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Check the compatibility of your WordPress theme and plugin code with PHP Compatibility Checker

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This is how I checked the compatibility of my WordPress theme and plugin (code) with PHP Compatibility Checker

Aside

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

Now on with the post

Snip from: https://wordpress.org/plugins/php-compatibility-checker/

What is PHP Compatibility Checker

> The WP Engine PHP Compatibility Checker can be used by any WordPress website on any web host to check PHP version compatibility.

> This plugin will lint theme and plugin code inside your WordPress file system and give you back a report of compatibility issues for you to fix. Compatibility issues are categorized into errors and warnings and will list the file and line number of the offending code, as well as the info about why that line of code is incompatible with the chosen version of PHP. The plugin will also suggest updates to themes and plugins, as a new version may offer compatible code.

> This plugin does not execute your theme and plugin code, as such this plugin cannot detect runtime compatibility issues.
Please note that linting code is not perfect. This plugin cannot detect unused code-paths that might be used for backwards compatibility, and thus might show false positives. We maintain a whitelist of plugins that can cause false positives. We are continuously working to ensure the checker provides the most accurate results possible.
This plugin relies on WP-Cron to scan files in the background. The scan will get stuck if the site’s WP-Cron isn’t running correctly. Please see the FAQ for more information.

Install PHP Compatibility Checker

PHP Compatibility Checker

I instaled by SSH’ing to my server and opening my WP Plugins folder

I grabbed the latest download URL from here (hover over the download button), at the time of writing this was the latest version: https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/php-compatibility-checker.1.4.6.zip

I downloaded the plugin on my server (then unzipped it and deleted the zip)

Enable PHP Compatibility Checker Plugin

I enabled the plugin

Enable the Plugin

I clicked on the following message

> You have just activated the PHP Compatibility Checker. Start scanning your plugins and themes for compatibility with the latest PHP versions now!

Start Scan

I already have PHP 7.2 installed so let’s scan my site. PHP 7.3 will be available in December and it is already being tested in beta.

Scan PHP 7.2

PHP Versions

PHP Versions

Site Scanning

PHP Compatibility Checker site scanning is very business-like

Site Scan Progress

PHP Compatability Checker Scan Results

2 of 22 plugins I use were not PHP 7.2 compatible (WordFence and WP Meta SEO)?

PHP Compatibility Report

I read on twitter that Wordfence may be a false positive.

Clicking toggle details reveal why the scan failed. A Two Factor Auth plugin was all OK.

Scan Results

Your results will hopefully be…

> PHP 7.2 compatible

Of if errors exist it should explain why it did not pass.

FILE: /www-root/wp-content/plugins/wp-meta-seo/jutranslation/jutranslation.php
> —————————————————————————————-
> FOUND 1 ERROR AFFECTING 1 LINE
> —————————————————————————————-
> 251 | ERROR | The function is_countable() is not present in PHP version 7.2 or earlier
> —————————————————————————————-

I can’t wait for PHP 7.3 scanning.  I will update this post in December 2018 after PHP 7.3 is released.

Good luck and I hope this guide helps someone

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial post

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

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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

Privacy, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) information for WordPress bloggers.

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This is a short post with General Privacy, Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) information for WordPress bloggers.

Note: This is not legal advice, just late minute information on current opinions and facts around GDPR.

fyi: Read my guide on the awesome UpCloud VM hosts (get $25 free credit by signing up here).

Facebook, Google, Whatsapp and Instagram are facing lawsuits for failing to comply with GDPR, Europe’s sweeping new data protection law.

It is GPRD Compliance Eve and there are loads of last-minute GDPR activity.

Official European Commission resources on GRDP

Some US News sites are blocking Europeans

Legal Teams are up late

First Lawsuits are filed

Should you panic?

No.

If you want a good summary for GDPR for bloggers – does it apply to you and how to comply then read this.

Also, Wikipedia has a good article.

wpbeginner.com has an Ultimate Guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance – Everything You Need to Know

Read wpbeginners.com’s summary of what GDPR is?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) law taking effect on May 25, 2018. The goal of GDPR is to give EU citizens control over their personal data and change the data privacy approach of organizations across the world.

Are there fines?

Basically after May 25th, 2018, businesses that are not in compliance with GDPR’s requirement can face large fines up to 4% of a company’s annual global revenue OR €20 million (whichever is greater). This is enough reason to cause wide-spread panic among businesses around the world.

First, there will be warnings, then reprimands then Suspension then Fines and more.

Does GDPR apply to my WordPress site?

The answer is YES. It applies to every business, large and small, around the world (not just in the European Union).

If your website has visitors from European Union countries, then this law applies to you.

But don’t panic, this isn’t the end of the world.

