It has been too long since my website has been functional! On that note, I’ve decided to postpone my obsession with making things look “just right”.

“If ‘content is king’ then the designer is like the King’s tailor – there to make the King look fabulous without taking any of the limelight for themselves.”

There was a great article written by Colin James Firth called “Content is King”. In that article touches on the topic of having an “An Unhealthy Obsession With Aesthetics”; I myself having had this particular problem for quite some time now – have decided to do something about it!

So my goal is to take this digital nest egg of mine and make progress on the aesthetics gradually; then pump out as much content and brain dumps as I can. So stay tuned! I should be updating very frequently! Until next time! Please contact me if you have any comments or questions. My information is at the top of the page.

I have updated my Twitter profile! Feel free to check it out.
Basically I created a background and tweeked the design colors. It’s nothing special.
Check back soon for more updates!

!/bin/bash

# Example usage:
# echo ${RedF}This text will be red!${Reset}
# echo ${BlueF}{$BoldOn}This will be blue and bold!${BoldOff}
# and this is just blue!${Reset}
# echo ${RedB}${BlackF}This has a red background
# and black font!${Reset}and everything after the reset
# is normal text!

Colors() {
Escape="\033";

BlackF="${Escape}[30m"; RedF="${Escape}[31m"; GreenF="${Escape}[32m";
YellowF="${Escape}[33m"; BlueF="${Escape}[34m"; Purplef="${Escape}[35m";
CyanF="${Escape}[36m"; WhiteF="${Escape}[37m";

BlackB="${Escape}[40m"; RedB="${Escape}[41m"; GreenB="${Escape}[42m";
YellowB="${Escape}[43m"; BlueB="${Escape}[44m"; PurpleB="${Escape}[45m";
CyanB="${Escape}[46m"; WhiteB="${Escape}[47m";

BoldOn="${Escape}[1m"; BoldOff="${Escape}[22m";
ItalicsOn="${Escape}[3m"; ItalicsOff="${Escape}[23m";
UnderlineOn="${Escape}[4m"; UnderlineOff="${Escape}[24m";
BlinkOn="${Escape}[5m"; BlinkOff="${Escape}[25m";
InvertOn="${Escape}[7m"; InvertOff="${Escape}[27m";

Reset="${Escape}[0m";
}

So…you’re running Plesk?
Good for you!

Plesk automatically updates httpd.include for each domain, making changes to this file only temporary. You don’t want to use this file if you need to make changes to Apache’s config on the fly, such as php’s open_basedir values per domain.

Instead you will want to use a vhost.conf file. This file will be placed inside your domain’s conf directory, usually found at “/var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/conf”. Create a file called vhost.conf in whatever editor you prefer.

Note: If you have a site that has an SSL and you need to have access to directories outside the httpsdocs directory you will need to do the same thing but instead of “vhost.conf” it’s “vhost_ssl.conf”

You can now put in any Apache configuration options like you would into httpd.include.

Now if you’ve been using Plesk for a bit you know that sites are generally kept under the httpdocs directory.
But let’s say you’re installing some online software…like Sugar CRM, Joomla or ELGG.

These packages need access to directories outside of the httpdocs directory.

To solve this issue properly in Plesk – you’re supposed to create a vhost.conf file in the conf directory under your site.

Let’s say you did this:

cd /var/www/vhosts/mysite.com
mkdir data
chown myuser:psaserv data

In the site directory you could add the following:

<Directory /var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/httpdocs/>
php_admin_value open_basedir "/var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/httpdocs:
/tmp:/var/www/vhosts/mysite.com/data"
</Directory>

Then you would need to force an update in Plesk for this domain using the following command:

/usr/local/psa/admin/sbin/websrvmng -u --vhost-name=mysite.com

#!/bin/bash

# Login information.
USERNAME="email address"
PASSWORD="password"
URL="http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml"

# Check message length.
if [ ! -n "$1" ]; then
      echo "Message not long enough"
      exit
fi

# Check message length again.
message="$@"
maxlen=140;
len='echo $'

if [ $len -gt $maxlen ]; then
      echo "Your message was longer than 140 characters...";
fi

# Post to Twitter.
result=`curl -u $USERNAME:$PASSWORD -d 
status="$message" $URL`

user@computername:~$ twitter Your Message Here

Alright – so let’s bust out the baby powder and get ready to put our Domains in their place!

Anyone got a website? *raises hand*
Anyone have an alias for said website, such as mywebsite.com and mywebsite.net? *keeps hand raised*
Anyone feel like letting people stay at the non www versions of these domains or having them stay at .net? *puts hand down*

Alright then!
Let’s begin!

So basically here’s my situation.
I want to have my domain “sterlinghamilton.com” to be consistent.
So if someone goes to http://sterlinghamilton.com it should change to http://www.sterlinghamilton.com - and if they go to either variation of .net it should go to the .com version!

Basically…I want my domain rolling on dubs! *laughs to self*

So how would I do that?
Unfortunately backhanding is not the solution to everything. (Although it does solve a myriad of problems!)

I think for this issue I will use an .htaccess file!

Here’s what I am thinking (it’s short and sweet and later if I feel like making it more efficient I will):

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^sterlinghamilton.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.sterlinghamilton.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^sterlinghamilton.net
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.sterlinghamilton.com/$1 [R=301,L]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.sterlinghamilton.net
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.sterlinghamilton.com/$1 [R=301,L]

The first line is allowing us to modify the URL.
The following sets are the rules I wanted to implement.

If it has a .com but it isn’t rolling on dubs (www) then put dubs on it! If it has a .net but it isn’t rolling on dubs (www) then put dubs on it! If it has a .net and it has dubs (www), then make it .com Simple right?

