Articles tagged as “http”

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Disable Trace and Track for Better Security

The shared server on which I host Perishable Press was recently scanned by security software that revealed a significant security risk. Namely, the HTTP request methods TRACE and TRACK were found to be enabled on my webserver. The TRACE and TRACK protocols are HTTP methods used in the debugging of webserver connections. Although these methods are useful for legitimate purposes, they may compromise the security of your server by enabling cross-site scripting attacks (XST). By exploiting certain browser vulnerabilities, an attacker may manipulate the TRACE and TRACK methods to intercept your visitors’ sensitive data. The solution, of ...

Temporary PHP Redirect: Allow Multiple IP Access and Redirect Everyone Else

In my previous article on temporarily redirecting visitors during site updates, I present numerous PHP and HTAccess methods for handling traffic during site maintenance, updates, and other temporary periods of downtime. Each of the PHP methods presented in the article allow for access from a single IP while redirecting everyone else. In this article, we modify our previous techniques to allow access for multiple IP addresses while temporarily redirecting everyone else to the page of our choice. Plus, while we’re ...

Three Unsolved WordPress Mysteries

After several years of using WordPress, I have at least three unanswered questions: What’s up with the WordPress PHP Memory Error? Why do certain phrases trigger “Forbidden” errors when saving or publishing posts? What happened to the Plugin Pages in the WordPress Codex? Let’s have a look at each one of these baffling mysteries.. Unsolved Mystery #1: What’s up with the WordPress PHP Memory Error? Every single day, WordPress generates hundreds of these errors: [20-Feb-2008 19:49:42] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 6316713 bytes) in /home/.../press/wp-includes/cache.php on line 330 [20-Feb-2008 19:50:51] PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to ...

Custom HTTP Errors via htaccess

We all know how important it is to deliver sensible, helpful 404 error pages to our visitors. There are many ways of achieving this functionality, including the well-known htaccess trick used to locally redirect users to custom error pages: # htaccess custom error pages ErrorDocument 400 /errors/400.html ErrorDocument 401 /errors/401.html ErrorDocument 403 /errors/403.html ErrorDocument 404 /errors/404.html ErrorDocument 500 /errors/500.html ..and so on. These directives basically tell Apache to deliver the designated documents for their associated error types. Many webmasters and developers employ this trick to ensure that visitors receive customized error pages that are generally more user-friendly or design-specific than the rather unfriendly Apache defaults. Serving custom error pages is ...

Temporary Site Redirect for Visitors during Site Updates

In our article Stupid htaccess Tricks, we present the htaccess code required for redirecting visitors temporarily during periods of site maintenance. Although the article provides everything needed to implement the temporary redirect, I think readers would benefit from a more thorough examination of the process — nothing too serious, just enough to get it right. After discussing temporary redirects via htaccess, I’ll also explain how to accomplish the same thing using only PHP. Temporary Site Redirect via htaccess The Complete Code Without a doubt, many visitors to this article will be looking for ...

Harvesting cPanel Raw Access Logs

Harvesting Raw Logs For those of us using cPanel as the control panel for our websites, a wealth of information is readily available via cPanel ‘Raw Access Logs’. These logs are perpetually updated with data involving user agents, IP addresses, HTTP activity, resource access, and a whole lot more. Here is a quick tutorial on accessing and interpreting your cPanel raw access logs. Part One: Grab ‘em To grab a copy of your raw access logs, log into cPanel and click on the "Raw Access Logs" icon. Within the Raw Access Log interface, scroll through the list ...

HTTP Error Codes

A list of HTTP Error codes and corresponding definitions: Informational Codes 100 -- Continue 101 -- Switching Protocols Successful Client Requests 200 -- OK 201 -- Created 202 -- Accepted 203 -- Non-Authorative Information 204 -- No Content 205 -- Reset Content 206 -- Partial Content Client Request Redirected 300 -- Multiple Choices 301 -- Moved Permanently 302 -- Moved Temporarily 303 -- See Other 304 -- Not Modified 305 -- Use Proxy 307 -- Temporary Redirect Client Request Errors 400 -- Bad Request 401 -- Authorization Required 402 -- Payment Required (not used yet) 403 -- Forbidden 404 -- Not Found 405 -- Method Not Allowed 406 -- Not Acceptable (encoding) 407 -- Proxy Authentication Required 408 -- Request Timed Out 409 -- Conflicting Request 410 -- Gone 411 -- Content Length Required 412 -- Precondition Failed 413 -- Request ...