Securing database user credentials

A random thought has hit me.  Most people try to keep their MySQL user credentials secure.  But why?  If a server has been setup properly, it becomes a mute point. The idea occurred me when thinking about opening a sites source code up.  If I opened the site up, I could give them access to …

Applications hidden addons

Like all good conversations, this was brought up in IRC. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/11/microsoft_slips_firtefox_add_on_into_software_update/ Microsoft decided it would be a good idea to install a hidden addon to firefox installs for those who have some services installed.  The major point being it is a hidden unknown addon that you can not remove yourself.  How friendly is that? Google’s …

Moving home directory to a new drive

My current host has a unique feature in which it allows me to setup virtual machines easily. Since that is easily possible, I may want to someday switch to another operating system. So I wanted to split all my /home and configuration files out onto a separate drive. Which is entirely possible with my host. …

Protecting my wordpress folders

WordPress by default doesn’t protect its wp-includes and wp-content folders. While WordPress doesn’t do stupid things in most of these files, they still don’t do a simple defined check to ensure we came from an a privileged file. SMF does this and it prevents direct loading of any of the Source files. To get around …

Simple secure login for wordpress

This is a simple way to setup a secure login for WordPress.  Simply editing “wp-login.php” and looking for: /** Make sure that the WordPress bootstrap has run before continuing. */ require( dirname(__FILE__) . ‘/wp-load.php’ ); Add after that: force_ssl_admin(true); Now when accessing login and registration pages, the browser redirects to the secure version. Edit, After …

Hello /dev/null

When I started my site, I knew that I would rarely see visitors.  It is more of a personal test site then it is for anything else.  I recently decided to get rid of my own site and get a blog.  Mostly because my site isn’t really for communication amongst many individuals, rather that its …

Setting up SVN

I wanted to setup SVN on my server.  Why you ask?  Well just because I can really.  The most important reason is to get my mods and other files into a repository that would also act as a backup.  I set it up on my site as I never saw the point in keeping on …