[boomshadow.net~]#

Backing Up and Restoring MySQL Databases

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 13:02:30 +0000

Backing up / Exporting

The best advice I ever heard is: if your data is important to you at all, then you should back it up. What would happen if you suddenly lost it? How devastating would it be? Backing up is such a simple step, and can potentially save you many hours of work, stress, and possibly your job (if the data is that important).

To backup a database, we simply need to export the database. To restore it, we need to import the database. I’ll show you how to do both using a few different methods:

Backing up a Single Database from within cPanel

In cPanel, you can download a copy of your database by simply logging into cPanel and go to the ‘Backup’ section.

Then click on the link for your database name. It will prompt your to download your database in a compressed archive (tar.gz) to your local computer.

Backing up a single database with command line

If you prefer the command line, you can backup your database using a single command:

mysqldump -Q --add-drop-table your_database_name > file.sql

Backing up all databases to separate files

If you would like to play it safe or know that you have many different databases that are all important, then you can run a ‘for’ loop to individually dump all databases to their own file:

Fist create a directory for all the dumps to go and create an empty list of all the database names:

mkdir /root/database_backups ; touch /root/database_backups/list-of-databases

Then, run the for loop to dump the databases and generate the list of database names:

for db in `mysql -e 'show databases' | grep -v Database` ; do mysqldump -Q --add-drop-table $db > /root/database_backups/$db.sql && echo $db >> /root/database_backups/list-of-databases ; done

Restoring / Importing

In the event that you’ve got missing data, corrupt tables, or generally something went wrong, don’t worry! You have backups that you can restore from. Here’s how you restore that databases back from the exports you made above.

Restoring from phpMyAdmin

First off, you’ll need to log into phpMyAdmin. From cPanel, it is found in ‘Databases’ section.

Once inside, you’ll select your database on the left-hand side. This is the database that you want to import that data into.

*** Warning: This will overwrite your existing tables.

Once you have the database selected, click on the ‘import’ tab at the top.

Click ‘Browse’ and navigate to the file on your local computer.

Look over the various options. Most times, you can just leave them as is. If you don’t know what the options are, I’d advise just to leave them set to default.

Hit ‘Go’.

Restore a single database from command line

If you are similar to me, you might prefer a command line. I think its much easier to import it this way as the command is so short & simple:

If you are logged in as root, simply run:

mysql db_name < file.sql

Make note of the direction that the arrow (greater-than sign) is pointing. This indicates the direction where the data is going. In this case, the arrow points to the left towards the MySQL database name. This indicates that the data is being imported FROM the .sql file in-TO the server's MySQL database, which is exactly what we want.

If you don't have root access, you can still import but the command requires a couple more flags and that you know the database credentials:

mysql -p -u db_username db_name < file.sql

It'll prompt you for that user's password. Enter it in and the import will begin.

Restore all databases from command line

Remember that command we did to export all databases to their own separate dump files? Well, lets say you wanted to easily import all of them back in for whatever reason. We just need to run another simple 'FOR' loop in order to get them back in. Basically, we are doing an individual database import, but for each database that is in that 'list-of-databases' that we generated earlier:

for db in `cat /root/database_backups/list-of-databases` ; do mysql $db < /root/database_backups/$db.sql ; done

Once that finishes, you'll have all your exported databases fully restored back as they once were: Fast, safe, and easy!

Final Thoughts

If you have a huge database, running a mysqldump can cause your entire website to go down. This is because you are locking the tables during the dump (cPanel backups can do the same thing). If you are worried about this, be sure to perform your backup export during a time of low site traffic. With that said, SQL backups are a great idea. An equally good idea is to occasionally try to restore your backups (to make sure they are good). Simply restore them to a different database name if you don’t want to overwrite an existing database.

