Author Archives: Sean

Keeping WordPress Secure

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Sean

Being one of the most widely-deployed blogging engines around, it’s no surprise that WordPress holds the interests of a wide audience. Unfortunately, not everyone is out to become the next rockstar blogger or tech pundit; the sad truth is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Security, WordPress | 1 Comment

Debugging Apache Rewrites and Redirects

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Sean

Apache’s mod_rewrite and mod_alias can be very useful, but they can also be a huge pain to debug when a problem arises. Luckily, there are a few things that can help, and since you’re probably not the first person attempting … Continue reading →

Posted in Apache | Leave a comment

Understanding DNS Propagation

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Sean

DNS is perhaps one of the biggest sources of frustration for our clients (trumped perhaps only be e-mail). These issues mostly stem from the way DNS caching works. Since every domain on the internet requires DNS to function, there are … Continue reading →

Posted in Domains | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Installing RVM on CentOS 5

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Sean

RVM is a great piece of software. Without it, it’d be a nightmare to maintain multiple versions of Ruby and multiple gemsets. I know that I use it every day, and if you’re developing with Ruby, you’ll probably want to … Continue reading →

Posted in CentOS | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Unhide Magento Connect Extension Keys Without Logging In

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Sean

When you’re working on your store and trying to get something important done, momentum matters a lot, and anything that interrupts your workflow can really get you out of the zone. I find that this happens to me a lot … Continue reading →

Posted in Magento | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Quickly Disable Any Magento Module For Troubleshooting

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Sean

At Nexcess, we commonly run across problematic extension. Whether the issue is version incompatibilities, database problems, permissions problems, or anything else, the ability to quickly disable an extension or two for troubleshooting is extremely useful. First, a bit about Magento’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Nexcess | Leave a comment

Using OpenSSL to Verify Service Availability and Configuration

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Sean

SSL is one of the most widely-used technologies for securing communications over the internet. It does have a few design flaws, but it’s still widely used to secure e-mail (IMAP-SSL and POP3-SSL), HTTP traffic (via HTTPS), and other communications. By … Continue reading →

Posted in Security | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Avoid Common Password Pitfalls by Getting Creative

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Sean

Here at Nexcess, we deal with lots of passwords. Passwords for SSH, passwords for e-mail, passwords for intranet sites, passwords for VPNs. We have passwords that fall within the client realm things like webmail, control panels, e-mail, FTP…the list goes … Continue reading →

Posted in Nexcess, Security | Tagged | Leave a comment

Diagnosing MySQL Performance Bottlenecks With Maatkit

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Sean

Hello again! Last time we looked at optimizing performance of web apps, we were checking out how to diagnose PHP performance bottlenecks using XDebug to generate valgrind-style logs of what PHP was doing. While that can be immensely useful in … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux, php | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Diagnosing slow PHP execution with Xdebug and KCachegrind

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Sean

Tracking down a performance issue to the actual PHP app can be hard enough by itself, but what do you do once you’re sure that the app itself is the bottleneck? The excellent Xdebug extension has many useful features for … Continue reading →

Posted in php | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment