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How to purchase your own domain name and set up a web server from $5 a month

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This guide will show technically minded people how you can purchase your own domain name, set up a web server on Vultr with an online store using WordPress/WooCommerce from $5 a month. Warning this post is technical (if you have never used SSH, Ubuntu, Linux Command Line, hate risk or are not patient then this is NOT the guide you are after).

I personally recommend (not a paid endorsement) the free WooCommerce plugin for the free WordPress.org CMS on the free Ubuntu Operating system with the free NGINX web server and the free MYSQL database engine and free SSL certificates from Lets Encrypt.

Update 2018: For the best performing VM host (UpCloud) read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.

Domain names for just 88 cents!

Sorry for using the word free a lot but I like free things.  One of the benefits of a using a self-managed server is you get the option to install free software and configure the server how you want and secure it how you want. Truth be told managed ho (e.g CPanel, etc) are in the business of making money via monthly feed, expensive SSL certificates, taxing your transactions or pushing you to higher-priced tiers.

Legend:

  • Self Managed Server = A server that you create, you configure patch and support (all the reward and risk is owned by you and costs are low).
  • Hosted Server = A server you have partial control of and the hosts manage the server and support (You hand away all risk and most of the control and pay for support/features).

I moved to a self-managed server after I was paying $25/m for a poorly performing website and $150/y for a poor quality  SSL certificate and a slice of a server that seemed to always say “Usage Limit Exceeded”. Why pay for an insecure website that my visitors could not view because the usage limit was exceeded.

Bad CPanel SSL Certificate

fyi: Fearby.com costs me $10 a month for a server and $5/m for CDN abilities.

CPanel hosts are an option when you don’t want to self-manage a service and take on the hassle but be prepared for server limitations (The image below was taken on an older CPanel based hosts before I moved to a self-managed Vultr server)

cpenal_usage_exceeded

I recently discovered a well known and established website hosting service (that I used to use) and a friend is still using is insecure. My friend’s site has a static website on it but the server underneath was very old and insecure. Having a secure web server should be at the top of your list with any self-managed or hosted website (this will help search engine optimization and prevent risks to your website visitors).

Static Website

Sites like Virus Total, SSL Labs and Alexa Site Info , Qualys are good ways to review a site’s credibility.

fyi: The awesome https://seositecheckup.com/ is awesome for evaluating our sites SEO score.

Before we set up a server with WordPress on your own server let’s quickly look at the alternative commercial ready to go website builders.

Alternative (paid) DIY Website Builders

The following leading commercial sites will allow you to build a site online.

In my opinion, five things matter with setting up site online website.

  • Setup Costs, Monthly Cost and Commissions (what are the hidden charges)
  • Security (having a food SSL Certificate is key to having a good organic traffic from search engines)
  • Site Speed (Having a slow site will impact search engine optimization and drive visitors away)
  • Accessibility (if your site is not WCAG accessible it will not rank high on search engines).
  • Control (will you be able to do everything you want too, nothing worse than going so far and being limited)

Ok, let’s see how much it will cost to set up a simple business site on the sites above.

Wix 

Setup: Goto https://www.wix.com/, Login to Wix, click Create Site, click Business, Click Choose a Template, Edit the page, Click Save, Click “Connect your own customized domain“, Click “Connect a domain you already own“.

I was redirected to a Wix plan pricing page where I need to choose a plan to continue. From what I researched you cant control HTML on Wix so can’t add a MailChimp newsletter signup form so you would have to go with the $24.5/m option to enable Email Campaigns.

Wix Plans Chooser

I could not see information about included SSL certificates, SEO or other chargers.  SSL is free after you pay right?

The Wix editor appears OK (it may take a bit of learning though).

Wix Editoer

I clicked publish and the site was live

Wix site published

A quick check of the SSL, Accessibility and SEO and no obvious deal breakers here apart from the price and platform lock-in.

Wix Checkup

I performed a security check on the site with https://freescan.qualys.com (passed)

Conclusion: I hear Wix templates are hard to change so choose your template wisely, A large collection of apps are available that you can add to the site.

Although Wix was nice and it does include a full-featured look at the engine it is not for me ($24/m USD is too expensive).

Squarespace 

Squarespace basic websites cost $16/$25 a month or $34/52 for online stores: https://www.squarespace.com/pricing/

SquareSpace Pricing

Setup a Squarespace website: Goto https://www.squarespace.com/, Click Start a Free Trial, Choose a Template, Create an Account (a quick read of the terms of service and privacy policy, #scary), SpareSpace sites are pre-published?

Square Space Build

Loading the webpage on a non-logged-in (with SquareSpace login) browser displays a trial warning.  Trial pages are essentially restricted (unlike Wix).

Login Challenge

The mobile view does not match the template?  I guess the chosen template is more of a vibe and not a template.

Mobile view

Setting up a Squarespace website may take some time. Squarespace does have some nifty advance options in a slide-out menu though.

Squarespace Settings

Because the public view of the page is restricted I cannot scan it with WCAG accessibility tools. Scanning the site performance speeds with gtmetrix also fails.

Performance Rejected

Squarespace is well known to be difficult to set up a website when compared to other drag and drop editors (but Squarespace sites do look nice).

I am not paying $54/m for a website so let’s move on.

Shopify

Shopify Setup: Goto https://shopify.com and click Create, Sign up and enter your store name. Complete the wizard. 

Shopify

Choose a Shopify Plan

Shopify Plan

Scalping transactions, no thanks. let’s move on.

Weebly

Weebly Setup: Goto https://www.weebly.com/au and click Get Started under Create Store. Enter your account details and click Create Your Site, enter the name of the store, Click I’m just trying Weebly, click the type of product you will be selling.

Weebly Site Setup

Weebly Setup

Theme Selection

Theme Select

Choose a Domain

Domain Select

Publish the site

Publish

Clicking publish appears to be a dead end.

Verify Weebly

“Please contact Weebly Support to verify your account”, No Thanks, let’s move on.

One candidate remains and that is WordPress hosted (wordpress.com not wordpress.org).

WordPress.com

WordPress.com offer hosted plans for WordPress in the cloud.

Setup a WordPress site, the only one that removes WordPress branding and allows third-party plugins to be installed it the Business plans for $33 a month.

WordPress Plans

Setup Basics

Wordpress

Choose a WordPress theme.

Choose Theme

Assign a Domain

WordPress Domain

In order to buy a domain, you need to log in (top right) with an account

My working WordPress account (is no longer working), it was in my password manager.

wordpresscomerror

I seem to be stuck in a signup loop

Wordpress

Time to move on. Time to set up my own server on Vultr and setup WordPress and  WooCommerce,

But, before we do, let’s ensure our name is secure online.

Search for your Name/Brand

Do search for your website (or thing) in search engines to see if your name is already taken, don’t buy a domain that is owned or has IP or trademark presence. It is a  good idea to use sites like https://namechk.com/ to see if your site or social media is already taken.

https://namechk.com/

namechk.com will allow you to search for name availability online.  The name “mything” is not fully available online.

https://namechk.com/ 2

You will want to see all green squares (name available) below before buying a domain name. This looks better.

Namechk ok

I would recommend you create your social media accounts before or right after buying your domain. Sites like Twitter will insist on short usernames names so get your social media sites first.

Trademark and Brand Search

Also, perform a trademark and IP search.

Australian Trademark Search: https://search.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search/quick

United States Trademark Database: https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database

Global brand Search: http://www.wipo.int/branddb/en/

etc

Self Managed Warning

I tend to go the “self-managed server route” and install the free WordPress CMS because:

There are many reasons why you would not want to “self-manage” your own server

  • Technical Requirements (and time to support).
  • Higher Risk.
  • Applying Updates and Patches.
  • etc.

Being technically minded and choosing a “self-managed web servers” can take away time from the fun stuff like SEO, Site Design, customer needs, branding etc.

Self Managed Costs

For $5 a month you can buy a server with enough memory to install WordPress (cheaper if you don’t need WordPress)

Vultr is great. Vultr does have ready to go servers that you can deploy that have WordPress all set up.

wordpress-template

The Vultr template above does use the Centos OS (read my guide setting up Centos on a different service provider here) but I prefer to manually setup a server with Ubuntu 16.04 OS on Vultr.

With $5 server you can do what you want with it.  I have blogged before about setting up your own Server. e.g Installing Centos and Ubuntu server on Digital Ocean.  Digital Ocean does not have data centres in Australia and this kills scalability. AWS is good but 4x the price of Vultr. I have blogged about setting up and AWS server here (and upgrading an AWS instance). I tried to check out Alibaba Cloud but the verification process was broken so I decided to check our Vultr.

Manual Setup of Vultr on an Ubuntu 16.04 server

  • Deploy a Vultr Server – Guide here  ($2.5/m to New Jersey or Florida or $5/m to Sydney,  I would recommend you opt-in for the auto backup for $0.50c/m and $1/m respectively).
  • Setup NGINX.
  • Setup PHP and PHP-FPM (see guide above), consider adding PHP child workers.
  • Setup and secure MySQL (see guide above), create a database for WordPress to use.
  • Instal Adminder MySQL GUI (guide here).
  • Setup a free Lets Encrypt SSL certificate (guide here).
  • Install WordPress (and Jetpack plugin).
  • Install WordPress CLI.
  • Instal the WooCommerce Storefront WordPress Theme.
  • Install WooCommerce Plugin.
  • Secure Ubuntu.
  • Also consider linking your domain to Cloudflare to boost performance, scanning your site with Qualys Freescan and OWASP ZAP).
  • Consider setting up a WordPress image compressor and CDN plugin. like EWWW.io

Manual WooCommerce Plugin Setup

Once you setup Woocommerce you can set up the store defaults. Go to the WordPress dashboard and click WooCommerce Settings

Woo Commerce Settings

Settings – General

General

  • Set Address, City and State and Postcode
  • Set allowed countries to sell in (e.g Australia)
  • Set allowed countries to ship items to (e.g Australia)
  • Set Enable Taxes
  • Set Currency
  • etc

Settings – Products

Products

  • Set Weight
  • Set Dimensions
  • Enable Product Reviews
  • Enable Star Ratings on Reviews
  • etc

Settings – Shipping

Shipping

  • Enable Shipping Calculator
  • Add Shipping Classes
  • Shipping Zones
  • etc.