Note about this article

This article is one I had written for the ServInt blog as part of the 'Tech bench' series. You can view it on the ServInt blog here. They are using my article with my permission.

cPanel’s Webinar on WHM 11.34 features

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 19:11:09 +0000

If you didn’t have a chance to catch today’s cPanel webinar on the new WHM 11.34 features you missed out. Surprisingly, the entire webinar lasted a mere 30 minutes and the features portion wasn’t, in my mind, the most interesting section. However, it had some good information on some of the more sought after features. I took note of the three that caught my eye the most:

Email auto-config scripts

One of the biggest changes I’ve always felt was needed was updating the email auto-configs scripts. cPanel has had this feature for quite some time, so its nothing new. The problem was that for the longest time, neither was what it supported. Up until just a few months ago, cPanel supported up to Outlook 2000. These auto-configuration scripts made life easier, when they would actually work. Now, that will change. Although the interface may not specifically say it, the latest cPanel Mail Client Auto Configuration scripts are tested to work with modern OS and email clients such as: Mac Mountain Lion and Windows Mail clients for 2010. Oh happy day!

Webdisk

The Webdisk got an update as well. Webdisk is another feature thats been around for some time, but had grown outdated to the point, again in my opinion, useless. Not anymore! Now, it has auto-config scripts for modern OS’s and even for mobile devices: iPad, iPhone, & Android. Mobile support is accomplished by referring you to a free app: WebDAV Navigator. I tested it out, and it works really well. Essentially, it has the power to turn your server into a private drop disk, complete with different user permission levels. You can setup as many webdisk user accounts as you like, give some of them read-only permission, even set them all to have the same directory, and bam! You have a community dropbox area on your server. I found it easy to setup, easy to use, fast, intuitive, and highly accessible for my phone. Directly from the App, it prompted me to upload photos from my photo library or take a new photo. I may start using it over FTP in many situations, such as quick blogging. This new version really brings Webdisk back into my everyday usage.

Email Archiving

Email archiving is a recurring feature that I’ve seen over the years. I even wrote up an article for a custom way to set this up with Exim. My article is happily now outdated and unnecessary. cPanel has done a great job of doing what my method did and better! It has custom levels of saving email for your personal preference or for compliance with your countries laws. You can tell it how log to save what types of email. For example, you can have it save all outgoing messages for 30 days while all incoming gets saved for 3 months. The archive is IMAP and Webmail accessible, or you can download a backup from within cPanel.

To enable email archiving, go to ‘Tweak Settings’ inside of WHM.

Note: Email archiving DOES count towards individual user’s disk quotas.
Note 2: Email archiving settings can be transferred with an account when doing WHM to WHM transfers, but both servers must have WHM 11.34.

Q&A

As much as I love the above features, I actually think the Q&A section yielded far more interesting information, but I suppose more in the terms of answering cPanel gossip:

1) 11.34 going to ‘Stable’ release

The new 11.34 is going to be moved to the next release Tier (Stable) in as soon as the next week or the week after. This means ever more clients will be affected. If you work in or around the hosting side of things, I’m sure you’ve had quite the influx of customers contacting you saying that their server is telling them that their MySQL or Operating System is out of date. Well, with 11.34 going to ‘Stable’ release, prepare to be surged with even more contacts. Thankfully, where I work, we’ve got things down to a science and upgrading either the OS or MySQL is easy and second nature.

2) New Interface moving to cPanel

cPanel confirmed that they are pushing this new feature rich visual WHM interface out to the individual customer cPanel interface in the next version (11.36). You will want to be sure you are well versed in it’s navigation and new features. You’ll probably have a bunch of your customers asking you some questions about the ‘new look’ when that release goes out.

3) Mobile support

The next version will see WHM have iPhone and Android support. This will be accomplished NOT through an App, but rather through HTML5 and CSS. cPanel’s head developer put explained that with a fabulous reason: ….if we create an iPhone/iPad app, that will leave Android behind. If we make an Android app, it will leave iOS behind. If the development is done through hooks and device detection in HTML5, they can have a mobile compatible solution for ALL devices, even Blackberry.

