, php, ruby, and CGI. I’ve used PHP for a long time to do various things, but never to build software projects like this. Once I noticed WordPress’s core .php files and the excellent programming I wanted to try and learn hot to do it. The WordPress code is some of the best I’ve seen. It appears the way they built it was planned, and not just dreamt up while typing that I can’t help but do. Every time I read through the core code I learn a new trick or very nice way to do something. Those guys are really good, and I think WordPress is going to dominate for a long long time.

The Strategy

The Password Protection (passpro) plugin has a lot of complex stuff going on, especially for a newbie to PHP and WordPress like me, so after refactoring the whole thing at least 5 times I decided to modify my approach, and wrote the AskApache Google 404 Plugin as a way to practice on a simpler piece of code, while at the same time providing a plugin of value. Eventually I stopped thinking I could just code the whole thing in one sit-down with a stream-of-consciousness, and had to instead modularize the code and focus in on each part before moving to the next (I go without a plan because its fun, just not the most productive, but again, I’m not a programmer in the scientific sense.).

So I decided I had to really learn how WordPress Plugins work, filters, hooks, actions, and basically comfortability at reverse-engineering code, (Im a beginner for the last time), and so with the upcoming release of the AskApache Google 404 Plugin I have succeeded in making an incredibly stable plugin. That way I only have to worry about what the aapasspro plugin is doing, instead of trying to fit it into a framework.

AskApache Google 404 Upgrade

I think its rather unusual to develop a nice plugin like this 404 handler merely for the purpose of improving upon another plugin, but hey it worked. As of 08/03/2009 14:06PM EST I have about 1 hour left of finishing touches to release this upgrade. But as you cantell by my badly edited posts, I don’t have a lot of time to myself. An hour here and there is about it. So it could be up to 2 weeks before I actually have the time to commit the release to the repo. On a sidenote, have you checked out Windows 7 News? I’ve been contracted to do some technical work for them and thought they had an excellent site.

But keep in mind, the 404 PLugin is just where I practice for the passpro plugin, which truly does have features that no other software like it has ever had. I understand the technology behind this plugin, and know it would really have a great impact on improving the Web (esp. WordPress) for all of us, I’ve just had to learn how to make it.

AskApache Password Protection

Probably still a couple weeks away, this plugin is the ultimate culmination of apache hackers dreams, at least those on shared servers (who may be interested in learning how to bypass security of said servers).. So this is something I have much too fun with doing what I like to do.. network/protocol-level security. I’ve examined the source code for many software packages that I use or have used to audit a server’s security, and this simple php plugin in most instances can enumerate with accuraccy most of the server’s setup in about a minute. The catch (and the file permission problems I had to find a workaround too) is that this software is launched on the server, not remotely against the server.

Some of the software I examined was whiskers, nessus, nmap, hping, mozilla source, wireshark, ncftp, netcat, etc.. The closest comparison to the socket-level class I’ve hacked together to those is wireshark. Except that wireshark only interprets (captures) the data passing over the wire, while this class does that and in fact sends and receives the data like netcat or nmap. Its really more similar to metasploit, and can easily be used to send hex, binary, ascii, or any type of payload to the remote or local host.

The Upgrades Begin

Well I started working on them a long time ago. Both the Password Protection plugin and the Google 404 plugin needed serious work. And I finally have it all figured out. Essentially I would work on one and finish an upgrade, but I just wasn’t happy with it and I wold start all over again, refactoring the code. So as I put the finishing touches on those 2 plugins keep an eye out. They are major upgrades. I was able to meet all the goals I had for them, and came up with a lot of more improvements during the process.One of the main things I needed was a socket-level class to perform all kinds of checks and tests on. I need this also for my crazy cache plugin, which my blog is currently using , and I have a 2 more really nice pplugins I use that also needed access to a network class. I wrote about what I was doing with fsockopen, and I’ve been improving on that example ever since. I use this class to do some really powerful and exciting stuff, but you’ll see it soon enough. As an indication of ‘getting it right’ for the Password Protection plugin, the plugin will now work on Windows, Apache, IIS, Lighthttpd, and will even work running on a blackberry web server. So now everyone using wordpress can at least get some security()

Many of the the other improvements focus on using the fsockopen class and .htaccess tricks to basically enumerate and discover all the different capabilities of your particular server; That way you can learn about all the features and security that are possible for your specific server, and the securty modules wi8ll be geared for that as well. FINALLY this plugin is going to be stable, and I just cant wait to see how people react when they learn all great capability their Apache-based Server has that they didn’t have a clue about. Its amazing in that sense, and hackers will love theh way it works.. but your server admins will love it even more because its entirely 100% focused on helping you to set your site up (if you have Apache) to keep spammers out, to keep virii-serving robots and their log-hogging exploit requests and CPU/Mem robiing 404 errors off of your servers for real. This will have a noticeable affect to whoever is running the server. As you can tell.. I am pumped!

Apache is easy to configure and use, but only when you have root access. Most people on shared and private hosting aren’t even able to view the main config file, let alone execute the Apache binaries to see what features are available and what configuration is being used.

Apache can only be influenced by the main server configs and by .htaccess files. Not by php, not by perl, and the main configs are almost never accessible to the masses. But .htaccess files are. And many hosting providers allow and enable .htaccess files, a configuration file for your web server. The advanced features and capabilities of Apache were out of reach for most of us, it just wasn’t possible to enumerate or access, and most hosting providers are infamous for their lack of .htaccess (customer) support. This plugin goes around those problems to give the power back to the people.

y creating custom .htaccess files containing unpublished .htaccess tricks and techniques and combining that with the use of socket-level networking from WordPress (PHP) using fsockopen, we can effectively enumerate and discover an incredible amount of features and settings you will be able to control and use with this plugin.

Here are a few examples of the capabilities of this plugin, some of which I believe no other software can do.. (Open source free to copy!).

Current Version of Apache (Down to the API Version)
List of ALL Modules currently enabled by Apache (Such as Mod_Rewrite)
List of ALL Directives enabled by EACH enabled Module.
Enumerate .htaccess Overrides, Context Permissions
Test for any builtin Handlers (like the status handler screenshot)
Configure SSI (http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/advanced-htaccess-ssi.html#htaccess-ssi-security)

March 1, 2009
I would focus on the method that WordPress uses. The code they have now (2.8 bleeding-edge) still isn’t where it needs to be, but this is some difficult stuff and they have a brilliant start, it’ll work.. just a question of when.

The main issue with the password protection plugin working for some people and not others is due to file permission configurations. The plugin attempts to write/modify files in your blog’s root directory.

November 05, 2008
To make a long story short, I downloaded each major release of the apache httpd source code starting at version 1.3.0 and finishing with version 2.2.11, I then compiled each version and built a HTTPD from source for all these apache versions.

1.3.0

1.3.1

1.3.11

1.3.12

1.3.14

1.3.17

1.3.19

1.3.2

1.3.20

1.3.22

1.3.23

1.3.24

1.3.27

1.3.28

1.3.29

1.3.3

1.3.31

1.3.32

1.3.33

1.3.34

1.3.35

1.3.36

1.3.37

1.3.39

1.3.4

1.3.41

1.3.6

1.3.9

2.0.35

2.0.36

2.0.39

2.0.40

2.0.42

2.0.43

2.0.44

2.0.45

2.0.46

2.0.47

2.0.48

2.0.49

2.0.50

2.0.51

2.0.52

2.0.53

2.0.54

2.0.55

2.0.58

2.0.59

2.0.61

2.0.63

2.1.3-beta

2.1.6-alpha

2.1.7-beta

2.1.8-beta

2.1.9-beta

2.2.0

2.2.10

2.2.2

2.2.3

2.2.4

2.2.6

2.2.8

2.2.9

2.2.10

2.2.11

Then I went through each version and determined the compatible modules for that version, and I’m pretty confident that I was also able to find each and every directive allowed by the compatible modules for that version (including core directives). See .htaccess directive list. Basically I can now test a server using a variety of methods and determine almost 100% accurately what version of Apache (down to the API) is running, what modules (and versions) are enabled, and each and every directive that is allowed or disallowed for that version. So this is so awesome because now we can enable all sorts of additional security features.

Htaccess enabled Modules
Here are most of the modules that come with Apache. Each one can have new commands that can be used in .htaccess file scopes.

mod_actions, mod_alias, mod_asis, mod_auth_basic, mod_auth_digest, mod_authn_anon, mod_authn_dbd, mod_authn_dbm, mod_authn_default, mod_authn_file, mod_authz_dbm, mod_authz_default, mod_authz_groupfile, mod_authz_host, mod_authz_owner, mod_authz_user, mod_autoindex, mod_cache, mod_cern_meta, mod_cgi, mod_dav, mod_dav_fs, mod_dbd, mod_deflate, mod_dir, mod_disk_cache, mod_dumpio, mod_env, mod_expires, mod_ext_filter, mod_file_cache, mod_filter, mod_headers, mod_ident, mod_imagemap, mod_include, mod_info, mod_log_config, mod_log_forensic, mod_logio, mod_mem_cache, mod_mime, mod_mime_magic, mod_negotiation, mod_proxy, mod_proxy_ajp, mod_proxy_balancer, mod_proxy_connect, mod_proxy_ftp, mod_proxy_http, mod_rewrite, mod_setenvif, mod_speling, mod_ssl, mod_status, mod_substitute, mod_unique_id, mod_userdir, mod_usertrack, mod_version, mod_vhost_alias

Debugging HTTP protocol

Check this out! I’m particularly happy about this feature, which outputs an exact trace of any requests made by the plugin (such as during the testing phase) by saving the actual raw data sent out on the wire using fsockopen, RX and TX. This is useful for a number of reasons, viewing your headers, finding Redirect Loops, testing RewriteRules, and following the request hop-by-hop for debugging. The below example shows 2 requests for 2 URIs. The first URI is protected using Digest Authentication, the 2nd shows Basic.