While GDPR has the potential to escalate to those high level of fines, it will start with a warning, then a reprimand, then a suspension of data processing, and if you continue to violate the law, then the large fines will hit.

Read more at Ultimate Guide to WordPress and GDPR Compliance – Everything You Need to Know

But warning are issued before fines are given.

What can you do?

But the takeaway is, don’t create a website (then be lazy) and abuse users private data or be lazy with security.

My blog hosts (Vultr) GDPR information

Vultr GDPR

I instaled a GDPR Cookie Consent WordPress Plugin

I used the WP-CLI plugin install GDPR Cookie plugin for the command line. View the developer site here.

I then activated the plugin and configured it.

Configure COokie Concent Plugin

Cookie bot also has a great page on GDRP here.

I edited the following Privacy/GDRP placeholder files.

cd /www-root
# Made a reject cookies placeholder
sudo nano rejectcookies.html

# Made a privacy placeholder
sudo nano privacy.html

I should have skipped creating a privacy.htm page as WordPress v4.9.6 has a Privacy Page Generator. Nice

Create Privacy Page

Goto tour sites Dashboard, click Settings then Privacy. Create a new page, fill in the blanks and publish it.

Privacy Page Generator

I read MailChimp GDPR Advice as I had a few lists with private data

More to come. Let’s get back to those GDPR emails

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.1 Cookie Bot GDPR Link

v1.0 Initial post

How to backup WordPress on a host that has CPanel

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This is a simple guide that demonstrates how you can log in to a host that offers the CPanel tools to backup all of your website files (and databases). Backing up your website should be done often and especially before you migrate to any another website host. I used to change hosts every few years (they don’t own your site, you do).

I have a number of guides on moving away from CPanel, setting up VM’s on UpCloud, AWS, Vultr or Digital Ocean along with installing and managing WordPress from the command line copying files to a server via command line editing remote files locally etc but how do you manage a website with CPanel?

You can normal login to CPanel tools on a shared host by loading www.yourdomainnam.com/cpanel (failing that login to your domain hosts web GUI and find your CPanel interface there).

Step 1: Login to your Host

Login to your web host

Login to Host

Step 2: Find your CPanel Interface

Hosts are a bit different but in this case, I just click my domain to find the CPanel link.

Domain

I found it, I clicked the CPanel login.

Cpanel link

Step 3: CPanel Applications

CPanel does offer good tools to manage your websites like web-based File Manager and Database tool called phpMyAdmin.

CPanel Options

Aside: CPanel/Hosts Downsides

The thing I don’t like about hosts that offer CPanel is they usually limit delivery of your website to extract more money. Nothing worse than receiving Resource Limit Is Reached errors.

cpenal_usage_exceeded

Also shared hosts usually lag way behind in newer software versions like PHP and MySQL (this is a security concern).

TIP: You can scan your site for vulnerabilities using Qualsys Freescan, Zap or Kali Linux.

Here is a security scan of a shared host (with CPanel) that I was using in 1999. Note the high vulnerabilities and old version of Linux.

Static Website

Also, a shared host will often overcharge you (e.g $150 a year) for a poorly configured SSL certificate.

This was an SSL cert I paid $150 a year for (evaluated with SSL Labs SSL Test) on a shared host with CPanel.

Aside: Self Managed Upsides

After I moved my domain to a self-managed virtual machine I migrated WordPress, set up a free SSL certificate, sped up my site with a CDN, setup Cloudflare, setup better TLS security etc

When you manage your own server you can install a free SSL certificate in under 1 minute.

Below is my SSL certificate. A strong SSL certificate will increase search engine traffic

SSL Cert

Aside: Compare Shared host speed v Self Managed

FYI: https://gtmetrix.com/ is a great site for measuring the speed of a website (shared of self-managed). I found great speed improvements after moving away from a host offering CPanel, tweaking the server and setting up cloudflare. A self-managed server will allow you to tweak anything you want.

GTMetrix results:

Shared Host Speed

I like how self-managed servers allow you to scale the server’s resources yourself, move servers or add storage etc.

Aside: SSL Certificate

If you have an SSL cert you should test it often as vulnerabilities pop up from time to time.

FYI: All sites will soon require an SSL certificate to be sent traffic from search engines (no SSL = lower traffic).

SSL Test my site: https://dev.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=fearby.com&s=104.27.154.69

Now enough with the self-managed serve asides and back to how to backup your website with CPanel tools.

Step 4: Backup your web files in CPanel

Use the File Explorer app in CPanel

File Manager

Highlight all files that you want to backup (highlight everything but not past backup files).

backup-cpanel-006

View the files to compress summary

Compress Summary

Click Compress Files(s) and view the backup progress

Backup Progress

You can now download the backup zip file in your browser (click the file and click Download).

Downaload ZIp

Download Progress.