4) Regular Updates

cPanel has stated that they are moving to a “three versions-per-year” release system. The next one (11.36) will be coming out at the very beginning of next year. Thats a very quick turn-around, but I’m confident they can do it while continuing to release exciting and well developed feature like they have in 11.34. Their newly organized animal named developer teams and new cPanel Feature request/discussion system (http://features.cpanel.net/) will go a long way to seeing that accomplished.

Conclusion

I hope you find this information helpful. If you missed out on the Webinar and want to see it, no worries. cPanel will have it posted to their Video page later end of this week: http://videos.cpanel.net/category/webinars/

How to still get a free DynDNS account

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:01:59 +0000

What Happened to DynDNS

Sometime around November of last year (2011), the popular Dynamic DNS provider, DynDNS severely limited their free account offerings (See reference link #1 at the bottom of the page). They eliminated new free accounts from being created, citing that users could still get the 14 day pro trial. Pre-existing free accounts were grandfathered in, but with 2 very important restrictions placed on them:

Limited to 2 hostnames
They will expire if not updated every 30 days

Many existing free users found that they were dropped down to two while some had their accounts expired because they didn’t do the update within a month. Needless to say, this upset quite a few people and sparked much debate (See reference links #2,3,& 4 at the bottom of the page). I understand why they did it; they wanted to increase their profits. However, the problem was that there were many how-to guides out there that referenced DynDNS’s free service; there were many hardware devices such as routers and IP cameras that were hard-wired to use DynDNS.

Today, I’m going to show you a loophole that still allows for you to get a free DynDNS account.

The Discovery

While exploring the options of my D-Link router, I came across Dynamic DNS page. Normally, I skip straight to the credentials portion at the bottom where I’ve already got my pre-existing DynDNS free account setup. However, I see that D-Link offers ‘their own’ Dynamic DNS. See image:

Click image to see larger view

I was curious to see if their service was any good and what limitations hey placed. Their Dynamic DNS is offered at: http://www.dlinkddns.com/

I noticed something very interesting when poking around the FAQ and How-to. They say your credentials are usable at www.dyndns.com. See attached screen shot:

Click image to see larger view

To me, this says that D-Link’s service is merely a reselling of DynDNS’s service.

Confirmation

I created my account and then immediately popped over to DynDNS’s site to see if my credentials actually worked. They did! See image:

Click image to see larger view

In fact, not only did I have a free DynDNS account, I actually have access to ANOTHER free hostname. As you see in the above picture, it says I’m using 0 of 1 hostname, even though I’m already using one. D-Link’s FAQ only has one question/answer and it states that you can only have 1 single hostname. https://www.dlinkddns.com/faq. Well, I’m here to tell you apparently that’s not true. You can use DynDNS’s site interface to create another hostname; simply click on “Add New Hostname” and you’ll be taken to the setup screen. See screenshot:

Click image to see larger view

I can tell you that my legitimate, free, grandfathered-in DynDNS account doesn’t have that option. Also, once I add another hostname, the link for creating more hostnames goes away.

I have a few notes of interest: Using D-Link’s DynamicDNS is probably only for people who purchase and use their D-Link brand routers, though it doesn’t actually state that anywhere. I don’t know if these types of accounts are applicable to the 30 days update rule. I would assume so, as their assumption when they created this deal with D-Link was probably that the accounts would be used for that Dynamic DNS section in the router. This means that all active accounts will be on auto-update from the router.

Conclusion

In conclusion, you can use D-Link as a proxy for creating not just one but TWO free dynamic hostnames from DynDNS. So long as you keep them updated every 30 days, they should be good. I’ve been using mine to keep a home server public facing using ddclient as my update tool. I know this loophole is one that may close to new users as well, and then at that time I’ll have to branch out to other Dynamic DNS providers; but for now, I can keep creating new hostnames if need be, just use a different email account to sign up at D-Link’s site.