Settings – Checkout

Settings checkout

  • Force Secure Checkup
  • Create a Terms and Conditions page (and set).
  • etc

Settings – Account

Accounts

  • Set Account Options
  • etc

Settings – Emails

Emails

  • Set Email Preferences
  • Set Email Header Image
  • Set Email Colour
  • Set Footer Text
  • etc

Settings – API

API

  • API can be disabled if you don’t need it.

Optional Actions

  • Setup Yoast Plugin
  • Setup other plugins

Instaling a Woo Commerce Child Theme

Go to https://woocommerce.com/product-category/themes/storefront-child-theme-themes/ and choose a theme.

Themes

Purchase and Install the desired child theme (I uploaded it to my /wp-content/themes/ folder with forklift). I chose a free deli theme.

Goto your WordPress then themes folder and activate your new child theme.

Activate Theme

Post Site Setup

Just because your site is live does not mean you can rest.

SEO Optimization

Do use sites like https://seositecheckup.com/ and follow recommended actions to improve your SEO like updating meta tags.

More Reading

Attaching an email to your domain

You can pay $5 a month and link a G Suite email to your domain.

  • Dedicated professional Google G Suite email account for $5 a month with 30GB storage (If you don’t want ot to buy a G Suite email and link it to your domain then you don’t need this).

Once you have a G Suite account you can link other domains (and domain emails) to it. You can login to your G Suite emails via G Mail and send emails from apps or the command line.

Why Vultr

I use the server host Vultr as they have data centres all around the world and the support of great, Digital Ocean is good too but they don’t have data centres in my country (Australia). Vultr allows you to deploy all over the world upgrade servers, move servers, add storage and restore servers.

Alternatively, you can buy a $2.5/m server and generate  a static website

I use the Platforma Web HTML generator to build mobile and WCAG compliant websites.

Buying a domain,  I buy my domains from https://www.namecheap.com/  it is a good idea to look for coupons first at https://www.namecheap.com/promos/coupons.aspx before buying a domain.

Once you buy a domain you can point it to a Vultr server and upload your website.

I hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

v.1.2 WordPress WooCommerce

v1.1 SEO

v1.0 Initial Draft

Setting up a website to use Cloudflare on a VM hosted on Vultr and Namecheap

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This guide will show how you can set up a website to use Cloudflare on a VM hosted on Vultr and Namecheap

I have a number of guides on moving hasting away form CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line. This post will show how to let Cloudflare handle the DNS for the domain.

Update 2018: For the best performing VM host (UpCloud) read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

Snip from here “Cloudflare’s enterprise-class web application firewall (WAF) protects your Internet property from common vulnerabilities like SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting, and cross-site forgery requests with no changes to your existing infrastructure.”

Buy a Domain 

Buy a domain name from Namecheap here.

Domain names for just 88 cents!

Cloudflare Benefits (Free Plan)

  • DDoS Attack Protection (Huge network to absorb attacks DDoS attacks over 600Gbps are no problem for our 15 Tbps networks)
  • Global CDN
  • Shared SSL certificate (I disabled this and opted to use my own)
  • Access to audit logs
  • 3 page rules (maximum)

View paid plan options here.

Cloudflare CDN map

Cloudflare CDN says it can load assets up to 2x faster, 60% less bandwidth from your servers by delivering assets from 127 data centres.

Cloudflare Global Network

Setup

You will need to sign up at cloudflare.com

Cloudflare

After you create an account you will be prompted to add a siteAdd SiteCloudflare will pull your public DNS records to import.

Query DNS

You will be prompted to select a plan (I selected free)

Plan Select

Verify DNS settings to import.

DNS Import

You will now be asked to change your DNS nameservers with your domain reseller

DNS Nameservers

TIP: If you have an SSL cert (e.g Lets Encrypt) already setup head to the crypto section and select ” Full (Strict)” to prevent ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS errors.

Strict SSL

Cloudflare UI

I asked Twitter if they could kindly load my site so I could see if Cloudflare dashboard/stats were loading.

The Cloudflare CTO responded.  🙂

Confirm Cloudflare link to a domain from the OSX Comand line

Caching Rule

I set up the following caching rule to cache everything for 8 hours instead of WordPress pages

Page Rules

“fearby.com.com/wp-*” Cache level: Bypass

“fearby.com.com/wp-admin/post.php*” Cache level: Bypass

“fearby.com/*” Cache Everything, Edge Cache TTL: 8 Hours

Cache Results

Cache appears to be sitting at 50% after 12 hours.  having cache os dynamic pages out there is ok unless I need to fix a typo, then I need to login to Cloudflare and clear the cache manually (or wait 8 hours)

Performance after a few hours

DNS times in gtmetrix have now fallen to a sub 200ms (Y Slow is now a respectable A, it was a C before).  I just need to wait for caching and minification to kick in.