Download File

Step 5: Backup your database in CPanel

Now we need to backup any MySQL database(s) that may be used by WordPress

Open the phpMyAdmin app in CPanel.

phpMyAdmin

FYI: Alternatively, you can use a free tool called Adminer to backup and restore our database.

Click your WordPress database (on the left). You can identify your current WordPress database by opening the wp-config.php file.

Database Options

The first step is to perform an online cold backup of the WordPress database.

  1. Click the database you want to backup (on the left)
  2. Click the Options tab
  3. Under the Copy To frame enter a new database name to copy the database too
  4. Click Go

Online Backup

Now you have an online cold spare that you can use just in case the original database corrupts itself. You can rename the database or configure WordPress to point to this new database if need be.

backup-cpanel-013

Now let’s download a copy of the database (Repeat for multiple databases).

  1. Click the database you want to backup
  2. Click the Export tab
  3. Click Go

backup-cpanel-014

You should now have a backup of your website in a zip file and an export of your database in a .sql text file, SQL files can be re-imported to databases later.

TIP: Backup often.

Export Done

I hope this guide helps someone.

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Revision History

v1.0 Initial post

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.

Donate and make this blog better

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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

Speeding up WordPress with the ewww.io ExactDN CDN and Image Compression Plugin

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Below is my quick blog posts on using the EWWW IO ExactDN CDN plugin in WordPress to set up an ExactDN (Global Dis.cotribution Network (CDN)) to distribute images to my site’s visitors and shrink (optimize) images in posts.

I have blogged before on speeding up WordPress that has involved moving servers away from CPanel domains to self-managed servers (e.g on Digital Ocean or Vultr), using Lazy Load image plugins like BJ Lazy Load, Optimize images automatically in WordPress with EWWW.io and scaling and moving servers closer to your customers.

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

Today I am going to set up the https://www.ewww.io/resize/ ExactDN (CDN) delivery network. I am paying for this myself (and this is an unbiased review).

FYI: I use Ubuntu servers and not Windows.

Know your starting point. 

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” – Benjamin Franklin

In my original post about Speeding up WordPress, I used the webpagetest.org site to test my sites response times, I was getting an embarrassing 21 seconds load time and 6 second first-byte time. I have worked to speed up WordPress by moving WordPress to a self-managed server (away from CPanel), used the BJ Lazy Load plugin and the awesome ewww.io image optimize plugin, now I get about 4-5 seconds.

I am hoping adding a CDN will make things faster. My blog is delivering over two-thirds images, perfect for a CDN, this is why I am trying this out.

Image type cdn

TIP: Check where your customers/readers are located, and how many are New versus Returning customers? Do you need a CDN to deliver content (Images) that are closer to your customers/readers or do you need to move your web server somewhere else?  The more you know the more you can help them. Worst case you will be supporting a positive experience (and potentially turning a one time visitor into a returning visitor).

I looked at my Google Analytics data to see where my visitors are. Whether good or bad, they are all over the world (Hello)?

World

Other data is available in Google Analytics.  I can see the last few years growth is growing and I am getting more returning visitors, now is the time to ensure my site is ready for more traffic and returning visitors.

Data

Note: The fall in traffic in the Audience overview (right-hand side of the left image) is the unfinished month (not a reader fall off).

Personally, I set a goal to have a high page bounce rate of 90% be way lower (at present I am at about 80% and falling (good) and my page read time has gone from 40 seconds to 1 minute 40.  Every bit you can do will help create a positive experience and help your visitors. I can see from the data above the content is being read, I am building returning visitors and they are geographically spread out. A CDN will be great. After you know where your visitors are it is good to know the times of day that your visitors are hitting your site. Lucky for me it is spread evenly over a 24 hour period.

Data Quantity

FYI: My servers outgoing data (last 30 days), not huge but BJ LazyLoad and image optimization may be helping.

Outbound

Traffic Forecast

Do you know the forecasted growth of your website?

Site Growth

Measure Before Optimizing

Before I started to optimize my WordPress site (hosted on a shared CPanel server) I had the following Web Page Test score. I tested from Singapore as that’s was where my server was originally (and the closest to me).

TIP: Read more about Performance, First Byte, Start Render and Complete scores at my blog post here.

Web Page Performace Test Results (Before Optimizations):

  • Load Time: 23.672s
  • First Byte: 6.743s
  • Start Render: 11.8300s
  • Speed Index: 15024
  • Requests: 132/164 (Document complete v Fully Loaded)
  • Bytes: 3,346KB/3,454KB  (Document complete v Fully Loaded)

Quick Web Page Performace Score Card (Before Optimizations):

  • First Byte: F (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Keep Alive Enabled: F (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Compress Transfer: F (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Compress Images: A (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Cache Static Content: X (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Effective use of CDN: X (I should have captured the subscores)

My initial scores were bad across the range of tests (before optimisations). On the upside, I was manually compressing images with a tool on my desktop before uploading images and this showed an “A” but this scorecard overall was really bad.

