Monday, April 27, 2015

Apache mod_status page mangled by mod_rewrite?

Quicktip: if a complicated mod_rewrite setup is making your /server-status inaccessible, just paste the following two lines above all the rewrite rules:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /server-status
RewriteRule .* - [L]

and you're ready to set up monitoring of Apache processes.
If the rules are in /etc/apache2, not in .htaccess, you need to reload the web server too:

/etc/init.d/apache2 reload

You know you shouldn't use .htaccess anyway because it hurts performance, right?

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Upgrade your Varnish!

Surprisingly, Varnish Software announced that they will not update Varnish 3.0 and that users need to upgrade to 4.0 as soon as possible. This is not an expected decision, it has been stated more than once on the varnish-misc list that 3.0 will be supported for a long time in the foreseeable future. This means it's not secure to use Varnish Cache 3 on your server, if you keep running this software you may get hacked.
If you need help upgrading your setup from Varnish 3 to 4, contact us. We can convert your old configuration file in-place on your server or set up a staging environment and update your server after it's tested.
The Varnish-Joomla package includes a Varnish 4 VCL since it has been released a year ago, so the upgrade path is straightforward.