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I moved my domain to UpCloud (on the other side of the world) from Vultr (Sydney) and could not be happier with the performance.

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I moved my domain to UpCloud (on the other side of the world) from Vultr (Sydney) and could not be happier with the performance. Here is what I did to set up a complete Ubuntu 18.04 system (NGINX, PHP, MySQL, WordPress etc). This is not a paid review (just me documenting my steps over 2 days).

Background (CPanel hosts)

In 1999 I hosted my first domain (www.fearby.com) on a host in Seattle (for $10 USD a month), the host used CPanel and all was good.  After a decade I was using the domain more for online development and the website was now too slow (I think I was on dial-up or ADSL 1 at the time). I moved my domain to an Australian host (for $25 a month).

After 8 years the domain host was sold and performance remained mediocre. After another year the new host was sold again and performance was terrible.

I started receiving Resource Limit Is Reached warnings (basically this was a plot by the new CPanel host to say “Pay us more and this message will go away”).

Page load times were near 30 seconds.

cpenal_usage_exceeded

The straw that broke the camel’s back was their demand of $150/year for a dodgy SSL certificate.

I needed to move to a self-managed server where I was in control.

Buying a Domain Name

Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.

Domain names for just 88 cents!

Self Managed Server

I found a good web IDE ( http://www.c9.io/ ) that allowed me to connect to a cloud VM.  C9 allowed me to open many files and terminal windows and reconnect to them later. Don’t get excited, though, as AWS has purchased C9 and it’s not the same.

C9 IDE

C9 IDE

I spun up a Digital Ocean Server at the closest data centre in Singapore. Here was my setup guide creating a Digital Ocean VM, connecting to it with C9 and configuring it. I moved my email to G Suite and moved my WordPress to Digital Ocean (other guides here and here).

I was happy since I could now send emails via CLI/code, set up free SSL certs, add second domain email to G Suite and Secure G Suite. No more usage limit errors either.

Self-managing servers require more work but it is more rewarding (flexible, faster and cheaper).  Page load times were now near 20 seconds (10-second improvement).

Latency Issue

Over 6 months, performance on Digital Ocean (in Singapore) from Australia started to drop (mentioned here).  I tried upgrading the memory but that did not help (latency was king).

Moved the website to Australia

I moved my domain to Vultr in Australia (guide here and here). All was good for a year until traffic growth started to increase.

Blog Growth

I tried upgrading the memory on Vultr and I setup PHP child workers, set up Cloudflare.

GT Metrix scores were about a “B” and Google Page Speed Scores were in the lower 40’s. Page loads were about 14 seconds (5-second improvement).

Tweaking WordPress

I set up an image compression plugin in WordPress then set up a cloud image compression and CDN Plugin from the same vendor.  Page Speed info here.

GT Metrix scores were now occasionally an “A” and Page Speed scores were in the lower 20’s. Page loads were about 3-5 seconds (10-second improvement).

A mixed bag from Vultr (more optimisation and performance improvements were needed).

This screenshot is showing poor www.gtmetrix.com scores , pool google page speed index scores and upgrading from 1GB to 2GB memory on my server.

Google Chrome Developer Console Audit Results on Vultr hosted website were not very good (I stopped checking as nothing helped).

This is a screenshot showing poor site performance (screenshot taken in Google Dev tools audit feature)

The problem was the Vultr server (400km away in Sydney) was offline (my issue) and everything above (adding more memory, adding 2x CDN’s (EWWW and Cloudflare), adding PHP Child workers etc) did not seem to help???

Enter UpCloud…

Recently, a friend sent a link to a blog article about a host called “UpCloud” who promised “Faster than SSD” performance.  This can’t be right: “Faster than SSD”? I was intrigued. I wanted to check it out as I thought nothing was faster than SSD (well, maybe RAM).

I signed up for a trial and ran a disk IO test (read the review here) and I was shocked. It’s fast. Very fast.

Summary: UpCloud was twice as fast (Disk IO and CPU) as Vultr (+ an optional $4/m firewall and $3/m for 1x backup).

This is a screenshot showing Vultr.com servers getting half the read and write disk io performance compared to upcloud.com.

fyi: Labels above are K Bytes per second. iozone loops through all file size from 4 KB to 16,348 KB and measures through the reads per second. To be honest, the meaning of the numbers doesn’t interest me, I just want to compare apples to apples.

This is am image showing iozone results breakdown chart (kbytes per sec on vertical axis, file size in horizontal axis and transfer size on third access)

(image snip from http://www.iozone.org/ which explains the numbers)

I might have to copy my website on UpCloud and see how fast it is.

Where to Deploy and Pricing

UpCloud Pricing: https://www.upcloud.com/pricing/

UpCloud Pricing

UpCloud does not have a data centre in Australia yet so why choose UpCloud?

Most of my site’s visitors are based in the US and UpCloud have disk IO twice as fast as Vultr (win-win?).  I could deploy to Chicago?

This image sows most of my visitors are in the US

My site’s traffic is growing and I need to ensure the site is fast enough in the future.

This image shows that most of my sites visitors are hitting my site on week days.

Creating an UpCloud VM

I used a friend’s referral code and signed up to create my first VM.

FYI: use my Referral code and get $25 free credit.  Sign up only takes 2 minutes.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

When you click the link above you will receive 25$ to try out serves for 3 days. You can exit his trail and deposit $10 into UpCloud.

Trial Limitations

The trial mode restrictions are as following:

* Cloud servers can only be accessed using SSH, RDP, HTTP or HTTPS protocols
* Cloud servers are not allowed to send outgoing e-mails or to create outbound SSH/RDP connections
* The internet connection is restricted to 100 Mbps (compared to 500 Mbps for non-trial accounts)
* After your 72 hours free trial, your services will be deleted unless you make a one-time deposit of $10

UpCloud Links

The UpCloud support page is located here: https://www.upcloud.com/support/

More UpCloud links to read:

Signing up to UpCloud

Navigate to https://upcloud.com/signup and add your username, password and email address and click signup.

New UpCloud Signup Page

Add your address and payment details and click proceed (you don’t need to pay anything ($1 may be charged and instantly refunded to verify the card)

Add address and payment details

That’s it, check yout email.

Signup Done

Look for the UpCloud email and click https://my.upcloud.com/

Check Email

Now login

Login to UpCloud

Now I can see a dashboard 🙂

UpCloud Dashboard

I was happy to see 24/7 support is available.

This image shows the www.upcloud.com live chat

I opted in for the new dashboard

UpCloud new new dashboard

Deploy My First UpCloud Server

This is how I deployed a server.

Note: If you are going to deploy a server consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

Under the “deploy a server” widget I named the server and chose a location (I think I was supposed to use an FQDN name -e.g., “fearby.com”). The deployment worked though. I clicked continue, then more options were made available:

  1. Enter a short server description.
  2. Choose a location (Frankfurt, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Singapore, London and Chicago)
  3. Choose the number of CPU’s and amount of memory
  4. Specify disk number/names and type (MaxIOPS or HDD).
  5. Choose an Operating System
  6. Select a Timezone
  7. Define SSH Keys for access
  8. Allowed login methods
  9. Choose hardware adapter types
  10. Where the send the login password

Deploy Server

FYI: How to generate a new SSH Key (on OSX or Ubuntu)

Output

Did the key export? (yes)

> /temp# ls /temp/ -al
> drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jun 9 15:33 .
> drwxr-xr-x 27 root root 4096 Jun 8 14:25 ..
> -rw——- 1 user user 1766 Jun 9 15:33 example_rsa
> -rw-r–r– 1 user user 396 Jun 9 15:33 example_rsa.pub

“example_rsa” is the private key and “example_rsa.pub “is the public key.

  • The public key needs to be added to the server to allow access.
  • The private key needs to be added to any local ssh program used for remote access.

Initialisation script (after deployment)

I was pleased to see an initialization script section that calls actions after the server is deployed. I configured the initialisation script to pull down a few GB of backups from my Vultr website in Sydney (files now removed).

This was my Initialisation script:

Confirm and Deploy

I clicked “Confirm and deploy” but I had an alert that said trial mode can only deploy servers up to 1024MB of memory.

This image shows I cant deploy servers with 2/GB in trial modeExiting UpCloud Trial Mode

I opened the dashboard and clicked My Account then Billing, I could see the $25 referral credit but I guess I can’t use that in Trial.

I exited trial mode by depositing $10 (USD).

View Billing Details

Make a manual 1-time deposit of $10 to exit trial mode.

Deposit $10 to exit the trial

FYI: Server prices are listed below (or view prices here).

UpCloud Pricing

Now I can go back and deploy the server with the same settings above (1x CPU, 2GB Memory, Ubuntu 18.04, MaxIOPS Storage etc)

Deployment takes a few minutes and depending on how you specified a password may be emailed to you.

UpCloud Server Deployed

The server is now deployed; now I can connect to it with my SSH program (vSSH).  Simply add the server’s IP, username, password and the SSH private key (generated above) to your ssh program of choice.

fyi: The public key contents start with “ssh-rsa”.

This image shows me connecting to my sever via ssh

I noticed that the initialisation script downloaded my 2+GB of files already. Nice.

UpCloud Billing Breakdown

I can now see on the UpCloud billing page in my dashboard that credit is deducted daily (68c); at this rate, I have 49 days credit left?

Billing Breakdown

I can manually deposit funds or set up automatic payments at any time 🙂

UpCloud Backup Options

You do not need to setup backups but in case you want to roll back (if things stuff up), it is a good idea. Backups are an additional charge.

I have set up automatic daily backups with an auto deletion after 2 days

To view backup scheduled click on your deployed server then click backup

List of UpCloud Backups

Note: Backups are charged at $0.056 for every GB stored – so $5.60 for every 100GB per month (half that for 50GB etc)

You can take manual backups at any time (and only be charged for the hour)

UpCloud Firewall Options

I set up a firewall at UpCloud to only allow the minimum number of ports (UpCloud DNS, HTTP, HTTPS and My IP to port 22).  The firewall feature is charged at $0.0056 an hour ($4.03 a month)

I love the ability to set firewall rules on incoming, destination and outgoing ports.

To view your firewall click on your deployed server then click firewall

UpCloud firewall

Update: I modified my firewall to allow inbound ICMP (IPv4/IPv6) and UDP (IPv4/IPv6) packets.

(Note: Old firewall screenshot)

Firewall Rules Allow port 80, 443 and DNS

Because my internet provider has a dynamic IP, I set up a VPN with a static IP and whitelisted it for backdoor access.