 ______________
|  RAW TRACE   |
==================================================================================================================================
GET /htaccess/index.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
 
HTTP/1.1 401 Authorization Required
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
WWW-Authenticate: Digest realm="do or die", nonce="03328f3ec7c7b", algorithm=MD5, domain="/", qop="auth"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 882
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
 
GET /htaccess/index.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
Authorization: Digest username="test",realm="do or die",nonce="03328f3ec7c7b",uri="/htaccess/index.txt?testing=query",
cnonce="82d057852a9dc497",nc=00000001,algorithm=MD5,response="9d476e9ea3",qop="auth"
 
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
Authentication-Info: rspauth="9051b01ee26dd62b3e2b40dada694f45", cnonce="82d057852a9dc497", nc=00000001, qop=auth
Last-Modified: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:56:00 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Cache-Control: max-age=3600
Expires: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:29:58 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 27
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
 
 ______________
|  RAW TRACE   |
==================================================================================================================================
GET /htaccess/po.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
 
HTTP/1.1 401 Authorization Required
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Po Pimping"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 878
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
 
GET /htaccess/po.txt?testing=query HTTP/1.1
Host: www.askapache.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1) AA_PassPro/1.9 (http://www.askapache.com/)
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
Accept-Language: en-us
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: close
Referer: http://www.askapache.com/
Authorization: Basic adfAGAltcA==
 
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:29:58 GMT
Server: Apache
Last-Modified: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 05:54:39 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Cache-Control: max-age=3600
Expires: Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:29:58 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Content-Encoding: gzip
Content-Length: 27
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

.htaccess Directives

AcceptFilter, AcceptMutex, AcceptPathInfo, AccessFileName, Action, AddAlt, AddAltByEncoding, AddAltByType, AddCharset, AddDefaultCharset, AddDescription, AddEncoding, AddHandler, AddIcon, AddIconByEncoding, AddIconByType, AddInputFilter, AddLanguage, AddModuleInfo, AddOutputFilter, AddOutputFilterByType, AddType, Alias, AliasMatch, AllowCONNECT, AllowEncodedSlashes, AllowOverride, Anonymous, Anonymous_Authoritative, Anonymous_LogEmail, Anonymous_MustGiveEmail, Anonymous_NoUserID, Anonymous_NoUserId, Anonymous_VerifyEmail, AssignUserId, AuthAuthoritative, AuthBasicAuthoritative, AuthBasicProvider, AuthDBDUserPWQuery, AuthDBDUserRealmQuery, AuthDBM, AuthDBMAuthoritative, AuthDBMGroupFile, AuthDBMType, AuthDBMUserFile, AuthDefaultAuthoritative, AuthDigestAlgorithm, AuthDigestDomain, AuthDigestFile, AuthDigestGroupFile, AuthDigestNcCheck, AuthDigestNonceFormat, AuthDigestNonceLifetime, AuthDigestProvider, AuthDigestQop, AuthDigestShmemSize, AuthGroupFile, AuthLDAPAuthzEnabled, AuthLDAPBindDN, AuthLDAPBindON, AuthLDAPBindPassword, AuthLDAPCharsetConfig, AuthLDAPCompareDNOnServer, AuthLDAPDereferenceAliases, AuthLDAPEnabled, AuthLDAPFrontPageHack, AuthLDAPGroupAttribute, AuthLDAPGroupAttributeIsDN, AuthLDAPRemoteUserAttribute, AuthLDAPRemoteUserIsDN, AuthLDAPStartTLS, AuthLDAPURL, AuthLDAPUrl, AuthName, AuthType, AuthUserFile, AuthzDBMAuthoritative, AuthzDBMType, AuthzDefaultAuthoritative, AuthzGroupFileAuthoritative, AuthzLDAPAuthoritative, AuthzOwnerAuthoritative, AuthzUserAuthoritative, BS2000Account, BalancerMember, BrowserMatch, BrowserMatchNoCase, BufferedLogs, CGIMapExtension, CacheDefaultExpire, CacheDirLength, CacheDirLevels, CacheDisable, CacheEnable, CacheExpiryCheck, CacheFile, CacheForceCompletion, CacheGcClean, CacheGcDaily, CacheGcInterval, CacheGcMemUsage, CacheGcUnused, CacheIgnoreCacheControl, CacheIgnoreHeaders, CacheIgnoreNoLastMod, CacheLastModifiedFactor, CacheMaxExpire, CacheMaxFileSize, CacheMaxStreamingBuffer, CacheMinFileSize, CacheNegotiatedDocs, CacheRoot, CacheSize, CacheStoreNoStore, CacheStorePrivate, CacheTimeMargin, CharsetDefault, CharsetOptions, CharsetSourceEnc, CheckCaseOnly, CheckSpelling, ChildPerUserId, ContentDigest, CookieDomain, CookieExpires, CookieLog, CookieName, CookieStyle, CookieTracking, CoreDumpDirectory, CustomLog, DAV, DAVDepthInfinity, DAVGenericLockDB, DAVMinTimeout, DBDExptime, DBDKeep, DBDMax, DBDMin, DBDParams, DBDPersist, DBDPrepareSQL, DBDriver, Dav, DavDepthInfinity, DavGenericLockDB, DavLockDB, DavMinTimeout, DefaultIcon, DefaultLanguage, DefaultType, DeflateBufferSize, DeflateCompressionLevel, DeflateFilterNote, DeflateMemLevel, DeflateWindowSize, Directory, DirectoryIndex, DirectoryMatch, DirectorySlash, DocumentRoot, DumpIOInput, DumpIOOutput, EnableExceptionHook, EnableMMAP, EnableSendfile, ErrorDocument, ErrorLog, Example, ExpiresActive, ExpiresByType, ExpiresDefault, ExtFilterDefine, ExtFilterOptions, ExtendedStatus, FancyIndexing, FileETag, Files, FilesMatch, FilterChain, FilterDeclare, FilterProtocol, FilterProvider, FilterTrace, ForceLanguagePriority, ForceType, ForensicLog, GprofDir, GracefulShutdownTimeout, Group, Header, HeaderName, HostNameLookups, HostnameLookups, ISAIPFakeAsync, ISAPIAppendLogToErrors, ISAPIAppendLogToQuery, ISAPICacheFile, ISAPIFakeAsync, ISAPILogNotSupported, ISAPIReadAheadBuffer, IdentityCheck, IdentityCheckTimeout, IfDefine, IfModule, IfVersion, ImapBase, ImapDefault, ImapMenu, Include, IndexIgnore, IndexOptions, IndexOrderDefault, IndexStyleSheet, KeepAlive, KeepAliveTimeout, LDAPCacheEntries, LDAPCacheTTL, LDAPCertDBPath, LDAPConnectionTimeout, LDAPOpCacheEntries, LDAPOpCacheTTL, LDAPSharedCacheFile, LDAPSharedCacheSize, LDAPTrustedClientCert, LDAPTrustedGlobalCert, LDAPTrustedMode, LDAPVerifyServerCert, LanguagePriority, Limit, LimitExcept, LimitInternalRecursion, LimitRequestBody, LimitRequestFields, LimitRequestFieldsize, LimitRequestLine, LimitXMLRequestBody, Listen, ListenBacklog, LoadFile, LoadModule, Location, LocationMatch, LockFile, LogFormat, LogLevel, MCacheMaxObjectCount, MCacheMaxObjectSize, MCacheMaxStreamingBuffer, MCacheMinObjectSize, MCacheRemovalAlgorithm, MCacheSize, MMapFile, MaxClients, MaxKeepAliveRequests, MaxMemFree, MaxRequestsPerChild, MaxSpareServers, MaxSpareThreads, MaxSpareThreadsPerChild, MaxThreads, MetaDir, MetaFiles, MetaSuffix, MimeMagicFile, MinSpareServers, MinSpareThreads, ModMimeUsePathInfo, MultiviewsMatch, NWSSLTrustedCerts, NWSSLUpgradeable, NameVirtualHost, NoProxy, NumServers, Options, PassEnv, PerlAccessHandler, PerlAuthenHandler, PerlAuthzHandler, PerlChildExitHandler, PerlChildInitHandler, PerlCleanupHandler, PerlDispatchHandler, PerlFixupHandler, PerlFreshRestart, PerlHandler, PerlHeaderParserHandler, PerlInitHandler, PerlLogHandler, PerlModule, PerlPassEnv, PerlPostReadRequestHandler, PerlRequire, PerlRestartHandler, PerlSendHeader, PerlSetEnv, PerlSetVar, PerlSetupEnv, PerlTaintCheck, PerlTransHandler, PerlTypeHandler, PerlWarn, PidFile, Port, Protocol, ProtocolEcho, Proxy, ProxyBadHeader, ProxyBlock, ProxyDomain, ProxyErrorOverride, ProxyFtpDirCharset, ProxyIOBufferSize, ProxyMatch, ProxyMaxForwards, ProxyPass, ProxyPassInterpolateEnv, ProxyPassMatch, ProxyPassReverse, ProxyPassReverseCookieDomain, ProxyPassReverseCookiePath, ProxyPreserveHost, ProxyReceiveBufferSize, ProxyRemote, ProxyRemoteMatch, ProxyRequests, ProxySet, ProxyStatus, ProxyTimeout, ProxyVia, RLimitCPU, RLimitMEM, RLimitNPROC, ReadmeName, Redirect, RedirectMatch, RedirectPermanent, RedirectTemp, RemoveCharset, RemoveEncoding, RemoveHandler, RemoveInputFilter, RemoveLanguage, RemoveOutputFilter, RemoveType, RequestHeader, Require, RewriteBase, RewriteCond, RewriteEngine, RewriteLock, RewriteLog, RewriteLogLevel, RewriteMap, RewriteOptions, RewriteRule, SSIAccessEnable, SSIEndTag, SSIErrorMsg, SSIStartTag, SSITimeFormat, SSIUndefinedEcho, SSLCACertificateFile, SSLCACertificatePath, SSLCADNRequestFile, SSLCADNRequestPath, SSLCARevocationFile, SSLCARevocationPath, SSLCertificateChainFile, SSLCertificateFile, SSLCertificateKeyFile, SSLCipherSuite, SSLCryptoDevice, SSLEngine, SSLHonorCipherOrder, SSLLog, SSLLogLevel, SSLMutex, SSLOptions, SSLPassPhraseDialog, SSLProtocol, SSLProxyCACertificateFile, SSLProxyCACertificatePath, SSLProxyCARevocationFile, SSLProxyCARevocationPath, SSLProxyCipherSuite, SSLProxyEngine, SSLProxyMachineCertificateFile, SSLProxyMachineCertificatePath, SSLProxyProtocol, SSLProxyVerify, SSLProxyVerifyDepth, SSLRandomSeed, SSLRequire, SSLRequireSSL, SSLSessionCache, SSLSessionCacheTimeout, SSLUserName, SSLVerifyClient, SSLVerifyDepth, Satisfy, ScoreBoardFile, Script, ScriptAlias, ScriptAliasMatch, ScriptInterpreterSource, ScriptLog, ScriptLogBuffer, ScriptLogLength, ScriptStock, SecureListen, SendBufferSize, ServerAdmin, ServerAlias, ServerLimit, ServerName, ServerPath, ServerRoot, ServerSignature, ServerTokens, SetEnv, SetEnvIf, SetEnvIfNoCase, SetHandler, SetInputFilter, SetOutputFilter, StartServers, StartThreads, Substitute, SuexecUserGroup, ThreadLimit, ThreadStackSize, ThreadsPerChild, TimeOut, Timeout, TraceEnable, TransferLog, TypeAuthDBMUserFile, TypesConfig, UnsetEnv, UseCanonicalName, UseCanonicalPhysicalPort, User, UserDir, VirtualDocumentRoot, VirtualDocumentRootIP, VirtualHost, VirtualScriptAlias, VirtualScriptAliasIP, Win32DisableAcceptEx, XBitHack, allow, deny, order, php_admin_flag, php_admin_value, php_flag, php_value

