PHP5. Why is it so hot right now?
Right now there’s nothing hotter than PHP5+. It seems like there are a lot of calls out there for LAMP / PHP developers to help convert monster web applications written in PHP4 spaghetti code, develop Drupal or WordPress sites, build up a site with one of the many frameworks available or just maintain existing sites.
Why now? And by now I mean in the last 2 years.
PHP5 was released in 2004 becoming the only stable version under development in 2008. It has a full object oriented language model. The PHP Data Objects (PDO) extension was added to provide a lightweight interface for accessing databases.
PHP4 was a very popular, easy to use, open source front end language. I remember phpwebsite, ez-Publish, gallery, phpBB among others making use of the easily hosted, easy to template solution back in the late 90’s early 2000’s. I quickly adopted it for datadriven dynamic websites because I didn’t want to deal with ASP or the hassle of Tomcat / Java / JSP. I was not alone.
The problem was the simple dynamic sites that were so easy to build wound up scaling out into monster procedural messes. It takes a team of top notch Software Architects to refactor and redesign most of these sites. Although sometimes Senior PHP developers are hired to do this. In my opinion, from what I’ve seen, its better to toss out and re-design then to build a house on a rotten foundation.
FOSS / OSS has become popular with businesses during the last six years or so. The LAMP stack CMSes like Drupal and Joomla (which I actually consider children of the older PHP4 CMSes now since converted to PHP5), have really taken off. Why rebuild the wheel when you can get the car for free? It’s at this point PHP developers are being hired to write plugins and mods, re-skin and re-design these types of applications.
Another hot area of PHP5 usage right now is in the framework department. PHP is scripting language that has a lot of useful functions that make adding dynamic content to web pages easier. What PHP is not (and something like Rails is) is a framework. In software terms, frameworks are generally tools and pre-built objects that help you create a solution faster by not reinventing the wheel. So if you don’t exactly find a FOSS / OSS app out there to your liking, or maybe you do but need to tweak the HECK out of it, you probably want to take a look at some of these PHP frameworks:
http://framework.zend.com/ – zend framework
http://cakephp.org/ – cakephp framework
http://phpsx.org/ – psx framework
http://pear.php.net/ – PEAR – PHP Extension and Application Repository – not really a framework, but will make life easier.
Along with PHP5 development is a dire need for mySQL development and administration. I’ll talk a little bit about how they go hand in hand in my next post.
vsftp Nice and Secure with KompoZer
Back on the Prototype / Web Dev Scene
Ive been doing some Prototype work lately. Keeping true to the FOSS tradition I am using, not Dreamweaver as a Web Design IDE, but KompoZer which I find to be the closest thing from a visual layout perspective.
Kompozer – the FOSS Web Design IDE
Although I prefer publishing files remotely from a Web Design tool via SFTP, KompoZer only supports FTP. That being said it does support SSL enabled FTP. I am very lucky to know some excellent Sys Admins.
FTP – Secure?
The consensus seems to be that vsftp is pretty darn secure if set up right. One amazing Sys Admin, Kevin Korb, uses a home grown ftp server born and bred @ FutureQuest by Bruce Guenter which he says can’t be beat. Its called twoftp and you can get here: http://untroubled.org/software.php.
vsftp setup on CentOS 5
Here’s how I got vsftp nice and secure with KompoZer publishing to my server. Please note my server distro is CentOS 5 32bit kernel v. 2.6.18-92.el5.
Creating a user
I created a user with:
- a primary group of apache (httpd group)
- a second group ftp
- starting shell /bin/bash
- password of xxxx
- home directory of /var/www/html – where my website files reside on the server
- a login name of jewelsjacobs
# useradd -gapache -Gftp -s/bin/shell -pxxxx -d/var/www/html jewelsjacobs
Installing vsftp
I installed vsftp server via yum:
# yum vsftpd
Configuring vsftp
I modified the /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
# vi /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
This is what mine looks like:
# Example config file /etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
#
# The default compiled in settings are fairly paranoid. This sample file
# loosens things up a bit, to make the ftp daemon more usable.
# Please see vsftpd.conf.5 for all compiled in defaults.
#
# READ THIS: This example file is NOT an exhaustive list of vsftpd options.
# Please read the vsftpd.conf.5 manual page to get a full idea of vsftpd's
# capabilities.
background=YES
#
# Allow anonymous FTP? (Beware - allowed by default if you comment this out).
anonymous_enable=NO
#
# Uncomment this to allow local users to log in.
local_enable=YES
#
# Uncomment this to enable any form of FTP write command.
write_enable=YES
#
# Default umask for local users is 077. You may wish to change this to 022,
# if your users expect that (022 is used by most other ftpd's)
local_umask=022
#
# Uncomment this to allow the anonymous FTP user to upload files. This only
# has an effect if the above global write enable is activated. Also, you will
# obviously need to create a directory writable by the FTP user.
#anon_upload_enable=YES
#
# Uncomment this if you want the anonymous FTP user to be able to create
# new directories.
#anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES
#
# Activate directory messages - messages given to remote users when they
# go into a certain directory.
dirmessage_enable=YES
#
# The target log file can be vsftpd_log_file or xferlog_file.
# This depends on setting xferlog_std_format parameter
xferlog_enable=YES
#
# Make sure PORT transfer connections originate from port 20 (ftp-data).
connect_from_port_20=YES
#
# If you want, you can arrange for uploaded anonymous files to be owned by
# a different user. Note! Using "root" for uploaded files is not
# recommended!
#chown_uploads=YES
#chown_username=whoever
#
# The name of log file when xferlog_enable=YES and xferlog_std_format=YES
# WARNING - changing this filename affects /etc/logrotate.d/vsftpd.log
#xferlog_file=/var/log/xferlog
#
# Switches between logging into vsftpd_log_file and xferlog_file files.
# NO writes to vsftpd_log_file, YES to xferlog_file
xferlog_std_format=YES
#
# You may change the default value for timing out an idle session.
idle_session_timeout=600
#
# You may change the default value for timing out a data connection.
data_connection_timeout=120
#
# It is recommended that you define on your system a unique user which the
# ftp server can use as a totally isolated and unprivileged user.
#nopriv_user=ftpsecure
#
# Enable this and the server will recognise asynchronous ABOR requests. Not
# recommended for security (the code is non-trivial). Not enabling it,
# however, may confuse older FTP clients.
#async_abor_enable=YES
#
# By default the server will pretend to allow ASCII mode but in fact ignore
# the request. Turn on the below options to have the server actually do ASCII
# mangling on files when in ASCII mode.
# Beware that on some FTP servers, ASCII support allows a denial of service
# attack (DoS) via the command "SIZE /big/file" in ASCII mode. vsftpd
# predicted this attack and has always been safe, reporting the size of the
# raw file.
# ASCII mangling is a horrible feature of the protocol.
#ascii_upload_enable=YES
#ascii_download_enable=YES
#
# You may fully customise the login banner string:
ftpd_banner=Welcome to blah FTP service.
#
# You may specify a file of disallowed anonymous e-mail addresses. Apparently
# useful for combatting certain DoS attacks.
#deny_email_enable=YES
# (default follows)
#banned_email_file=/etc/vsftpd/banned_emails
#
# You may specify an explicit list of local users to chroot() to their home
# directory. If chroot_local_user is YES, then this list becomes a list of
# users to NOT chroot().
#chroot_list_enable=YES
# (default follows)
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd/chroot_list
#
# You may activate the "-R" option to the builtin ls. This is disabled by
# default to avoid remote users being able to cause excessive I/O on large
# sites. However, some broken FTP clients such as "ncftp" and "mirror" assume
# the presence of the "-R" option, so there is a strong case for enabling it.
#ls_recurse_enable=YES
#
# When "listen" directive is enabled, vsftpd runs in standalone mode and
# listens on IPv4 sockets. This directive cannot be used in conjunction
# with the listen_ipv6 directive.
listen=YES
#
# This directive enables listening on IPv6 sockets. To listen on IPv4 and IPv6
# sockets, you must run two copies of vsftpd whith two configuration files.
# Make sure, that one of the listen options is commented !!
#listen_ipv6=YES
pam_service_name=vsftpd
userlist_enable=YES
tcp_wrappers=YES
ftp_username=ftp
max_per_ip=4
force_dot_files=NO
listen_address=21
#hide_file=
#anon_max_rate=
#local_max_rate=
chroot_local_user=NO
anon_upload_enable=NO
anon_mkdir_write_enable=NO
anon_other_write_enable=NO
# Enable SSL
ssl_enable=YES
allow_anon_ssl=NO
force_local_data_ssl=NO
force_local_logins_ssl=YES
ssl_tlsv1=YES
ssl_sslv2=NO
ssl_sslv3=NO
rsa_cert_file=/etc/pki/tls/certs/vsftpd.pem
Create the secure certificate
# cd /etc/pki/tls/certs
# make vsftpd.pem
FTP settings for KompoZer
Here are my settings in KompoZer:
Preparing your Organization for Open Source – Part II – Adventure
Now that the players are on board, it’s time to go ahead. At this point it’s a good idea to toss any heavy baggage, pack lite and keep all eyes and ears open.
Travel light
- Drop Windows, MSSQL, Oracle, etc. Start off with a clean slate.
- Virtualize the Infrastructure.
Stay Open
- Make sure to keep in contact with the Open Source Development community. Get IM account IDs.
- Have a Sandbox environment outside of the internal network which mirrors the development environment. Give developers in the community access to help with issues.
- Contribute by submitting bugs, enhancement requests, documentation, patches, and plugins. Participate in the software’s direction.