Local Ubuntu ufw Firewall

I duplicated the rules in my local ufw (2nd level) firewall (and blocked mail)

UpCloud Download Speeds

I pulled down a 1.8GB Ubuntu 18.08 Desktop ISO 3 times from gigenet.com and the file downloaded in 32 seconds (57MB/sec). Nice.

Install Common Ubuntu Packages

I installed common Ubuntu packages.

Timezone

I checked the server’s time (I thought this was auto set before I deployed)?

I reset the time to Australia/Sydney.

Now the timezone is set 🙂

Shell History

I increased the shell history.

SSH Login

I created a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file and added my SSH public key to allow password-less logins.

I added my pubic ssh key, then exited the ssh session and logged back in. I can now log in without a password.

Install NGINX

nginx/1.14.0 is now installed.

A quick GT Metrix test.

This image shows awesome static nginx performance ratings of of 99%

Install MySQL

Run these commands to install and secure MySQL.

Securing the MySQL server deployment.
> Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD plugin?: n
> New password: **********************************************
> Re-enter new password: **********************************************
> Remove anonymous users? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Disallow root login remotely? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Remove test database and access to it? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : y
> Success.

I disabled the validate password plugin because I hate it.

MySQL Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.22 is now installed.

Set MySQL root login password type

Set MySQL root user to authenticate via “mysql_native_password”. Run the “mysql” command.

Now let’s set the root password authentication method to “mysql_native_password”

Check authentication method.

Now we need to flush permissions.

Done.

Install PHP

Install PHP 7.2

PHP 7.2.5, Zend Engine v3.2.0 with Zend OPcache v7.2.5-1 is now installed. Do update PHP frequently.

I made the following changes in /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

> cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
> max_input_vars = 1000
> memory_limit = 1024M
> max_file_uploads = 20M
> post_max_size = 20M

Install PHP Modules

sudo apt-get install php-pear php7.2-curl php7.2-dev php7.2-mbstring php7.2-zip php7.2-mysql php7.2-xml

Install PHP FPM

Configure PHP FPM config.

Edit /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

> cgi.fix_pathinfo=0
> max_input_vars = 1000
> memory_limit = 1024M
> max_file_uploads = 20M
> post_max_size = 20M

Reload php sudo service.

Install PHP Modules

Configuring NGINX

If you are not comfortable editing NGINX config files read here, here and here.

I made a new “www root” folder, set permissions and created a default html file.

I edited the “root” key in “/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default” file and set the root a new location (e.g., “/www-root”)

I added these performance tweaks to /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

> worker_cpu_affinity auto;
> worker_rlimit_nofile 100000

I add the following lines to “http {” section in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Check NGINX Status

Install Open SSL that supports TLS 1.3

This is a work in progress. The steps work just fine for me on Ubuntu 16.04. but not Ubuntu 18.04.?

Installing Adminer MySQL GUI

I will use the PHP based Adminer MySQL GUI to export and import my blog from one server to another. All I needed to do is install it on both servers (simple 1 file download)

Use Adminer to Export My Blog (on Vultr)

On the original server open Adminer (http) and..

  1. Login with the MySQL root account
  2. Open your database
  3. Choose “Save” as the output
  4. Click on Export

This image shows the export of the wordpress adminer page

Save the “.sql” file.

I used Adminer on the UpCloud server to Import My Blog

FYI: Depending on the size of your database backup you may need to temporarily increase your upload and post sizes limits in PHP and NGINX before you can import your database.

Edit /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini
> max_file_uploads = 100M
> post_max_size =100M

And Edit: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
> client_max_body_size 100M;

Don’t forget to reload NGINX config and restart NGINX and PHP. Take note of the maximum allowed file size in the screenshot below. I temporarily increased my upload limits to 100MB in order to restore my 87MB blog.

Now I could open Adminer on my UpCloud server.

  1. Create a new database
  2. Click on the database and click Import
  3. Choose the SQL file
  4. Click Execute to import it

Import MuSQL backup with Adminer

Don’t forget to create a user and assign permissions (as required – check your wp-config.php file).

Import MySQL Database

Tip: Don’t forget to lower the maximum upload file size and max post size after you import your database,

Cloudflare DNS

I use Cloudflare to manage DNS, so I need to tell it about my new server.

You can get your server’s IP details from the UpCloud dashboard.

Find IP

At Cloudflare update your DNS details to point to the server’s new IPv4 (“A Record”) and IPv6 (“AAAA Record”).

Cloudflare DNS

Domain Error

I waited an hour and my website was suddenly unavailable.  At first, I thought this was Cloudflare forcing the redirection of my domain to HTTP (that was not yet set up).

DNS Not Replicated Yet

I chatted with UpCloud chat on their webpage and they kindly assisted me to diagnose all the common issues like DNS values, DNS replication, Cloudflare settings and the error was pinpointed to my NGINX installation.  All NGINX config settings were ok from what we could see?  I uninstalled NGINX and reinstalled it (and that fixed it). Thanks UpCloud Support 🙂

Reinstalled NGINX

I reinstalled NGINX and reconfigured /etc/nginx/nginx.conf (I downloaded my SSL cert from my old server just in case).

Here is my /etc/nginx/nginx.conf file.

Here is my /etc/nginx/sites-available/default file (fyi, I have not fully re-setup TLS 1.3 yet so I commented out the settings)

SSL Labs SSL Certificate Check

All good thanks to the config above.

SSL Labs

Install WP-CLI

I don’t like setting up FTP to auto-update WordPress plugins. I use the WP-CLI tool to manage WordPress installations by the command line. Read my blog here on using WP-CLI.

Download WP-CLI

Move WP-CLI to the bin folder as “wp”

Test wp

Update WordPress Plugins

Now I can run “wp plugin update” to update all WordPress plugins

Update WordPress Core

WordPress core file can be updated with “wp core update“

Troubleshooting: Use the flag “–allow-root “if wp needs higher access (unsafe action though).

Install PHP Child Workers

I edited the following file to setup PHP child workers /etc/php/7.2/fpm/pool.d/www.conf

Changes

> pm = dynamic
> pm.max_children = 40
> pm.start_servers = 15
> pm.min_spare_servers = 5
> pm.max_spare_servers = 15
> pm.process_idle_timeout = 30s;
> pm.max_requests = 500;
> php_admin_value[error_log] = /var/log/www-fpm-php.www.log
> php_admin_value[memory_limit] = 512M

Restart PHP

Test NGINX config, reload NGINX config and restart NGINX

Output (14 workers are ready)

Memory Tweak (set at your own risk)

vm.swappiness = 1

Setting swappiness to a value of 1 all but disables the swap file and tells the Operating System to aggressively use ram, a value of 10 is safer. Only set this if you have enough memory available (and free).

Possible swappiness settings:

> vm.swappiness = 0 Swap is disabled. In earlier versions, this meant that the kernel would swap only to avoid an out of memory condition when free memory will be below vm.min_free_kbytes limit, but in later versions, this is achieved by setting to 1.[2]> vm.swappiness = 1 Kernel version 3.5 and over, as well as Red Hat kernel version 2.6.32-303 and over: Minimum amount of swapping without disabling it entirely.
> vm.swappiness = 10 This value is sometimes recommended to improve performance when sufficient memory exists in a system.[3]
> vm.swappiness = 60 The default value.
> vm.swappiness = 100 The kernel will swap aggressively.

The “htop” tool is a handy memory monitoring tool to “top”

Also, you can use good old “watch” command to show near-live memory usage (auto-refreshes every 2 seconds)

Script to auto-clear the memory/cache

As a habit, I am setting up a cronjob to check when free memory falls below 100MB, then the cache is automatically cleared (freeing memory).

Script Contents: clearcache.sh

I set the cronjob to run every 15 mins, I added this to my cronjob.

Sample log output

I will check the log (/scripts/clearcache.log) in a few days and view the memory trends.

After 1/2 a day Ubuntu 18.04 is handling memory just fine, no externally triggered cache clears have happened 🙂

Free memory over time

I used https://crontab.guru/every-hour to set the right schedule in crontab.

I rebooted the VM.

Update: I now use Nixstats monitoring

Swap File

FYI: Here is a handy guide on viewing swap file usage here. I’m not using swap files so it is only an aside.

After the system rebooted I checked if the swappiness setting was active.

Yes, swappiness is set.

File System Tweaks – Write Back Cache (set at your own risk)

First, check your disk name and file system

Take note of your disk name (e.g vda1)

I used TuneFS to enable writing data to the disk before writing to the journal. tunefs is a great tool for setting file system parameters.

Warning (snip from here): “I set the mode to journal_data_writeback. This basically means that data may be written to the disk before the journal. The data consistency guarantees are the same as the ext3 file system. The downside is that if your system crashes before the journal gets written then you may lose new data — the old data may magically reappear.“

Warning this can corrupt your data. More information here.

I ran this command.

I edited my fstab to append the “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags for my volume after a reboot.

Edit FS Tab:

I added “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags to my disk options.

Updating Ubuntu Packages

Show updatable packages.

Update Packages.

Unattended Security Updates

Read more on Ubuntu 18.04 Unattended upgrades here, here and here.

Install Unattended Upgrades

Enable Unattended Upgrades.

Now I configure what packages not to auto-update.

Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Find “Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist” and add packages that you don’t want automatically updated, you may want to manually update these (and monitor updates).

I prefer not to auto-update critical system apps (I will do this myself).

FYI: You can find installed packages by running this command:

Enable automatic updates by editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

Edit the number at the end (the number is how many days to wait before updating) of each line.

> APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists “1”;
> APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages “1”;
> APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval “7”;
> APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade “1”;

Set to “0” to disable automatic updates.

The results of unattended-upgrades will be logged to /var/log/unattended-upgrades

Update packages now.

Almost done.

I Rebooted

GT Metrix Score

I almost fell off my chair. It’s an amazing feeling hitting refresh in GT Metrix and getting sub-2-second score consistently (and that is with 17 assets loading and 361KB of HTML content)

0.9sec load times

WebPageTest.org Test Score

Nice. I am not sure why the effective use of CDN has an X rating as I have the EWWW CDN and Cloudflare. First Byte time is now a respectable “B”, This was always bad.

Update: I found out the longer you set cache delays in Cloudflare the higher the score.

Web Page Test

GT Metrix has a nice historical breakdown of load times (night and day).