You can view the plugins home page, old, or view it on the wordpress.org site.

An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All originally appeared on AskApache.

PHP and AJAX shell console

AskApache — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 01:01:15 +0000

Ever wanted to execute commands on your server through php to mimick a shell login? Now you can. I’m calling this file (see below) shell.php and it allows you to run commands on your web server with the same permissions that your php executable has.

Loading Video

PHP for `shell.php`

Substitue 1.1.1.1 for your IP address.. or see below for password authentication methods.






PHP AJAX Shell


:->

Read this

Note: The history feature works by remembering the last commands that you typed.. Access them by pressing the up or down arrows on your keyboard.

This is not an interactive session, so you cannot cd to a directory and then do stuff in that directory.. You may however be able to do stuff like /bin/bash -c "cd ../../;mv this there;ls -la;" or you could try exporting your current dir or something..

Writing shell scripts and serving them on your web server works by renaming the file.sh to file.cgi and chmodding it to 750 or +x. Also make sure you try dos2unix -dv file.cgi If you can’t get it to work..

Example shell script as cgi

#!/bin/sh
export MYBNAME=`date +%mx%dx%y-%Hx%M.tgz`
tar -czf ${HOME}/backups/${MYBNAME} ${HOME}/site1/
exit 0;

Locking Down Access to your shell.php

Thanks to the comment by Andrew Ramsden, Here are a couple ways to secure your shell.php file so that only you can run this script.

Secure your remote shell by adding this to your shell.php

Add this line to the very top of your shell.php file to make sure that only you can access this script. Everyone else sees a blank screen.

if ($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'] !== '1.1.1.1') die();

Secure your remote shell with htaccess

This only allows access from IP 1.1.1.1 and redirects everyone else. See Using the Allow Directive in Apache htaccess for more info.

Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 1.1.1.1
ErrorDocument 403 http://www.askapache.com

Secure your remote shell with mod_rewrite and htaccess

Based on the code from htaccess article This only allows access from user with IP of 1.1.1.1 and redirects everyone else.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_HOST} !^1\.1\.1\.1
RewriteRule .* http://www.askapache.com [R=302,L]

PHP and AJAX shell console originally appeared on AskApache.

Advanced Htaccess Demo/Example using Cookies, Headers, Rewrites

AskApache — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 03:07:53 +0000

Welcome to the first generation of the new .htaccess tutorials/articles. Basically these are articles detailing my BEST (almost) successful .htaccess experiments, meaning this is the only place on the net you’ll find this technique. It’s home-grown .htaccess, and its some kush, good kush. Instead of just publishing my cryptic results and code in days past, whoah.. a working demo and the NSA building ;)

Using the Mod_Rewrite Variables Cheatsheet makes this example, and all advanced .htaccess code easier to understand. Well, advanced for me at least. I know alot of AskApache visitors are some of the top gurus in many IT fields, but mostly web developers or website owners like me.. This demo is pretty self-explanatory.. Try it out to see how simple of a task this .htaccess trick performs. And make sure you read the whole article as this htaccess technique can be used to do a heck of a lot more than this simple demo.

Set PDF Viewing Mode

Inline

Download

Save As

Please make a selection, defaults to "Save As" mode.

View PDF using selected mode »

Whoa pretty sweet huh? Bet you’ve never seen that before! As I explain the htaccess code that achieves this, keep in mind this is merely one simple application for this code. It’s much more advanced than your basic htaccess trick, notice how this htaccess acts like a php script, very unusual.. I really wanted to share this trick after I created it for one of my clients because this is the tip of the iceberg. Another use would be to display an alternate style sheet depending on a users theme preference. The coolest thing about this example IMHO is that it uses multiple advanced .htaccess ideas in order for it to work, most htaccess code on the net is very singular. This code uses mod_headers to set the Content-Disposition header for forcing a download and uses mod_rewrite to:

Send different Content-Type headers
Check the value of a cookie
Set environment variables for use later by mod_headers header directive

What’s Going On

There are 3 different ways for a server to send a pdf file in response to a request for one. This causes 3 different ways to open/view the pdf file in the clients browser.

The browser display’s a “Save File As” dialog, allowing you to save the file or open.
The browser opens the pdf file “Inline”, opening the pdf file in the browser like a web page.
The browser “Downloads” the pdf file automatically as an “Attachment” and then causes an external pdf reader program like adobe reader to open the file.

Some people prefer to have the option of saving the file to view later, some prefer opening it with an external program, and some just like the pdf file to load right in the browser… The point is that by using .htaccess, we can let them choose any of the 3 methods and save their preference for all further pdf files requested from our site by that user.

How It Works

When you click on one of the 3 demo buttons above, “Inline”, “Save As”, or “Download”, a cookie named askapache_pdf is saved in your browser using the javascript below, with the value being set to which button you clicked. Then when you request the pdf file the .htaccess code below uses mod_rewrite to read the value of the askapache_pdf cookie, and depending on which was your preference it will send alternate HTTP Headers that control how your browser handles the file.