Here are the results after Quick Optimizations (EWWW.io image compress, moved the server, reorganizing the site and Lazy Load Images)

Now I get these results after speeding up my site (after using the EWWW.io image resizing, reorganizing the site, minifying, lazy load images, moving servers etc.).

Web Page Performace Test Results (After Simple Optimizations):

  • Load Time: 8.823s (down 14.849s)
  • First Byte: 3.5533s (down 3.1897s)
  • Start Render: 5,4800s (down 6.35s)
  • Speed Index: 5594 (down 9430)
  • Requests: 73/76 (Document complete v Fully Loaded) (down 59/88)
  • Bytes: 848KB/855KB  (Document complete v Fully Loaded) (down 2,498KB/2,599KB)

Quick Web Page Performace Score Card (After Simple Optimizations):

  • First Byte: F (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Keep Alive Enabled: A (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Compress Transfer: A (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Compress Images: A (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Cache Static Content: B (I should have captured the subscores)
  • Effective Use of CDN: X  (I should have captured the subscores)

Tested my pagespeed tests

Even at 4 seconds web page “First Byte“, this is considered not good. My brain says I want sub 1 second, I doubt this is achievable with WordPress over thousands of miles away with SSL (read here about scalability).

I know https and non-geographically favourable servers add half a second to data. SSL will add processing overheads and latency period. If you only want speed don’t setup SSL but if you want SEO and security then setup SSL.

locationlocationlocation

WebPageTest.org test reveals there is no effective use of Content Delivery Networks (CDN) on fearby.com (that’s why I am about to install EWWW.io ExactDN).

ExactDN (Content Delivery Network)

I did try and set up a number of caching and CDN plugins in the past (e.g Max CDN, W3 Total Cache, WP Fastest Cache, Cache Enable, WP Rocket, WP Super Cache, etc.) but they either made results worse or were impossible to set up.

Now that EWWW.io has a CDN let’s give that a go.

What is EWWW.io’s ExactDN?

You can read more about EWWW.io’s two-pronged approach to delivering one plugin to A) “compress images” and B) “add a Content Delivery Network (CDN)” here: https://ewww.io/resize/

What is ExactDN

Ensure you read up about EWWW.io’s ExactDN here: https://ewww.io/resize/ . If you have not used EWWW.io check out my review of the EWWW.io image compression plugin here first.

Pre Signup

Purchasing and Installing ExactDN Exact DN

Login to your EWWW.io account (or signup then log in).

Signin

FYI: If you have used the Optimise images automatically in WordPress plugin from EWWW.io plugin before, then you will see past purchases here.

Signed in

Now you can go back to the EWWW.io ExactDN product page (https://ewww.io/resize/) and purchase a subscription (Make sure you are logged in with an EWWW.io account before you purchase ExactDN).

Pre purchase

I purchased an ExactDN monthly subscription for $9.00 monthly (with a $1 signup fee for the cloud compression service).

Order

Purchase confirmation screen.

Order

Post-purchase, I was advised to find my “Site Address (URL)” in WordPress and add it to EWWW.io Manage Sites screen.

Add site to the plugin

I now noticed I had a CDN for my domain ( fearby-com.exactdn.com ). Nice.

CDN Site Created

EWWW.io said to tick the CDN option in the Image Resize area of the EWWW.io plugin. But before I do that I  will update WordPress Core and WordPress Plugins before enabling the ExactDN as they are out of date.

Update

TIP: I update WordPress Core and WordPress plugins via command line (my guide here).

Backup WordPress (just in case)

It is always a good idea to backup your website, I logged into my Ubuntu server and checked the size of my site before backing it up.

I copied the website folder (from “/www/” to “/www-backup”)

I confirmed the copied folder size (same, good)

I dumped all databases with the MySQL dump command

While I was there I compress the SQL backup files (text files)

Checking the CDN Status

I checked the DNS replication for fearby-com.exactdn.com with this DNS checker. It’s setup and ready to go across the globe 🙂

A quick CNAME check reveals its upstream provider is fearbycom-8ba8.kxcdn.com. Keycdn.com have been around since 2012. It is great that EWWW.io has paired with keycdn and included their image compression magic in a single WordPress plugin.

Configuring the EWWW.io plugin in WordPress.

Before you enable the CDN below do check the https://www.whatsmydns.net/ and see if your CDN has replicated around the world (Australia can be a bit slow at DNS replication from time to time). Do wait at least 10 minutes before proceeding.

Click the settings in your EWWW Image Optimizer Plugin.

Configure

Now click the Resize Settings tab and click Enable CDN in the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin screen.

