“Well, this all sounds fine and dandy legacy, but how do we change the default port?”

Simple, you need root access but just SSH to /etc/ssh/sshd_conf
edit the port to whatever you want(should be in the first couple lines. Make sure it is not commented out!

then restart SSHD by using the following line.
/etc/init.d/sshd restart
or
service sshd restart

WHM

To access WHM you will want to go to http://YOURIP:2087 or http://YOURDOMAIN.tld:2087. From here you will want to go to Server Configuration>Tweak Settings and then click on the tab “Stats Programs”. In here you will want to disable all of them unless you use them(most people use google analytics nowadays. Now you can go to Service Configuration>Service Manager and disable the following: Eximstats, cPBandwd, entropychat, melange , spamd, and mailman. Now you will also want to disable monitoring for: ipaliases. Some other things that can be done in Tweak settings is to make sure that default catch-all mail address is set to FAIL. You can also 1) Untick Mailman, this is a resource hog. and 2) Change the number of minutes between mail server queues to 180.

Apache

The best thing currently for Apache is Varnish. Varnish is an http accelerator that basically makes Apache runs faster. The following will show you how to install Varnish(Note: You must be in shell as root to do this.)

Install Varnish

sudo apt-get install varnish

Now it is time to configure Varnish a bit, first run:

vim /etc/default/varnish

DAEMON_OPTS=”-a :80 \
-T localhost:6082 \
-f /etc/varnish/default.vcl \
-S /etc/varnish/secret \
-s file,/var/lib/varnish/$INSTANCE/varnish_storage.bin,1G

Step 2 of the configuration should be run like this:

vim /etc/varnish/default.vcl

backend apache {
.host = “127.0.0.1″;
.port = “8008″;
}
acl purge {
“localhost”;
“127.0.0.1″;
}
sub vcl_recv {
// Strip cookies for static files:
if (req.url ~ “\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|pdf|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|flv|swf|html|htm)$”) {
unset req.http.Cookie;
return(lookup);
}
// Remove has_js and Google Analytics __* cookies.
set req.http.Cookie = regsuball(req.http.Cookie, “(^|;\s*)(__[a-z]+|has_js)=[^;]*”, “”);
// Remove a “;” prefix, if present.
set req.http.Cookie = regsub(req.http.Cookie, “^;\s*”, “”);
// Remove empty cookies.
if (req.http.Cookie ~ “^\s*$”) {
unset req.http.Cookie;
}
if (req.request == “PURGE”) {
if (!client.ip ~ purge) {
error 405 “Not allowed.”;
}
purge(“req.url ~ ” req.url ” && req.http.host == ” req.http.host);
error 200 “Purged.”;
}
}
sub vcl_hash {
if (req.http.Cookie) {
set req.hash += req.http.Cookie;
}
}
sub vcl_fetch {
// Strip cookies for static files:
if (req.url ~ “\.(jpg|jpeg|gif|png|ico|css|zip|tgz|gz|rar|bz2|pdf|txt|tar|wav|bmp|rtf|js|flv|swf|html|htm)$”) {
unset beresp.http.set-cookie;
}
// Varnish determined the object was not cacheable
if (!beresp.cacheable) {
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = “NO:Not Cacheable”;
} elsif(req.http.Cookie ~”(UserID|_session)”) {
// You don’t wish to cache content for logged in users
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = “NO:Got Session”;
return(pass);
} elsif ( beresp.http.Cache-Control ~ “private”) {
// You are respecting the Cache-Control=private header from the backend
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = “NO:Cache-Control=private”;
return(pass);
} elsif ( beresp.ttl < 1s ) {
// You are extending the lifetime of the object artificially
set beresp.ttl = 300s;
set beresp.grace = 300s;
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = “YES:Forced”;
} else {
// Varnish determined the object was cacheable
set beresp.http.X-Cacheable = “YES”;
}
return(deliver);
}

Time to reconfigure Apache a bit:

vim /etc/apache2/ports.conf

NameVirtualHost *:8008
Listen 8008

After that run:

vim /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
<Virtualhost *:8008>
 ...
</Virtualhost>

Do the above for all VHOSTS.

Time to restart your services:

service apache restart
service varnish restart

Now you can test varnish

curl -I http://YOURDOMAIN.tld

MySQL

I just suggest doing what mysqltuner tells you as it will be able to help out your specific case. To install mysqltuner simply follow the code below in shell.

wget mysqltuner.pl
chmod 755 mysqltuner.pl
./mysqltuner.pl

[box type="info"]Please note that on some systems you may need to remove the mysqltuner that is installed by default if you get any errors. Simply run the following command then do the above commands again. rm mysqltuner.pl[/box]

PHP

PHP is a little more tricky to optimize than the others. The first thing you are going to want to do is to install and configure a OPCode Cache. While most of these are available through EasyApache(XCache, eAccelerator) there are some others that you may want to consider installing such as APC(highly recommended out of the rest since the PHP team develops it).

First you will want to install some dependencies(as always you should be logged in as root in shell): yum install pcre-devel

Next you will want to go to WHM and go to Software>Module Installers>PHP Pecl and then search and install “APC”.

