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How to install CentOS with Parallels Desktop

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You can never have enough servers flying around, be that for testing, playing or developing. Today I decided that I wanted my local copy of CentOS on my Mac Book Pro – and thanks to Parallels Desktop I can run this in a virtual container alongside Mac OS X. Nice!

It’s a bit complex so I took some notes – may they be useful for both you and me at some point in the future.

I’m installing CentOS 6.2 in 64bit on OS X Lion on a 13″ Mac Book Pro with 8GB of RAM and an Intel i7. I’m using Parallels Desktop 7 for this exercise.

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How to remove Customer and Business Manager in Plesk

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Let’s remove those links

One of the questions that came up at Parallels Summit recently was how to uninstall Customer and Business manager. Plesk doesn’t offer a solution to uninstall things – even though you can add modules, once they’re installed they’re installed.

Luckily I remember a good forum thread that’s a bit long so I’ll give you a concise version here.

Note: this works in Plesk 10.4.4 and 11.0.9 for Linux (CentOS) – I haven’t tried earlier or later versions or other distributions at the time of writing. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment.

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FIXED: The Problem with running PHP as FastCGI Application (WordPress and Plesk)

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We’re currently on our way to Kissimmee, FL to join Parallels Summmit, an annual conference from the people who make Plesk. We’re also taking exams in Plesk 10.4.4 so we’re studying it in-depth – I’ve been using the software for over two years now but never had formal training in it. Well here goes!

In preparation for the exam tomorrow I’ve come across something the instructor mentioned: namely the benefits of running PHP as a FastCGI application instead of an Apache module. Sadly I’ve also come across some drawbacks when using this option in regards to WordPress. I thought I’d mention those here, alongside how to avoid those.

UPDATE: Thanks to Boldock this problem can be fixed 😉

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How to deploy HyperDB

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Ever since I’ve started experimenting with HyperDB I thought that once I’ve got enough servers at my disposal, and if I ever figure out how to setup MySQL replication I’d bring the two together. I believe that day has finally come: HyperDB is now deployed across over 60 sites I’m taking care of.

I want to share with you my configuration and some of the pitfalls I’ve come across – if it helps, great. But mainly these notes are for me to remember how I did it when the next cluster needs to be built.

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Calling all Forum Beta Testers

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Great News: I’ve been meaning to add a general WordPress forum to this site for a while, but none of the options seemed to work well for what I wanted to do.

All I needed was a simple discussion forum, integrated into WordPress – I really didn’t want to mess around with phpBB or the likes. bbPress is in a constant state of beta and gives me a headache every time I want to make it work, SimplePress is ugly and basically all of the above are overcomplicated.

Enter Tal.ki – an embeddable forum solution that promises to give me a forum with only one line of code, or alternatively as a WordPress Plugin! It’s not live on this site – let’s test it out!

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How to prevent direct file access in your wp-content directory

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I was working on a secure site with sensitive video material that we needed strict members access to. Even though many plugins can make sure your direct permalinks can only be seen by logged in members, direct links to files in your wp-content directory are still accessible to others. They can even be hotlinked from other sites.

One way around this is to move the wp-content directory outside the web visible portion of your directory on the server, but even so WordPress can always link to such files. A better way is to tell your server not to give access to certain files (say ending with mp4 or mp3) and only allow access from your own domain.

We can use Apache Mod Rewrite for this – it’s a complex language that you can utilise in your .htaccess file within the wp-content folder.

Let me show you how to keep prying eyes out of your content.

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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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