That should do it. *quickly tests it so he doesn’t look stupid* Yes – it works fine.

Alternatively you could just do this:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\. 
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.%{HTTP_HOST}/$1 [R=301,L] 

The down side to that method is it will only take the domain and set it to WWW - it won't change the TLD (.com or .net)

That is all!
Good day!

Ugh…I hate security holes.
Got notified of one for X-Cart…had to fix it:

During internal security audit a critical security issue has been detected in X-Cart. The issue makes the software vulnerable to attackers who wish to gain access to the server file system. The solution is to remove an affected file.

SEVERITY

Critical

IMPACT

A malicious user can execute his own shell commands and, as a result, gain access to the server file system.

AFFECTED VERSIONS

X-Cart versions from 4.1.0 to 4.1.11. All X-Cart customers who are using these versions are encouraged to apply the fix described below.

SOLUTION

Delete the ‘<xcart_dir>/payment/cc_basia.php’ file.
This file refers to an outdated integration of ‘Bank of Asia’ payment gateway, so its deletion will not cause any problems and will not affect your stores.
The ‘<xcart_dir>’ text means the server directory in which your X-Cart is installed.
You can delete this file using FTP, SSH or the hosting control panel file manager.

Now THAT’S a good time.
Here’s how I dealt with that:

Linux command:

locate "/payment/cc_basia.php" > BadFiles

Then I created a script:

#!/bin/sh
echo "enter file name"
read fname exec<$fname
while read line
do  
echo "rm $";  
rm $
done

Then ran the following commands:

sh DeleteFiles.sh
enter file name
BadFiles  

Bad files are gone!

Woo – done in less than a minute. *blows smoke off fingers*

Nifty thing to know.
There is a file in Ensim that keeps track of all domains (aliases included).
It’s generally stored at:

/etc/virtualhosting/mappings/domainmap

That’s nifty if you need to keep track of what’s on the server…or check domain statuses, expiration dates…etc.

…

Oh I’m sorry…did I hear someone in the audience say they wanted more?
What’s that you say? You want to grab all the domains from that list? Just the domains? Not the site numbers or anything?
UGH. Fine.

This command will work fine:

grep '.'\  /etc/virtualhosting/mappings/domainmap | awk '{print $1}'

Mmmm Grep and Awk…<3

Here’s a little “grep–fu” to produce a list of not just primary site domains...but their aliases as well!

egrep 'Server(Name|Alias)' /var/www/vhosts/*/conf/httpd.include|awk 
'{print $3}'|grep -v www.*|grep - '^.*\..*\..*$'|sed 's/:80//'
|sed 's/:443//'|sort -u

You should be root when running this or you will run into issues.

Enjoy!

* Note: the code above may not be showing right… that's all supposed to be on one line.

So we have our own mail service here at Exyst.
Due to that fact - we do not use Plesk’s mail service.
If that mail service is on when we create a site through Plesk, then mail sent by the server isn't handled properly.
This would include contact forms and anything that a Web Application would shoot out.

Is that a big issue? Yeah…it is.
So I wrote a script that finds all sites that have the service on - and then it turns it off.

Enjoy:

#!/bin/bash

SiteList=`egrep 'Server(Name)' /var/www/vhosts/*/conf/httpd.include|awk 
'{print $3}'
|grep -v www.*|grep -v '^.*\..*\..*$'|sed 's/:80//'|sed 's/:443//'|
sort -u`;

for Site in $SiteList
do
        Result=`/usr/local/psa/bin/domain -i $Site | grep 'Mail service' | 
		awk '{print $3}'`;
        if [ $Result == On ]; then
                Command=`/usr/local/psa/bin/domain -u $Site -mail_service 
				false`
                echo "Turning Off Mail Service: $Site";
        fi
done

In an effort to automate some of my daily tasks I decided to write this mail quota monitoring script.
It gets all quota information, processes it, then Twitters the information AND sends an e-mail.
The Twitter information is vague so security isn’t compromised, but the e-mail has the details.

This way I can get a heads up of impending doom on certain mail accounts!

Enjoy!

#!/bin/bash

# Get the e-mail ready.
Email="esupport@exyst.com";
Subject="Xync: Account(s) Exceeding Quota(s)."
Message="/tmp/message.txt"
# This starts the message fresh.
echo "Summary:" > $Message

# Generate data about all mail boxes.
MailBoxQuotaData=`/opt/zimbra/bin/zmprov gqu localhost`;

# Set counters.
Counter=0;
AccountCounter=0

# Sort through the data.
for Line in $MailBoxQuotaData
do
    Counter=`expr $Counter + 1`;
    case "$Counter" in
            "1" )
                    Account=$Line
            ;;
            "2" )
                    Limit=$Line
            ;;
            "3" )
                    Used=$Line
                    # If the limit is 0 then it 
                    # has no limit.
                    if [ "$Limit" -ne "0" ]; then
                            # This produces a whole number we can work 
                            # with.
                            Percent=$(($Used*100/$Limit))
                            # Notify us if a limit is over 85%.
                            if [ "$Percent" -ge "85"  ]; then
                                    echo "Account: $Account" >> 
                                    $Message
                                    echo "Quota Percentage: $Percent" 
                                    >> $Message
                                    AccountCounter=`expr 
                                    $AccountCounter + 1`
                            fi
                    fi
                    Counter=0
            ;;
    esac
done

# Send Twitter message.
nice -n 19 /exyst/Twitter.sh "Xync: ${AccountCounter} Accounts Over 85%!"
# Send e=mail.
nice -n 19 /bin/mail -s "$Subject" "$Email" < $Message