DNS Improved

webpagetest.org results are awesome

See here: https://www.webpagetest.org/result/180314_PB_7660dfbe65d56b94a60d7a604ca250b3/

  • Load Time: 1.80s
  • First Byte 0.176s
  • Start Render 1.200s

webpagetest

Google Page Speed Insights Report

Mobile: 78/100

Desktop: 87/100

Check with https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Update 24th March 2018 Attacked?

I noticed a spike in and traffic (incoming and threats) on the 24th of March 2018.

I logged into Cloudflare on my mobile device and turned on Under Attack Mode.

Under Attack Flow

Cloudflare was now adding a delay screen in the middle of my initial page load. Read more here.  A few hours after the Attach started it was over.

After the Attack

I looked at the bandwidth and found no increase in traffic from my initial host VM. Nice.

cloudflare-attack-001

Thanks, Cloudflare.

Cloudflare Pros

  • Enabling Attack mode was simple.
  • Soaked up an attack.
  • Free Tier
  • Many Reports
  • Option to force HTTPS over HTTP
  • Option to ban/challenge suspicious IP’s and set challenge timeframes.
  • Ability to setup IP firewall rules and Application Firewalls.
  • User-agent blocking
  • Lockdown URL’s to IP’s (pro feature)
  • Option to minify Javascript, CSS and HTML
  • Option to accelerate mobile links
  • Brotli compression on assets served.
  • Optio to enable BETA Rocket loader for Javascript performance tweaks.
  • Run Javascript service workers from the 120+ CDN’s
  • Page/URL rules o perform custom actions (redirects, skip cache, Encryption etc)
  • HTTP/2 on, IPV6 ON
  • Option to setup load balancing/failover
  • CTO of Cloudflare responded in Twitter 🙂
  • Option to enable rate limiting (charged at 10,000 hits for $0.05c)
  • Option to block countries (pro feature)
  • Option to install apps in Cloudflare like(Goole Analytics,

Cloudflare Cons

  • No more logging into NameCheap to perform DNS management (I now goto Cloudflare, Namecheap are awesome).
  • Cloudflare Support was slow/confusing (I ended up figuring out the redirect problem myself).
  • Some sort of verify Cloudflare Setup/DNS/CDN access would be nice. After I set this up my gtmetrix load times were the same and I was not sure if DNS needs to replicate? Changing minify settings in Cloudflare did not seem to happen.
  • WordPress draft posts are being cached even though page riles block wp-admin page caching.
  • Would be nice to have ad automatic Under Attack mode
  • Now all sub-domains were transferred in the setup ( id did not know for weeks)

Cloudflare status

Check out https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/ for status updates.

Don’t forget to install the CloudFlare Plugin for WordPress if you use WordPress.

More Reading

Check out my OWASP Zap and Kali Linux self-application Penetration testing posts.

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.8 host Command from the OSX CLI

v1.7 Subdomain error

v1.6 Cloudflare Attack

v1.5 WordPress Plugin

v1.4 More Reading

v1.3 added WAF snip

v1.2 Added Google Page Speed Insights and webpage rest results

v1.1 Added Y-Slow

v1.0 Initial post

Upgrading the RAM, CPU and Memory on a Vultr Ubuntu VM in the cloud

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Upgrading the RAM, CPU and Memory on a Vultr Ubuntu VM in the cloud is quite simple.

I have a number of guides on moving hasting away form CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line.  I prefer Vultr as they are located in the country (Australia) and are easy to use.

First, you need to shut down the server from within the VM (SSH), I used the command.

Once the VM is shut down (wait a few minutes) you can turn off the VM in the Vultr GUI.

Shutdown

You can then go to Settings, Change Plan and review upgrade options.

Upgrade Options

Snapshot

Don’t forget to take a final snapshot.

Snapshot reminder

Goto the Snapshots page (read this guide to restore a snapshot) and click Take Snapshot.

Take Snapshop

You can see snapshot progress on the main screen.

Snapshot Progress

It may take a while for your snapshot to change from Pending to Processing.

Processing

Upgrade

When the snapshot is done it will auto boot and allow you to upgrade.

Manage

Choose the Upgrade specifications (Settings, Change Plan)

Upgrade Specs

Click Upgrade

Upgrade

Confirm

Confirm

The upgrade process will take a few minutes (I could see the CU and Ram was updated but the Storage was pending)

Upgrade Pending

Testing

After the upgrade happened the VM will autoboot, login and check tour specifications (Useful Linux Commands).

I use the htop command to view specification information.

I did a quick benchmark pre-optimizing and I can see a speed bump of 0.2s. Time to optimize.

Benchmark

I threw 50 concurrent clients at my website (with loader.io) and the server handled it fine with no increase above memory capacity like before.

Concurent Users

Optimize

Now I need to Optimize.  Truth be told  I did optimize and harden PHP and crashed PHP-FPM so I had o restore a VM snapshot.

Troubleshooting

If all else fails (post-upgrade configuration) you can restore the Vultr VM from a snapshot.

I hope this guide helps someone.

P.S If you don’t have a VM on Vultr click this link to set one up in minutes (setup guide here).

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial post

Using Chrome 65 to measure website Performance, Progressive Web Apps, Basic Practices, Accessibility and SEO

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Chrome 65 beta has added SEO to audits in the Developer Tools Audit tab.

