Feb 7, 2016 | Articles
Nginx Plugin During Early Beta When Let’s Encrypt started their closed beta, their documentation warned that their Nginx plugin was experimental. Using it as the authenticator to obtain certificates seemed to work, but using it as the installer would almost... read more
Nov 2, 2015 | Tutorials
HTTPS and Encryption by Default Encryption by default has become the new standard for web applications and many of the world’s top busiest sites have already made the switch to serving content via HTTPS. Google is no stranger to encryption, having made HTTPS the... read more
Sep 10, 2015 | Articles
For almost a year now I’ve been hosting CiviCRM instances for a couple clients. This has resulted in quite a bit of troubleshooting and experimentation with file permissions and Nginx configuration. Unfortunately, most of the documentation I’ve been able... read more
Mar 7, 2015 | Tutorials
Enabling Nginx Modules One inconvenience with Nginx is that modules cannot be dynamically added or removed as they can in Apache. Instead, Nginx modules are specified at compile-time. If you want to add or remove any Nginx modules such as ngx_lua,... read more
Dec 15, 2014 | Tutorials
Over the weekend I installed a copy of CiviCRM on WordPress to demo for a small nonprofit that recently asked me to help with some of their data needs. CiviCRM is a constituent relationship management (CRM) system designed for nonprofit organizations. While I... read more
Dec 15, 2014 | Tutorials
Extra protection against brute force attacks While WordPress has an authentication system of its own, some opt to add additional server-side password protection to /wp-admin/ using basic authentication. This prompts users for a username and a password before even... read more
Nov 15, 2014 | Tutorials
Over the past few months I’ve been working with WordPress sites a surprising amount. During this same time, I decided to switch all of my sites over to HTTPS exclusively. The switch was relatively painless, especially since free SSL certificate are now... read more
Nov 1, 2014 | Tutorials
If your application has any sort of login page or transmits sensitive information, it’s wise to make those sections accessible only via HTTPS. Even if your site has no sensitive information, it’s worth considering using HTTPS as Google now considers it a... read more
Nov 1, 2014 | Articles
Nginx is one of the most viable (and visible) open-source HTTP servers competing against Apache today. Due to its asynchronous, event-based nature, Nginx is highly scalable and can far outperform Apache under very heavy loads. As a result, it is one of the best... read more
Oct 26, 2014 | Articles
This weekend I overhauled my quick-lemp scripts for automating part of the server setup and LEMP stack installation process. The basic functionality is the same: standard new server setup is performed and a fully functioning LEMP stack is installed along with a sample... read more
