In a previous post, I explained how to use chmod to change file permissions and also provided some security tips to ensure your file permissions are not more permissive than they need to be. Looking back on those posts, I think it would be useful to list some common file …
June, 2010
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2 June
Joomla Security Tips
Joomla is a powerful free and open source content management system. It has become very popular, and many web hosting provider offer instant installer scripts that can automatically install Joomla onto a customer’s website. In certain, situations, however, you may prefer to install Joomla yourself. When you do, there are …
April, 2010
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13 April
How to secure your WordPress installation
Yesterday, news sources and blogs announced that WordPress blogs hosted by Network Solutions were being hacked. The website owners’ credentials were stolen, and then the sites were used to redirect thousands of visitors to websites that distributed malware. Apparently, WordPress’ configuration file, called wp-config.php, stores the user’s database password in …
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8 April
Chmod shortcuts for Linux
In a few previous posts, we learned how to change file and directory permissions with chmod. The standard method is to use numbers to represent various permissions. For example, typing “chmod 777 directoryname” will make the directory readable, writable, and executable for all users, local or otherwise. There are many …
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1 April
To chmod or not to chmod
When installing scripts on a server, there is a tendency of both developers (in their instructions) and users to be overly generous in dishing out file permissions. In Linux, file permissions can be manipulated with the “chmod” command. For example, a script may require write access to a temporary directory, …