I have a number of guides on moving hasting away form CPanel, Setting up VM’s on AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line.

When you develop any site you need to perform regular audits to ensure it is up-to-date and compliant.  Google Chrome has audit tools built right in (Chrome 65 has SEO audit tools (yay)

Chrome 64Developer Tools – Audit tool.

Chroms 64 Audit

Chrome 64 Audit Scan options

Chrome 64 Audit Scan

Chrome 64 Audit Results

The performance results seem off given I have set up a CDN, optimized WordPress.

Chrome 64 Audit Results

Time to download Chrome 65 beta and get new audit tools.

Time to download Chrome 65 and get new audit tools

Chrome version confirmed

Chrome Version

Audit Options

Chrome 65 BETA Audit Options

Chrome 65 Audit Results

Hmmm, results are different (same website, network and time)

Chrome 64 Audit Results:

  • Performance: 45
  • Progressive Web App: 30
  • Accessibility: 86
  • Best Practice: 56
  • SEO: N/A

Chrome 65 BETA Audit Results:

  • Performance: 24
  • Progressive Web App: 45
  • Accessibility: 65
  • Best Practice: 63
  • SEO: 90

Chrome 65 BETA Audio Results
Google recommends you load pages in under 1s, I would suggest using multiple tools to indicate site speed.

https://gtmetrix.com is a great site for testing your sites speed. I used GT Metrix to move my site from 26s to 6 by setting up a WordPress CDN, moving away from CPanel to a self-managed server on Vultr then to 4s with optimising PHP by setting up child workers.

GT Metrix

https://www.webpagetest.org is also good for testing websites.

I will continue to use Chrome Audit Tools for other results like SEO

Chrome SEO Tools

That’s weird Chrome Audit Tools, I thought I did not have meta tags?

I downloaded the WP Meta SEO plugin, I use the wp command from the SLI (setup guide here)

I activated the plugin in WordPress the loaded the dashboard.  WP Meta SEO asked to import data from the Yoast plugin.

meta-dashboard

Now I can see my metadata is falling behind.

wp-meta-seo

With WP Meta SEO I was able to apply individual page Meta tags.

meta-apply

I added the following meta tags with WP Meta SEO plugin for each page (the metadata below was for this page)

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1" />
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://fearby-com.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/php_pool_featured.jpg" />
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary" />
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@FearbySoftware" />
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="Programming, IoT and Server Stuff" />
<meta name="twitter:description" content="How to setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x to increase website traffic" />
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x" />
<meta property="og:image" content="https://fearby-com.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/php_pool_featured.jpg" />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Programming, IoT and Server Stuff" />
<meta property="og:description" content="How to setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x to increase website traffic" />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://fearby.com/article/how-to-setup-php-fpm-on-demand-child-workers-in-php-7-x-to-increase-website-traffic/" />
<meta property="og:type" content="article" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x" />
<meta name="description" content="How to setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x to increase website traffic" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x" />
<meta name="title" content="Setup PHP FPM on demand child workers in PHP 7.x" />

fyi

I use the free version of the Yoast for SEO plugin in WordPress.  The premium version has a lot more to offer, I might have to check Premium out.

Yoast Compare

I am now on the hunt for meta plugins for WordPress

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.2 WP-Meta SEO

v1.1 Added webpagetest.org link and results

v1.0 Initial post

Using Fritzing to draw electronic schematics for Arduino, Raspberry Pi and ESP8266

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This guide will show how you can create an electronics schematic to represent elements of a circuit for Arduino, Raspberry Pi and ESP8266 micro-controllers.

Wikipedia states here: “A schematic, or schematic diagram, is a representation of the elements of a system using abstract, graphic symbols rather than realistic pictures. A schematic usually omits all details that are not relevant to the information the schematic is intended to convey and may add unrealistic elements that aid comprehension.” This guide will help you create schematics using Fritzing on OSX, you may still want to document your system requirements etc in Github or Bitbucket.

I am creating some small personal weather station on Arduino, Raspberry Pi and ESP8266 to submit data to cloud servers on Vutr (or AWS or Digital Ocean), read my guide on using Adminer to create and manage MySQL databases.

What are sensors

A sensor could detect temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, light and just about anything else.

Sensor

Temperature, Humidity and Barometric sensor (bme280)

GY-BME280

Most sensors work on low voltage have analogue or digital outputs (I2C or SPI) and require minimal wires. The real problem is having multiple sensors and wiring gets out of hand.

What is Arduino

Arduino is a low power 8bit and 32bit hardware/software product that you can rapidly wire up circuits and sensors. Sites like Adafruit sell loads of sensors and develop a lot of software libraries to drive sensors.

Non-genuine Arduino boards age mega cheap on eBay.

Arduino has slide-on shields that can be pushed onto an Arduino board to expand them.

Pros

  • Cheap
  • Loads of support
  • Good analogue sensor support

Cons

  • Limited monitor support

Sensors or expansions can come in shields or be connected to pins with wires.

