James McDonald

CakePHP 2.4.6 Transitioning to Encrypted DB Columns

Note: The encryption created with Cakephp 2.4.6 Security::rijndael can't be read (by default) using the MySQL AES_DECRYPT() function so once you have it encrypted you can only read and write using the CakePHP application. I believe CakePHP 2.5.x has another couple of...

X2GO Fedora 20 – Actually works really well

How I got it working Prerequisites: you need a working ssh server on your Fedora 20 box and port 22 forwarded from your internet router to the Fedora 20 PC. yum install x2goserver Gnome 3 doesn't seem to work I tried gnome-session --session=gnome-fallback to no avail....

NGinx Logrotate

When you start creating virtual hosts under NGinx and give them separate access and error logs don't forget to update the logrotate configuration otherwise your logs just keep growing. I have named my logs with .access and .error extensions instead of the default .log...

Postfix / Mailgun Setup

For each website domain name I want to send email and make sure that it reliably delivered through a trusted relayhost. Mailgun allows you to set TXT records for each of your domains to add the mailgun smtp relay servers as trusted hosts for relaying your email from...

Apache to Nginx

Just completed moving this website https://toggen.com.au/blog to nginx web server. The issues I found: Installing and configuring php-fpm to run per user Learning the syntax of the nginx conf files Rewriting the .htaccess files into the correct nginx rules Trying to...

mailgun postfix relay config on CentOS 6.5

Followed the mailgun documentation to get SASL relay working but was getting SASL authentication failure: No worthy mechs found Also found that the default configuration wasn't finding the ca-bundle.crt # /etc/postfix/main.cf smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes...

Nginx vs Apache

Running nginx with php-fpm configured to run a php-fpm Running Apache using mod_fcgid to run php-cgi as a different user from Apache I ran the Apache benchmarking tool ab -c 100 -n 10000 http://servername/php_page.php The php_page.php file has the following in it....

ZPanel Hosting Control Panel

I am looking around for a control panel that can. Create a domain, add users, add mysql databases and basically lighten the load when adding websites to my Rackspace VPS. Zpanel does all of the above but... I notice that it runs apache and mod_php as the apache user...

ElegantThemes Divi FTW

I have a friend who does roof tiling and repairs, along with gutter cleaning in Maitland NSW. I have just gotten him a website going using Eleganthemes.com Divi Wordpress theme. The Divi theme is a powerful html5 mobile friendly theme which has so many pre -...

My Head is Feeling Stuffy

Many different interests on the web want their own Web Metadata Protocols and Schemas to allow web site operators to present data to them so they can easily place it on their pages whether it's social networks, search engines, browsers, mobile devices there are...

Cloud based High Performance Content Serving

Just trying to conceptualize the tool chain for cloud based high performance web farm. https://www.varnish-cache.org - front end high speed reverse proxying web cache http://nginx.org/en/ - backend web server   I believe that cloud providers like Rackspace and...

GIMP 2.8.10 on a Microsoft RDP Server

GIMP 2.8.10 on a Microsoft RDP Server

The last time I installed Gimp on a Microsoft Terminal Server It was a little buggy. But this time the result seems to be OK. This is on Windows Server 2008 Standard R2 in terminal services mode. Note: I don't work in an environment where I have dozens of users stress...

Insync Fedora 20 File Sync Icons Missing

Problem: Despite the insync process running the Insync Custom Icons not displaying in Nautilus under Gnome Shell in Fedora 20. Cause: nautilus-python core dumping when attempting to load  insync_plugin.py (which is what enables the custom icons) Resolution: Install...

Linux PDF Annotation Support

Linux PDF Annotation Support

If you want to add comments / notes and highlight text in Linux with a native PDF viewer Okular is your huckleberry Note: I found that you have to do a File ==> Save As and resave PDF documents annotated with Okular in order to be able to view the annotations in...