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How to fix 403 forbidden error in Nginx?

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403 access forbidden error message is displayed on the browser when you try to open a file whose public access has been blocked by the webmaster or because of a permission problem. In other words, the web server is saying that you are not allowed to view the file. If you’re a webmaster (blogger) and if you’re facing this issue, then it ‘s obvious that you don’t have much...

What is a Doctor of Science Degree?

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In 2014, I finally graduated after several years of intensive work from the University of Baltimore with a Doctor of Science degree in Information and Interaction Design. At the time I graduated people started asking me about my credential and whether or not it was the same as a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). What is a Doctor of Science? There are many articles online regarding this very topic. In...

TTFB first byte time : Why it is important and how to reduce it?

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TTFB aka first-byte time is nothing but the time taken by the first byte to reach the client machine when the client seeks a response from the server after the browser running on it makes an HTTP GET request. A small TTFB value indicates that your web server is fast. A high TTFB value denotes that your site is slow in responding to the browser’s HTTP GET request. To fix the problem...

Proof : HTTP 500 Internal Server Errors Impact Google Rankings

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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that this site was throwing error establishing database connection or internal server errors last week. The issue which was caused by the Linux out of memory manager has now been fixed, and the site is now live 24 x 7. I’m using this server to host some other WordPress websites as well. Fixing the error was a very...

The OOM Killer : How to Fix Out of Memory Error in Linux?

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Since two weeks, my website was frequently crashing because the MySQL server stopped abruptly at random times of the day. This issue started when I was on a holiday. My site was down for several hours. I configured crontab to start MySQL server when the service had stopped. This didn’t help. I enabled query cache to reduce the load on the server. I use NGINX Fast CGI cache, APCu, and...

How to Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death

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The dreaded WordPress white screen of death means something has gone wrong and is preventing your website from loading. In most cases, the white screen of death will prevent both the front and back end from loading correctly and all you can see is a blank white screen in your web browser. The white screen of death is often caused by a faulty plugin or theme. In some cases, corrupt files, a...

Fixing MySQL Server Has Gone Away problem

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All my websites are hosted on an unmanaged VPS. The VPS has enough of RAM and a decent CPU. It can handle ten high traffic blogs. I had never faced any problems until last week when my website started displaying error establishing a database connection to the visitors instead of the content. This error was reported after I changed one of the table’s structure. Why the heck did I change the...

Securing WordPress Login page and WP Admin area

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WP login.php is the most critical page on a WordPress website. Without it, you will not be able to access the WP-admin area aka the WP dashboard and other users will not be able to register an account with your website. No website owner would ever want a hacker or an intruder to get full access to the WP-admin area. If they do manage to get its access, intruders will delete your website...

Plugins to add 2 step authentication to WordPress website

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Dual factor authentication has become one of the most important security features in the last few years. Major websites like Google Mail, Outlook, Facebook are now protecting user accounts in a better way by allowing them to use a mobile device as their identity. To activate 2 step authentication, the service provider will ask you to install Google Authenticator app (or any of its alternative)...

Web Application Database Vulnerabilities to be Aware of

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The use of malicious code attacks against web applications and more specifically, web enabled databases, is on the rise and continues to be a greater threat as systems become more complicated and reliant on third party libraries and frameworks.  There are many different types of exploits and vulnerabilities associated with malicious code attacks which can potentially threaten the very...

SQL Injection Explained

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SQL injection has been a method of attacking databases through multiple tiers of application infrastructure for many years, MacVittie (2008).  SQL or Sequential Query Language is a database language used to interact with large quantities of data, typically stored in tables inside a Relational Database Management System (DBMS).  Each command using the SQL language typically generates a...

Operating Systems Security: Protection Measures Analysis

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The Internet has brought us a wealth of conveniences and everyday tools that we could not live without and more importantly a dependency that we cannot break. In the workplace the Internet has become a part of our day to day lives. We rely on instant communication with our co-workers, friends and colleagues as well as access to a multitude of information at our fingertips. Children from younger...

Usable Security? User Friendly Factors

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In his article on usable security, Lampson (2009) asserts that usable security needs to begin with policy and how we model security systems within the organization. He makes the case that security has to be simple and at the same time it has to minimize hassle (for the end user). He concludes that the root cause of this problem is one of economics whereby we “don’t know the costs either of...

Post Authentication Methods

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A lot of time can be spent in an organization firming up authentication and access control systems to ensure greater levels of security to their network. All of this however is only one step to insuring a users credentials are not compromised. Considerations need to be made for post authentication. There are several things organizations can do to mitigate risk associated with post login...

Unix Permissions For UMUC’s Nova Server Explained

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All files and directories created in a Unix environment such as Nova are assigned permissions based on the level of access available to different user groups. In order to understand permissions better, we will discuss users, groups and ownership. Users Unix is a multi-user operating system. It serves many users who have ownership or certain privileges of resources on the system. You have recently...

Three Simple Steps to Setup Your UMUC Nova Server Account

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Nova is a Unix based web server which is used through various computer studies courses at UMUC. If you are taking one of my web design classes or are enrolled in another UMUC class that uses Nova, the information provided here should be helpful. Nova is the server you will be using to setup your web directories for publishing content online. In order to set up a Nova account you will need...

CMST 385 Software Setup and Webpage Publishing

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Software Setup For this class you will require three main applications, a text editor, an SSH client and an FTP client. A text editor will be used to write your HTML documents. SSH (Secure SHell) is a text based application which will enable you to setup your Nova web server account, which we will be using to host your web pages online. Finally an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client will be...

Drupal Development Environment

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Drupal can be installed on any number of environments, but since it was developed primarily to run on an Apache server with PHP and MySQL database, it makes sense to mimic this environment as much as possible in a development sandbox. There are LAMP applications for both Windows (WAMP / XAMP) and Mac OS (MAMP) which can serve as a Linux replacement, however recent innovations with...

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Quick Overview

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Lately I’ve been carrying out some work involving the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). There is tons of information about FOIA on the web including on the official foia.gov website, however I decided to summarize the main points of this law in an easy to read / digestible format. This article is broken down into three main parts, a brief intro, the main areas covered in the law, and...

About Author

Ian Carnaghan

I am a software developer and online educator who likes to keep up with all the latest in technology. I also manage cloud infrastructure, continuous monitoring, DevOps processes, security, and continuous integration and deployment.

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