Upcloud Site Speed in GTMetrix

Google Page Speed Insight Desktop Score

I benchmarked with https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

This will help with future SEO rankings. It is well known that Google is pushing fast servers.

100% Desktop page speed score

Google Chrome 70 Dev Console Audit (Desktop)

100% Chrome Audit Score

This is amazing, I never expected to get this high score.  I know Google like (and are pushing) sub-1-second scores.

My site is loading so well it is time I restored some old features that were too slow on other servers

  • I disabled Lazy loading of images (this was not working on some Android devices)
  • I re-added the News Widget and news images.

GTMetrix and WebpageTest sores are still good (even after adding bloat)

Benchmarks are still good

My WordPress site is not really that small either

Large website

FYI: WordPress Plugins I use.

These are the plugins I use.

How I use these plugins to speed up my site.

  • I use EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to auto-compress my images and to provide a CDN for media asset deliver (pre-Cloudflare). Learn more about ExactDN and EWWW.io here.
  • I use Autoptimize plugin to optimise HTML/CSS/JS and ensure select assets are on my EWWW CDN. This plugin also removes WordPress Emojis, removed the use of Google Fonts, allows you to define pre-configured domains, Async Javascript-files etc.
  • I use BJ Lazy Load to prevent all images in a post from loading on load (and only as the user scrolls down the page).
  • GTmetrix for WordPress and Cloudflare plugins are for information only?
  • I use WP-Optimize to ensure my database is healthy and to disable comments/trackbacks and pingbacks.

Let’s Test UpCloud’s Disk IO in Chicago

Looks good to me, Read IO is a little bit lower than UpCloud’s Singapore data centre but still, it’s faster than Vultr.  I can’t wait for more data centres to become available around the world.

Why is UpCloud Disk IO so good?

I asked UpCloud on Twitter why the Disk IO was so good.

  • “MaxIOPS is UpCloud’s proprietary block-storage technology. MaxIOPS is physically redundant storage technology where all customer’s data is located in two separate physical devices at all times. UpCloud uses InfiniBand (!) network to connect storage backends to compute nodes, where customers’ cloud servers are running. All disks are enterprise-grade SSD’s. And using separate storage backends, it allows us to live migrate our customers’ cloud servers freely inside our infrastructure between compute nodes – whether it be due to hardware malfunction (compute node) or backend software updates (example CPU vulnerability and immediate patching).“

My Answers to Questions to support

Q1) What’s the difference between backups and snapshots (a Twitter user said Snapshots were a thing)

A1) Backups and snapshots are the same things with our infrastructure.

Q2) What are charges for backup of a 50GB drive?

A2) We charge $0.06 / GB of the disk being captured. But capture the whole disk, not just what was used. So for a 50GB drive, we charge $0.06 * 50 = $3/month. Even if 1GB were only used.

  • Support confirmed that each backup is charged (so 5 times manual backups are charged 5 times). Setting up a daily auto backup schedule for 2 weeks would create 14 billable backup charges.
  • I guess a 25GB server will be $1.50 a month

Q3) What are data charges if I go over my 2TB quota?

A3) Outgoing data charges are $0.056/GB after the pre-configured allowance.

Q4) What happens if my balance hits $0?

A4) You will get notification of low account balance 2 weeks in advance based on your current daily spend. When your balance reaches zero, your servers will be shut down. But they will still be charged for. You can automatically top-up if you want to assign a payment type from your Control Panel. You deposit into your balance when you want. We use a prepaid model of payment, so you need to top up before using, not billing you after usage. We give you lots of chances to top-up.

Support Tips

  • One thing to note, when deleting servers (CPU, RAM) instances, you get the option to delete the storages separately via a pop-up window. Choose to delete permanently to delete the disk, to save credit. Any disk storage lying around even unattached to servers will be billed.
  • Charges are in USD.

I think it’s time to delete my domain from Vultr in Sydney.

Deleted my Vultr domain

I deleted my Vultr domain.

Delete Vultr Server

Done.

More Reading on UpCloud

https://www.upcloud.com/documentation/faq/

UpCloud Server Status

http://status.upcloud.com

Check out my new guide on Nixstats for awesome monitoring

What I would like

  1. Ability to name individual manual backups (tag with why I backed up).
  2. Ability to push user-defined data from my VM to the dashboard
  3. Cheaper scheduled backups
  4. Sydney data centres (one day)

Update: Post UpCloud Launch Tweaks (Awesome)

I had a look at https://www.webpagetest.org/ results to see where else I can optimise webpage delivery.

Optimisation Options

Disable dasjhicons.min.css (for unauthenticated WordPress users).

Find functions.php in the www root

Edit functions.php

Add the following

// Remove dashicons in frontend for unauthenticated users
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'bs_dequeue_dashicons' );
function bs_dequeue_dashicons() {
    if ( ! is_user_logged_in() ) {
        wp_deregister_style( 'dashicons' );
    }
}

HTTP2 Push

I added http2 to my listening servers

I tested a http2 push page by defining this in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default 

Once I tested that push (demo here) was working I then defined two files to push that were being sent from my server

I used the WordPress Plugin Autoptimize to remove Google font usage (this removed a number of files being loaded when my page loads).

I used the WordPress Plugin WP-Optimize plugin into to remove comments and disable pingbacks and trackbacks.

WordPress wp-config.php tweaks

Add 2FA Authentication to server logins.

I recently checked out YubiCo YubiKeys and I have secured my Linux servers with 2FA prompts at login. Read the guide here. I secured my WordPress too.

Tweaks Todo

  • Compress placeholder BJ Lazy Load Image (plugin is broken)
  • Solve 2x Google Analytics tracker redirects (done, switched to Matomo)

Conclusion

I love UpCloud’s fast servers, give them a go (use my link and get $25 free credit).

I love Cloudflare for providing a fast CDN.

I love ewww.io’s automatic Image Compression and Resizing plugin that automatically handles image optimisations and pre Cloudflare/first hit CDN caching.

Read my post about server monitoring with Nixstats here.

Let the results speak for themselves (sub <1 second load times).

Results

I hope this guide helps someone.

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

2020 Update. I have stopped using Putty and WinSCP. I now use MobaXterm (a tabbed SSH client for Windows) as it is way faster than WinSCP and better than Putty. Read my review post of MobaXTerm here.

Ask a question or recommend an article

[contact-form-7 id=”30″ title=”Ask a Question”]

Revision History

v2.1 Newer GTMetrix scores

v2.0 New UpCloud UI Update and links to new guides.

v1.9 Spelling and grammar

v1.8 Trial mode gotcha (deposit money ASAP)

v1.7 Added RSA Private key info

v1.7 – Added new firewall rules info.

v1.6 – Added more bloat to the site, still good.

v1.5 Improving Accessibility

v1.4 Added Firewall Price

v1.3 Added wp-config and plugin usage descriptions.

v1.2 Added GTMetrix historical chart.

v1.1 Fixed free typos and added final conclusion images.

v1.0 Added final results

v0.9 added more tweaks (http2 push, removing unwanted files etc)

v0.81 Draft  – Added memory usage chart and added MaxIOPS info from UpCloud.

v0.8 Draft post.

I set the cronjob to run every 15 mins, I added this to my cronjob.

 

Sample log output

 

I will check the log (/scripts/clearcache.log) in a few days and view the memory trends.

After 1/2 a day Ubuntu 18.04 is handling memory just fine, no externally triggered cache clears have happened 🙂

Free memory over time

I used https://crontab.guru/every-hour to set the right schedule in crontab.

I rebooted the VM.

Update: I now use Nixstats monitoring

Swap File

FYI: Here is a handy guide on viewing swap file usage here. I’m not using swap files so it is only an aside.

After the system rebooted I checked if the swappiness setting was active.

 

Yes, swappiness is set.

File System Tweaks – Write Back Cache (set at your own risk)

First, check your disk name and file system

 

Take note of your disk name (e.g vda1)

I used TuneFS to enable writing data to the disk before writing to the journal. tunefs is a great tool for setting file system parameters.

Warning (snip from here): “I set the mode to journal_data_writeback. This basically means that data may be written to the disk before the journal. The data consistency guarantees are the same as the ext3 file system. The downside is that if your system crashes before the journal gets written then you may loose new data — the old data may magically reappear.“

Warning this can corrupt your data. More information here.

I ran this command.

 

I edited my fstab to append the “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags for my volume after a reboot.

Edit FS Tab:

 

I added “writeback,noatime,nodiratime” flags to my disk options.

 

Updating Ubuntu Packages

Show updatable packages.

 

Update Packages.

 

Unattended Security Updates

Read more on Ubuntu 18.04 Unattended upgrades here, here and here.

Install Unattended Upgrades

 

Enable Unattended Upgrades.

 

Now I configure what packages not to auto update.

Edit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

Find “Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist” and add packages that you don’t want automatically updated, you may want to manually update these (and monitor updates).

I prefer not to auto-update critical system apps (I will do this myself).

 

FYI: You can find installed packages by running this command:

 

Enable automatic updates by editing /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

Edit the number at the end (the number is how many days to wait before updating) of each line.

> APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists “1”;
> APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages “1”;
> APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval “7”;
> APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade “1”;

Set to “0” to disable automatic updates.

The results of unattended-upgrades will be logged to /var/log/unattended-upgrades

Update packages now.

 

Almost done.

I Rebooted

GT Metrix Score

I almost fell off my chair. It’s an amazing feeling hitting refresh in GT Metrix and getting sub-2-second score consistently (and that is with 17 assets loading and 361KB of HTML content)

0.9sec load times

WebPageTest.org Test Score

Nice. I am not sure why the effective use of CDN has an X rating as I have the EWWW CDN and Cloudflare. First Byte time is now a respectable “B”, This was always bad.

Update: I found out the longer you set cache delays in Cloudflare the higher the score.

Web Page Test

GT Metrix has a nice historical breakdown of load times (night and day).

Upcloud Site Speed in GTMetrix

Google Page Speed Insight Desktop Score

I benchmarked with https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

This will help with future SEO rankings. It is well known that Google is pushing fast servers.

100% Desktop page speed score

Google Chrome 70 Dev Console Audit (Desktop)

100% Chrome Audit Score

This is amazing, I never expected to get this high score.  I know Google like (and are pushing) sub-1-second scores.

My site is loading so well it is time I restored some old features that were too slow on other servers

  • I disabled Lazy loading of images (this was not working on some Android devices)
  • I re-added the News Widget and news images.