Htaccess Demo File

For the demo I created the folder /storage/pdf/ and this is the .htaccess file at /storage/pdf/.htaccess

#
# The default Content-Type for .pdf files
# This will make .pdf files default Content-Type header have
# the value 'application/pdf' - but the default can be overridden by
# using RewriteRule with the [T='different/type']
#
AddType application/pdf .pdf
 
#
# Turn on the rewrite engine
# if its already on you dont need this
#
RewriteEngine On
 
#
# Skip RewriteRules if not .pdf request, like autoindexing
# The next [2] RewriteRule directives are specific for .pdf files
# so if the filename requested does not end in .pdf
# then the [S=2] instructs the next 2 RewriteRule
# directives to be completely skipped
#
RewriteRule !.*\.pdf$ - [S=2]
 
#
# The first RewriteCond checks to see if the askapache_pdf cookie
# is NOT set.  The second RewriteCond checks to see if the askapche_pdf
# cookie has the value of s, which is the value corresponding to
# someone clicking the "Save As" button.
#
# The [NC,OR] flag means that if the cookie askapache_pdf does not
# exist, OR (next cond) if the askapache_pdf cookie does exist and is set to 's'
# then process the RewriteRule.  If neither cond is true the rewriterule is skipped.
#
# If one of the RewriteCond is true, then the RewriteRule is processed.
# The RewriteRule applies to any/all requests (.*) but doesn't rewrite anything (-)
# This RewriteRule sets an Apache environment variable ASKAPACHE_PDFS to have the
# value of 1 if either rewritecond is true.  The variable can be checked by any directives
# following the rewriterule in the whole htaccess file.  The ASKAPACHE_PDFS ends in S
# because if this variable exists then it means the users preference is 'Save As'
#
# Notice that if the user requested the pdf file without selecting a preference
# i.e. no cookie exists, then the ASKAPACHE_PDFS variable is still set.
# This just lets us pick the default preference for them, in this example the
# default is 'Save As'
#
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*askapache_pdf.*$ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} ^.*askapache_pdf=s.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [E=ASKAPACHE_PDFS:1]
 
#
# The RewriteCond checks the askapache_pdf cookie for the value 'a'
# which 'a' represents 'Download'
#
# If the cookies value is 'a' then the RewriteRule overrides the default
# Content-Type from 'application/pdf' set with AddType earlier, to
# 'application/octet-stream', which is a special content-type that tells the browser
# that the file cannot be loaded by the browser 'Inline', but must be saved
# which will be opened by an external viewer depending on browser
#
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} ^.*askapache_pdf=a.*$
RewriteRule .* - [T=application/octet-stream]
 
#
# This is superfly.  If the cookie/users-preference was 'Save As' (s)
# then the RewriteRule above the last one set the environment
# variable ASKAPACHE_PDFS to have the value 1.  The Header directive here
# is ONLY processed in that variable ASKAPACHE_PDFS exists.  That is what
# the end 'env=ASKAPACHE_PDFS' does, it is the condition that must be met or
# the Header directive is skipped.
#
# If the ASKAPACHE_PDFS environment variable set by RewriteRule does exist
# then the header directive adds the header 'Content-Disposition: attachment' to
# the normal Response Headers.  The 'Content-Disposition: attachment' header
# instructs your browser to present you with the 'Save As' dialog box
# allowing you to choose whether you want to save or open
#
Header set Content-Disposition "attachment" env=ASKAPACHE_PDFS

Unique HTTP Headers Returned

When it comes down to it, the following information is the 3 modes. Notice each one is different, because these headers are the only thing controlling how your browser handles the file.

Save As Mode (askapache_pdf=s)

Content-Disposition: attachment
Content-Type: application/pdf

Inline Mode (askapache_pdf=i)

Content-Type: application/pdf

Download Mode (askapache_pdf=a)

Content-Type: application/octet-stream

Javascript used by Demo

The best place for javascript is quirksmode, here is a definitive article on setting, reading, parsing, etc.. COOKIES.

  if(!gi('pdfr'))return;
  var pdfr=gi('pdfr');
  var cval=getCookie('askapache_pdf');

  if(cval=='i'){pdfr.innerHTML='Currently set to "Inline".';}
  else if(cval=='a'){pdfr.innerHTML='Currently set to "Download" mode.';}
  else if(cval=='s'){pdfr.innerHTML='Currently set to "Save As" mode.';}
 
  addMyEvent(gi('pdfi'),"mousedown",function(){setCookie("askapache_pdf", "i", "", "/", "www.askapache.com"); gi('pdfr').innerHTML = 'Changed mode to "Inline".'; return false; });
  addMyEvent(gi('pdfa'),"mousedown",function(){setCookie("askapache_pdf", "a", "", "/", "www.askapache.com"); gi('pdfr').innerHTML = 'Changed mode to "Download".'; return false; });
  addMyEvent(gi('pdfs'),"mousedown",function(){setCookie("askapache_pdf", "s", "", "/", "www.askapache.com"); gi('pdfr').innerHTML = 'Changed mode to "Save As".'; return false; });

Alternative Method – No Cookies + PHP

This is what I came up with first for my client, and then while programming the php I noticed.. Hey! I think I can do the same thing using .htaccess, which would save me on cpu/memory/potential security/etc.. but this works great too. Though you will need to hack the code to get it working probably..

Note that the .htaccess rewrite code I used here used FILENAME-i.pdf or FILENAME-s.pdf to pass the preference to the pdf-dl.php script, it also worked for FILENAME.pdf?i=i

pdf-dl.php

if (
!isset($_GET['file'])
|| ($f=$_GET['file'])===false
|| ($fp=@fopen($f,"rb"))===false
|| ($fi=pathinfo($f))===false
|| ($fi['fsize']=filesize($f))===false
|| strtolower($fi["extension"])!='pdf'
) die('Failed');

ob_start();
header('Accept-Ranges: bytes');
header("Content-Length: {$fi['fsize']}");
header('Content-Type: application/pdf');
if(!isset($_GET['i'])) header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"{$fi['basename']}\"");

$sent = 0;
while ( !feof($fp) && $sent < $fi['fsize'] && ($buf = fread($fp, 8192)) != '' ){
echo $buf;
$sent += strlen($buf);
flush();
ob_flush();
}
fclose($fp);
exit;
?>

Alternate Method .htaccess

#
# Deny direct request to pdf-dl.php file
#
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^.*pdf-dl\.php.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]
 
#
# Handle PDF files named anything-i.pdf as inline
#
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ([^/]*)-i\.pdf$  /cgi-bin/pdf-dl.php?i=i&file=%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/storage/pdf/$1.pdf [L,NC,QSA,S=1]
 
#
# Handle PDF files without -i.pdf as attachments
#
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ([^/]*)\.pdf$  /cgi-bin/pdf-dl.php?file=%{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/storage/pdf/$1.pdf [L,NC,QSA]

More Info

The following is more information about the Content-Dispositon header and related headers, and will make you an expert at this if you read it all.. (no thanks)

Interesting Reading

Here is the thread of the original draft proposal for the Content-Disposition header.

Content-Disposition Header, Rens Troost - 22 Jun 1993
- Re: Content-Disposition Header, Nathaniel Borenstein
  - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Gabe Beged-Dov
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Rens Troost
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Gabe Beged-Dov
    - Content-Disposition Header and multipart/alternative, Rens Troost
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header and multipart/alternative, Nathaniel Borenstein
  - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Keith Moore
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Nathaniel Borenstein
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Ed Levinson (Contractor)
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Keith Moore
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Rens Troost
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Harald Tveit Alvestrand
  - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Steve Dorner
    - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Rens Troost
      - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Keith Moore
  - Re: Content-Disposition Header, Carlyn M. Lowery

Intense Reading

Advanced Htaccess Demo/Example using Cookies, Headers, Rewrites originally appeared on AskApache.

Htaccess SEO Trends by Google

AskApache — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:10:03 +0000

How Relevant Is .htaccess?

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of htaccess in all years.

.htaccess vs. htaccess

htaccess vs. httpd.conf

mod_rewrite vs. mod_security

Web Server Comparisons

Of course IIS is well-known to someone like me… but who cares about the big servers when small, light, super-fast servers are on the rise? See this Comparison of Web Servers.

Apache HTTP vs. Windows IIS

Fnord, Nginx, LightHttpd

Fnord what is going on?

Web Programming Comparisons

An interesting look at the search engine trends of programming languages out there today…

Did Ruby Pass Perl!

Keep in mind that Google may be interpreting “ruby” to be a precious stone… and what is a “perl” exactly? ;)

Perl vs. PHP, Old Debate

SEO

Wow. Big surpise there ;)

Treo vs. Blackberry vs. Palm

I love my Blackberry Curve! I used to love my Sony Clie, and I won’t forget my many Palms!

AskApache WebSite

Google Trends also lets you compare websites, I can’t believe its been over a year for askapache.com, thanks for stopping by!

Google Trends – Rocks!

Fun, free, and helpful tool from who else?

Htaccess SEO Trends by Google originally appeared on AskApache.

Advanced Htaccess – SSI, ErrorDocuments, DirectoryIndexing SEO

AskApache — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:02:02 +0000

SSI, Server Side Includes, can be very useful to webmasters and visitors alike. They are easily set up in an .htaccess file and require little to no maintaining.. the term “Set it and Forget it” applies here. Before we look at how to implement SSI, and dig into the Apache module that makes them possible, lets look at few uses for SSI so you can quickly determine if you would like to read further.

Improved Directory Listings and SEO

One way that I use SSI is for improved Directory Listing. Anyone here like SEO? Check out my WordPress uploads directory to get an idea. Basically I can customize the header and footer of each directory.. Pretty sweet, thanks Apache!

