I did another guest post over on the 8bit network site ChurchCrunch.com and it seems to be pretty popular. It also is helping Agapage traffic a little so that is nice.
http://churchcrunch.com/how-to-prevent-your-blog-from-being-hacked
Category Howto
(Nerd) ^M Removing control characters using VIM
hat tip Matthew Turland
Have you ever opened up a file using VI and found the following?
<?php echo '<html>'^M echo '<head>'^M echo '</head>'^M echo '<body>'^M ...
That stupid control character from some other horrid text editor is trailing every single line. And you are annoyed enough to Google for an answer. ^M
Now, hopefully you are aware of the powerful regex tools built right into VI. But in this case, the fix is pretty simple, and we won’t have to craft any regFu. After you open your file using VI, we will then use the search/replace functionality. And we will eventually end up with a line that looks like this.
:%s/^M//g
But there is a gotcha to this solution, so you may need to read on to find out more. And before proceeding, press esc to make sure you are not in insert mode.
First type the following.
Shift + :
Which should just print the colon at the bottom of your screen.
:
Then type this exactly how it looks.
%s/
Now we need to type the control character. You may be thinking “Jared, I will just hit shift + 6 and get that character onto my screen in no time.”. And you are more than welcome to do that, but you would be wrong.
You will need to press the following keys.
Control + V
Which will get you this printed out.
:%s/^
Then type the following.
Control + M
Which should have you ending up with this.
:%s/^M
At this point you can type the rest of the characters exactly how they look.
//gWhich leaves you with a finished line that looks like so.
:%s/^M//g
Press enter, and you will now replace the ^M character with nothing.
Part 2(kinda): Small search and replace example.
This would replace Dog with Cat.
:%s/Dog/Cat/g
Cat with Mouse.
:%s/Cat/Mouse/g
Mouse with Trap.
:%s/Mouse/Trap/g
So our line to replace the ^M character is literally saying “Replace the ^M character with nothing”.
(Nerd) How to: Setup Virtual Hosts on Ubuntu 9.10 using Apache2 + MySQL5.X + PHP5
I have been working on a couple projects that are hosted on gitHub. As the scale and scope of the projects grow, I ended up needing to setup multiple virtual hosts on my development machine. It wasn’t hard, but the information online that I found was fairly dated, so I created this tutorial.
This entire tutorial is done after entering the ’sudo -i’ command which allows us to act as the SUPER-USER for the entirety of our terminal session. You’ve been warned.
sudo -i
NOTICE!!! I am aware that we could use the ‘a2ensite’ and related commands. But for the sake of understanding the entire process, I will not be using it.
1) Install the required modules from the command line
apt-get install apache2 mysql-server mysql-client php5 php5-cli php5-mysql
2) Change the directory to /etc/apache2/sites-available
cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
3) If you run the ‘ls’ command while in the sites-available directory you should see the following
lsOutput
default default-ssl
4) Copy the ‘default’ config to a site specific config. For this tutorial I am using dev.acloudtree.com.
cp default dev.acloudtree.com.conf5) Make the application directory
mkdir /var/dev.acloudtree.com
6) Open the file with an editor of your choosing. I prefer VIM.
vi dev.acloudtree.com.confThe output below is the entire file but I will discuss certain parts that we will need to edit.
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost DocumentRoot /var/www <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/www/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" <Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 </Directory> </VirtualHost>
7) Add the name of the server. This will be the name that you type in the URL field of your web browser (IE: Firefox)
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName dev.acloudtree.com ...
8 ) Point the Virtual host to the correct directory
...
DocumentRoot /var/dev.acloudtree.com
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
...9) Also make the change here.
...
<Directory /var/dev.acloudtree.com/>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride None
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>
...10) So this is what your dev.acloudtree.com.conf file should look like when you are done. Write/Quite the file and we will move on.
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName dev.acloudtree.com DocumentRoot /var/dev.acloudtree.com <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/dev.acloudtree.com/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" <Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 </Directory> </VirtualHost>
10a) IMPORTANT! Make a symbolic link in the sites-enabled directory
ln -s /etc/apache2/sites-available/dev.acloudtree.com.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-dev.acloudtree.com.conf
11) We need to edit our /etc/hosts file
vi /etc/hosts
Output
127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.1.1 servername # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters ff02::3 ip6-allhosts
12) Right beneath the ‘localhost’ definition, add the following
127.0.0.1 dev.acloudtree.com
13) The complete file looks like this.