GTMetrix and WebpageTest sores are still good (even after adding bloat)

Benchmarks are still good

My WordPress site is not really that small either

Large website

FYI: WordPress Plugins I use.

These are the plugins I use.

How I use these plugins to speed up my site.

  • I use EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to auto-compress my images and to provide a CDN for media asset deliver (pre-Cloudflare). Learn more about ExactDN and EWWW.io here.
  • I use Autoptimize plugin to optimise HTML/CSS/JS and ensure select assets are on my EWWW CDN. This plugin also removes WordPress Emojis, removed the use of Google Fonts, allows you to define pre-configured domains, Async Javascript-files etc.
  • I use BJ Lazy Load to prevent all images in a post from loading on load (and only as the user scrolls down the page).
  • GTmetrix for WordPress and Cloudflare plugins are for information only?
  • I use WP-Optimize to ensure my database is healthy and to disable comments/trackbacks and pingbacks.

Let’s Test UpCloud’s Disk IO in Chicago

Looks good to me, Read IO is a little bit lower than UpCloud’s Singapore data centre but still, it’s faster than Vultr.  I can’t wait for more data centres to become available around the world.

Why is UpCloud Disk IO so good?

I asked UpCloud on Twitter why the Disk IO was so good.

  • “MaxIOPS is UpCloud’s proprietary block-storage technology. MaxIOPS is physically redundant storage technology where all customer’s data is located in two separate physical devices at all times. UpCloud uses InfiniBand (!) network to connect storage backends to compute nodes, where customers’ cloud servers are running. All disks are enterprise-grade SSD’s. And using separate storage backends, it allows us to live migrate our customers’ cloud servers freely inside our infrastructure between compute nodes – whether it be due to hardware malfunction (compute node) or backend software updates (example CPU vulnerability and immediate patching).“

My Answers to Questions to support

Q1) What’s the difference between backups and snapshots (a Twitter user said Snapshots were a thing)

A1) Backups and snapshots are the same things with our infrastructure.

Q2) What are charges for backup of a 50GB drive?

A2) We charge $0.06 / GB of the disk being captured. But capture the whole disk, not just what was used. So for a 50GB drive, we charge $0.06 * 50 = $3/month. Even if 1GB were only used.

  • Support confirmed that each backup is charged (so 5 times manual backups are charged 5 times). Setting up a daily auto backup schedule for 2 weeks would create 14 billable backup charges.
  • I guess a 25GB server will be $1.50 a month

Q3) What are data charges if I go over my 2TB quota?

A3) Outgoing data charges are $0.056/GB after the pre-configured allowance.

Q4) What happens if my balance hits $0?

A4) You will get notification of low account balance 2 weeks in advance based on your current daily spend. When your balance reaches zero, your servers will be shut down. But they will still be charged for. You can automatically top-up if you want to assign a payment type from your Control Panel. You deposit into your balance when you want. We use a prepay model of payment, so you need to top up before using, not billing you after usage. We give you lots of chances to top-up.

Support Tips

  • One thing to note, when deleting servers (CPU, RAM) instances, you get the option to delete the storages separately via a pop-up window. Choose to delete permanently to delete the disk, to save credit. Any disk storage lying around even unattached to servers will be billed.
  • Charges are in USD.

I think it’s time to delete my domain from Vultr in Sydney.

Deleted my Vultr domain

I deleted my Vultr domain.

Delete Vultr Server

Done.

Check out my new guide on Nixstats for awesome monitoring

What I would like

  1. Ability to name individual manual backups (tag with why I backed up).
  2. Ability to push user defined data from my VM to the dashboard
  3. Cheaper scheduled backups
  4. Sydney data centres (one day)

Update: Post UpCloud Launch Tweaks (Awesome)

I had a look at https://www.webpagetest.org/ results to see where else I can optimise webpage delivery.

Optimisation Options

HTTP2 Push

I added http2 to my listening servers I tested a http2 push page by defining this in /etc/nginx/sites-available/default 

Once I tested that push (demo here) was working I then defined two files to push that were being sent from my server

2FA Authentication at login

I recently checked out YubiCo YubiKeys and I have secured my Linux servers with 2FA prompts at login. Read the guide here. I secured my WordPress aswel.

Performance

I used the WordPress Plugin Autoptimize to remove Google font usage (this removed a number of files being loaded when my page loads).

I used the WordPress Plugin WP-Optimize plugin into to remove comments and disable pingbacks and trackbacks.

Results

Conclusion

I love UpCloud’s fast servers, give them a go (use my link and get $25 free credit).

I love Cloudflare for providing a fast CDN.

I love ewww.io’s automatic Image Compression and Resizing plugin that automatically handles image optimisations and pre Cloudflare/first hit CDN caching.

Read my post about server monitoring with Nixstats here.

Let the results speak for themselves (sub <1 second load times).

More Reading on UpCloud

https://www.upcloud.com/documentation/faq/

UpCloud Server Status

http://status.upcloud.com

I hope this guide helps someone.

Free Credit

Please consider using my referral code and get $25 credit for free.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

2020 Update. I have stopped using Putty and WinSCP. I now use MobaXterm (a tabbed SSH client for Windows) as it is way faster than WinSCP and better than Putty. Read my review post of MobaXTerm here.

Ask a question or recommend an article

[contact-form-7 id=”30″ title=”Ask a Question”]

Revision History

v2.2 Converting to Blocks

v2.1 Newer GTMetrix scores

v2.0 New UpCloud UI Update and links to new guides.

v1.9 Spelling and grammar

v1.8 Trial mode gotcha (deposit money ASAP)

v1.7 Added RSA Private key info

v1.7 – Added new firewall rules info.

v1.6 – Added more bloat to the site, still good.

v1.5 Improving Accessibility

v1.4 Added Firewall Price

v1.3 Added wp-config and plugin usage descriptions.

v1.2 Added GTMetrix historical chart.

v1.1 Fixed free typos and added final conclusion images.

v1.0 Added final results

v0.9 added more tweaks (http2 push, removing unwanted files etc)

v0.81 Draft  – Added memory usage chart and added MaxIOPS info from UpCloud.

v0.8 Draft post.

How to backup and restore a MySQL database on Windows and Linux

by

Why backup and restore

This is a quick guide demonstrating how you can backup and restore a MySQL database on Windows and Linux using Adminer.

You may need to know how to backup a restore a database for a number of reasons..

e.g

  • Send the database to someone to debug or give feedback while learning.
  • Move the database from a local machine to the cloud
  • Move the database from cloud vendor A to cloud vendor B
  • etc.

Having a backup of the VM is good but having a backup of the database too is better. I use UpCloud for hosting my VM’s and setting backups is easy. But I cannot download those backups.

UpCloud Backup Screen

Murphy’s Law

“If anything can go wrong, it will”

The most important reason for taking a backup and knowing how to restore it is for disaster recovery reasons.

Backup (the easiest way) with Adminer

Adminer is a free PHP based IDE for MySQL and other databases. Simply install Adminer and save the file on your local computer or remote web server directory.

FYI: The Adminer author Jakub Vrana has a patron page, I am a patron of this awesome software.

Snip from Adminers website. “Adminer (formerly phpMinAdmin) is a full-featured database management tool written in PHP. Conversely to phpMyAdmin, it consist of a single file ready to deploy to the target server. Adminer is available for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQLite, MS SQL, Oracle, Firebird, SimpleDB, Elasticsearch andMongoDB.”

adminer.php file icon screenshot

TIP: The file would be publicly accessible to anyone so don’t save it to a common area, obfuscate the file, protect it of delete the file when you are done using it.

Once Adminer is installed load it in a web browser, login with your MySQL credentials. Once you login you will see all databases and an Import and Export menu.

Adminer main screen, all databases and import and export menu.

tbtest is a simple database with one table and 4 fields (ID, Key, Value and Modified)

.Click Export to open the export screen.

Export screen showing a list of databases and export options

Click Export, a SQL file will be generated (this is the export of the database).

Here is a save of the file:
https://fearby.com/wp-content/uploads/export.txt

Exported view of https://dev.mysql.com/doc/workbench/en/wb-admin-export-import-management.html

Its that simple.

If I add a binary blob file to the table and upload a PNG file lets see how the export looks.

Screenshot o the new table with a blog field in Adminer UI

Let export the database again in Adminer and check out the output. I used Sublime Text editor to view the export file.

New Export shows the binary file in the Backup SQL file

Restore (the easiest way) with Adminer

OK lets delete the tbtest database and then restore it with Adminer. I used Adminer to delete (DROP) the database.

Database dropped with Adminer

Database “dbtest” deleted.

Now lets create a blank database to restore to (same name).

Create database screen.

Database created.

dbtest created.

Now lets import the database backup using Adminer.

Click Import, select the backup file and un-tick Stop on errors.

Import screenshot, dxtest selectded, Restore file selected, stop on errors disabled

TIP: The 2MB next the the choose file button is defined by your web server and PHP configuration. If you are trying to import a larger database (e.g 80MB) first increase the limits in your web server and PHP (via php.ini).

The Import (restore should take seconds)

Import Success

The database was imported from a backup, all tables and records imported just fine.

The database was imported from a backup

Bonus methods.

On Ubuntu use this guide to backup from the command line. If you use the Oracle MySQL Workbench read this.

I hope this helps someone.

Setting up the free MySQL database server on Windows 10

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This guide assumes you are a beginner using Windows 10 and maybe have a default website configured on Windows 10 using the built in Information Server (IIS) along with PHP (e.g PHP 7.3.4 or greater).

If you are have never used Internet Information Server (IIS) then XAMPP is a great way (single install) to setup a web server, database server and PHP with little fuss.

In this case I will manually install MySQL Community Server to add alongside Internet Information Server (IIS) on Windows 10.

Downloading
MySQL Server (Community Edition)

Go to here and click MySQL Installer for Windows.

Screenshot of Download installer link

Click MySQL Installer for Windows.

fyi: I sent myself on a goose chase as I could only see a 32 bit installer (I spent days trying to find a 64-bit installer or manual install binaries that were 64 bit). I should have read the bit that said “MySQL Installer is 32 bit, but will install both 32 bit and 64 bit binaries.“

MySQL Installer is 32 bit, but will install both 32 bit and 64 bit binaries.

You can read the installer documentation here if you wish.

I downloaded the larger of the two available installers (one 16MB the other 300+ MB, same version etc.). I had to login with an Oracle ID to start the download.

