Unicode Character Reference
Just a quick reference to all those delicious unicode characters and how they render on the web‽‽
Speed Up Sites with htaccess Caching
2 awesome ways to implement caching on your website using Apache .htaccess or httpd.conf. Both methods are extremely simple to set up and will dramatically speed up your site!Awk Tutorial and Introduction
While researching a unix/linux tool awk I came upon one of the most thorough and helpful tutorials I've ever seen devoted to a particular topic. It's old-school just the way I like it. I contacted the author, Bruce Barnett because I just HAD to have this article for my readers, who are predominantly running solaris/unix/bsd/linux and he kindly gave permission.
Chmod, Umask, Stat, Fileperms, and File Permissions
Unix file permissions are one of the more difficult subjects to grasp.. Well, ok maybe "grasp" isn't the word.. Master is the right word.. Unix file permissions is a hard topic to fully master, mainly I think because there aren't many instances when a computer user encounters them seriously, and bitwise is oldschool. This contains a listing of all possible permission masks and bits from a linux, php, and web hosting view.... cuz you guys AskApache Regs Rock!
HTTP Status Codes and Htaccess ErrorDocuments
There are a total of 57 HTTP Status Codes recognized by the Apache Web Server. Wouldn't you like to see what all those headers and their output, ErrorDocuments look like?
OpenSearch description document
Custom Boot Menu in Windows XP
One of the first things that I do upon receiving a new Windows computer is immediately create a poweruser-style customized boot menu. Then every time I boot I can choose Safe Mode, Recovery Console, Debug, whatever I want! It's quick and easy to set-up and everyone should have one, soo sweet!
HTTP Status Codes
This is a big update from the last time I looked into this, when I enumerated 57 Status Codes that Apache 2.x was capable of handling. This list contains 83 Status Codes recognized by Apache. I compiled the latest 2.4.4 Apache in order to view the actual codes sent by a live server.. very cool. You can read about the newest HTTP Status Codes in RFC 6585.
COMPUTER SECURITY TOOLBOX
List of mainly obscure security software geared more for the master pentester. These are mostly for unix, bsd, and mac and many are difficult to install and setup (require custom servers, inside access points, obscure libraries). Only programs that output data are included, so no actual exploits or anything. Most of these output extremely useful albeit extremely technical information.Caching Tutorial for Webmasters
If you examine the preferences dialog of any modern Web browser (like Internet Explorer, Safari or Mozilla), you'll probably notice a 'cache' setting. This lets you set aside a section of your computer's hard disk to store representations that you've seen, just for you. The browser cache works according to fairly simple rules. It will check to make sure that the representations are fresh, usually once a session (that is, the once in the current invocation of the browser).
SEO with Robots.txt
Very nice tutorial dealing with the robots.txt file. Shows examples for google and other search engines. Wordpress robots.txt and phpBB robots.txt sample files.DreamHost Server IP Address List
A list of all DreamHost Servers and corresponding IP address. The dreamhost.com DNS zone is currently having troubles, so most hostnames within this zone are not resolving.Web Development Glossary
Optimizing Servers and Processes for Speed with ionice, nice, ulimit
To prepare for several upcoming articles on AskApache that are focused on optimizing Servers and Sites from a server admin level, here is an article to introduce the main tools that we will be using. These tools are used to optimize CPU time for each process using nice and renice, and other tools like ionice are used to optimize the Disk IO, or Disk speed / Disk traffic for each process. Then you can make sure your mysqld and httpd processes are always fast and prioritized.
Htaccess Mod_Rewrite – Crazy Advanced Master Class
htaccess rewrite Master Class! If you understand the basics of mod_rewrite, or if you literally write the mod_rewite.c code, this article will transform your thinking. The transformation is profound. Deeply effective. Culmination of the best of the best mod_rewrite tricks for understanding and learning exactly what rewrite is doing.
Libcurl Error Codes
Fight Blog Spam with Apache
Fighting Blog Spam with Apache htaccess and other methods.
Internet Census 2012 – Port scanning using insecure embedded devices – Carna Botnet
While playing around with the Nmap Scripting Engine (NSE) we discovered an amazing number of open embedded devices on the Internet. Many of them are based on Linux and allow login to standard BusyBox with empty or default credentials. We used these devices to build a distributed port scanner to scan all IPv4 addresses. These scans include service probes for the most common ports, ICMP ping, reverse DNS and SYN scans. We analyzed some of the data to get an estimation of the IP address usage.
Firefox Add-ons for Web Developers
Advanced Web Development by AskApache is a Firefox Collection I created since I'm always trying new Addons out and using multiple computers and I wanted a quick and easy way to install my favorite's and keep a running list. Firebug, YSlow, LastPass, and Web Developer are the only ones I always use regularly.
I like the idea of the last.fm but it's not as powerful as the site, which is awesome. Lately listening to Kings of Leon Radio...
Optimized Vimrc with 256 Colorscheme
This is not your everyday vimrc. This is my personalized vimrc.. works especially great on remote servers, in tmux, screen, etc.