Be inspired
Open Source Software grows and changes fast. The good apps get a lot of add ons, enhancements, modules and mash-ups. There are many important ideas out there in the OSS community. What benefits one organization will most likely benefit another. Take the opportunity to let those, and others improve your organization.
Preparing your Organization for Open Source – Part I – Passion
When Prometheus stole fire from Zeus to help the beloved mortals he fashioned out of clay, Zeus punished him by having him bound to a rock while a great eagle ate his liver every day only to have it grow back to be eaten again the next day.
If Prometheus would have taken that raw passion, done better planning in identifying the needs of the stakeholders (there are always more than meets the eye) and infected them with the same passion would the Board, I mean Zeus, repeatedly attempt to kill his enthusiasm for innovative technology?
Leaders need vision. Passion is the fuel that sustains vision. The BIG mistake that I’ve learned when bringing the fire of Open Source applications to an Enterprise Organization is that ALL of the STAKEHOLDERS HAVE NEEDS. Not just C-Level leadership. Not just IT. Not just end users. Not just department sponsors.
For example, here are just a few additional players and things to consider:
Open Source Software is typically supported by an international community, and core developers which tend to form consulting groups. A lot of them can’t accept payment the same way commercial software vendors and consultants can. Accounts Payable has preferred methods of paying vendors. Legal has specific types of contracts and agreements which may need alteration. What training resources are available and how do they prefer to work. Is there supporting documentation or tech writers if not? The list goes on. . .
There is a complicated web – a string of relationships that all need to be prepared for Open Source.
Before a solution can be presented with confidence and certainty all of these factors must be considered. Then and only than will all of the parties involved see how this new way of doing business will not only save money and increase productivity but BRING THE FIRE OF INNOVATION INTO THE RUT THAT CAN BE THE SAME OLD SAME OLD.
Mount Cifs Linux Share
An alternative to mapping a directery on a Linux Server to a Windows PC / Server is mounting a cifs share.
First you need to request that your share be cifs vs. nfs
Here is an example of the syntax:
Add to /etc/fstab:
//sharehost/share$ /path/to/mount/directory cifs username=svc_username,password=somepassword
Note the svc account needs to be Linux / AD
Then run
mount /path/to/mount/directory
My Year at Harcourt Publishing – XSL-FO
After getting pregnant with sweet baby boy number 2 My husband and I felt the 24-7 life of business ownership was not an ideal situation for an infant and newborn. Both they, and we, needed consistent structure. Someone needed to get a real job.
Because my husband had focused more on the printing side of our business and I the web design / server admin / development, it was thought I would have a better chance of making more money.
With belly still deflating and memory shot from sleep deprivation I entered back into corporate life after 8 years with a contract at Harcourt Publishing thanks to Donna Quinn at COMSYS.
I started out as a Visual Designer working with a talented UI designer under a brilliant Usability expert Karen Bachmann. I got a chance to work on an Ajax / Java app with Riptide – the brilliant Java Shop. The folks at Riptide, including a fantastic developer by the name of Moe Treibiz, were awesome and I learned a lot from them. I saw how Project Management was expertly handled by North Highland. I watched them at work their craft with awe.
The best part, however, was the opportunity I got to develop a PDF generation system with XSL-FO without knowing anything about it before hand thanks to Fred Ganter – at the time the lead of the Content group. This esoteric skill would open doors for me down the road.
I was introduced to so many wonderful technologies, methodologies and people in such a short period of time.
In the beginning there was Mac OS X Server circa a bunch of years ago.
I’m going to go back in time to when Apple came out with their first server OS – Mac OS X Server.
Back then I was a graphic / web design / 3D animation creative type. I left a secure but soul crushing job at a military subcontractor creating 3D models of F-14 and F-18 fighter jets for training CD-ROMs. My husband was ramping the business up and started getting more orders for websites than he could handle.
We offered 3D animation, CD ROMs, standard HTML sites with JavaScript contact forms and Flash Animation. Those orders turned into E-Commerce sites. We found working with E-Commerce Vendors on third party hosting providers horribly limiting.
When Apple first came out with Mac OS X Server and touted it as being so easy a newb graphic moron like me could manage a Web Server with it I was sold.
I spent money I hardly had on a server with the OS co-located in a datacenter an hour and a half drive from my apartment.
What followed was a crash course in Linux Server Administration the hard way. Along the way I learned:
- Mac OS X Server cant be Administered Remotely (at the time). I ditched it for Red Hat.
- OPEN SOURCE – OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD FREE SOFTWARE
- named / BIND / DNS – So thats why my site takes two days to show up
- Permissions / users and user groups – No you can’t fix pesky permissions messages by typing ‘chmod -R 777 /’
- Sendmail – Email management = no sleep.
- Webmin – A GUI to manage everything.
- Apache – vi httpd.conf
- Content Management Solutions – OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
Open Source and the Magic LAMP 
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