Download MySQL Installer screenshot

Install file downloaded

Installing MySQL Server (Community Edition)

I started the installer (accepted the licence agreement)

I accepted the licence agreement

I selected “Full Install“

I could have selected server only or custom.

I selected Full Install

I downloaded and installed Python 3.7, Thanks MySQL Installer for adding a link to the Python download.

I Installed Python 3.7

After Python was installed I clicked refresh in MySQL and now MySQL can see Python 3.7.

Now MySQL can see Python 3.7.

I had a Visual Studio plugin install error (because Visual Studio was not installed).

Visual Studio plugin install error (Visual Studio is not installed)

Full Install (all components selected) reported the items are ready for install.

Full Install (all components selected)

Installation status complete.

Installation status list (Full Install)

List of items to configure (post install)

List of items to configure.

I setup a standard MySQL Server (not a Cluster)

I setup a standard MySQL Server (not a Cluster)

I setup MySQL as a standard Development computer on port 3306 over TCP/IP (no Named Pipe, Shared Memory etc).

I setup MySQL as a standard Development computer on port 3306 over TCP/IP.

I enforced strong passwords.

I enforced strong passwords.

I set a root password and added few app usernames (with passwords).

I set a root password and a few app usernames (with passwords)

I named the MySQL Instance and set it to auto start when windows starts as a standard system account.

I named the MySQL Instance and set it to auto start when windows starts as a standard account.

Post installation in progress.

Installation in progress.

I accepted the defaults for the next screen (configuring routers). I tested the connection to MySQL Server.

Connect to MySQL server test screen.

Installation complete.

Installation complete screen.

MySQL WorkBench

I opened the MySQL Workbench software and viewed the server instance information. Nice.

MySQL Workbench Instance information

MySQL Workbench server performance graphs are nice.

MySQL Workbench performance graphs.

I am used to Adminer for managing MySQL on Linux so I install that now.

Install Adminer (formerly phpMinAdmin)

I prefer the PHP based Admirer database management tool from here.

https://adminer.net website screenshot.

I downloaded a single PHP file and placed it in my IIS website root folder (as /adminer.php).

I tried to connect to my MySQL instance but received this error “The server requested authentication method unknown to the client”.

Unable to connect to MySQL with Adminer: Error "he server requested authentication method unknown to the client"

I googled and checked that I had a MySQL extension in php.ini (It did).

I opened MySQL Workbench and opened Manage Server Connections and located my my.ini file location (“C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0\my.ini“). I opened my my.ini in a text editor and commented out the following line

#default_authentication_plugin=caching_sha2_password

and added 

default_authentication_plugin= mysql_native_password

I saved the my.ini file, stopped and started the MySQL Service.

MySQL Workbench restarting database service UI screenshot.

I opened the MySQL Workbench and ran a query (File then “New Query Tab“) to set/reset the password.

ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password
BY 'your_password_goes_here';

Screenshot

Reset root password SQL statement "ALTER USER

I then tested logging in to MySQL with Adminer.

Adminer view showing default databases installed by MySQL.

Success, I can now created databases and tables.

Adminer create datbase table screenshot showing a table with 4 fields.

I hope this helps someone.

Setup a dedicated Debian subdomain (VM), Install MySQL 14 and connect to it from a WordPress on a different VM

by

This is how I set up a dedicated Debian subdomain (VM), Installed MySQL 14 and connected to it from a WordPress installation on a different VM

Aside

If you have not read my previous posts I have now moved my blog to the awesome UpCloud host (signup using this link to get $25 free UpCloud VM credit). I compared Digital Ocean, Vultr and UpCloud Disk IO here and UpCloud came out on top by a long way (read the blog post here). Here is my blog post on moving fearby.com from Vultr to UpCloud.

Buy a domain name here

Domain names for just 88 cents!

Now on with the post.

Fearby.com

I will be honest, fearby.com is my play server where I can code, learn about InfoSec and share (It’s also my stroke rehab blog).

There is no faster way to learn than actually doing. The problem is my “doing” usually breaks the live site from time to time (sorry).

I really need to set up a testing environment (DEV-TEST-LIVE or GREEN-BLUE) server(s). GREEN-BLUE has advantages as I can always have a hot spare ready. All I need to do is toggle DNS and I can set the GREEN or BLUE server as the live server.

But first  I need to separate my database from my current fearby.com server and setup up a new web server. Having a Green and Blue server that uses one database server will help with near real-time production website switches.

Dedicated Database Server

I read the following ( Should MySQL and Web Server share the same server? ) at Percona Database Performance Blog. Having a separate database server should not negatively impact performance (It may even help improve speeds).

Deploy a Debian VM (not Ubuntu)

I decided to set up a Debian server instead of Ubuntu (mostly because of the good focus on stability and focus on security within Debian).

I logged into the UpCloud dashboard on my mobile phone and deployed a Debian server in 5 mins.  I will be using my existing how to setup Ubuntu on UpCloud guide (even though this is Debian).

TIP: Sign up to UpCloud using this link to get $25 free UpCloud VM credit.

Deploy Debian Sevrer

Deploy a Debian server setup steps:

  1. Login to UpCloud and go to Create server.
  2. Name your Server (use a fully qualified domain name)
  3. Add a description.
  4. Choose your data centre (Chicago for me)
  5. Choose the server specs (1x CPU, 50GB Disk, 2GB Memory, 2TB Traffic for me)
  6. Name the Primary disk
  7. Choose an operating system (Debian for me)
  8. Select an SSH Key
  9. Choose misc settings
  10. Click Deploy server

After 5 mins your server should be deployed.

After Deploy

Setup DNS

Login to your DNS provider and create DNS records to the new IP’s (IPv4 and IPv6) provided by UpCloud. It took DNS 12 hours to replicate to my in Australia.

Add a DNS record with your domain registra A NAMe = IPV4 and AAAA Name = IPv6

Setup a Firewall (at UpCloud)

I would recommend you set up a firewall at UpCloud as soon as possible (don’t forget to add the recommended UpCloud DNS IP’s and any whitelisted IP’s your firewall).

Block everything and only allow

  • Port 22: Allow known IP(s) of your ISP or VPN.
  • Port 53: Allow known UpCloud DNS servers
  • Port 80 (ALL)
  • Port 443 (ALL)
  • Port 3306 Allow your WordPress site and known IP(s) of your ISP or VPN.

Read my post on setting up a whitelisted IP on an UpCloud VM… as it is a good idea.

UpCloud thankfully has a copy firewall feature that is very handy.

Copy Firewall rules option at UpCloud

After I set up the firewall I SSH’ed into my server (I use vSSH on OSX buy you could use PUTTY).

I updated the Debian system with the following  command

Get the MySQL Package

Visit http://repo.mysql.com/ and get the URL of the latest apt-config repo deb file (e.g “mysql-apt-config_0.8.9-1_all.deb”). Make a temp folder.

Download the MySQL deb Package

Install the package

Update the system again

Install MySQL on Debian

Secure MySQL

You can secure the MySQL server deployment (set options as needed)

Install NGINX

I installed NGINX to allow Adminer MySQL GUI to be used

I ran these commands to install NGINX.

I edited my NGINX configuration as required.

  • Set a web server root
  • Set desired headers
  • Optimized NGINX (see past guides here, here and here)

I reloaded NGINX

Install PHP

I followed this guide to install PHP on Debian.

Install PHP FPM

Increase Upload Limits

You may need to temporarily increase upload limits in NGINX and PHP before you can restore a WordPress database. My feabry.com blog is about 87MB.

Add “client_max_body_size 100M;” to “/etc/nginx/nginx.conf”

Add the following to “/etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini”

  • post_max_size = 100M
  • upload_max_filesize = 100M

Restore a backup of my MySQL database in MySQL

You can now use Adminer to restore your blog to MySQL. Read my post here on Adminer here. I used Adminer to move my WordPress site from CPanel to a self-managed server a year ago.

First login to your source server and export your desired database then login to the target server and import the database.

Firewall Check

Don’t forget to allow your WordPress site’s 2x Public IP’s and 1x Private IP to access port 3306 in your UpCloud Firewall.

How to check open ports on your current server

Set MySQL Permissions

Open MySQL

I ran these statements to grant the user logging in on the nominate IP’s access to MySQL.

Reload permissions in MySQL

Allow access to the Debian machine from known IP’s

Edit “/etc/host.allow”

Additions (known safe IP’s that need access to this MySQL remotely).

Tell MySQL to listen on

Edit “/etc/mysql/my.cnf”

Added..

I guess you could change the port to something random???

Restart MySQL

Install a second local firewall on Debian

Install ufw

Do add the IP of your desired server or VPN to access SSH

Do add the IP of your desired server or VPN to access WWW

Now add the known IP’s (e.g any web servers public (IPv4/IPv6) or Private IP’s) that you wish to grant access to MySQL (e.g the source website that used to have MySQL)

Do add UpCloud DNS Servers to your firewall

Add all other rules as needed (if you stuff up and lock your self out you can login to the server with the Console on UpCloud)

Restart the ufw firewall

Prevent MySQL starting on the source server

Now we can shut down MySQL on the source server (leave it there just in case).

Edit “/etc/init/mysql.conf”

Comment out the line that contains “start on ” and save the file

and run

Reboot

Stop and Disable NGINX on the new DB server

We don’t need NGINX running now the database has been imported with Adminer.

Stop and prevent NGINX from starting up on startup.

Check to see if MySQL is Disabled

Yep

Test access to the database server in PHP code

Add to dbtest.php

<em>SELECT guid FROM wp_posts</em>()<br />
<ul><?php

//External IP (charged after quota hit)
//$servername = 'db.yourserver.com';

//Private IP (free)
//$servername = '10.x.x.x';

$username = 'username';
$password = '********your*password*********';
$dbname = 'database';

// Create connection
$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);
// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}

$sql = 'SELECT guid FROM wp_posts';
$result = $conn->query($sql);

if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
    // output data of each row
    while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        echo $row["guid"] . "<br>";
    }
} else {
    echo "0 results";
}
$conn->close();
?></ul>
Done

Check for open ports.

You can install nmap on another server and scan for open ports

Install nmap

Scan a server for open ports with nmap

You should see this on a server that has access to see port 3306 (port 3306 should not be visible by non-whitelisted IP’s).  Port 3shouldoudl not be seen via everyone.