Enable Exact DN

Don’t forget to click Save Changes

Save

Testing the CDN

https://www.webpagetest.org NOW reports that my site is using a CDN 🙂

FYI: I have always used webpage test from Singapore and I have done the same here to compare apples to apples.  Singapore is not a good test location in Australia (my server is in Australia) and it is 200ms away and the added layer of SSL adds latency to the connection (read here). This is a real-world test though (worst case).

CDN's Used:
fearby.com : 
fearby-com.exactdn.com : KeyCDN
fonts.googleapis.com : Google
fonts.gstatic.com : Google
static.addtoany.com : Cloudflare
www.googletagmanager.com : Google
pagead2.googlesyndication.com : Google
www.youtube.com : Google
adservice.google.com.sg : Google
adservice.google.com : Google
googleads.g.doubleclick.net : Google
www.google-analytics.com : Google
s.ytimg.com : Google
stats.g.doubleclick.net : Google
fearby-com.disqus.com : Fastly
ssl.google-analytics.com : Google

FYI: https://www.webpagetest.org does want other (all) static content to be on a CDN to give a higher score than 42 out 100, sorry I did not get a subscore before enabling the CDN.

I was expecting a green A here for CDN but Webpage Test has given me more items to investigate to ensure WordPress plugins are also fast (minify or move to CDN). It appears WordPress includes are my next target for optimizing.

Web Page Test indicates the following WordPress assets should also be in CDN.

FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/youtube-embed-plus/styles/ytprefs.min.css?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/svgxuse.js?ver=1.1.21
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/youtube-embed-plus/scripts/ytprefs.min.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/addtoany.min.js?ver=1.0
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/crayon-syntax-highlighter/js/min/crayon.min.js?ver=_2.7.2_beta
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery-migrate.min.js?ver=1.4.1
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.12.4
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/includes/js/scripts.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/menu/superfish.args.js?ver=2.5.3
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/crayon-syntax-highlighter/css/min/crayon.min.css?ver=_2.7.2_beta
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/skip-links.js?ver=2.5.3
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/comment-reply.min.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/hoverIntent.min.js?ver=1.8.1
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/genesis/lib/js/menu/superfish.js?ver=1.7.5
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/ui/tabs.min.js?ver=1.11.4
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/news-pro/js/global.js?ver=3.2.2
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/news-pro/js/responsive-menus.min.js?ver=3.2.2
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/ui/core.min.js?ver=1.11.4
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/news-pro/style.css?ver=3.2.2
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/jquery/ui/widget.min.js?ver=1.11.4
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/news-pro/js/jquery.matchHeight.min.js?ver=3.2.2
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/contact-form-7/includes/css/styles.css?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/youtube-embed-plus/scripts/fitvids.min.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/bj-lazy-load/js/bj-lazy-load.min.js?ver=2
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system/media/js/count.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/js/wp-emoji-release.min.js?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-seo-html-sitemap/style.css?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/symbol-defs.svg
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-includes/css/dashicons.min.css?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/themes/news-pro/images/favicon.ico
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/genesis-tabs/style.css?ver=230d722825ddde2688088d563a906075
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/simple-social-icons/css/style.css?ver=2.0.1
FAILED - https://fearby.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/addtoany.min.css?ver=1.14

It would be a huge effort trying to read and keep static plugin and theme related files in a CDN. I’ll ask the EWWW.io developer to see if this is possible in a future version (that would be nice). The developer did promptly point me here to opt into using the CDN to deliver CSS, JS etc.

Is that it? It can’t be that simple!

I can load my site at https://fearby.com and my images load from https://fearby-com.exactdn.com 🙂 I am impressed, blog posts are now loading images from the CDN network and I did not have to edit posts. I did have to subscribe to ExactDN and tick a checkbox in WordPress though.

Here is a sample image (my largest) from this blog post.

https://fearby-com.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Infographic-So-you-have-an-idea-for-an-app-v1-3.jpg?strip=all&quality=60&ssl=1

fearby.com WebPAGE TEST Results – Singapore

Web Page Performace Test Results – Singapore (After Setting up the EWWW.io ExactDN):

  • Load Time: 4.177s (down 4.646s from previous optimizations ((My Original load times were 23.672s))
  • First Byte: 2.240s (down 1.3133s from previous optimizations (My Original First Byte: 6.743s))
  • Start Render: 2.800s (down 2.68s from previous optimizations (My Original Start Render: 11.8300s))
  • Speed Index: 3009 (down 2585 from previous optimizations (Speed Index: 15024))
  • Requests: 67/68 (Document complete v Fully Loaded) 
  • Bytes: 535KB/538KB  (Document complete v Fully Loaded)

Quick Web Page Performace Score Card – Singapore (After Setting up the EWWW.io ExactDN):

  • First Byte: F (I should have captured the subscores). 
  • Keep Alive Enabled: A (I should have captured the subscores).
  • Compress Transfer: A (I should have captured the subscores).
  • Compress Images: A (I should have captured the subscores).
  • Cache Static Content: B (I should have captured the subscores).
  • Effective Use of CDN: X (I should have captured the subscores). plugins now need to be on a CDN.