What is Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is also a single board computer but with a more powerful ARM processor that runs a Linux operating system from an SD card. Raspberry Pi’s are essentially small desktop computers. Raspberry Pi’s have USB, can plug into a monitor, have a bootable desktop have Arduino like GPIO pins that can talk to sensors (but not as many analogue sensors).

Pros

  • Very Powerful.
  • Desktop Operating System included.
  • Can talk to sensors.
  • Good GPIO pins for controlling the real world.
  • Has HDMI monitor output.

Cons

  • Full kits are expensive.
  • Low analogue read pins.
  • Failure to shut down correctly can corrupt the OS.

Pi

What is ESP8266

Pros

  • Cheap
  • Good Analog and digital puns
  • Code in Arduino IDE
  • Has WiFi

Cons

  • Limited monitor support

ss

Installing Fritzing

Fritzing is a software package that can allow you to design and learn electronic schematics (filter by kid level, amateurs, master or higher).

Goto: http://fritzing.org/

Fritzing site

Click Download and Donate

Download Fritzing

Click Download and choose the right version for your Operating System

Download

Copy the app to your Application folder

Copy the app to your Application folder

Open the app a few times (open, wait, proceed, close, open wait proceed etc) to ensure parts updates are installed.

Open the app a few times to instal updates

Fritzing Introduction on YouTube

Watch the Introduction video for Fritzing here

Fritzing Killer Tips Series on YouTube

Watch Fritzing Killer Tips 001 The generic IC

Extending Fritzing

Fritzing allows you to import new parts and design your own parts or ask Fritzing to design a part for you.

Import

I was able to import a bme280 sensor within seconds.

bme280

If a part does not exist in the forums search google for “partname” and “.fzpz”

I was able to find an ESP8266 Node MCU from https://github.com/squix78/esp8266-fritzing-parts/tree/master/nodemcu-v1.0

NodeMCUV1.0

It looks like Fritzing has all the parts I need to work with (Pi, Arduino and Node MCU’s).

All Parts

Fritzing Views

Coming soon (Views: Breadboard, schematic, PCB, code).

Designing and Ordering a PCB

Coming soon.

Find Fritzing Projects

You can find all community-created Raspberry Pi Fritzing Projects below.

http://fritzing.org/projects/by-tag/raspberry%20pi/

Arduino Fritzing Projets:

http://fritzing.org/projects/by-tag/arduino/

ESP8266 Fritzing Projets:

http://fritzing.org/projects/by-tag/esp8266/

Happy coding and I hope this helps someone.

More to come.

Making a PCB

Bonus: It is possible to order your own physical PCB from say
https://easyeda.com but you will need to export your schematic from Fritzing to Eagle (or manually create your PCB in Easy EDA online IDE).

Download Eagle:
https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/free-download

Easy EDA guides here:

How to make a custom PCB in Easy EDA (Part 1):

How to make a custom PCB in Easy EDA (Part 2):

I will try and find a PCB manufacturer that accepts orders from Fritzing exports.

More Reading

https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/

Free MagPi magazine Issues.

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Revision History

V1.1 Making a PCB info

v1.0 Initial Draft

How to upgrade a Digital Ocean Ubuntu VM and increase the vCPU or memory

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This blog post will show you how you can increase the memory and CPU allocation of an Ubuntu Server (Droplet) on Digital Ocean.

If you don’t have an Ubuntu server on Digital Ocean use this link ( https://m.do.co/c/99a5082b6de5 ) and get $10 free credit (2 months free). Read my guide here on setting it up.

Before you begin, ensure you have backed up your server.  You can read here about setting up a new server on Digital Ocean from scratch, connecting to your server via SCP or automatically syncing files away from your server to another server with rsync .

In Jan 2018 Digital Ocean doubled the ram of $5/m servers from 512MB to 1GB so it’s time for me to get the free upgrade.

Connect to your server (via SSH or Web Console) and shut it down

shutdown -h now

After the server has shut down login to digital Ocean GUI and click (open) the server you want to upgrade.

resize-droplet-002

Click Resize and choose the new upgraded server capacity

resize-droplet-003

Click Resize (if the resize button is disabled you need to power off the server (via command line or via the power menu in Digital Ocean for the Droplet))

resize-droplet-004

Click the Power On button under the Access tab when the resize is completed to restart the VM.

resize-droplet-005

Congratulations, you will now have an upgraded server 🙂 Thank You Digital Ocean for the free RAM.

If you don’t have an Ubuntu server on Digital Ocean use this link ( https://m.do.co/c/99a5082b6de5 ) and get $10 free credit (2 months free). Read my guide here on setting it up.

Hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial Post

OSX speed tested before applying Spectre and Meltdown patches in 10.13.2

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Below is a quick post of how OSX speed fairs before and after application of the OSX 10.13.2 update (that fixed Spectre and Meltdown CPU issues).

I read of up to 30% speed drops with Redis after Spectre and Meltdown patches and was curious how OSX faired.

News

Apple Confirms ‘Meltdown’ and ‘Spectre’ Vulnerabilities Impact All Macs and iOS Devices, Some Fixes Already Released [Updated]

MacOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Update Released with Bug Fixes 

Patches

macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 Combo Update + Supplement Update

Benchmarks (before applying patches)

Here are Cinebench R15 benchmarks on OSX 10.13.1 before upgrading to 10.13.2 on a 2-year-old  core i5 based iMac.

