Post by AskApache Jan 10, 200988 comments
Skip this - still under edit
I discovered these tips and tricks mostly while working as a network security penetration specialist hired to find security holes in web hosting environments. Shared hosting is the most common and cheapest form of web-hosting where multiple customers are placed on a single machine and "share" the resources (CPU/RAM/SPACE). The machines are configured to basically ONLY do HTTP and FTP. No shells or any interactive logins, no ssh, just FTP access. That is when I started examining htaccess files in great detail and learned about the incredible untapped power of htaccess. For 99% of the worlds best Apache admins, they don't use .htaccess much, if AT ALL. It's much easier, safer, and faster to configure Apache using the httpd.conf file instead. However, this file is almost never readable on shared-hosts, and I've never seen it writable. So the only avenue left for those on shared-hosting was and is the .htaccess file, and holy freaking fiber-optics.. it's almost as powerful as httpd.conf itself!
Most all .htaccess code works in the httpd.conf file, but not all httpd.conf code works in .htaccess files, around 50%. So all the best Apache admins and programmers never used .htaccess files. There was no incentive for those with access to httpd.conf to use htaccess, and the gap grew. It's common to see "computer gurus" on forums and mailing lists rail against all uses and users of .htaccess files, smugly announcing the well known problems with .htaccess files compared with httpd.conf - I wonder if these "gurus" know the history of the htaccess file, like it's use in the earliest versions of the HTTP Server- NCSA's HTTPd, which BTW, became known as Apache HTTP. So you could easily say that htaccess files predates Apache itself.
Once I discovered what .htaccess files could do towards helping me enumerate and exploit security vulnerabilities even on big shared-hosts I focused all my research into .htaccess files, meaning I was reading the venerable Apache HTTP Source code 24/7! I compiled every released version of the Apache Web Server, ever, even NCSA's, and focused on enumerating the most powerful htaccess directives. Good times! Because my focus was on protocol/file/network vulnerabilites instead of web dev I built up a nice toolbox of htaccess tricks to do unusual things. When I switched over to webdev in 2005 I started using htaccess for websites, not research. I documented most of my favorites and rewrote the htaccess guide for webdevelopers. After some great encouragement on various forums and nets I decided to start a blog to share my work with everyone, AskApache.com was registered, I published my guide, and it was quickly plagiarized and scraped all over the net. Information is freedom, and freedom is information, so this blog has the least restrictive copyright for you. Feel free to modify, copy, republish, sell, or use anything on this site ;)
Category: Htaccess
Post by AskApache Oct 01, 20085 comments
One way I speed up AskApache.com is by downloading external third-party javascript files to host on my own server instead of externally. In addition to the obvious speed boost, this lets you configure the caching and compression settings for the files.
Category: Javascript
Post by AskApache Aug 19, 20081 comment
I've had a lot of people ask about the FeedBurner FeedCount image on AskApache. Specifically how to set it up with custom messages and different colors each page view... It is pretty sweet..
Category: Hacking
Post by AskApache Aug 09, 20085 comments
Scrolls the latest log entries for multiple log files to the current screen or to any other monitor or TTY in color using syntax highlighting, making debugging easier and saving a lot of time for multi-monitor workstations.
Category: Linux
Post by AskApache Aug 04, 20083 comments
Enter your DOMAIN_ROOT and the location of your wp-config.php or config.php, and this script finds all the mysql settings by parsing the phpbb or wordpress config file, then creates GPG encrypted backups, and saves your settings for future automation.
Category: Shell Scripting
Post by AskApache Jun 12, 20081 comment
This simple unix shell script automatically creates backups of a specific folder at regular hourly, nightly, weekly, and monthly intervals. Instead of the usual method for copying directory trees using tar with fifo, pipes, rsync, or NFS methods this script uses cpio which is much much faster and has cool options like saving m/a/c times, symlinks, relative paths, and weird file names.
Category: Shell Scripting
Post by AskApache May 31, 200814 comments
DreamHost PS gives you your own "virtual machine", protecting your CPU and RAM on your physical machine for faster websites. Here's what I like and dislike about DreamHostPS, and some of the issues and solutions for migrating.
Category: Hosting
Post by AskApache Apr 19, 20088 comments
Search all files in a directory, replacing all occurances of string with a replacement string.
Category: Shell Scripting
Post by AskApache Dec 16, 20071 comment
Today I successfully learned how to compile and run multiple custom php installations for a DreamHost account, and to get it working I came upon a simple shell script that I made a couple changes to.
Category: Shell Scripting
Post by AskApache Sep 06, 200712 comments
Before
After trick
I am often logged in to my servers via SSH, and I need to download a file like a WordPress plugin. I've noticed many sites now employ a means of blocking robots like wget from accessing their files. Most of the time they use .htaccess to do this. So a permanent workaround has wget mimick a normal browser.
Category: Linux
Tags: bash, wget
Post by AskApache Jul 04, 2007comment
Webmasters often use SSH to remotely admin web sites and servers, learn how to make your shell colorful and powerful using my sample .bash_profile and you can be up and running in 30 seconds!
Category: Shell Scripting
Post by AskApache Apr 10, 20073 comments
Htaccess php tips and tricks for the Apache HTTPD Web Server, mostly these tips show you how to run customized versions with customized php.ini files, I require custom php.ini files because they are so useful!
Category: PHP
Post by AskApache Apr 03, 200717 comments
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.
Category: Htaccess
Post by AskApache Jan 25, 20074 comments
Apache server performance can be improved by adding additional hardware resources such as RAM, faster CPU, etc.
Category: Optimization
Post by AskApache Jan 16, 2007comment
Example shell scripts (bash or sh) that automate and easyate tasks from within the dreamhost ssh env
Category: Shell Scripting