Personal note:

I don’t abuse this system. I only have need of 2 Dynamic hostnames, and that’s all I have made: my grandfathered-in account and the D-Link account. However, I like to know that I have means to create more if need be. Options are nice.

References

SSH Language Localization

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 00:09:28 +0000

# Updates:
# 06/20/12 | Revised for more details

When you get a new VPS, you’ve got a powerful new system that is a server all unto yours. There is quite a bit of customization you can do to make it suite your needs. Today, I am going to show you how to change the language of your SSH terminal.

Changing your VPS language setting allows you to type and sort by special characters not available in English. But more than that, it is language localization. You pick not only your language, but your country as well. This allows the server to reset date formats, use of commas and points in numbering systems, display options, etc. Bear in mind that changing VPS language settings won’t translate things such as file names or contents of files.

In addition, most GNU programs on your server use localization, wherein they customize their interface based on the VPS language localization settings. Intelligent applications using internationalization can greatly reduce the difficulty of interfacing with a server for non-English speakers.

While logged into your server via SSH, you can see what the current language setting is by running the following command:

locale

The output of the command will be something like this:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

en_US is the language code (English) followed by the country code (United States).

To change the language of your system–as well as all the other parameters above–you will modify the LANG. To see list of all the supported locales, run:

locale -a

You’ll notice that names on the list are named with the format: Language_Country. Simply looks for the two letter code for language and country that you want. For example, if you want to set it to Spanish/Puerto Rico, you would select: es_PR. If you want to set it to Farsi, you would use: fa_IR

Check out this handy guide to look up the right code for your language and location: http://lh.2xlibre.net/locales/

Once you have picked out the language and location you want to use, you will need to edit the following file:

/etc/sysconfig/i18n

And then simply modify the line the reads something like this:

LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

You will need to close your SSH session and restart a new session for the changes to take effect.

*Note: If you are using Terminal on a Mac, you may need to also type the following for your session to load the updated configuration:

su -

If you are having trouble getting these changes to take effect and show up when you initiate another locale command, then check that the default language is not set. In Nano, look at the entire file. Which lines are preceded by hash marks (#)? Those lines are designated as “comments” and not read by programs accessing the file. For example:

#LANG="en_US.utf8"
#SUPPORTED="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en"
#SYSFONT="latarcyrheb-sun16"
LANG="C"

In this example, the LANG will always be the default (C). To change this, switch the line that is read by erasing and creating hash marks:

#LANG="en_US.utf8"
#SUPPORTED="en_US.UTF-8:en_US:en"
#SYSFONT="latarcyrheb-sun16"
LANG="C"

Now the session configuration will be based on the first line–not the fourth–and you can replace the language/location information as desired.

Example:

Here is a ‘Before’ language change:

Here is an ‘After’ language change (to Farsi):

Note about this article

This article is one I had written for the ServInt blog as part of the ‘Tech bench’ series. You can view it on the ServInt blog here. They are using my article with my permission.

SSH Key Authentication

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:00:34 +0000

One of the critical parts of administrating your server is by logging into SSH as root. With the command line, you can roll up the proverbial sleeves and really dig in: installing software, changing system configuration, investigating problems, etc… But what about the security concern of logging into a system with all that control and you’ve only got a password? This is where Key authentication comes in.

Instead of typing in a password, you can generate an encrypted key pair that is used to authenticate you when logging in. The server will look to see if you have this key file on your computer instead. There is a good little overview of the process from cPanel here.

This is a great security measure to implement as it allows you to control which systems can access your server. You can also turn password authentication off and your server will be immune to SSH password attacks. This is major step in security hardening and is highly advised.

Generating the Keys

To get started, we are going to need to generate a Key pair on your computer (the public and private key). Load up a terminal and run:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

It will ask where to save the key file. You can leave it at the default location.

Enter file in which to save the key (/Users/jacob/.ssh/id_rsa): id_rsa

Next, it will ask for a passphrase.