Congratulations WHM should now install APC successfully!

As a general rule of thumb you should keep the amount of Modules compiled into PHP limited.

Miscellaneous

While these are installed to certain parts of your server I wanted to put them here because they really benefit all parts of the server. The below can all be found in EasyApache.

Mod QoS(This will protect you against DoS attacks, especially Slowloris attacks.)

Mod Security(This is a WAF or Web Application Firewall, I think the name speaks for itself.)

Mod Deflate(This can be found in the exhaustive options list and compresses data sent from your web server to the user’s browser.)

Mod Expires(This is also in the exhaustive options list and will allow you to set expire headers either in your httpd.conf file or your .htaccess file.)

SuHosin(This will harden/secure PHP)

That concludes this tutorial, stay-tuned for more!

You can Download the source files from the bottom of the post.

Step 1 – Database

Note that this is a tutorial about how to make a simple BLOG, and as such, I won’t go into the comments systems, or a user system in this entry. Right now all you will come out with is a blog system where you type what you want to type, and click go, and it’s displayed.

You need a blog table, with an id field which needs to be unique, a “title” field for your blog entries titles, a “content” field for the content of your blog, and a “datetime” field, so that you know exactly when that entry was added. You may also want to record the IP address of the person who has added the entry.

The CREATE Code

CREATE TABLE  `tt_blog` (
`id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`title` VARCHAR( 140 ) NOT NULL ,
`content` TEXT NOT NULL ,
`datetime` DATETIME NOT NULL ,
`userip` TEXT NOT NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY (  `id` )
) ENGINE = MYISAM

Step 2 – Templating (Header/Footer)

You’ll notice in each blog post here on techtutz.com, there are three main elements. These are, the header (outlined in red), the content area (outlined in blue) and the footer (outlined in purple).

This is essentially the same for most blog systems, you have a header, which contains the navigation elements, a logo and sometimes a search bar. A content area, which usually contains the blog entry itself, a sidebar and sometimes a comments form. The footer, which usually contains the copyright to the blog engine, and possibly to the style author.

For our blog system, we’re going to need these elements, so we’re going to create simple html files for our header, and our footer, and upload them to our blogs “tpl” directory. We’re going to include these in our PHP files later, so if you name them differently to what I’ve named them, make sure you take note for later.

header.html

4fb9565be3e262_





	

		
	

footer.html

The PHP Code

I always find it difficult to explain how I do PHP code, so apologies in advance if it seems I’m going a million miles an hour. This is procedural PHP code, and not Object Oriented Programming, it would be much easier to create a quick blog system in an Object Oriented Framework (such as CakePHP), however it’s also a lot more confusing to explain to the novice user.

First off, we need to establish a connection to the database.. Create a file named “db.php” for convenience.

if ($page == 'add') {
    // display the add form..
    if (empty($_POST['addblog'])) {
        $content .= "
        

        Entry Title:
		

        Blog Entry:

		4fb9565be40291_

        
        
        ";
    } else {

Then we need to sanitise the data which the user entered, so that they can’t do bad things to our database or site through XSS or remote queries.

        // sanitization is important. You could catch some nasty bug.
        $title = mysql_real_escape_string(htmlspecialchars($_POST['title'], ENT_QUOTES));
        $entry = mysql_real_escape_string(htmlspecialchars($_POST['content'], ENT_QUOTES));
        // re enable line breaks.
        $entry = str_replace(array("\\r\\n", "\\r", "\\n"), "", $entry);
        // if the title or content is empty, tell the user it's empty!!
        if ((!empty($title)) && (!empty($entry))) {

mysql_query(
"INSERT INTO `tt_blog`
(`id` ,`title` ,`content` ,`datetime` ,`userip`)
VALUES
(NULL ,  '{$title}',  '{$entry}',  NOW(),  '{$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']}');"
);
                    $content .= "Entry Added!";
        } else {
            $content .= "Error. Please fill out all fields.";
        }

Next we need to be working on the archive page, that is the default page the user hits once they are on your site, a list of the five most recent entries.

if ($page == 'archive') {
        // Loop through the archive
        $getpostsq = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `tt_blog` ORDER BY `tt_blog`.`datetime` DESC LIMIT 5");
		// get the latest five posts
        while ($getposts = mysql_fetch_assoc($getpostsq)) { // this puts the data into an array which we can use.
            $content .= "

    

	{$getposts['datetime']}
	» {$getposts['title']}
";
        }

Then we need to FETCH it from the database, and display it on index.php?p=##

if ((int)$page) {
            $getpostq = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `tt_blog` WHERE `id` = '$page'");
			// select current ID from database.
            $getpost = mysql_fetch_assoc($getpostq);
			// put the data from the previous query into an array which we can pull from.
            $content .= "
{$getpost['title']}
    {$getpost['datetime']}
    
{$getpost['content']}
";
        }

Again we query the database to get the info, and again we put the data we fetch into a usable array

That’s it! You’ve done it, successfully created your own publishing platform. You may want to add styling to it, but it works as-is as well.

Do let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions, hints, or if I’ve done something catastrophically wrong.

