Year: 2011

How to avoid emails from Dr. Web

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Dr. Web is a Russian anti-virus utility that comes bundled with Plesk. It’s good and it tries to keep the bad guys out.

To keep up with all the mutations out there it tries to update itself frequently. B default, Plesk sends the system admin an email when this happens – no matter if Dr. Web was successful or if there was a problem.

This is what a sample email looks like:

/etc/cron.daily/drweb-update:

Dr.Web update details:
Update server: http://update.us1.drweb.com/plesk/700/unix
Update has begun at Thu May 17 03:37:07 2011
Update has finished at Thu May 17 03:38:16 2011

Following files have been updated:
	/var/drweb/bases/drwdaily.vdb
	/var/drweb/bases/drwtoday.vdb
	/var/drweb/bases/dwmtoday.vdb
	/var/drweb/bases/dwntoday.vdb
	/var/drweb/bases/dwrtoday.vdb
	/var/drweb/bases/timestamp
	/var/drweb/updates/timestamp

Multiply that email by the number of servers you’re looking after, and you’ll soon have an overflowing inbox.

Here’s the solution: tweak a system file and divert those emails to nowhere.

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Say hello to WP Hosting

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After well over a year I am very pleased to share with you our latest business venture:

WP Hosting – the easiest way to get a self-hosted WordPress site.

WP Hosting has been in the making for quite some time, and what better way to make its launch coincide with the release of WordPress 3.3. With it come some fundamental changes to the way we do things here – let me explain the details.

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How to install OSSEC HIDS on CentOS 6 and 7

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Remote computers are under constant attack by Evil Dudes – that’s especially true for Linux servers. To prevent such attacks by Evil Dudes from Hacker Land, I’ve been relying on the amazing OSSEC Host Intrusion Detection System on all my machines.

Even though the OSSEC website is great, I always forget the simple steps that are involved in getting it up and running on a brand new server. Here are the steps that work for me.

I’ve originally written this article in 2011 for OSSEC 2.6, but I’ve just updated and tested the instructions again with OSSEC 2.8.1 on CentOS 7. It’s my go-to guide on how to get OSSEC up and running. However, by the time you read this it may all be completely out of date – please bear that in mind. Thanks 😉

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How to install Plesk on CentOS 6

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The other day I got myself a brand new server – so barebones that I had to do everything myself, including picking a Linux distribution. Sadly the one I wanted (CentOS 6) did not come bundled with Plesk so I had to install it manually.

I thought I’d better take some notes so I can retrace my steps.

At the time of writing, Plesk 10.3 is current, with 10.4 just around the corner. Keep this in mind – things tend to change drastically with every major release.

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What exactly is a Blog?

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I’ve written this in response to a question on The 30 Day Challenge, in which I will be answering web related question throughout October. The question was “what exactly is a blog” in particular as a possible starting point to write a book – I hope you find this useful 😉

Blogging is an awful term I find, and it really doesn’t explain very well what it actually is and how useful it can be to oneself. Let me see if I can explain this.

The word blog is short for weblog and has started as an online journal many years ago. All you could do was write up a diary entries and share them with the world. Many people still do it just for that, but of course you can share any writing / picture / video combination nowadays.

What made blogging popular was the addition of a comment field at the bottom, so other people could interact with your particular entry.

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Which blogging platform should I go with?

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There are so many content management systems (or blogging platforms) on the market, many of them offer a free service. Some of them that spring to mind are these:

  • Blogger (by Google)
  • WordPress
  • Live Spaces (by Microsoft, now defunct)
  • Movable Type
  • Type Pad
  • Joomla
  • Drupal

The choice is endless and the list could go on – but only two are serious candidates, at least for me. This comes down to personal preference and I encourage you to try them all… but who has the time to do that?

Let me explain the differences.

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