127.0.0.1 localhost 127.0.0.1 dev.acloudtree.com 127.0.1.1 servername # The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts ::1 localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback fe00::0 ip6-localnet ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix ff02::1 ip6-allnodes ff02::2 ip6-allrouters ff02::3 ip6-allhosts
14) Create an index.php file in /var/dev.acloudtree.com for testing purposes.
vi /var/dev.acloudtree.com/index.php
Contents of .php file.
<?php echo 'Jared Folkins\' tutorial on acloudtree.com really works!'; phpinfo(); ?>
15) Reboot the apache2 process.
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
16) Now open up your web browser and enter dev.acloudtree.com into the URL bar and it should work!
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that in this environment, I like to configure log files for each virtual host. This is our current dev.acloudtree.com file.
<VirtualHost *:80> ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost ServerName dev.acloudtree.com DocumentRoot /var/dev.acloudtree.com <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/dev.acloudtree.com/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow from all </Directory> ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ <Directory "/usr/lib/cgi-bin"> AllowOverride None Options +ExecCGI -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch Order allow,deny Allow from all </Directory> ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/error.log # Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, # alert, emerg. LogLevel warn CustomLog /var/log/apache2/access.log combined Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/" <Directory "/usr/share/doc/"> Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None Order deny,allow Deny from all Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128 </Directory> </VirtualHost>
Just change the ErrorLog and CustomLog names to match the virtual host.
...
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/dev.acloudtree.com_error.log
# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/dev.acloudtree.com_access.log combined
...
</VirtualHost>(Nerd) How to: Reconfigure SSH listening port on Ubuntu 9.10
1) Make sure that you have have ssh installed on your system.
sudo apt-get install openssh-server openssh-client
2) Open the sshd_config file using VI
sudo vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config
3) Here is the file in its entirety that was created by the installation process
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 | # Package generated configuration file # See the sshd(8) manpage for details # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for Port 22 # Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to #ListenAddress :: #ListenAddress 0.0.0.0 Protocol 2 # HostKeys for protocol version 2 HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key #Privilege Separation is turned on for security UsePrivilegeSeparation yes # Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key KeyRegenerationInterval 3600 ServerKeyBits 768 # Logging SyslogFacility AUTH LogLevel INFO # Authentication: LoginGraceTime 120 PermitRootLogin yes StrictModes yes RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes #AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys # Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files IgnoreRhosts yes # For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts RhostsRSAAuthentication no # similar for protocol version 2 HostbasedAuthentication no # Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication #IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes # To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED) PermitEmptyPasswords no # Change to yes to enable challenge-response passwords (beware issues with # some PAM modules and threads) ChallengeResponseAuthentication no # Change to no to disable tunnelled clear text passwords #PasswordAuthentication yes # Kerberos options #KerberosAuthentication no #KerberosGetAFSToken no #KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes #KerberosTicketCleanup yes # GSSAPI options #GSSAPIAuthentication no #GSSAPICleanupCredentials yes X11Forwarding yes X11DisplayOffset 10 PrintMotd no PrintLastLog yes TCPKeepAlive yes #UseLogin no #MaxStartups 10:30:60 #Banner /etc/issue.net # Allow client to pass locale environment variables AcceptEnv LANG LC_* Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server UsePAM yes |
4) But we are mainly concerned with this part right here
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | # Package generated configuration file # See the sshd(8) manpage for details # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for Port 22 ... |
5) Change the default port that is currently 22, to a non standard port. I changed mine to 22999
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | # Package generated configuration file # See the sshd(8) manpage for details # What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for Port 22999 ... |
6) Write/Quite so that you can save the changes to the file.
7) Now, all we have to do is restart the ssh daemon and it will listen from the new port.
sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart
8 ) Finally, from another linux (or whatever OS you prefer) box, use the SSH client and login to your newly reconfigured server. Make sure to change the port using the ‘-p’ flag.
Example: ssh YOUR_USERNAME@IP_ADDRESS_OF_SERVER -p 22999
ssh jaredfolkins@192.168.1.107 -p 22999
