Jason's Web & IT Blog

How to enable HTTPS on your web server

Enabling https will allow for an encrypted connection between the user’s browsers and the server, meaning data passing back and forth cannot be intercepted by third parties. This is particularly useful for data collection and login processes.

Create a new directory and go there to work:
```
mkdir /root/Certs ; cd $_
```
Create a CA key or import the EWEA CA key. If creating one from scratch, use:
```
openssl genrsa -out ca.key 2048
```
Generate a Certificate Signing Request (CSR):
```
openssl req -new -key ca.key -out ca.csr
```

Create a server key for the local machine:

openssl x509 -req -days 3650 -in ca.csr -signkey ca.key -out <servername>.crt

Create the following folders if they don’t exist:

mkdir -p /etc/httpd/ssl/certs /etc/httpd/ssl/private

Copy the keys to the following folders:

 cp -a <servername>.crt /etc/httpd/ssl/certs/ ; cp -a ca.* /etc/httpd/ssl/private/

Edit the apache config to use the new certificate:
```
vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf
```

Find and edit these two lines:

SSLCertificateFile /etc/httpd/ssl/certs/<servername>.crt
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/httpd/ssl/private/ca.key

Make sure the firewall is open:

vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443   -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT

Restart the firewall and Apache:

service iptables restart && service httpd restart

Go to https://<servername> and see if it works!

More information here:

wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Https
www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-create-a-ssl-certificate-on-apache-for-centos-6

Multiple virtual hosts examples here:

http://www.digicert.com/ssl-support/apache-multiple-ssl-certificates-using-sni.htm

2013: 05/02
CATEGORY: Apache
https
Write comment

EWEA Official Certificate Authority (CA) Key

2013: 05/02
CATEGORY: Apache
https
Write comment

Youtube Video Gallery plugin

This is what I implemented on EWEA OFFSHORE 2013 Video Archive page:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/youtube-channel-gallery/

http://www.ewea.org/offshore2013/media-and-press/video-archive/

2013: 04/18
CATEGORY: Plugins
Wordpress
Write comment

NextGEN gallery testing

[nggallery id=1 template=galleryview images=0]

2013: 04/18
CATEGORY: Plugins
Wordpress
Write comment

Testing Lightbox gallery

2013: 04/18
CATEGORY: Plugins
Wordpress
Write comment

Testing the WordPress gallery

2013: 04/17
CATEGORY: Wordpress
Write comment

Allow larger file size uploads in the media module

Edit the /typo3conf/localconf.php file
Copy & paste this line into the localconf.php file (for a maximum file size of 80MB):
```
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['BE']['maxFileSize'] = '85000';
```

2013: 02/18
CATEGORY: CMS
Typo3
Write comment

Android phone unable to connect to Exchange Server

After a local server maintenance, my Galaxy Nexus (Android 4.1.1) stopped connecting to the Exchange Server.
I removed the account to try re-adding the account and doing so lost all my emails, calendar and contacts.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not add my account “wind\jason.bickley”.
I always received the error “Could not connect to the server”.

However, when I tried puting in an intern’s credentials it could connect.
Our I.T. Manager then found the following solution and corrected it in Active Directory.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd439375(EXCHG.80).aspx

“In Exchange Server 2010, you may also experience this issue if the Exchange Servers group does not have the appropriate permission to the mailbox object in Active Directory. The most common cause for this is broken Access Control List (ACL) inheritance in Active Directory.”

To check whether inheritance is disabled on the user:

Open Active Directory Users and Computers.
On the menu at the top of the console, click View > Advanced Features.
Locate and right-click the mailbox account in the console, and then click Properties.
Click the Security tab.
Click Advanced.
Make sure that the check box for “Include inheritable permissions from this object’s parent” is selected.

If the user is a member of certain protected groups such as Domain Administrators, it is normal for this box to be unchecked. If you are experiencing a problem with members of these protected groups you should check the permissions on the AdminSDHolder object.”

2013: 01/25
CATEGORY: Active Directory
Android
Exchange
Mobile
Write comment

Google Analytics Multiple Tracking Code

Here is a cool trick I have implemented across the EWEA web platform:

<script type="text/javascript">
 var _gaq = _gaq || [];
 _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-xxxxxxxx-yy']);
	_gaq.push(["_setDomainName", "none"]);
	_gaq.push(["_setAllowLinker", true]);
	_gaq.push(["_trackPageview"]);
 _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA- xxxxxxxx-zz'']);
	_gaq.push(["_setDomainName", "none"]);
	_gaq.push(["_setAllowLinker", true]);
	_gaq.push(["_trackPageview"]);
 (function() {
	var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
	ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
	var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
	})();
</script>

This goes at the bottom of the tags and what it does is this:

• The “yy” code is for the local site, i.e. our individual event site or our blog.
• The “zz” code is common on all the sites. This gives me a global view over all the sites as to the most popular content across all platforms.

2013: 01/21
CATEGORY: Google Analytics
Javascript
Write comment

Fix “PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function get_header()” error in WordPress

Taken from http://www.ardamis.com/2011/06/02/fix-for-php-fatal-error-get_header-in-wordpress/

While making changes to my WordPress theme, I noticed that the error_log file in my theme folder contained dozens of PHP Fatal error lines:

[01-Jun-2011 14:25:15] PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function  get_header() in /home/accountname/public_html/ardamis.com/wp-content/themes/ars/index.php on line 7
[01-Jun-2011 20:58:23] PHP Fatal error:  Call to undefined function  get_header() in /home/accountname/public_html/ardamis.com/wp-content/themes/ars/index.php on line 7

The first seven lines of my theme’s index.php file:

<?php ini_set('display_errors', 0); ?>
<?php
	/*
	* @package WordPress
	* @subpackage Theme
	*/
	get_header();
?>

I realized that the error was being generated each time that my theme’s index.php file was called directly, and that the error was caused by the theme’s inability to locate the WordPress get_header function (which is completely normal). Thankfully, the descriptive error wasn’t being output to the browser, but was only being logged to the error_log file, due to the inclusion of the ini_set(‘display_errors’, 0); line. I had learned this the hard way a few months ago when I found that calling the theme’s index.php file directly would generate an error message, output to the browser, that would reveal my hosting account username as part of the absolute path to the file throwing the error.

I decided the best way to handle this would be to check to see if the file could find the get_header function, and if it could not, simply redirect the visitor to the site’s home page. The code I used to do this:

<?php ini_set('display_errors', 0); ?>
<?php
/**
* @package WordPress
* @subpackage Ars_Theme
*/
if (function_exists('get_header')) {
	get_header();
}else{
    /* Redirect browser */
    header("Location: http://www.ewea.org/SITENAME/");
    /* Make sure that code below does not get executed when we redirect. */
    exit;
}; ?>

2013: 01/21
CATEGORY: PHP
Templates
Wordpress
Write comment

Information

Change this sentence and title from admin Theme option page.

RSS FEED