“SMF is written in the popular language PHP and uses a MySQL database. It is designed to provide you with all the features you need from a bulletin board while having an absolute minimal impact on the resources of the server. SMF is the next generation of forum software – and best of all it is and will always remain completely free!”

SMF is available from simplemachines.org.

Preparation

The first thing you want to do is actually download the SMF package from download.simplemachines.org and decompress it on your local system.

Next, you’ll need to make a MySQL database for the SMF data to be installed to. Make sure you note down the database information (username, db name and password) for later.

Now, upload all the files, make sure to keep the directory structure (IE, the files which are contained within /Sources stay in the /Sources folder). Now, CHMOD the following files and folders the following values;

File/Directory
CHMOD Value


avatars/
777


attachments/
777


Packages/
777


Packages/installed.list
777


Smileys/
777


Themes/
777


Themes/default/languages/Install.english.php
777


agreement.txt
777


Settings.php
777


Settings_bak.php
777


install.php
777

Installation

Okay, now with a web browser, go to yoursite.com/install.php, and if you CHMOD’d everything correctly, you’ll be greeted with the installer. Fill in the Global Settings and your MySQL details (which you specified earlier), and hit “Proceed”, you’ll be prompted for an Admin user and pass, as well as the database password (for security) and hit next.

Now, tick to delete install.php – if it didn’t, you’ll need to go delete it, and then you’re done!

Congratulations, and good luck with your new Simple Machines Forum!

This TechTut in Images

Ubuntu

..&other APT based systems

XChat for ubuntu is free, and is open source, so to get it is simply a case of typing the following into the terminal;

sudo apt-get install xchat

Windows

Strictly speaking, XChat for Windows should be free, due to it being under the GPL license, and the author having no copyrights registered over the entirety of the code, but the author has deemed that XChat for Windows is now Shareware, and costs $20, from the official site.

There are two separate sites which give you XChat for Windows, the first is XChat.org, which is the official developers site. The Unofficial download site offers ‘YChat’ which is XChat for windows renamed and released, and can be found at silverex.org

Download the .exe file, and run it, you should have XChat installed quite happily.

Mac OSX

The version of XChat for Mac OSX is XChat Aqua and can be downloaded for free from here; http://xchataqua.sourceforge.net/

“Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone.”

Joomla is free to download from joomla.org.

Preparation

First of all, you need to set up a database which your Joomla installation will run from.

Next, with the files which you downloaded from Joomla.org, decompress the archive and upload them to your webserver with your favorite FTP client. Make sure you keep the directory structure intact.

Once all the files are uploaded, you need to navigate to the configuration.php-dist file, and rename it to configuration.php, then CHMOD it to the value of 777.

Installation

Next you need to actually run the installer, you do this by visiting the directory you uploaded Joomla into, (Ie /joomla) and you should be forwarded to the installer (located at yoursite.com/joomla/installation/). Once you’re at the installer, you need to choose your language and then hit next, in the top right hand corner. You will then be presented with a screen which runs all the checks, all of which should come back as a green “Yes”. If they are all yes, hit next.

Next, you need to agree to the license agreement, which you do by simply hitting next, in the top right corner. Now, you will be prompted with a screen where you must enter your database details (from the database you created earlier), enter all the details and hit next.

Now, you’re prompted with an “FTP Details” part of the installer, if you’re unsure why you would need this, you can leave this set to “No” and hit next. Now you need to fill in details such as your site name, admin email and password, etc. Make sure to click the button which says “Install Sample Data”.

Now, hit next and you’ll be prompted to delete the /installation directory.

That’s it! Joomla is installed!

Further reading

1. Joomla Help
2. Joomla Extensions
3. Joomla Forums
4. Free Joomla Templates

This TechTut in Images

When PHPMyAdmin is installed, and you want to add a new database, you need to log in with the your username, this is the username you will use in any config files and such. Once logged in, simply navigate to the input box which is near the center of the screen, type your database name, choose your database type from the dropdown menu, (if unsure leave it as default), and hit ‘Create’.

Congratulations, You’re done. To quote the WordPress installer, “Were you expecting more steps…?”

Things to note;

1. The username and password you log in with are the database username and password
2. The name you enter will be the database name
3. Logging in (to PHPMyAdmin) and creating a database with the ROOT user, is NOT advised

Just a note, this only applies to VPS solutions and higher, and not shared solutions, where you are never allowed root access.

Check if you are in the admin group

Okay, first, you should have a sudo capable user. You can test this by logging into your usual account (you should most certainly have one of these, never ever use the root account as your primary account!), and typing “

sudo su

How to add yourself to the admin group

If, after running the above command, you get a message saying

"You're not in the sudoers file, this incident will be reported". 

usermod -G wheel username

nano /etc/pam.d/su

# auth  required /lib/security/pam_wheel.so use_uid

auth  required /lib/security/pam_wheel.so use_uid

Disabling Root Login

Now that all the preliminary tests are done, you may log into your server via ssh (shell), as root, and type the following command:

nano /etc/ssh/ssh_config

#PermitRootLogin yes

PermitRootLogin no

Now, restart the SSH Daemon, by running the service command, like so;

service sshd restart