You should see something like this on a server that has access to see port 80/443 (a web server)

I’d recommend you use a service like https://pentest-tools.com/network-vulnerability-scanning/tcp-port-scanner-online-nmap# to check for open ports.  https://hackertarget.com/tcp-port-scan/ is a great tool too.

https://www.infobyip.com/tcpportchecker.php is also a free port checker that you can use to verify individual closed ports.

Screeshot of https://www.infobyip.com/tcpportchecker.php

Hardening MySQL and Debian

Read: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-howto/ap-checklist.en.html

Configuring WordPress use the dedicated Debian VM

On the source server that used to have MySQL edit your wp-config.php file for WordPress.

Remove

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

add (read the update below, I changed the DNS IP to the Private IP to have free traffic)

//Oriinal localhost
//define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

//New external host via DNS (Charged after quota hit)
//define('DB_HOST', 'db.fearby.com');

//New external host via Private IP (Free)
define('DB_HOST','10.x.x.x');

Restart NGINX

Restart PHP-FPM

Conclusion

Nice, I seem to have shaved off 0.3 seconds in load times (25% improvement)

1sec gtmtrix load time

Update: Using a Private IP or Public IP between WordPress and MySQL servers

After I released this blog post (version 1.0 with no help from UpCloud) UpCloud contacted me and said the following.

I will have updated my references in this post and replace the public IP address (that is linked to DNS record for db.fearby.com) and instead use the private ip address (e.g 10.x.x.x), your servers private IP address is listed against the public IPv$ and IPv6 address.

I checked that the local ufw firewall did indeed allow the private IP access to MySQL.

On my new Debian MySQL server, I edited the file /etc/mysql/my.cnf and changed the IP to the private IP and not the public IP.

Now it looked like

(10.x.x.x  my Debian servers private IP)

On my WordPress instance, I edited the file  /www-root/wp-config.php

I added the new private host

//Oriinal localhost
//define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');

//New external host via DNS (Charged after quota hit)
//define('DB_HOST', 'db.fearby.com');

//New external host via Private IP (Free)
define('DB_HOST','10.x.x.x');

(10.x.x.x  my Debian servers private IP)

Alos on Debian/MySQL ensure you have granted access to the private IP of the WordPress server

Edit /etc/host.allow

Add

Restart MySQL

TIP: Enable UpCloud Backups

Do setup automatic backups (and or take manual backups). Backups are an extra charge but are essential IMHO.

UpCloud backups

Troubleshooting

If you can’t access MySQL log back into MySQL

and run

Reboot

Lower Upload Limits

Don’t forget to lower file upload sizes in NGINX and PHP (e.g 2M) now that the database has been restored.

I hope this guide helps someone.

TIP: Sign up to UpCloud using this link to get $25 free UpCloud VM credit.

https://www.upcloud.com/register/?promo=D84793

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Revision History

v1.6 Changed Public IP use to private IP use to ensure we are not charged when the serves sage goes over the quota

v1.5 Fixed 03 type (should have been 0.3)

v1.4 added disable nginx info

v1.3 added https://www.infobyip.com/tcpportchecker.php

v1.1 added https://hackertarget.com/tcp-port-scan/

v1.0 Initial Post

Using OWASP ZAP GUI to scan your Applications for security issues

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OWASP is a non-profit that lists the Top Ten Most Critical Web Application Security Risks, they also have a GUI Java tool called OWASP Zap that you can use to check your apps for security issue.

I have a number of guides on moving hosting away form CPanel , Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. It is important that you always update your site and software and test your sites and software for vulnerabilities. Zap is free and completely open source.

Disclaimer, I am not an expert (this Zap post and my past Kali Linux guide will be updated as I learn more).

OWASP Top 10

OWASP has a top 10 list of things to review.

OWASP Top 10

Download the OWASP 10 10 Application security risks PDF here form here.

Using the free OWASP Zap Tool

Snip from https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Zed_Attack_Proxy_Project

“The OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is one of the world’s most popular free security tools and is actively maintained by hundreds of international volunteers*. It can help you automatically find security vulnerabilities in your web applications while you are developing and testing your applications. It’s also a great tool for experienced pentesters to use for manual security testing.”

Zap Overview

Here is a quick demo of Zap in action.

Do check out the official Zap videos on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OWASPGLOBAL/videos if you want to learn more.

Installing Zap

Download Zap from here.

Download Zap

Download Options

Download

Download contents

Run Install

Copy to the app to the OSX Application folder

Installing

App Installed

App Insatalled

Open OSX’s Privacy and Security screen and click Open Anyway

Open Anwway

OWASP Zap is now Installed

Insallled

Ready for a Scan

Blind Scan

But before we do let’s check out the Options

Options

OWASP Zap allows you to label reports to ad from anyone you want.

Report Label Options

Now let’s update the program and plugins, Click Manage Add-ons

Manage Adons

Click Update All to Update addons

Updates

I clicked Update All

Plugins

Installed some plugins

Marketplace

Zap is Ready

Zap

Add a site and right click on the site and you can perform an active scan or port scan.

Right click Zap

First Scan (https failed)

https failed

I enabled unsafe SSL/TLS Renegotiation.

Allow Unsafe HTTPS

This did not work and this guide said I needed to install the “Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files” from here.

Cryptography Files OSX

The extract files to /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/%your_jdk%/Contents/Home/jre/lib/security

Extract

I restarted OWASP Zap and tried to scan my site buy it appears Cloudflare (that I recently set up) was blocking my scans and reported error 403. I decided to scan another site of mine that was not on Cloudflare but had the same Lets Encrypt style SSL cert.

fyi: I own and set up the site I queried below.

Zap Results

OWASP Zap scan performed over 800 requests and tried traversal exploits and many other checks. Do repair any major failures you find.

Zan Scan

Generating a Report

To generate a report click Report then the appropriate generation menu of choice.

Generate Report

FYI: The High Priority Alert is a false positive with an HTML item being mistaken for a CC number.

I hope this guide helps someone. Happy software/server hardening and good luck.

More Reading

Check out my Kali Linux guide.

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Revision History

V1.3 fixed hasting typo.

v1.2 False Positive

v1.1 updated main features

v1.0 Initial post

Infographic: So you have an idea for an app

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I created this graphic as I was asked by multiple people how to develop an app. This does not include tips on coding but many people with the non-technical prerequisites to building an app.

I hope this graphic helps someone (It’s my first infographic/decision flow image, feedback welcome).

So You Have an Idea For An App: Graphic

Click for a larger version.

Infographic-So-you-have-an-idea-for-an-app-v1-3

Standalone Image URL’s

v1.3 (22nd November 2017)
  https://fearby.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Infographic-So-you-have-an-idea-for-an-app-v1-3.jpg
v1.2 (4th Nov 2017, Added requirements and MoSCoW): 
  https://fearby.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Infographic-So-you-have-an-idea-for-an-app-v1-2.jpg
v1.1 (1st Nov 2017, Fixed Typos): 
  https://fearby.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Infographic-So-you-have-an-idea-for-an-app-v1-1.jpg

todo: Things to add Issues to fix in 1.4:
 - Add user personas and Epic, Story and Task stages.
 - How to capture good stories (and validated ideas (landing pages/interviews/problems/value/painpoints)

Define the problem(s) (pain points)

Before you start coding, do list your app requirements (problem’s to solve (pain points)).

Atlassian JIRA or Trello can help with this. I personally use (and like) Atlaz.io (now Hygger), I reviewed the BETA here).

Using Trello lists are also a simple way to capture tasks/ideas.

ListMore on these Read more here also read my Atlaz.io BETA Preview here.

Nothing beats pen and paper too.

Notepad

Moscow Prioritization

Must-Have Should-Have, Could-Have and Won’t-have are buckets you should sort ideas into. If you have trouble moving items away from Must to Should, Could or Won’t then assign a fictitious monetary value to spend on each item and that will help you decide what is more important.

Read this MoSCoW Method article at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MoSCoW_method

Managing MoSCoW tasks on paper is OK if you do not want to use planning software.

More

Read my guide on how to prototype apps with Adobe XD guide here.  You can also Prototype a Web app with Platforma (review here).

Read my post on how to develop software and stay on track.

Research

Do research your idea for market fit/need, competition, complexity, legal and validate ideas early. It’s best to find out early that Google will quote $60,000+ TAX a year to allow you to use Google map’s in your app early, then you can use https://www.mapbox.com for $499 a year.

Do you have competition?

Some people say “don’t develop an app that already exists”. Why would you develop a new Uber app? Henry Ford did make a new transportation mode when people were happy with horses, other car manufacturers like Tesla are moving in on the space so don’t be discouraged.

Landing Page

A landing page with a signup form (Newsletter and Register Interest) form is a good way to validate ideas and get feedback early (I would suggest you use a free Mainchimp signup form, a generated website with Platforma on a $5/m server for quick results). There is no point coding and launching to crickets.

Do you have an app Prototype or Mock-Up?

This is very important and easy step.  Programs like Adobe XD CC  (read my guide here) and Balsamiq can help you prototype an app, Platforma can help you prototype web apps.

Wire up a prototype

Drag and Drop

Have you validated your idea (app) with end-users?

If you don’t do this you are mad.  Watch this video to see lessons learned from Trades Cloud.

Is this app idea a hobby (passion)?

This can help you limit costs and expectations.  Cheap serves exist (read here and here).

Do you have time to develop/manage this?

Developing and managing an app and planning (paying for) development cycle can be time-consuming and mentally draining.

Can you code?

Do you need to hire developers or learn to code?  Blog post coming soon on how to hire coders.

Do you have funds?

Having funds on hand to set up and build an app is very important.

Do you want to hide developers (or get Venture Capital)?

This can help you get moving but you will have to give away a slice of the profits and or IP, managing mentors and VC’s can be tiresome.

Have you set failure criteria (post-mortem)?

Read this page on lessons learned from over 200 startup failures, save your favourites.  Having realistic goals and limits is a wise idea, do stop when you reach preset limits.

Do you have a business case?

There is plenty of business case generator template’s,  you will want to document some of the following.