In your /uploads/.htaccess

# turn on auto-indexing and turn off SSI's ability to exec
Options None
Options SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Indexes IncludesNOEXEC
 
# we need to make sure files are displayed when requested, not executed or parsed
AddType text/plain .ini .sh .bsh .bash .csh .var .asc .md5 .sha .sha1 .cgi .pl .php .inc .asp .exe .bin
DefaultType text/plain
 
# turn on auto-indexing, with askapache-optimized options
IndexOptions FancyIndexing SuppressColumnSorting SuppressHTMLPreamble IconHeight=22 IconWidth=20
IndexOptions IgnoreClient NameWidth=40 DescriptionWidth=* XHTML FoldersFirst
 
# don't show these files and folders
IndexIgnore .htaccess .ht* *_notes *.log feed inc HEADER.html FOOTER.html feed*.gif
 
# the SSI files used for the header and footer
HeaderName /ssi/HEADER.html
ReadmeName /ssi/FOOTER.html
 
# used to determine the time and for SSI output
SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@askapache.com

In your /ssi/.htaccess

# makes files ending in .html be filtered through the INCLUDES filter before being sent to client
AddOutputFilter Includes html

My HEADER.html





  <!--#echo encoding="none" var="REQUEST_URI" --> <!--#echo encoding="none" var="PAGETITLE" -->
  
  
  " />

My FOOTER.html

Find the information you are looking for on the AskApache Home page or the "> AskApache search page.

Enhanced Error Pages

If you are using WordPress, I’m sure you are using my AskApache Google 404 Plugin, but whatever your error pages may be, using SSI you can make them better. My 404 Error Page is handled by WordPress and PHP, but all of my other error pages (codes 4xx to 5xx) are handled using SSI. You can check out any of them: /show-error-400, /show-error-403, /show-error-503, etc..

Notice the email note which has the subject prefilled? Thats one of the main uses for SSI, you can add forms to your errordocuments and get notified of problems which mean you can fix them.

Add this to your /.htaccess for each ErrorDocument you make.

ErrorDocument 503 /errordocs/503.html

My /errordocs/.htaccess

# turn on symlinks for rewrites and turn off SSI's ability to exec
Options None
Options SymLinksIfOwnerMatch IncludesNOEXEC
 
# makes files ending in .html be filtered through the INCLUDES filter before being sent to client
AddOutputFilter Includes html
 
# this internal apache variable prevents your errordocs from allowing keep-alive connections
SetEnv nokeepalive
 
# used to determine the time and for SSI output
SetEnv TZ America/Indianapolis
SetEnv SERVER_ADMIN webmaster@askapache.com

My /errordocs/503.html



The server is temporarily unable to service your
request due to maintenance downtime
or super-crazy-extreme capacity problems. Please try
again later... Or ">send me an email and let me know about it..

My /errordocs/TOP.html




  <!--#echo encoding="none" var="REQUEST_URI" --> <!--#echo encoding="none" var="TITLE" -->
  
  
  " />

My /errordocs/BOTTOM.html

If this should not be an error please ">email me right away.

You came from

If you still have a question, please try to find the information you are looking for on the AskApache Home page or the AskApache search page.

Webmaster $Id: Error-,v 1.30

Dealing with Spam and Website Attacks

Say you are using some nice .htaccess rewrite rules to block offending bots, web scrapers, and other nefarious net characters. Instead of just sending a 403 Denied, you could send them to be handled by an SSI document that could do any number of things.. From adding the offending bot’s IP address to the .htaccess Deny List (blacklisting), emailing you with an alert, emailing the IP Block Owner, executing a denial-of-service response ala guardian (script will return an artificially high Content-Length, and will then spoon-feed content bytes back to the client at a rate of one byte per second, for single-threaded or fixed-threadpool clients, this will hang all of their requests and render the attack inoperable), or just output a frightening looking message which usually does the trick if the bot is humanoid.

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\?\=?(http|ftp|ssl|https):/.*\ HTTP/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\?\?.*\ HTTP/ [NC,OR]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /.*\.(asp|ini|dll).*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F]
 
ErrorDocument 403 /errordocs/f-off.html

Example /errordocs/f-off.html View it Live (Not Responsible for mental or physical harm caused by fright)

WARNING <!--#echo encoding="none" var="REMOTE_ADDR" -->
- SECURITY TEAM ALERTED
ATTENTION 
You have been flagged by our system as a potential threat.
This request has been logged and the Security Team has been notified.

Repeated attempts from IP address  will result 

in the IP automatically being blacklisted on this server

and sent to blacklists around the world.  Additionally, the Security Team

WILL alert the IP Address Block Owner and/or contact the authorities.


 
LOGGED INFORMATION FROM THIS REQUEST
< pre>
REMOTE_ADDR   :  
REMOTE_PORT   :  
REQUEST_METHOD:  
REFERER       :  
REQUEST_URI   :  
USER_AGENT    :
< pre style="white-space:normal;margin-left:150px;max-width:80%;">  

< pre>
COOKIES       :
< pre style="white-space:normal;margin-left:150px;max-width:80%;">  

< pre>
QUERY_STRING  :

Server Side Includes Detailed Info

Ok now that we have the real-world usage out of the way, lets dig in a bit to the actual module mod_include, which if you want you can view the source code here.

Enabling Server-Side Includes

Server Side Includes are implemented by the INCLUDES filter. For backwards compatibility, the server-parsed handler also activates the INCLUDES filter. As well, Apache will activate the INCLUDES filter for any document with mime type text/x-server-parsed-html or text/x-server-parsed-html3 (and the resulting output will have the mime type text/html). If documents containing server-side include directives are given the extension .shtml, the following directives will make Apache parse them and assign the resulting document the mime type of text/html:

AddType text/html .shtml
AddOutputFilter INCLUDES .shtml

The following directive must be given for the directories containing the shtml files (typically in a section, but this directive is also valid in .htaccess files if AllowOverride Options is set):

Options +Includes

Server-Side Include Directives

These are the Directives allowed in .htaccess files that are handled by mod_include. Note that other modules may add additional directives, for instance the exec SSI Directive is supplied by mod_cgi. This is how mod_cgi registers with mod_include to provide processing of the exec directive. This is the code required to handle the “exec” SSI directive.

cgi_pfn_reg_with_ssi = APR_RETRIEVE_OPTIONAL_FN(ap_register_include_handler);
cgi_pfn_reg_with_ssi("exec", handle_exec);
static const char * const aszPre[] = { "mod_include.c", NULL };

config

Controls various aspects of the parsing.

echomsg: (since 2.1) The value is a message that is sent back to the client if the echo element attempts to echo an undefined variable. This overrides any SSIUndefinedEcho directives.
errmsg: The value is a message that is sent back to the client if an error occurs while parsing the document. This overrides any SSIErrorMsg directives.
sizefmt: The value sets the format to be used which displaying the size of a file. Valid values are bytes for a count in bytes, or abbrev for a count in Kb or Mb as appropriate, for example a size of 1024 bytes will be printed as “1K”.
timefmt: The value is a string to be used by the strftime(3) library routine when printing dates.

echo

Prints one of the include variables. If the variable is unset, the result is determined by the SSIUndefinedEcho directive.

var: The value is the name of the variable to print.
encoding: Specifies how Apache should encode special characters contained in the variable before outputting them. If set to none, no encoding will be done. If set to url, then URL encoding (also known as %-encoding; this is appropriate for use within URLs in links, etc.) will be performed. The default is set to entity, resulting in entity encoding.

exec

Execute external programs

include

Include a file

printenv

Print all available variables

set

Set a value of a variable.

flastmod

Prints the last modification date of the specified file, subject to the timefmt format specification.

fsize

Prints the size of the specified file, subject to the sizefmt format specification.

if

The if element works like an if statement in a programming language. The test condition is evaluated and if the result is true, then the text until the next elif, else or endif element is included in the output stream.

elif

Used to put text into the output stream if the original test_condition was false.

else

Used to put text into the output stream if the original test_condition was false.

endif

Ends the if element and is required.

.htaccess directives

XBitHack
SSIErrorMsg
SSITimeFormat
SSIStartTag
SSIEndTag
SSIUndefinedEcho
SSIAccessEnable

mod_include Default SSI Values

START_SEQUENCE: – The starting tag for mod_include to recognize and parse as SSI.
END_SEQUENCE: --> - The ending tag for mod_include to recognize and parse as SSI.
ERROR_MSG: [an error occurred while processing this directive] - On Errors parsing SSI.
TIME_FORMAT: %A, %d-%b-%Y %H:%M:%S %Z - Default Time format for DATE
UNDEFINED_ECHO: (none) - When echoing an undefined variable.