High Sierra 10.13.1, Cinebench R15 and TG Pro running in the background.

osx-speculative-001-before-cinebench-cpu

CPU: 490 cb points.

Now time to test the GPU in Cinebench…
osx-speculative-002-before-cinebench-cpu-gpu

GPU: 79.33 fps.

Now time to run a Geekbench CPU benchmark.

Here is a breakdown of the scores (2 mins after a fresh reboot and the best of three runs).
osx-speculative-003-before-geekbench-simple

Geekbench Single-Core Score: 4433

Geekbench Multi-Core Score: 13,005

Here is a breakdown of advanced GeekBench tests…
osx-speculative-004-before-geekbench-detailed

I tried to update to 10.3.2 via the software updates but my network was having troubles (human error, my firewall was too aggressive)
osx-speculative-005-update-failed

I downloaded the manual 10.13.2 update from Apple (not realising my firewall was blocking the app updates (I blocked app updated as soon as spectre news hit so I could write this post)).

I downloaded and opened the 2.8GB 10.13.2 update.
osx-speculative-006-manual-update-002osx-speculative-006-manual-update-001

PKG was extracted from the DMG.

osx-speculative-006-manual-update-003

10.13.2 Installation Wizard.

osx-speculative-006-manual-update-004

I solved my networking issues (disable my firewall) and was able to verify the installation of the 10.13.2 patch and download further 10.13.2 supplemental updates.
osx-speculative-006-manual-update-005

I verified all 10.13.2 updates were downloaded and installed and rebooted three times.
osx-speculative-006-manual-update-006

2 Minutes after a reboot I ran the same Cinebench R15 CPU benchmark.
osx-speculative-007-after-cinebench-cpu

CPU: 484 cb 

osx-speculative-008-after-cinebench-cpu-gpu

Cinebench R15 CPU dropped  about 6 points (about a 1.22448979591837% drop, not massive)

osx-speculative-009-after-geekbench-simpleb

Geek bench Single CPU scores fell from 4433 to 4194 (about 5.436498984886081% slower, not as bad as I expected).

osx-speculative-009-after-geekbench-advanced

Geek Bench Multi CPU scores fell from 13,005 to 12,868 (about 1.053440984236832% slower, not as bad as I expected).

Versions of Software

Cinebench R15

osx-speculative-010-after-cinebench-about

Geek Bench

osx-speculative-010-after-geekbench-about

Results

Cinebench CPU

Graphs are unfortunately zoomed in (I could not find out how to tell Excel to zoom out).  I will update when I find out how to zoom out results.

Green/Left = OSX 10.3.1.

Blue/Right = OSX 10.3.2 (post Spectre/Meltdown Patch).

osx-speculative-011-cinebench-results-cpu

Cinebench GPU

Green/Left = OSX 10.3.1.

Blue/Right = OSX 10.3.2 (post Spectre/Meltdown Patch).

osx-speculative-012-cinebench-results-gpu

Geekbench Single CPU

Green/Left = OSX 10.3.1.

Blue/Right = OSX 10.3.2 (post Spectre/Meltdown Patch).

osx-speculative-013-geekbench-results-single-cpu

Geekbench Multi CPU

Green/Left = OSX 10.3.1.

Blue/Right = OSX 10.3.2 (pst Spectre/Meltdown Patch.

osx-speculative-014-geekbench-results-multi-cpu

Geekbench Other

Green= OSX 10.3.1.

Blue = OSX 10.3.2 (post Spectre/Meltdown Patch).

Note: Most results were slightly slower but some were faster post patch.

osx-speculative-015-geekbench-results-detailed

Conclusion

It looks like performance falls 1-5% on a 2 year old system, not as bad as I was expecting.

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Revision History
v1.0 Initial Draft

Hope this helps someone.

Scanning WordPress with Gravity scan for free to detect Supply Chain Attacks and WordPress malware

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A recent trend with some WordPress Plugins (and Google Chrome Extensions) is malicious parties will purchase existing plugins (extensions) and inject malicious code into new versions to infect sites and software, this is called “Supply Chain Attacks”. This is a personal unpaid review of Gravity Scan.

Update Feb 2018: Gravity Scan is shutting down 🙁

Recently WordFence wrote a blog post about Supply Chain Attacks found cases where older plugins are being purchased by malicious people in order to infect WordPress sites. WordPress CMS apparently runs 29% of the websites on the internet. Wordfence is a firewall and Gravity Scan is a vulnerability scanner, they complement each other.

I have blogged here about setting up WordPress via Command line and setting up an Ubuntu server for as low as 42.5 a month on Vultr.

What can you do to protect your WordPress sites from “Supply Chain Attacks”? First, install the WordFence plugin (I blogged about it here). Wordfence gives you a great set of security settings and reports to keep your site safe. The Wordfence dashboard page on your site is a good place to stay up to date.

WordFence is a Firewall, Gravity scan is a vulnerability and malware scanner. Read more here.

wordfence dashboard

Gravity Scan

Gravity scan is also made by the WordFence people to enable external audits and reports.

