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Log all .htaccess/.htpasswd logins

htaccess htpasswd with phpLearn how to log and debug usernames and passwords used to login to a htaccess basic authorization protected website using php. This article is BOSS and will show you how to fully take control of this aspect of security using php and .htaccess, I don't believe you will find instructions to do this anywhere else on the net.

Htaccess

Advanced .htaccess Tricks for Securing Sites

This is all new, experimental, and very very cool. It literally uses .htaccess techniques to create several virtual "locked gates" that require a specific key to unlock, in a specific order that cannot be bypassed. It uses whitelisting .htaccess tricks to specify exactly what is allowed, instead of trying to specify everything that isn't allowed. Also, by setting specific cookies/tokens after successfully passing through a gate, we can then require the exact cookie/token from the previous gate, which stops an attacker from skipping or bypassing gates.

Htaccess

An AskApache Plugin Upgrade to Rule them All

apache-server-statusSo 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.

WordPress

Advanced WordPress wp-config.php Tweaks

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..

WordPress

PortaPutty Auto-Reconnecting SSH Tunnels on an Encrypted TrueCrypt Portable USB Key w GPG

Ok I just came back up to write the intro.. I'm trying to keep it short to avoid getting bogged down by the coolness of each step. Here is what goes on. When I logon to my XP machine at work, I bring my usb key and plug it in first. On logging a window pops up first and it's a password prompt to mount my encrypted drive leonardo. It also checks a keyfile that is located on my usb key, but all I do now is type in my password. That causes my encrypted folder to be accessible to me like a normal drive, and it autoruns a startup batch file.

The batch file causes Portable versions of Firefox (all my bookmarks, my settings) to load, and launches Portable Mozilla Thunderbird (IMAP makes this work well), which is my favorite program (great GPG features and open-source!). Also Some Adobe CS4 software is loaded from the hard drive, like DreamWeaver. In the background, a service we created executes a PortaPuttY plink command to create forwarded tunnels from various remote servers and accounts, all using key-based encryption. These tunnels are automatically reconnected if they are disconnected, meaning you can use a socks 5 if you want or even better!

Hacking

Mod_Rewrite Basic Examples

mod_rewrite is very useful in many situations. Yet some behaviors were not so obvious when I started to mess with it. After many testings, I understand it much better, now. Having said that, I do not pretend to know it perfectly. I also make mistakes.

Htaccess

Fix Linux Users Home Permissions with a Cron Job

As a security nut myself, and also a Linux admin, one of my biggest pet peeves is when I've taken the time and care to segment all the users on a server into separate home directories, and then some developer comes along, logs in as root, and changes the ownership of files. Other things can cause this, like Apache, PHP, Mutt, etc.. So I've always used a cron job that executes daily (and on demand) which automatically fixes all the permissions back to what they should be.

Linux

PHP and AJAX shell console

Ever wanted to execute commands on your server through php? 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.

Hacking

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.

Windows

RewriteCond Cheatsheet

Request to https://www.askapache.com/cg/rewrite-test/?catch=caught&this=that

RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} = GET /cgi-bin/php/pro/rewrite-test/?catch=caught&this=that HTTP/1.1
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} = /cg/rewrite-test/?catch=caught&this=that
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} = catch=caught&this=that
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} = www.askapache.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} = Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} = 8.8.8.8

Htaccess

The Final Countdown – Mario Bros Style

Tupac here is using the new youtube-nocookie option, which is a slight improvement.. but flash from youtube is always gonna be slow as they are obsessed with user-metrics and pushing content at us..

Like those behind Vista, they seem to believe we all have state-of-the-art supercomputers and datacenters like they do.

I'm staying old school, resist the gui!

Web Design

Questions I Ask Web Hosting Companies, Before Buying

The following is a transcript of a chat I had with a company called tektonic, and at that time I was looking for a cheap linux host to use for some redundancy/failover operations. I generally contact a new hosting company like this every few months.. I like to have options available in case of some kind of failure or network attack, so it's always a good idea to have a few ace linux servers in your back pocket.

If you've read any other articles on AskApache, you can see a certain obsession towards optimization, speed, and security -- so that is the purpose of the following questions.

Hosting

Custom bash_profile for Advanced Shell Users

Looking for some advanced uses for the shell? Here is some of my best. The shell is where 70% of my work takes place, and I have at least one terminal open almost 100% of the time, for viewing tailing color-coded logs, and of course for the SSH Tunnels that I use to route various networking through, like my email. So I decided that to standardize and create a bash_profile containing the most time-saving and helpful functions that I could use on all the various hosting environments would really be some sweet sugar, so here is my constant Work-in-progress.

It works for all shells I encounter, including BackTrack, Debian, Knoppix, Arch Linux, etc. Also works for many hosting environments I use including DreamHost, HostGator, WiredTree, and pretty much any linux VPS.

I also rely on this heavily from within shell scripts I write to access all the functions and stuff in this .bash_profile, and to do that I just do like:

#!/bin/bash

source ~/.bash_profile &>/dev/nulll

pm "PM is a function to output nice messages with color"
yn "Are you enjoying the shell" && pm "Thats great!" || pm "Perhaps you're better suited for DOS"
yn "Show Calendar" && aa_calendar
yn "Show Fortune" && aa_fortune

Linux

The Right to Read

The proponents of this scheme have given it names such as "trusted computing" and "palladium". We call it "treacherous computing", because the effect is to make your computer obey companies instead of you. This was implemented in 2007 as part of Windows Vista; we expect Apple to do something similar. In this scheme, it is the manufacturer that keeps the secret code, but the FBI would have little trouble getting it.

Hacking

WordPress Plugin for Apache .htaccess Security

Askapache Password Protect Security Features

  1. gzip's previous .htaccess file and sends it as an attachment to the logged in users email account along with password user setup.
  2. Now also works for sites running on SSL (PHP version >4.3.0)
  3. Rewrote the security module code in the form of snort, nessus, and mod_security rules and signatures
  4. Added a *real* check to see if mod_rewrite is installed
  5. Added Modules that remove directoryindexes
  6. Much more on the way..

WordPress

SEO Secrets of AskApache.com

Learn how in a year, with no previous blogging experience this blog was able to rank so high in search engines and achieve 15,000 unique visitors every day. Uses combination of tricks and tips from throughout AskApache.com for Search Engine Optimization.

SEO

PHP Sessions/Cookies On The Fly

Multiple Web Technologies for dynamic php session controlThis article shows how to save and modify php session data, cookies, do anything really... without using ajax or iframes or forcing the user make a request.

PHP

Referer Spoofing Using JavaScript

pseudo-flaw.netEven though at the moment I'm more into AJAX and simple behavioural unobtrusive javascript more than java, I still remember how excited I was back in 1995 when Sun released both beta and alpha Java versions to the public.. In fact I still have my Java 1.0 Unleashed book, which I'm looking at right now.

Javascript