SSI Variables

DATE_GMT=Sun Mar  8 22:58:56 2009
DATE_LOCAL=Sun Mar  8 15:58:56 2009
DOCUMENT_NAME=FOOTER.html
DOCUMENT_ROOT=/root-srv/protected/askapache.com/sec
DOCUMENT_URI=/includes/FOOTER.html
GATEWAY_INTERFACE=CGI/1.1
HTTP_ACCEPT=text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET=ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING=gzip,deflate
HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE=en-us,en;q=0.5
HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL=max-age=0
HTTP_CONNECTION=keep-alive
HTTP_COOKIE=__qca=12298910-686528-46510;  __utmb=50625.1.0.11311
HTTP_HOST=www.askapache.com
HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE=300
HTTP_REFERER=http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/htaccess.html
HTTP_USER_AGENT=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
LAST_MODIFIED=Sun Mar  8 14:53:50 2009
PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin
QUERY_STRING=
REMOTE_ADDR=24.123.215.60
REMOTE_PORT=4785
REQUEST_METHOD=GET
REQUEST_URI=/htaccess/
SCRIPT_FILENAME=/root-srv/protected/askapache.com/sec/includes/FOOTER.html
SCRIPT_NAME=/includes/FOOTER.html
SCRIPT_URI=http://www.askapache.com/htaccess/
SCRIPT_URL=/htaccess/
SERVER_ADDR=64.111.114.111
SERVER_ADMIN=webmaster@askapache.com
SERVER_NAME=www.askapache.com
SERVER_PORT=80
SERVER_PROTOCOL=INCLUDED
SERVER_SIGNATURE=
SERVER_SOFTWARE=Apache/2.0.61 (Unix) PHP/4.4.7 mod_ssl/2.0.63 OpenSSL/0.9.7e mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 DAV/2 SVN/1.4.2
UNIQUE_ID=dnbtH0Bvcm8A2ZHqcAAAAM
USER_NAME=

More SSI Information

Advanced Htaccess – SSI, ErrorDocuments, DirectoryIndexing SEO originally appeared on AskApache.

Password Protection Plugin Status

AskApache — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:39:57 +0000

I wanted to address why the update to the AskApache Password Protection plugin didn’t happen pre-2009 as I had hoped.. Mostly due to my job but I thought I could at least fill you in. Oh and this is going to get very boring very fast, unless you’re ready to rumble in the zone.

File Permissions!

The main issue with the password protection plugin working for some people and not others is due to file permission configurations. WordPress is simply a group of .php files saved on your server. The actual program that is in fact running WordPress is the PHP interpreter, which is in turn controlled by the Apache Server. Almost all computers are running at least 2 servers, the Web Server which serves and displays your files, and a FTP server.

Here’s a detailed look at the Apache Security Model, from ApacheSecurity.net, a blog maintained by Ivan Ristic, the author of ModSecurity.

The problem is happening because when you login to your FTP server with your username and password, the files that you upload are then owned by that username and password, which is almost always an actual user account on the server system. But the Apache Server is an executable file itself, and it is not owned by your FTP username, for security reasons. Apache controls the PHP Interpreter, which parses and executes the WordPress and plugin files as a separate user. ( SuEXEC, Apache Security Tips )

So what happens is the askapache-password-protect.php file saved on your server and is owned by the user that created it (if you downloaded it to your computer then used ftp to transfer, your ftp user owns it.. if you used a php downloader script, then the php process owner owns it) So when you click on the Run Tests button from the WordPress administration website what you are doing is sending a request via HTTP to your Apache Server process, which sees the requested file is .php so it then runs the php interpreter to execute the askapache-password-protect.php file, then that file uses programming to attempt and write/modify a file in your blog’s root directory.

Process Owner vs. File Owner

So who owns your blog’s root directory? Your ftp user account/ you do.. but who owns the process that is trying to write/modify a file that is owned by your ftp user? The PHP Process that is actually executing the file access/write requests. This is the core way that 99% of all web sites get cracked into.. All these malicious robots and exploit bots do is attempt to write a file onto your server so that it can then be used to take over your site. If they can save a file on your blog’s directory (uploads, insecure plugin code, not filtering user input, etc..) it inherits the permissions of the process that actually wrote the data bits onto the hard-drive.

So some server-admins/web hosts configure the php interpreter to not have write access anywhere except for a couple neccessary locations like /tmp. They have auto-installation’s available through their online web panels, meaning instead of executing .php scripts in your user directory as the php process they force you to use, they can bypass all that because the installation scripts they use are all on their systems, not on your “locked-down” cluster.

This is the fundamental security battle that network server security is all based on.. Apache is owned by a powerful user because it owns the server process, so apache is often run as the user dhapache or nobody.. If a cracker is able to find a way to get a file saved on your server with the dhapache user as the owner then they’ve basically just gotten control of the whole thing. When you upload a file to your server using the add attachment form in wordpress, the file first goes through the dhapache user which passes the file to the php process owner which has much less permissions. Apache has been in open-source development for many many years now, its the safest most secure server in the world, windows servers are hackable, apache servers are hacked usually only when the sysadmin configures it wrong or accidentally.

Believe it or not, as confusing as my feeble explanation was, this is only like .1% of whats going on.. I’ve basically spent the last several months developing the new version specifically to be able to work no matter what configuration you have. What I ended up doing was finding ways to bypass this security on a couple hosting providers that are setup in this way, but even though I got it to work in most instances it basically was hacking their systems, and if I published that code to automatically bypass web-hosts security setups I think I’d be in big trouble and they would just close those specific holes and the plugin would not work again. So I decided instead of exploiting host-specifics hacks to get the plugin to work that I would focus on the method that WordPress sorta uses. The code they have now (2.8 bleeding-edge) still isn’t where it needs to be, but this is some difficult stuff and they have a brilliant start, it’ll work.. just a question of when.

`wp-admin/includes/file.php`

Ok so this function get_filesystem_method is a brilliant bit of code that would’ve been beyond my current PHP skills to come up with. It determines which if any of the following methods can be used to modify files on your server from within WordPress, which is exactly what the new version of the passpro plugin needs to use. The first test simply creates a file from within php using wp_tempnam, a function that attempts to locate and write to a temporary location on your server that has the best chance of having write access. If it is successfully created (this code assumes that it will be, something they need to fix) then the fileowner (uses stat internally) of the temp file just created is compared to the owner of the php script… Normally this works and then the plugin woks too, but on some hosts the script is running as a separate user than that of the file which means you can’t directly access the local file system. That is what is occurring for most of you who experience permission problems while testing the plugin. There are thousands of caveats for each little part depending on your php version, php setup, server setup, server version, which Server API you are using, the type of SAPI being used, and on and on..

function get_filesystem_method($args = array()) {
  $method = false;
  if( function_exists('getmyuid') && function_exists('fileowner') ){
    $temp_file = wp_tempnam();
    if ( getmyuid() == fileowner($temp_file) ) $method = 'direct';
    unlink($temp_file);
  }
  if ( ! $method && isset($args['connection_type']) && 'ssh' == $args['connection_type'] && extension_loaded('ssh2') )
          $method = 'ssh2';
  if ( ! $method && extension_loaded('ftp') )
          $method = 'ftpext';
  if ( ! $method && ( extension_loaded('sockets') || function_exists('fsockopen') ) )
          $method = 'ftpsockets'; //Sockets: Socket extension; PHP Mode: FSockopen / fwrite / fread
  return apply_filters('filesystem_method', $method);
}

Enumerating Permissions can be Annoying

This was part of some tests I did to see what kind of access I had with the very helpful posix functions which are very accurate as well since they were designed for a system with file permissions, ie. not Win. Don’t ask me how because I won’t tell you, but on one of the hosts I was testing on that did not allow direct access I was able to get the Apache server running as dhapache to erroneously write a file into my users blog directory. This is a big security no-no and I now have my .htaccess file written into the blog directory where it should go, but instead of my php script’s user having write access to the file so I can modify it, its owned by dhapache! Because the file is owned by dhapache I shouldn’t even be allowed to know it exists, but there it is. So the next step was to try and take ownership of the .htaccess file so that I could modify it. I tried and tried but was unsuccessful, I couldn’t modify it so that was another dead end. Actually it took me awhile to figure out how to remove the file from my directory. Being that it was owned by dhapache I couldn’t delete or modify it using my php process or even through ftp/ssh! Sysadmins regularly run find commands that search the servers for any files owned by dhapache that should not be there as this is a big red flag that someone has found a way to manipulate dhapache which could potentially lead to modifying dhapche-owned server config files.. Luckily I was able to delete it by basically running the hack again to overwrite the file.

  if ((posix_setgid(getmygid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETGID of {$file}  to " . getmygid(), 3);
  elseif ((posix_setgid(filegroup(__file__))) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETUID of {$file} to " . filegroup(__file__), 3);
  if ((posix_setegid(getmygid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETEGID of {$file} to " . getmygid(), 3);
  elseif ((posix_setegid(filegroup(__file__))) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETEGID of {$file} to " . filegroup(__file__), 3);
  if ((posix_setuid(getmyuid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETUID of {$file}  to " . getmyuid(), 3);
  elseif ((posix_setuid(get_current_user())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETUID of {$file} to " . get_current_user(), 3);
  if ((posix_seteuid(getmyuid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETEUID of {$file} to " . getmyuid(), 3);
  elseif ((posix_seteuid(get_current_user())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing SETEUID of {$file} to " . get_current_user(), 3);
  if ((chmod($file, FS_CHMOD_DIR) || chmod($file, 0776) || chmod($file, 0766) || chmod($file,
    FS_CHMOD_FILE)) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1, "Success Changing Mode of {$file}", 3);
  if ((chown($file, getmyuid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Ownership of {$file} to " . getmyuid(), 3);
  elseif ((chown($file, get_current_user())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Ownership of {$file} to " . get_current_user(), 3);
  if ((chgrp($file, getmygid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Group of {$file} to " . getmygid(), 3);
  elseif ((chgrp($file, filegroup(__file__))) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Group of {$file} to " . filegroup(__file__), 3);
  if ((chmod($file, FS_CHMOD_DIR) || chmod($file, 0776) || chmod($file, 0766) || chmod($file,
    FS_CHMOD_FILE)) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1, "Success Changing Mode of {$file}", 3);
  if ((chown($file, getmyuid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Ownership of {$file} to " . getmyuid(), 3);
  elseif ((chown($file, get_current_user())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Ownership of {$file} to " . get_current_user(), 3);
  if ((chgrp($file, getmygid())) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Group of {$file} to " . getmygid(), 3);
  elseif ((chgrp($file, filegroup(__file__))) !== false) $this->to_log('', 1,
      "Success Changing Group of {$file} to " . filegroup(__file__), 3);
  return (!$this->_fclose($fh)) ? $this->to_log(__function__ . ':' . __line__ .
    " Error closing {$mode} handle for {$file}", 0) : $total;

If php process isn’t allowed to write to your web directory but you have an ftp account that is, then we request your ftp username/password in wordpress and if the php process running the askapache-password-protect.php plugin script is allowed access to raw networking sockets using fsockopen then we can basically access and write to your blog’s .htaccess file by using php to mimick an ftp client session. There are also other protocols and options available using php if ftp/fsockopen isn’t allowed, but you run out of alternatives quick. Using the curl extension is one option.