Gravity Scan Website

Sign up at https://www.gravityscan.com/ Verify your email and log in.

At login, you will be prompted to add a domain.

Add A Site

Scan

tip: You may want to whitelist Gravity scan servers. Read my guide about securing Ubuntu in the cloud.

A site scan will automatically be started.

Scan Started

Scan Results

Scan Results

Post Scan Actions

Speed Up future scans by downloading the Install Gravity Scan Accelerator (by clicking “Not instaled” under “Accelerator” in scan results) and follow the instructions to download, upload and verify the accelerator.

Install Gravityscan Accelerator

Read the Gravity Scan Accelerator Install Instructions here.

tip: I had to run the following command to make the

Accelerator Installed

I also clicked “Trust Badge” link and added the script code to my site and verified it.

Trust Badle

I now have a scan badge in my site footer.

Future Scans

Future scans are all good to go.

Ready

New Scan Options

New Scan Options

It looks as if the accelerator gives more server-side verifications of checks of WordPress and PHP versions etc.

Go Pro

Gravity Scan also offers a non-free (paid) version where you can enable more options, enable scan schedules and set up SMS alerts and more for $4.95 a month per site.

Go Pro

To be honest I am happy with performing manual scans and I’d rather pay for a premium WordFence subscription first.

The Catch

Hang on Gravity scan requires a Pro membership to see High and Critical issues 🙁

Critical Issues

I decided not to go pro to reveal issues.

A few months later

I started receiving scan results with severity Critical (but I can’t see results until I start a trail (and enter payment details)).

Issues

Time to start a trial

I started a trial and full details were shown, the critical error was my fault

Gone Pro

Critical Issue

This was my fault, I left a previous version of WordPress in a subfolder from when I moved the site to a self-managed server. A quick few Linux commands later (removed) and this was fixed.

old files visible

High Issue

Publically accessible file (fixed with a chmod command)

File Visible

Current Scan Results

Current

Remote Scan Options

Daily Scans, Alter levels, Malware, Vulnerability and status checks. Definitely, install the Accelerator as it found my local backup of WordPress.

Manage Remote

Pros

  • Found a publically readable file
  • Found a past copy of my WordPress site (and all known issues with the old WordPress backup).
  • Can setup daily remote scans.

Cons

  • You have to go pro.
  • Can’t read my NGINX version (“Nginx version not detected, Gravityscan is unable to detect any associated vulnerabilities.“). I logged a ticket. Surely they can add a shell to”nginx -v” to the scan accelerator.
  • No word fence discount bundle?
  • Gravity scan and Word fence on twitter are slow to respond.

More to come.

More Reading

Hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

V.1.5 Gravity Scan shutting down

v1.4 Added remote scan options

v1.3 Pros and Cons and current results.

v1.2 Added more

v1.1 Fixed a few issues

v1.0 Initial Version

Using TG Pro to Manage Mac Book Pro Temps (and find your max working load)

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I blogged about opening my Mac Book Pro and removing dust here. Here is a review of the TG Pro software from Tuna Belly Software. Below I show how you can stress test your Mac help find it’s thermal limits (and manage fan speeds with TG Pro).

You can download TG Pro from here: https://www.tunabellysoftware.com/tgpro/

Stress Test your Mac

On OSX

  • Open TG Pro (right).
  • Open 4x terminal windows (blue) for the stress testing tool (yes).
  • Open 1x terminal windows (green) for the top command line task manager.
  • Open Activity Monitor (bottom left)

Once you start the stress testing tool you will need to manually end task the “yes” processes or reboot your Mac.

tgpro-001

In each of the (blue) Terminal windows type: yes > /dev/null &

You will need to fire up as many top processes as required (depending on your processor) to get to 100% CPU activity in Activity Monitor.

You will see 4x process ID’s outputted in the blue terminal windows (remember these as you will need the process ID’s to kill the processes). The process ID is also shown in the green windows below. Failing this you can end task processes in Activity Monitor GUI.

tgpro-002

With stock cooling profiles (Apple) in action, CPU temps jump to the low 90’s.

I clicked Auto Boost in TG Pro and temps jump down 10c each core.  This was still with the stress test in action.

tgpro-003

What will TG Pro – Auto Boost in Idle situations due to CPU temperatures? Instead of High 50ciI am getting Low 40’s. Nice.

tgpro-004

Other TG Pro Options

What else can TG Pro do?

TG Pro can alert you when the CPU gets too hot.

Notification

TG Pro – Startup and update options.

tgpro-005

TG Pro – Notification area options.

tgpro-006

TG Pro – Celcius/Fahrenheit options etc.

tgpro-007

TG Pro – Notification Options.

tgpro-008

TG Pro – Logging Options.

tgpro-009

TG Pro – I personally like this temperature / fan ramping configuration.

tgpro-010

TG Pro – Updates Screen

tgpro-011

TG Pro is awesome software and I use it to auto boost my Mac Book Pro fans post cleaning dust and reapplying thermal paste on my CPU/GPU.  I paid for the software used in this review (this is not a paid review).

Hope this helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial Post