This doesn't require a git checkout, a vim update, a bash update, an OS update, a plugin. No. 1 vimrc, 1 colorscheme, just use curl to download and it's on. I use this on Arch Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Debian, Ubuntu, Cent OS, Red Hat, and that's mostly it so far.
If you aren't already using vim as your primary editor in a powerful way, you are gonna owe me for this.
Apache SSL in htaccess examples
SSLOptions +StrictRequire
SSLRequireSSL
SSLRequire %{HTTP_HOST} eq "google.com"
ErrorDocument 403 https://google.com
Some of the Ins and Outs of using SSL Connections with Apache.
ASCII Chart
Wanted to stick this here for a reference, mostly for me. I use ASCII alot in bash, preg_matches, preg_replace, etc..
An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All
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.
Ultimate Htaccess Part II
Here is even more information from the Ultimate Htaccess Part I. For now this is very rough and you will want to come back later to read it.
DNS Round Robin Configuration using Rsync over SSH
The goal is to add the HostGator server to be an exact mirror of the s.askapache.net domain, then to add that server as a 2nd A record to my DNS zone. That way half the visitors to the size will be taking up resources and bandwidth on the HostGator server instead of mine.
Round Robin A records in DNS are intended to evenly distribute queries between each host of the same name. Using some tricks straight out of a hackers toolbox we can verify if the distribution is taking place. (It is.)
Apache 2.4 and PHP-FPM
Hacking VLAN switched networks
There isn't much vlan info on the net in terms of specifics and I had to learn all about it because I needed to log in to a switch that was on a different vlan. With the help of the Ettercap developers NaGA and ALoR I figured it out.
Originally Posted: 3/30/2004
PHP Session File Hacks
What they say about kung-fu is true..
It can be attained by anyone through hard work over time. You can become as good as the amount of work you put in. Here's a short look at a basic technique that I use. Simply reverse engineering the source code and taking notes along the way...
static void php_session_send_cookie(TSRMLS_D)
if (SG(headers_sent)) {
if (output_start_filename) {
php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_WARNING, "Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent by (output started at %s:%d)",
output_start_filename, output_start_lineno);
} else {
php_error_docref(NULL TSRMLS_CC, E_WARNING, "Cannot send session cookie - headers already sent");
}
return;
}
/* URL encode session_name and id because they might be user supplied */
e_session_name = php_url_encode(PS(session_name), strlen(PS(session_name)), NULL);
Running a Reverse Proxy in Apache
PHP File Uploads
Optimize a Website for Speed, Security, and Easy Management
Learn how to setup, configure, secure, optimize, and create a low-maintenance website the AskApache way. I'm piecing together all the hacks, tricks, methods, and ideas discussed throughout this blog and all across Netdom and glueing them all together to show you how to have the most optimized, crazy fastest, and best website setup I can think of.
Htaccess File Sample
Comprehensive .htaccess example file with advanced examples in 1 htaccess sample skeleton .htaccess file with the very best apache htaccess examples... Updated frequently based on detailed info from the Apache htaccess tutorial.
Debugging Tools for Windows
I am almost ready to publish the final tutorial on using ssh tunnels from a truecrypt partition on a Windows machine. Of course I choose to go way overboard in my research and the tutorial is full of some pretty awesome windows tricks.. I will come back to this post soon and post all the other advanced tools I use for debugging windows, for now though you MUST know how to debug the kernel and use these basic debugging tools.
Apache Directives and Modules on DreamHost
Apache .htaccess Directives and Loaded Modules allowed on DreamHost Apache Server 2 Setups.
Mod_Security .htaccess tricks
Mod_Security rivals Mod_Rewrite in the amount of features it provides. I decided to go ahead and post what I learned about it today, even though its tough to give away such awesome htaccess and apache tricks.. Learn how to control spam once and for all, conditionally log/deny/allow/redirect requests based on IP, username, etc.. Mod_Security is so fine!
Advanced HTTP Request and Response Header Viewer
.htaccess Plugin Blocks Spam, Hackers, and Password Protects Blog
Well what can I say, other than this is sooo DOPE! Here is a list of the modules this plugin (version 4.7 unreleased) will automatically detect. I compiled the list myself using every module included with any default Apache installation for ALL the versions listed below, 1.3 to 2.2+
Want to know something else I'm including in this plugin? For each and every module that is detected, this plugin can then detect ALL of the modules .htaccess Directives! For instance, RewriteRule, AccessFileName, AddHandler, etc.. are each a directive belonging to a module that is allowed to be used from within .htaccess files.
Talk about sick.. these tricks have the diamond disease!
Undetectable Sniffing On Ethernet
I have been in some tight spots where I had to sniff a password or two off the wire, or sniff some packets off the wire and based on the packets content perform some action... Accidentally, I stumbled on a method to sniff data while remaining undetected and invisible.
Originally Posted: 2003/04/15
Htaccess Mod_Rewrite – Guidedddd
Introducing the Online Figlet ASCII Generator
Look at the text "askapache". That's pretty boring huh? It would be cool to have a nerdy textual representation of that for extra nerdy stuff like styling my /robots.txt file, email list signatures, forum sigs, etc. But who has time to create that by hand? If only there were an online tool to create it..
Bam.