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):

You can leave this blank if you simply want to leave the private key unlocked. This will make logins quite easy as you won’t have to type anything in and you will “auto-login”. However, for an added layer of security, you can set a password to unlock the private key.

It will ask for the passphrase again. Press ener to leave it blank.

Enter same passphrase again:

Finally, it will output confirmation of the keys’ location and the fingerprint:

Your identification has been saved in id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
7b:2d:25:c2:2e:2a:1a:ea:76:3a:96:ed:1a:29:8b:9b

Copying the Public Key

Now you will need to get a copy of the public key you just made. Simply cat the file:

cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEAwsIU0uzZVu6uf2GgM9B4Z7sNn5jMEs1yDrjvdI4ChXrkADegfltv0CESXknoU4NI57Dw0kyc3eJ7bADyI0uBH0PxDTZAOSKKyogsnRtgXbFLKHXpOOyiG51M9tjobObNo6SDmzbeVD5GzlmnPpgMMUoqpjYe3P45g6ouw/3Gcwt+BwZG5loSknk9lkndbyTmhb5gc4jAMYIQ3QAWCtPES04jyUWMFZ/oUn5bMaTKG2aHCgn0wTYR8ih3Ewptp0XV2z77WUmGnJV6t5wE1kZqltdh52aHTeRLoYAFoFWPt4i6sUjhFPufjeyxdXsSR5dsdqUFZRX1dsCJkGWZzfLb3w== user@computer.local

Importing Key to the Server

We’ll add the key to the server and authorize it (we have to tell the server that this particular key is allowed to access the server). Log into WHM and navigate to: Main >> Security Center >> Manage root’s SSH Keys. Click on ‘Import Key’

On the next screen, you will want to scroll down and look for the last box that says “Paste the Public Key in this box:”. Paste your public key into that box. Leave the other boxes blank. It will automatically fill in the name. Hit ‘Import’.

On the next screen it will tell you the import was successful. Click on “Return to SSH Manager”. This brings you back to the Key management screen. You will click on “Manage Authorization”

Finally, click on the button for “Authorize”.

You are done! Try logging into SSH and it should look for your key.

Server Hardening – Disable Password Authentication

Now, you can take your security one step further and completely disable password logins for SSH. You will have no more fears of hackers trying to guess your SSH passwords.

To set this up, while still in WHM, navigate to: Main >> Security Center >> SSH Password Authorization Tweak. Click on “Disable Password Auth”

And that is that. As cPanel so eloquently puts it: Now, sit back and relax as hackers will no longer be able to gain ssh access through password cracking. They will, instead, receive errors like:

Permission denied (publickey,gssapi-keyex,gssapi-with-mic).

Notes

The encryption method used for this was ‘RSA’. RSA is natively implemented in more places (it is the default key type on most generators and commercial RSA certificates are much more widely deployed) and it defaults to 2048 bit key length. At the time of this writing, for DSA to be compliant, it has to be exactly 1024 bit, which is less secure. The general consensus is that both DSA and RSA are pretty equal in security quality and speed when used merely for authentication. Either you choose will be fine as long as you follow safe security practices: use higher bit key encryption, only use SSH v2, keep your software up to date, and protect your private key.

References:
http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/5096/rsa-vs-dsa-for-ssh-authentication-keys/5100#5100

http://encryptme.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/ssh-keys-rsa-vs-dsa/

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/security/48093-openssh-user-host-authentication-rsa-versus-dsa-provides-stronger-security.html#post498142

Note about this article

This article is one I had written for the ServInt blog as part of the ‘Tech bench’ series. You can view it on the ServInt blog here. They are using my article with my permission.

How to forward – archive all email for a user

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:18:57 +0000

# Updates:
# 11/07/12 | As of the release of the new WHM 11.34, some of the archive tasks of this article can be done directly with cPanel. cPanel now has it’s own built-in support for email archiving. See my WHM 11.34 features article here.