So I wrote my own ftp library for a fsockopen class I had already developed for specific test requirements in unreleased versions, so the release of the new askapache password protect plugin will work for 75% or so of the people who have trouble now.. not to mention the insane logging and debugging I’ve added while looking for the reasons some web-hosts still don’t work. Some use custom php security modules, wrappers, and custom virtual servers that are akin to a vmware server. So for maybe 10% of those running apache who have had problems they would still have them. I’m still playing with some ssh capability from within the plugin similar to the ftp technique.. I really hope WordPress just adds this functionality by updating their current filesystem classes..

Fsockopen Payload Class

Here’s what I had several versions ago.. Just sticking it up here in case anyone is curious, one cool thing this version starts to incorporate is being able to send direct data payloads across the socket so it can be used like the metasploit framework to send payloads of exploits, but of course we’re using it to mimick other protocols like ftp, which can be setup by feeding hex into the socket direct from a real ftp client, and piping the output. Keep in mind that this is my first time using php classes, so the learning curve has been incredible…

 '1.0', 'method' => 'GET', 'referer' =>
   'http://www.askapache.com/', 'port' => '80', 'ua' =>
   'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AskApache_Net/1.6; http://www.askapache.com/)', 'scheme' =>
   'http', 'transport' => '', 'host' => '', 'user' => '', 'pass' => '', 'path' => '/',
   'query' => '', 'fragment' => '');
  var $authtype = 'Basic';
  var $timeout = 15;
  var $_dh = '';
  var $_digest = array('realm' => '', 'nonce' => '', 'uri' => '', 'algorithm' => 'MD5',
   'qop' => 'auth', 'opaque' => '', 'domain' => '', 'nc' => '00000001', 'cnonce' =>
   '82d057852a9dc497', 'A1' => '', 'A2' => '', 'response' => '');
  var $_ACLF = "\r\n";
  var $_request_body = '';
  var $_request_headers = array();
  var $_response_headers = array();
  var $my_headers;
  var $_response_header = '';
  var $_response_protocol = '';
  var $_response_version = '';
  var $_response_code = '';
  var $_response_message = '';
  var $_response_body = '';
  var $_errs = array(3 => 'Socket creation failed', 4 => 'DNS lookup failure', 5 =>
   'Connection refused or timed out', 111 => 'Connection refused', 113 =>
   'No route to host', 110 => 'Connection timed out', 104 => 'Connection reset by client');

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::AskApache_Net()
   */
  function AskApache_Net()
  {
   return $this->__construct();
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::__destruct()
   */
  function __destruct()
  {
   $this->_timer('class');
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::__construct()
   */
  function __construct()
  {
   $this->_timer('class');
   $this->_ACLF = chr(13) . chr(10);
   @set_time_limit(60);
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::hsockit()
   */
  function hsockit($URI)
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   $this->_socket['method'] = 'HEAD';
   return $this->sockit($URI);
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::sockit()
   */
  function sockit($URI = '')
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   if (!$this->_build_sock($URI)) return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__,
     "Failed!", 0);
   if (!$this->_connect()) return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, "Failed!", 0);
   $this->_build_request();
   if (!$this->_build_request()) return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__,
     "Failed!", 0);
   if (!$this->_tx()) return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, "tx Failed!", 0);
   if (!$this->_rx()) return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, "rx Failed!", 0);
   if (!$this->_disconnect()) return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__,
     "disconnect Failed!", 0);
   if ((bool)$this->net_debug === true) {
    foreach (array('out_payload', '_request_body', '_response_header', '_response_body') as
     $nam) {
     if (is_array($this->$nam)) {
      if (sizeof($this->$nam) > 1) {
       echo "\n\n{$nam}\n";
       print_r($this->$nam);
      }
     } else {
 
      if (!empty($this->$nam)) {
       echo "\n\n{$nam}\n";
       echo $this->$nam;
      }
     }
    }
    $this->tcp_trace(1);
   }
   return (int)$this->_response_code;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_build_sock()
   */
  function _build_sock($url)
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   $socket_info = &$this->_socket;
   if (!$u_bits = parse_url($url)) return false;
   if (empty($u_bits['method'])) $u_bits['method'] = 'GET';
   if (empty($u_bits['protocol'])) $u_bits['protocol'] = '1.0';
   if (empty($u_bits['host'])) $u_bits['host'] = $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'];
   if (empty($u_bits['scheme'])) $u_bits['scheme'] = 'http';
   if (empty($u_bits['port'])) $u_bits['port'] = $_SERVER['SERVER_PORT'];
   $u_bits['path'] = (empty($u_bits['path']) ? '/' : $u_bits['path']) . (!empty($u_bits['query']) ?
    '?' . $u_bits['query'] : '');
   if (empty($u_bits['ua'])) $u_bits['ua'] =
     'Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AskApache_Net/1.0; http://www.askapache.com)';
   if (empty($u_bits['referer'])) $u_bits['referer'] = 'http://www.askapache.com';
   if (empty($u_bits['fragment'])) unset($u_bits['fragment']);
   if (empty($u_bits['user'])) unset($u_bits['user']);
   if (empty($u_bits['pass'])) unset($u_bits['pass']);
   if ($u_bits['scheme'] == 'https' || $this->_socket['scheme'] == 'https') $u_bits['transport'] =
     'ssl://';
   if ($u_bits['scheme'] == 'https' || $this->_socket['scheme'] == 'https') $u_bits['port'] =
     '443';
   $socket_info = $this->_parse_args($u_bits, $socket_info);
   extract($socket_info, EXTR_SKIP);
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_build_auth_header()
   */
  function _build_auth_header()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   if ($this->authtype == 'Basic') $this->_request_headers[] = 'Authorization: Basic ' .
     base64_encode($this->_socket['user'] . ":" . $this->_socket['pass']);
   elseif ($this->authtype == 'Digest') {
    $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
    $this->_socket['protocol'] = '1.1';
    $hdr = $mtx = array();
    preg_match_all('/(\w+)=(?:"([^"]+)"|([^\s,]+))/', $this->_dh, $mtx, PREG_SET_ORDER);
    foreach ($mtx as $m) $hdr[$m[1]] = $m[2] ? $m[2] : $m[3];
    foreach ($hdr as $key => $val)
     if (array_key_exists($key, $this->_digest) && !empty($val)) $this->_digest[$key] = $val;
    $this->_digest['uri'] = $this->_socket['path'];
    $this->_digest['A1'] = md5($this->_socket['user'] . ':' . $this->_digest['realm'] .
     ':' . $this->_socket['pass']);
    $this->_digest['A2'] = md5($this->_socket['method'] . ':' . $this->_socket['path']);
    $this->_digest['response'] = md5($this->_digest['A1'] . ':' . $this->_digest['nonce'] .
     ':' . $this->_digest['nc'] . ':' . $this->_digest['cnonce'] . ':' . $this->_digest['qop'] .
     ':' . $this->_digest['A2']);
    $this->_request_headers[] = sprintf('Authorization: Digest username="%1$s", realm="%2$s", nonce="%3$s",'.
     'uri="%4$s", algorithm=%5$s, response="%6$s", qop="%7$s", nc="%8$s"%9$s%10$s',
     $this->_socket['user'], $this->_digest['realm'], $this->_digest['nonce'], $this->
     _digest['uri'], $this->_digest['algorithm'], $this->_digest['response'], $this->
     _digest['qop'], $this->_digest['nc'], !empty($this->_digest['cnonce']) ? ', cnonce="' .
     $this->_digest['cnonce'] . '"' : '', !empty($this->_digest['opaque']) ? ', opaque="' .
     $this->_digest['opaque'] . '"' : '');
   }
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_build_request()
   */
  function _build_request()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   $this->_request_headers[] = $this->_socket['method'] . " " . $this->_socket['path'] .
    " HTTP/" . $this->_socket['protocol'];
   if (is_array($this->my_headers) && sizeof($this->my_headers) > 0) $this->
     _request_headers = array_merge($this->_request_headers, $this->my_headers);
   else {
    $this->_request_headers[] = "Host: " . $this->_socket['host'];
    $this->_request_headers[] = "User-Agent: " . $this->_socket['ua'];
    $this->_request_headers[] = 'Accept: application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.5';
    $this->_request_headers[] = 'Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5';
    $this->_request_headers[] = 'Accept-Encoding: none';
    $this->_request_headers[] = 'Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7';
    $this->_request_headers[] = 'Referer: ' . $this->_socket['referer'];
   }
   if (!empty($this->_socket['user']) && !empty($this->_socket['pass'])) $this->
     _build_auth_header();
   if ($this->out_payload !== false) $this->_request_body = $this->out_payload;
   else  $this->_request_body = join($this->_ACLF, $this->_request_headers) . $this->
     _ACLF . $this->_ACLF;
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_tx()
   */
  function _tx()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   return (bool)(is_resource($this->_fp) && $this->_netwrite($this->_fp, $this->
    _request_body));
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_rx()
   */
  function _rx()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   if (!is_resource($this->_fp)) return false;
   $this->_response = $this->_netread($this->_fp, 500000);
   $parts = explode($this->_ACLF . $this->_ACLF, ltrim($this->_response), 2);
   $this->_response_header = trim($parts[0]);
   $this->_response_body = trim($parts[1]);
   if (preg_match('#([^/]*)/([\d\.]+) ([\d]*?) (.*)#', $this->_response_header, $htx)) {
    $this->_response_protocol = trim($htx[1]);
    $this->_response_version = trim($htx[2]);
    $this->_response_code = trim($htx[3]);
    $this->_response_message = trim($htx[4]);
   }
   if (preg_match_all('#([^:]+)\:?(.*)#', str_replace($htx, '', $this->_response_header),
    $mtx, PREG_SET_ORDER)) {
    foreach ($mtx as $m) {
     $this->_headers[strtolower(trim($m[1]))] = trim($m[2]);
     if (preg_match('/(WWW|Proxy)-Authenticate:.*Digest/i', trim($m[1]))) $this->_dh =
       trim($m[1]);
    }
   }
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::tcp_trace()
   */
  function tcp_trace($p = false)
  {
   $this->_timer(__function__ );
   $ret = join("\n", array_merge((array )$this->_request_headers, array(''), (array )$this->
    _response_headers));
   if ($p !== false) {
    echo $ret;
    $ret = true;
   }
   $this->_timer(__function__ );
   return $ret;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_get_ip()
   */
  function _get_ip($host)
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
 