  • What is your apps Purpose – App X will be..
  • What is your Mission Statement – App X will..
  • Who are your Target Customers – Retail..
  • Who are the Early Adopters – Retail..
  • What Problems does your app solve – App X will..
  • What Milestones will your app go through – iOS, Android, Apple TV, Web etc..
  • What Existing solutions exist – App: A, B and C..
  • How does your app Solve your customer’s problems (pain points) – App X will..
  • How will your app Find customers – Word of Mouth, Referrals, Advertisements?
  • What is your Revenue model – Sales, Ad’s, Subscriptions?
  • What is your apps Goal statement – App X will hit X users in X?
  • What are your apps Failure points – If app X does not reach X or monthly costs reach Y….
  • What is your Marketing message – App X will..
  • What is your apps Metrics – iOS, Android, Apple TV apps..
  • What is your Unfair Advantage – Why will you succeed over others?

Are you using a project management methodology?

Proven Methodology can help you develop software and stay on track, software like Atlaz, JIRA or Trello are highly recommended tools. Capturing ideas and processing feedback in tools is very important.

Before you code (or hire coders) use source code versioning software like GitHub and Bitbucket (guides here and here).  You want to retain the code and insist on owning it.

Product Goal

Simon Sinek has a good video on companies (or Products) being in a finite or infinite game.

Are you in full control of your development stack?

If you are not a developer you may not care if you are in control, but you will if there are issues with hired developers or issues with service providers.  I moved from CPanel to self-managed servers, moved from IBM Cloudant to Digital Ocean to AWS then Vultr servers where I can have full control or scalability, features, security and costs.

Can you forecast the costs?

Lowering cost and boosting performance is important and having spare money is a good thing.

I read recently that  Telsla is burning through $6,000 a minute and is forecast to need something like 2 billion dollars in the next 2 years. Software as Service platforms will drain your budget quick (they do take on some risk and maintenance tasks), is this worth it?

Mark Fedin (CEO and Co-founder at Atlaz) has a great post on the topic of viability Stop Dabbling At Startups .

Are you using the right tech?

Don’t be afraid of changing tech along the way, you may start with MySQL and move to MongoDB, Redis, Oracle ot MSSQL database servers etc.

Do you have systems to capture customer feedback?

Self-explanatory, you are solving customer problems, right? You will pivot in the first year (trust me).

What is your revenue/sales model?

If you don’t know how to make money then don’t make an app (apps are expensive to code and maintain).

Are you prioritizing task?

I have blogged about this before, do use the tools to stay on track.

Funny Bit

Project Mangement LolProject Mangement Lol

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v1.5 Fixed typos and fixed CDN link issue.

v1.4 Updated the graphic to version v1.3.

Short (Article): https://fearby.com/go2/so/

Short (Image): https://fearby.com/go2/so-img/

Wordfence Security Plugin for WordPress

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WordFence is a great security plugin for WordPress that allows you to secure your WordPress installation and prevent brute force attacks, rate-limit visitors (or Bots), block banned IP’s that are accessing your site and more.

Fyi

20th Dec 2017: Wordfence report Backdoor in Captcha Plugin Affects 300K WordPress Sites

Backup

Before I started I performed a quick mysql backup from the command line to ensure my WordPress is backed up. Read my guide on installing WordPress from the command line (here) and securin Ubuntu (here).

Don’t forget to backup your WordPress files.

Download and extract WordFence

I downloaded and installed the Wordfence plugin via command line. I visited https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/ and got the plugin URL for the latest version (e.g https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wordfence.6.3.19.zip).

I downloaded the plugin zip file from the command line to my WordPress plugins folder. Read my guide (here) on managing WordPress from the command line.

Now the Wordfence plugin can be activated in WordPress.

Activate Wordfence

Enter your email to receive Wordfence alerts.

WordFence EmmiL Alerts

Your Wordfence Dashboard will show local and global issues and statistics.

WordFence Dashboard

I set these default Wordfence options.

ON

More Wordfence Options

More Options

Set Permissions (for Firewall)

You may need to create a log folder (e.g /www/wp-content/wflogs/)  and set permissions to allow Wordfence to work.

Now I can enable the Wordfence firewall via the WordFence plugin at /wp-admin/admin.php?page=WordfenceWAF

Wordfence Firewall

Don’t forget to configure the Wordfence firewall.

WordFence Firewall

Firewall Install Options

I do not have FTP setup so I’ll do a manual install based on these instructions.

WordPress Install Options

I manually added this to my ~/nxinx/sites-available/default config.

I added this to my nginx config.

This did not work as specified in the official Wordfence docs (https://docs.wordfence.com/en/Web_Application_Firewall_FAQ#NGINX) so I added the following.

Accessing a test /test.user.ini file in a web browser returns a 403  (always test access)

I added this to my active php.ini configuration file.

I restart PHP.

I added my IP to the Wordfence whitelist textbox to ensure I am not blocked: /wp-admin/admin.php?page=WordfenceSecOpt 

Tip: Grab your IPV4 address from https://ipv4.icanhazip.com/

Recent Wordfence Scan Summary (1st Scan)

Wordfence Dashboard allows you to see local and global stats.

Recent Scan

Wordfence (In Progress) Scan summary.

Scan Summary

My Issues

Wordfence alerted me that I needed to update WordPress and some plugins  (see my guide on installing and managing your WordPress via the Command Line here).

I updated my WordPress core files (via the command line).

I updated my  WordPress plugins (via the command line).

Output:

I manually updated my WordPress theme (from my.studiopress.com website) and uploaded via SSH

I could then SSH into my server and extract the theme.

Wordfence Dashboard

Wordfence allows you to see worldwide Blocked IP’s by the Wordfence network.

IPs

You can also see local successful or failed login attempts. The Ukraine IP 91.200.12.49 tried to log in to my WordPress installation but was banned globally as it was seen unsuccessfully logging into 900 other global servers, good work Wordfence.

Failed Logins

Attacks blocked locally.

Stats

View global WordPress attacks by countries

Global Attack Stats

Wordfence Features I like

  • Finding abandoned plugins
  • See Globally banned IP’s
  • See local failed login attempts
  • Brute force protection.
  • Stats on local blocked events.
  • Identification of old files.
  • Simple reports.

Wordfence Features I don’t like

  • Your mouse must be active in the window for scans to complete/seen.
  • Setup firewall almost requires FTP.

Wordfence: 7.02 updated (listed here)

Revised Dashboard looks nice

Wordfence 702

More to come, I will update this guide over time.

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[contact-form-7 id=”30″ title=”Ask a Question”]Revision Historyv1.2 added info on Wordfence 7.0.2

v1.1 added info on Captcha plugin backdoor detected by Wordfence

v1.0 Initial Post

etc

How to backup an Ubuntu VM in the cloud via crontab entries that trigger Bash Scripts, SSH, rsync and email backup alerts

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Here is how I backup a number of Ubuntu servers with crontab entries, bash scripts and rsync and send backup email.

Read more on useful terminal commands here for as low as $2.5 a month. Read on setting up a Digital Ocean Ubuntu server here for as low as $5 a month here ($10 free credit). Read more on setting up an AWS Ubuntu server here.

I have  6 numbered scripts in my scripts folder that handle backups, I call these scripts at set times via the crontab list.

fyi: Paths below have been changed for the purpose of this post (security).

https://crontab.guru/ is great for specifying times to run jobs on each server (I backup one server at 1 AM,, another at 2 AM etc (never at the same time))

Bring up your crontab list

Check out the Crontab schedule generator here.

Below is the contents of my /scripts/0.backupfiles.sh (sensitive information removed).

I use this script to backup folders and configuration data

Below is the contents of my /scripts-folder/1.backupdbs.sh (sensitive information removed).

I use this script to dump my MySQL database.

Below is the contents of my /scripts-folder/2.shrinkmysql.sh (sensitive information removed).

I use this script to tar my SQL dumps as these files can be quite big

Below is the contents of my /scripts-folder/3.addtobackuplog.sh (sensitive information removed).

This script is handy for dumping extra information.

Below is the contents of my /scripts-folder/4.syncfiles.sh (sensitive information removed).

This script is the workhorse routine that rsyncs files to the source to the backup server (a dedicated Vulr server with an A Name record attaching the server to my domain).

I installed sshpass to pass in the ssh user password (after ssh is connected (authorized_keys set), I tried to setup a rsync daemon but had no luck).  I ensured appropriate ports were opened on the source (OUT 22, 873) and backup server (IN 22 873).

ufw firewall has great rules for allowing certain IP’s to talk on ports.

Set Outbound firewall rules (to certain IP’s)

sudo ufw allow from 123.123.123.123 to any port 22

Change 123.123.123.123 to your backup server.

Set Inbound firewall rules (to certain IP’s)

sudo ufw allow out from 123.123.123.123 to any port 22

Change 123.123.123.123 to your sending server.

You can and should setup rate limits on IP’s hitting certain ports.

Install Fail2Ban to automatically ban certain users. Fail2Ban reads log file that contains password failure report
and bans the corresponding IP addresses using firewall rules.  Read more on securing Ubuntu in the cloud here.

Below is the contents of my /scripts-folder/5.sendbackupemail.sh (sensitive information removed).

This script sends an email and attaches a zip file of all log files generated through the backup process.

Read my guide on setting up sendmail here.

Security Considerations

You should never store passwords in scripts that talk to SSH connections, create MySQL dumps or when talking to email servers, I will update this guide when I solving all of these cases.  Also, create the least access required for user accounts where possible.

Target Server Configuration

Alos you can see in /scripts-folder/4.syncfiles.sh that I am saving to the ‘/backup-folder/1.www.server01.com/’ folder, you can make as many folders as you want to make the most of the backup server.  I would advise you not use the server for anything else like web servers and apps as this server is holding important stuff.

I have a handy script to delete all backups (handy during testing).