Today I am going to show you something pretty nifty: how to forward a copy of all incoming and outgoing mail for a particular email user. If you are the cautious type, or simply the email hoarding type like myself , this can be really handy for easy archival of all your mail. Exim can be configured so that your server will automatically (and quietly) send a copy of every message you send and receive over to another email address. This is all done without you noticing anything extra in the ‘To’ or ‘CC’ fields. Silent and effective.

This could also be used to secretly keep track of your users’ emails and monitoring what they do. I had a friend of mine recently ask me to help him set this up for him on a new Sales employee he had. He wanted to make sure they were taking care of the clients properly. While I may not personally agree with the privacy concerns of spying on another person’s email, I acknowledge that it can be used in this purpose and there are those out there who have no problem implementing it for this reason.

However, that is an argument of principles best saved for another time. I personally believe that all knowledge is power and people will do with their lives as they feel is best. I will show you the tech side of how to set this up; you can do with it as you please.

*Note: You will need SSH root access to make the following changes

Find the Exim System Filter file

The changes we are making will be to the ‘System Filter File’. Obviously, we’re gonna need to know where it is located. It could be different on your cPanel box, so be sure to look it up.

Log into WHM and navigate to the section: Main >> Service Configuration >> Exim Configuration Manager. Alternatively, you can simply type ‘Exim’ into the search bar and it will be the first result.

Next, scroll down and locate the “System Filter File” section. It should list the default location. On my server, it is:

/etc/cpanel_exim_system_filter

Leave WHM open for now because we will be coming back to it shortly.

Edit the Exim System Filter file

One thing I must note is that you will not actually be directly editing the system filter file. cPanel staff has stated that if you do, the changes will get overwritten during cPanel updates. Instead, we are going to make a copy of it and make our changes to the new custom file. cPanel updates will not change your custom file.

*Note: Exim version changes, however, WILL overwrite custom files. When cPanel 11.34 comes out, Exim is likely to get a version change. Make sure you back up this file ahead of time.

Let’s get started. Log into SSH and copy the system filter file:

cp /etc/cpanel_exim_system_filter /etc/cpanel_exim_system_filter_custom

Next, edit the newly made file:

nano /etc/cpanel_exim_system_filter_custom

And place the following template at the very bottom:

### FORWARD ALL INCOMING AND OUTGOING MAIL FOR A USER ###

if ("$h_to:, $h_cc:, $h_bcc" contains "user@domain.com")
   or ("$h_from:" contains "user@domain.com")
then
   unseen deliver "archive-address@domain.com"
endif

The code above will send a copy of any email that is sent “To”, “CC”, and even “BCC” to your address. It will also send a copy for all outgoing mail. Be sure to replace the example addresses above with your actual email addresses. Save and exit the file.

Reconfigure & Restart Exim

Now, you need to go back to WHM and change the system filter file location. Basically, we’re going to reconfigured Exim to use that new file we made instead of the default one. Copy and paste the full path to your new file into the 3rd field:

Scroll down and hit ‘Save’. Finally, all you need to do now is restart Exim:

service exim restart

And that is that! Your server will now start archiving all your email to the address you specified. You’re going to start getting a lot of extra mail at that address so be sure you have some automatic message organization setup such as User level filtering in cPanel or Message filters in your email client to sort them all the messages into folders. If not, you may have a little bit of a messy inbox next time you log in

References

Special thanks goes out to cPanel Tristan. You always know your stuff and are great at helping! I really enjoy getting you in the ticket system and then also finding fixes in the forums that happen to be posted by you as well. It makes my day every time. Research for this article found on the cPanel forums here

Also, thanks goes to Vinayak on the cPanel forums here

More light painting

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:22:10 +0000

Last night I decided to have some fun and play around with light painting once again. I love how easy it is to do and you have instant gratification on the results (assuming you’re using a digital SLR). No post-production editing, no rendering, no file transcoding. Just flip through the images directly on the camera. All you need is an SLR camera and some LED lights (and glow sticks for fun if you want to get really creative!)