The Web Page Test site does give detailed scores and recommendations if you scroll down or click the score car (A-F). Do read the recommendations and see what you may need to do next.  I am happy that I now have a CDN via EWWW.io. Clicking the first byte and CDN buttons at Web Page Test reveal sub-scores to allow you to see if you have made improvements, regrettably, I did not know of and capture sub-scores until after installing the CDN (I suggest you do).

Full Dump.

GT Metrix Page Speed Score

https://gtmetrix.com is giving a good score across the board (86%). It hints I should optimize Javascript files and “Remove query strings in static files” as some proxy servers do not cache URLs with “?” in them. That is (fortunately) not a problem with ExactDN, as the servers are configured to properly handle query strings.

GTMetrics

Gtmetrix.com does give some optimisation tips too (However, it does report low CDN optimizations if a single file is not delivered over a CDN).

I do like Gtmetrix.com email reports, you can see if your site performance is degrading.

GTMetrix Summary

Page Speed Insights

I am now looking at the Google PageSpeed Insights test for things to fix next. I think I can tweak my NGINX a little (adding caching). Read more about Google Page Speed Insights here.

fyi: My Google Page Speed Insights score (desktop) along with another local big corporate site I tested.

Page Insight

I am happy with 82 🙂

It appears if you want to get 100% you need to get..

  • Initial Response under 100ms
  • Animate, produce frame in under 10ms
  • Idle maximize idle time
  • Deliver all content in under 1000ms

Getting More from ExactDN by caching CSS and JS files.

I added the following to my /www/wp-config.php file as mentioned here: http://docs.ewww.io/article/47-getting-more-from-exactdn This will serve more resources from the CDN

define( 'EXACTDN_ALL_THE_THINGS', true );

I refreshed my site in a browser and now CSS, JS and fonts are loaded from the CDN too.

All

To reduce files served from my website I re-enabled the Fast Velocity Minify plugin in WordPress and pointed it at my CDN (https://fearby-com.exactdn.com/)

cdn-minify

Now I am getting a GTMatrix score of Page Speed Score = 93% (A) and YSlow Score  = 74% (C) and a 2.6-second load and a much lower 35 requests (post minification and pointing the minified files to the CDN).

WOW.

Minifiy

And WebPageTest.org is reporting Effective use of CDN 🙂 Awesome.

Effective use of CDN

I think I’m done (ExactDN CDN and the image optimiser and other tweaks have worked its magic).

How do I compare to other sites?

Given Apple, Microsoft and NBC speed scores are worse than mine I’m happy for now.  🙂

GTMetricx Graphs

GT Metrics graphs show the improvement, YSlow report does indicate I can reduce the website DOM elements to speed things up and tweak plugins but I’d rather keep my design for SEO and not play with plugins or they might break.

I could tweak the server side (NGINX/MySQL/Cache or DNS) but I don’t need too.

Conclusion

I still can’t believe setting up a CDN is a one-click solution and adding a wp-config.php lin (after you subscribe). Best of all the BJ Lazy Load plugin still works. I am very happy with the EWWW.io ExactDN. I now have a CDN and it has lowered my First Byte time, Start Render Times, Speed Index time (on more than just the front page) and all I did was subscribe and tick a checkbox.

It is nice that EWWW.io have not charged for Data delivered from the CDN network on top of a monthly subscription at this stage but they have left it open in the terms and conditions. It is important to ensure a service can sustain itself, so this is a good sign. FYI: my favorite Agile toolkit (Atlaz.io) that I reviewed here closed shop today so it is wise for aaS shops to plan ahead. I know how hard it can be to spin up servers and stuff and allocate times to keep them running. Good luck EWWW.io!

Also, I now have a clear set of steps (below) to resolve other non-optimized assets that are outside of the CDN.

Full Report

Thanks to EWWW.io and Web Page Test for helping make my site faster.

I doubt WordPress and my “down under”  server location can get me to under 1000ms but I will try.

Read on here to see how Cloudflare can increase your site’s performance.

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

DNS Improved

Don’t forget your sites performance/SEO and security.

Website

Update November 2018

I have a much faster loading website after moving it to a new host, read my guide here.

GTMetrix After YSlow

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Revision History

v2.0 November 2018 Update

v1.9 added Cloudflare, SEO, Google Page Speed Insights test and future optimization, page insight speed image, added GTMetrics comments, growth image, gtmetrix.com reports (typos are free), updated change is domain to .com, added EXACTDN_ALL_THE_THINGS, 93 page speed, minify, compare, graph, fixed typos, tidied up the conclusion.