Ensure your backup server is just for backups and only allows traffic from known IP’s

Change the 123.x.x.x servers to your servers IP’s

Tip: Keep an eye on the backups with tools like ncdu

Installing SSH on OSX

If you want to backup to this server with OSyouou will need to install sshpass

sshpass should be installed

I have not got sshp[ass working yet error “Host key verification failed.”  I had to remove the back known host from ~/.ssh/known_hosts” on OSX

But this worked on OSX

Note: Enter the servers [email protected] before the hostname or rsync will use the logged in OSX username

Don’t forget to check the backup serves disk usage often.

disk usage screenshot

Output from backing up an incremental update (1x new folder)

localhost:~ local-account$ rsync -a -e  'ssh -p 22 ' --progress -P /Users/local-account/folder-to-backup [email protected]:/backup/the-computer/
[email protected]'s password: 
building file list ... 
51354 files to consider
folder-to-backup/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/COMMIT_EDITMSG
          15 100%    0.00kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#1, to-check=16600/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/HEAD
          23 100%   22.46kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#2, to-check=16599/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/config
         137 100%  133.79kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#3, to-check=16598/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/description
          73 100%   10.18kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#4, to-check=16597/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/index
        1581 100%  220.56kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#5, to-check=16596/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/hooks/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/hooks/README.sample
         177 100%   21.61kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#6, to-check=16594/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/info/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/info/exclude
          40 100%    4.88kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#7, to-check=16592/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/logs/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/logs/HEAD
         164 100%   20.02kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#8, to-check=16590/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/logs/refs/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/logs/refs/heads/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/logs/refs/heads/master
         164 100%   20.02kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#9, to-check=16587/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/05/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/05/0853a802dd40cad0e15afa19516e9ad94f5801
        2714 100%  294.49kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#10, to-check=16584/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/11/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/11/729e81fc116908809fc17d60c8604aa43ec095
         105 100%   11.39kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#11, to-check=16582/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/23/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/23/768a20baaf8aa0c31b0e485612a5e245bb570d
         131 100%   12.79kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#12, to-check=16580/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/27/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/27/3375fc70381bd2608e05c03e00ee09c42bdc58
         783 100%   76.46kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#13, to-check=16578/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/2a/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/2a/507ef5ea3b1d68c2d92bb4aece950ef601543e
         303 100%   26.90kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#14, to-check=16576/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/2b/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/2b/f8bd93d56787a7548c7f8960a94f05c269b486
         136 100%   12.07kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#15, to-check=16574/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/2f/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/2f/900764e9d12d8da7e5e01ba34d2b7b2d95ffd4
         209 100%   17.01kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#16, to-check=16572/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/36/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/36/d2c80d8893178d7e1f2964085b273959bfdc28
         201 100%   16.36kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#17, to-check=16570/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/3d/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/3d/e5a02083dbe9c23731a38901dca9e913c04dd0
         130 100%   10.58kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#18, to-check=16568/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/40/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/40/40592d8d4d886a5c81e1369ddcde71dd3b66b5
         841 100%   63.18kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#19, to-check=16566/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/87/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/87/60f48ddbc9ed0863e3fdcfce5e4536d08f9b8d
          86 100%    6.46kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#20, to-check=16564/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/a9/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/a9/e6a23fa34a5de4cd36250dc0d797439d85f2ea
         306 100%   22.99kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#21, to-check=16562/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/b0/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/b0/4364089fdc64fe3b81bcd41462dd55edb7a001
          57 100%    4.28kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#22, to-check=16560/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/be/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/be/3b93d6d8896d69670f1a8e26d1f51f9743d07e
          60 100%    4.19kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#23, to-check=16558/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/d0/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/d0/524738680109d9f0ca001dad7c9bbf563e898e
         523 100%   36.48kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#24, to-check=16556/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/d5/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/d5/4e024fe16b73e5602934ef83e0b32a16243a5e
          69 100%    4.49kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#25, to-check=16554/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/db/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/db/3f0ce163c8033a175d27de6a4e96aadc115625
          59 100%    3.84kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#26, to-check=16552/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/df/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/df/cad4828b338206f0a7f18732c086c4ef959a7b
          51 100%    3.32kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#27, to-check=16550/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/ef/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/ef/e6d036f817624654f77c4a91ae6f20b5ecbe9d
          94 100%    5.74kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#28, to-check=16548/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/f2/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/f2/b43571ec42bad7ac43f19cf851045b04b6eb29
         936 100%   57.13kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#29, to-check=16546/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/fd/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/fd/f3f97d1b6e9d8d29bb69a88c4d89ca752bd937
         807 100%   49.26kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#30, to-check=16544/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/info/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/objects/pack/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/refs/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/refs/heads/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/refs/heads/master
          41 100%    2.50kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#31, to-check=16539/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/.git/refs/tags/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/project.pbxproj
       11476 100%  659.24kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#32, to-check=16536/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/project.xcworkspace/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/project.xcworkspace/contents.xcworkspacedata
         156 100%    8.96kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#33, to-check=16534/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/project.xcworkspace/xcuserdata/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/project.xcworkspace/xcuserdata/simon.xcuserdatad/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/project.xcworkspace/xcuserdata/simon.xcuserdatad/UserInterfaceState.xcuserstate
        8190 100%  470.47kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#34, to-check=16531/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/xcuserdata/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/xcuserdata/simon.xcuserdatad/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/xcuserdata/simon.xcuserdatad/xcschemes/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/xcuserdata/simon.xcuserdatad/xcschemes/TestProject.xcscheme
        3351 100%  192.50kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#35, to-check=16527/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject.xcodeproj/xcuserdata/simon.xcuserdatad/xcschemes/xcschememanagement.plist
         483 100%   27.75kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#36, to-check=16526/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/AppDelegate.swift
        2172 100%  117.84kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#37, to-check=16524/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Info.plist
        1442 100%   78.23kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#38, to-check=16523/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/ViewController.swift
         505 100%   27.40kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#39, to-check=16522/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Assets.xcassets/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Assets.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Assets.xcassets/AppIcon.appiconset/Contents.json
        1077 100%   58.43kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#40, to-check=16519/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Base.lproj/
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Base.lproj/LaunchScreen.storyboard
        1740 100%   94.40kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#41, to-check=16517/51354)
folder-to-backup/TestProject/TestProject/Base.lproj/Main.storyboard
        1695 100%   91.96kB/s    0:00:00 (xfer#42, to-check=16516/51354)

sent 1243970 bytes  received 1220 bytes  75466.06 bytes/sec
total size is 10693902652  speedup is 8588.17

Update with no files to upload

localhost:~ local-account$ rsync -a -e  'ssh -p 22 ' --progress -P /Users/local-account/folder-to-backup [email protected]:/backup/the-computer/
[email protected]'s password: 
building file list ... 
51354 files to consider

sent 1198459 bytes  received 20 bytes  82653.72 bytes/sec
total size is 10693902652  speedup is 8922.90

Backup is easy..

If you want incremental and full backups try Duplicity.

Hope this helps.

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v1.7 Duplicity

Moving WordPress to a new self managed server away from CPanel

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I recently moved my domain from a C-Panel hosted domain (and Email to Google G Suite (my guide here)) to a self-managed Digital Ocean domain (my LetsEncrypt Guide here, my Digital Ocean guide here, my AWS setup guide here, my Vultr setup guide here) and needed to transfer my WordPress site.

Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.

Domain names for just 88 cents!

I had issues with a CPanel domain on the hosts (Uber/Netregistry) as they were migrating domains and the NetRegstry chat rep said I needed to phone Uber for support. No thanks, I’m going self-managed and saving a dollar.

I backed up my old WordPress site files with FTP (and my database (sql export) on my old site and zipped it up and uploaded it to a public location as I did not want to set up FTP on my new site. More info on this here.

This downloaded mg 1GB backup zip.

I install unzip onto Ubuntu.

I unzipped the WordPress instance with Unzip (my blog lives under a blog folder).

I created an /index.html to redirect people to the blog folder.

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="1; url=http://simon.fearby.com/blog/">
</head>
<body>Loading <a href="http://thesubdomain.thedomain.com/blog/">http://thesubdomain.thedomain.com/blog/</a></body></html>

I updated my NGINX configuration to ensure WordPress worked.

I checked my databases with mysql (command line) to ensure MySQL was up.

mysql -u root -p
Enter password: ************************************
mysql> SHOW DATABSES;

I uploaded https://www.adminer.org/ to my site. I opened my wp-config.php and got db and username and created the user and assigned it to the database in Adminer.

I had a SQL backup of my site buy from experience I had not modify the SQL file before importing it (replace MyISAM with InnoDB).

You can read more about me previously moving a CPanel domain with email to a self managed VPS and Gmail.

I tried to import my 7mb sql file into the database with Adminer.

But it kept timing out (I suspect PHP upload limits were set to 2MB).

I fond my php.ini files (4 of them). No PHP file was found when I ran which PHP command was run and opened that folder.

I had to make the following PHP.ini changes to allow the larger file size to restore uploads with the Adminer utility (default is 2mb).

I had to make the following changes to nginx.conf (to prevent 404 errors on the database upload)

I navigated to the WordPress and all was good (even had SSL as I set that up on the new server)..\\

Conclusion

I now have a faster WordPress on a server I manager with SSL.

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v1.1 NetRegistry info

Installing Webmin Server Management web GUI on Ubuntu

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Setting up Ubuntu in the cloud is great if you are not afraid of using the command line but for those that need it, there are web based server management GUI’s you can install.

Once Ubuntu is installed (I have many guides at www.fearby.com) you can install http://www.webmin.com/ (web based management GUI for Ubuntu).  It is similar to https://runcloud.io but it’s free. Read the Webadmin install guide here.

Ubuntu Install Steps

Run this in your root terminal to install Webmin on Ubuntu after you install and configure a web server, MySQL and SSL.

Allow port 1000 on your firewall (in my case I am limiting this to my public IP).

I opened port 10,000 on my Digital Ocean firewall screen too.

I installed an SSL certificate on my server (my guide here).  I am having issues with Google Chrome and my SSL certificate so I switched ot safari.

I navigated to https://mydomain.com:10000 to log in to the Webmin dashboard

I could now log in to Webmin so I reset the password???

Now I can login to Webmin

Webmin has a  load of options available, I zeroed in on viewing log files.

I think I need to ban a few IP’s in my firewall based on the login attempts above. View my guide on securing Ubuntu in the cloud.

Done

Webmin has a great section on Ubuntu Users

View User Details

Securing Webmin Configuration then IP Access Control and whitelist your IP address to ensure no one else can view your server (I went to http://icanhazip.com to get my IP address).

I then used the Webmin backup screen to backup my system.

This is great, it is backing up my system 🙂

I used pydf to see how much storage space I have (I am only using 2.65GB but have 17GB available).

Gzip is taking a load of time to backup my system.

I did not need to use (htop) to monitor the CPU, Webmin has a CPU monitor built in.

Webmin also allows you to add users

Beware though you need to assign a user to modules or they won’t be able to do/see much when they login.

If you provide your MySQL root password you can create databases in Webmin under Servers then MySQL Database Server

Loads of database options that I would normally use Adminer for 🙂

File Browser

There is a file browser but (I can’t seem to drag and drop).

Official documentation is found here. I’ll add more to this post as I discover it.

Check out my other posts at www.fearby.com.

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v1.0 Initial Post