Someday soon, I’ll have to post the pictures from my first session with light painting. For now, enjoy fun times #2:

This sprint commercial was my original inspiration for trying light painting. Check it out:

Hosts file modification

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:00:57 +0000

# Updates
# 09/21/12 – Revised Windows instructions to properly open Notepad with Admin rights
# 05/20/12 – Updated OS detection interface

When you visit a website, your computer has to look up the IP address for that site so that it knows where to go. Before your computer goes out to find the IP address, it will first check the local hosts file. The hosts file on your computer is a plain text file that contains a map of hostnames to IP addresses.

If you wanted to override the actual IP address of a site, you could ‘trick’ your computer by manually setting the IP address for a website and telling it where to go to find a website. This is extremely common and useful to do when testing a website that you are transferring to a new serer.

Imagine you are moving your website to a new powerful system. However, you do not want the existing site to go down; you want it to stay up at all times. You can copy the site and all it’s contents to the new server, but how do you test it without changing the DNS? You want to make sure that the site is going to work on the new server without any errors before you start sending traffic over to it. The best method to do this is to change your computer’s hosts file. You can send only your computer to the new server without affecting the live site at all.

The process for modifying the hosts file varies depending on what Operating System you are running. With the help of my good buddy Colin, we have developed a handy utility that will tell you how to modify your hosts file no matter you are running Linux, Mac, or Windows. The following section of this page will detect your OS and print instruction specific to you. Hope you enjoy!

[hostsfile]

Note about this article

This utility is one I had written for the ServInt blog as part of the ‘Tech bench’ series. You can view it on the ServInt blog here. They are using my article with my permission.

Assassin’s Creed for Kinect

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:01:46 +0000

Here is the demo video for Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed that my buddy Anibal and I worked on:

That’s right, its an April Fool’s day prank! Anibal and I worked on the visual effects and they used my house for all the Girl gamer party shots (as well as the table crash). It was a ton of fun making it and a lot of work to pump out in only a few short weeks.

Starring: The Frag Dolls

Change a document root on cPanel

Jacob "Boom Shadow" Tirey — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:36:57 +0000

What is the document root?

When you visit a web site, you are accessing a particular folder on the web server. The server knows to only serve up those files located at that folder to incoming visitors. The location of that web folder is called the “Document Root”.

It is similar to using a coat check. You present your ticket to the attendant and they fetch it from the back room.
In this metaphor, the coat is the site you want to visit and the attendant is the web server. The visitor doesn’t know the exact location where the coat is stored, but the coat does reside at a specific location.

For example, when you visit johns-carpentry.com, the server is pulling up the files at: /home/johnc/public_html. The document root is set by the Apache configuration.

What we are going to discuss today is what if you wanted to change that location? You would need to change the ‘Document root’ for the domain. cPanel’s default location may not serve your needs or you simply want to reorganize. In any case, I’ll show you how to make that change on cPanel.

Changing Addon Domains

There are two types of domains on a cPanel box that can have document roots: Main (primary) domains and Addon domains. Addon domains are easy to change the document root. Simply log into your cPanel and navigate to: Domains >> Addon domains

Next, edit the Addon domain path. To do so, simply click the edit icon next to the path, and type in your new path.

It’s that simple!

Changing Primary domains

For changing the main/primary domain, you will need to have root SSH access. Edit the following (replacing your user & domain info):

/var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAIN.COM

Look for the following line:

documentroot: /home/USERNAME/public_html

Modify it according to your needs. Save it and exit.

If you are using an SSL on the domain, be sure to update the SSL’s template as well:

/var/cpanel/userdata/USERNAME/DOMAIN.COM_SSL
documentroot: /home/USERNAME/public_html

Then, rebuild the Apache conf and restart Apache:

/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf
service httpd restart

The change will be immediate. Simply clear your browser cache and force refresh the page!

Note about this article

This article is one I had written for the ServInt blog as part of the ‘Tech bench’ series. You can view it on the ServInt blog here. They are using my article with my permission.