Wordfence Security Plugin for WordPress

by

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

Improving the speed of WordPress

by

This post shows my never-ending quest to speed up WordPress for free.

I have used to use WP Total Cache in the past but decided to check out what others recommended, I found this post 6 Best WordPress Caching Plugins Compared. Some WordPress Caching Plugins.

What plugin do I use?

Benchmark (No Caching Plugin)

I tested my site before installing a caching plugin with https://www.webpagetest.org/ and my site was loading in 21s (loading over 141 files).

My site loaded in a terrible 21.3 seconds. My blog is hosted on Jumba (Net Registry) on and Ultimate plan for $25 a month.

My site seems to deliver 70% images so I wonder if a page caching plugin can help?

I do run the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin to automatically compress images when I upload them to my site. Read my blog post on the EWWW Image Optimizer here.  I do keep images at a high quality to capture all details.

WP Fastest Cache Plugin

I have decided to try the WP Fastest Cache because it’s source was updated 4 hours ago compared to WP Super Cahches update 5 months ago. Both these plugins offer similar GT Metrix performance improvements and WP Fastest Cache has been tested on WordPress v4.8.

Installing WP Fastest Cache

I looked for the WP Fastest Cache Plugin on the WP plugin directory but it was not there.

I downloaded the latest version WP Fastest Cache from https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-fastest-cache/

I upload the WP Faster Cache plugin to my site.

I Activated the plugin.

WP Fastest Cache plugin is now installed 🙂

It appears to have auto cached/indexed my site?

Now it’s time to run the same benchmark and see if the site is faster (with the same settings (Singapore chrome))?

1 of 3 test are underway.

WP Fastest Cache Results

Wow WP Fastest Cache loaded my site 2 seconds slower (Try 1 = 23 seconds, Try 2 =  21 seconds and Try 3 =  28 Seconds).

This could have been because of weekend traffic or hosting issues but this was not what I expected.

I disabled the WP Fastest Cache plugin and ran the benchmarks again and it was still 23 seconds (weekend traffic?). I re-enabled WP Fastest Cache and re-ran the test but no improvement.

My bad I think I needed to manually configure the WP Faster Cache plugin by opening the new WP Faster Cache menu on the left-hand side of the WP admin dashboard.

There I enabled caching options in the WP Faster Cache options.

I ran https://www.webpagetest.org tests again and got 16s, 18s and 16s seconds results in three tests and an A on compressed images. It appears you need to manually configure the WP Total Cache plugin after installing it (I missed this step).

I disable WP Fastest Cache and tried the WP Super Cache plugin and the test results were 29s, 24s, 24s (slower than WP Faster Cache). then tried W3 Total cache and the results were ()

I tried the W3 Total Cache plugin and the results were (30s, 16s 26s).

I Tried Autoptimize and it was tested at 45s.

It looks like WP Faster Cache is the fastest, ill turn it back on until try setup a CDN.

Fast Forward to Sept 2017

Since writing this post I have moved away from a shared C-Panel host and have moved my domain to a self-managed Vultr server closer to me, I have moved my email to Google G-Suite. I have learned how to deploy and manage WordPress by command-line tools. I have set up servers on Digital Ocean before but the servers are located in Singapore and not Sydney and latency and scalability was poor. SSL will make sites slower and servers far away will just compound the issues.

Re-enabling the WP Fastest Cache Plugin

I tried reinstalling the WP Fastest Cache plugin and for me, the plugin just slows down my site by 6 seconds.

I opened my NGINX config and got my NGINX user

My user is: www-data

I enabled the WP Fastest Cache plugin and ensured the WP Fastest Cache has ownership and access to the cache folder.

Below are the settings I use.

WP Fastest Cache

installing the WP-Optimize Plugin

I recommend setting up WP-Optimize plugin as it will optimize your database and keep things fast, it only saves me a second on my load times but this helps.

WP Optimize

WP-Optimize will allow for to review database optimizations

WP-Optimize database savings

Setting up Nginx GZip Compression

I set up my Nginx config to include

I set the minimum size to gzip too

Benchmark with G-Zip, Caching and WP Fastest Cache 

With WP Fastest Cache I now load my site in 13.9 seconds from Singapore. Time to disable WP Fastest cache plugin as it does not seem to be helping without linking to a CDN.

With Cache plugi

Setting up Browser Caching

I also setup browser caching by editing in NginX.

Added

Not sure if caching CSS and JS will cause problems in future?