   if (!preg_match('/^[\t ]*[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+[\t ]*$/', $host)) $hostip =
     gethostbyname($host);
   $ip = ($hostip == $host) ? $host : long2ip(ip2long($hostip));
   return $ip;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_connect()
   */
  function _connect()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   if (false === ($this->_fp = fsockopen($this->_get_ip($this->_socket['host']), $this->
    _socket['port'], $errno, $errstr, $this->timeout)) || !is_resource($this->_fp)) {
    $err = (array_key_exists($errno, $this->_errs)) ? $this->_errs[$errno] :
     'Connection failed';
    return $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__ . " Fsockopen failed! [{$errno}] {$err} ({$errstr})",
     0);
   }
   if (function_exists("socket_set_timeout")) socket_set_timeout($this->_fp, $this->
     timeout);
   elseif (function_exists("stream_set_timeout")) stream_set_timeout($this->_fp, $this->
     timeout);
   usleep(10000);
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_disconnect()
   */
  function _disconnect()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   if (is_resource($this->_fp)) return $this->_fclose($this->_fp);
   else  $this->_fp = null;
   return true;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::get_response_headers()
   */
  function get_response_headers($header = false)
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   if ($header !== false && array_key_exists($header, $this->_response_headers)) return $this->
     _response_headers[$header];
   return $this->_response_headers;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::get_response_body()
   */
  function get_response_body()
  {
   $this->msg(__function__ . ':' . __line__, 3);
   return $this->_response_body;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_netread()
   */
  function _netread(&$fh, $ts = 50000000, $bs = 124)
  {
   $this->_timer(__function__ );
   for ($d = $b = '', $rt = $at = $r = 0; ($fh !== false && !feof($fh) && $b !== false &&
    $at < 50000000 && $rt < $ts); $r = $ts - $rt, $bs = (($bs > $r) ? $r : $bs), $this->
    _timer("R: {$rt}"), $b = fread($fh, $bs), $br = strlen($b), $d .= $b, $this->_timer("R: {$rt}"),
    $rt += $br, $at++, $this->msg("[RT: {$rt}]\t[BR: {$br}" . (($ts != 50000000) ? "]\t\t [{$r} / {$ts}]" :
    " : {$bs}]\t[{$at}]"))) ;
   $this->_timer(__function__ );
   return ((strlen($d) != 0)) ? $d : false;
  }

  /**
   * AskApache_Net::_netwrite()
   */
  function _netwrite(&$fh, $d = '', $bs = 512)
  {
   $this->_timer(__function__ );
 
   for ($bw = $wt = $at = 0, $dat = '', $ts = strlen($d); ($fh !== false && $bw !== false &&
    $at < 50000000 && $wt < $ts); $r = $ts - $wt, $bs = (($bs > $r) ? $r : $bs), $dat =
    substr($d, $wt, $bs), $bw = fwrite($fh, $dat), $wt += $bw, $this->msg("[WT: {$wt}]\t[BW: {$bw}]\t\t[I: {$r} / {$ts}:{$bs}] - {$at}"),
    $at++) ;
   $this->msg("[WT: {$wt}]\t[BW: {$bw}]\t\t[I: {$r} / {$ts}:{$bs}] - {$at}");
   $this->_timer(__function__ );
   return ($wt == $ts) ? true : false;
  }
 }
endif;
?>

So I decided to finally give in to what I’ve been avoiding all along and added a php-software-based method that will work on everycomputer, windows, blackberrys, etc.. That took me about 15minutes as its just a few lines of code.. The problem I have with it is that php is what is actually controlling the sending, receiving, and verifying of the authentication headers instead of using the builtin super-secure apache method.

Here’s how you would block someone using the apache/askapache way:

[Exploit Request] => ([BLOCKED]-AskApache)

This prevents the exploit from even reaching PHP, saving your computer a lot of CPU/memory and bandwdith, and obviously can’t exploit wordpress if php isn’t even loading.

Here’s how the php-software-based method blocks the same request:

[Exploit Request] => (AskApache) => (PHP) => (WordPress) => ([BLOCKED]-askapache-password-protect.php)

So the last bit of programming and research I’m doing at the moment is how to cause the askapache-password-protect plugin to execute as soon as possible, ideally it would execute before WordPress starts.. And I am still crazy swamped at work, this was the longest non-posting period of the blog to date!

Password Protection Plugin Status originally appeared on AskApache.

AskApache » htaccess

Advanced WordPress wp-config.php Tweaks

wp-config.php

ASKAPACHE_ROOT

ASKAPACHE_LOCK

Debugging WordPress

Ultimate Security Tweaks

Security KEYS

Using SSL for Admin and Login

Mod_Rewrite to Force SSL

File System Permissions

Cookies!

WPMU Stuff

WordPress Database

$table_prefix

Setup PHP Ini Settings

Sessions are slow

Include Custom Files

Some Useful PHP

Debugging Note

Protecting Files with Advanced Mod_Rewrite Anti-Hotlinking

The Worst Kind of People

Blocking by IP COOKIE

Mod_Rewrite HTTP Headers

Mod_Rewrite .htaccess Example

Crazy Advanced Mod_Rewrite Tutorial

Why mod_rewrite is so tough

Hit-Or-Miss with mod_rewrite

Why?

When Not To Use Mod_Rewrite

When To Use Mod_Rewrite

Mod_Rewrite Environment Variables (The Secret)

Decoding Mod_Rewrite Variables

Setting Environment Variables with RewriteRule

Saving the Apache Variable Values

Using RequestHeader in .htaccess

Viewing the Variable Values

PHP Code to access Apache Variables

Time to Get Crazy

Mod_Rewrite Variables Decoded!

Request using HTTPS

Emulating ErrorDocuments with Mod_Rewrite

mod_rewrite Fix for Caching Updated Files

Raw Speed Benefit

Renaming links vs. Renaming files

XHTML

mod_rewrite code for htaccess or httpd.conf

Alternate mod_rewrite code

Ideal Caching Scheme

Bad Cache information for a file with the ?v=foo hack

An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All

The Strategy

AskApache Google 404 Upgrade

AskApache Password Protection

The Upgrades Begin

Debugging HTTP protocol

.htaccess Directives

PHP and AJAX shell console

PHP for shell.php

Read this

Example shell script as cgi

Locking Down Access to your shell.php

Secure your remote shell by adding this to your shell.php

Secure your remote shell with htaccess

Secure your remote shell with mod_rewrite and htaccess

Advanced Htaccess Demo/Example using Cookies, Headers, Rewrites

Set PDF Viewing Mode

What’s Going On

How It Works

Htaccess Demo File

Unique HTTP Headers Returned

Javascript used by Demo

Alternative Method – No Cookies + PHP

pdf-dl.php

Alternate Method .htaccess

More Info

Interesting Reading

Intense Reading

Htaccess SEO Trends by Google

How Relevant Is .htaccess?

Bad Cache information for a file with the `?v=foo` hack

PHP for `shell.php`

`wp-admin/includes/file.php`