Benchmark with G-Zip, Caching and without WP Fastest Cache (Singapore)

I re-ran the tests and got 10.9 seconds and got a B for cached content. When in Started on C-Panel I was getting near 30s

Benchmark

Benchmark with G-Zip, Caching and without WP Fastest Cache (Sydney)

I have always benchmarked from Singapore (as Sydney was not an option when I started) but now it is.  Out f curiosity is my website load time in Sydney?

8.2 seconds. Distance does affect performance.

Google Speed Insights

Google has awesome tools to help you increase your benchmark mobile and desktop website speeds and recommend focus areas to resolve problems: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

Mobile Speed Score

Desktop Speed Score

Tips

I was getting SVG files failing compassion tests so I added the following under allowed mime types under “http gzip_types” in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Minifying JS and CSS

This needs to be done and 50% of my site files appears to be CSS and JS related.

It looks like 30%~40 of your sites google speed index is related to minified/combined JS/CSS.

Google Speed Test

I installed the Fast Velocity Minify WordPress plugin.

I ran this to install it from the command line

cd /www/wp-content/plugins#
sudo wget https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/fast-velocity-minify.2.2.1.zip
--2017-09-23 19:51:46--  https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/fast-velocity-minify.2.2.1.zip
Resolving downloads.wordpress.org (downloads.wordpress.org)... 66.155.40.187, 66.155.40.203, 66.155.40.188, ...
Connecting to downloads.wordpress.org (downloads.wordpress.org)|66.155.40.187|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 821621 (802K) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘fast-velocity-minify.2.2.1.zip’

fast-velocity-minify.2.2.1.zip 100%[=================================================>] 802.36K   830KB/s    in 1.0s

2017-09-23 19:51:47 (830 KB/s) - ‘fast-velocity-minify.2.2.1.zip’ saved [821621/821621]

Unzip

I activated the plugin and set some settings

Minify Settings

Verified minify logs

Logs

Google Page Insights can now see the minifies, css, js and html

Minified

Google Page Insights – Possible Optimizations

issues

And Google Ad Words and Google Analytics appear to be holding back Google Page Insight scores

Google adwords and Analytics

I am getting a few false positives with plugins javascript but that can be resolved another day.

Pingdom (Melbourne results)

3.2 seconds, a few false positives though.

Kingdom

I was going to test with https://www.webpagetest.org/ (from Singapore) but the service kept stalling and had too many tests before me (even from Sydney).

Wait

Address First Byte Time (todo)

If I look at the first-byte load results in the waterfall view my site is taking many seconds to deliver the first byte, this lowers the performance scores about 20%. I need to set up a CDN and or configure NGINX following this guide based on this manual configuration entry (I tried some of the Nginx settings but it appears I need to compile some performance settings into Nginx).

CDN (todo)

I am sure a Content Delivery Network (CDN) will help with the whole page deliver and first-byte times but I am trying to milk as much free as possible and limit future costs. A CDN will trigger higher monthly costs (any CDN providers want to donate a temporary pro plan for review purposes).

Misc Speed Articles

Configuring Ubuntu for Performance

Preventing applications swapping for disk (read more here)

I added this memory-related setting.

This will all but prevent applications writing to disk (swap) when they are not active. I had free memory on my VM so I may as well use it.

I will monitor the free ram after reboot and play with php memory settings.

ram

Setup Lazyload for images in posts

cd /www/wp-content/plugins/
sudo wget https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/bj-lazy-load.zip
unzip bj-lazy-load.zip
# activate the plugin

Lazyload Plugin Settings

Lazyload

Placeholder Image ( Image: https://fearby.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/placeholder.jpg )

Web Performance Test from Sydney

8.4 seconds ( Score Card F A A A C, was F F F A F ).  I was getting up to 28 second load times with Net Registry C Panel servers.

Static Content is cached but Googe Ad Sence, Google Analytics, and some plugins do block the score. The front page does have some features content that has to be loaded and can’t be minified or cached much.

Sydney Results

It is obvious I need to work in the initial websitee load (DNS, CDN or SSL), there sis  3 seconds I can save here.

3 sec

Configuring PHP for Performance

todo: PHP base config.

todo: PHP caching.

Conclusion

I was expecting WP Fastest Cache to deliver faster speeds but in reality but I am getting 4 seconds faster in WordPress. I was going to configure MaxCDN but they are to expensive. Fast Velocity Minify Plugin is working a treat 🙂

I ended up ditching the shared CPanel hosted domain and setup my own server for WordPress. My site seems a lot faster now. A friend set up CloudFlare with great success, more soon. I blogged about my server setup here.

Adding browser cache and compressing and moving away from CPanel to a self-managed server helped.

The only things to try now is to use a CDN and speed up the delivery of my site and improve the First Byte Time.

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Revision History

v1.932 added lazy load information (24th Sep 2017)

v1.952 added small changes (23rd Sep 2017)

etc