As a system administrator it is sometimes useful to watch things happening live in Apache access log. Tail would be the command usually used to accomplish the task, while logged in as an appropriate user through a secure shell session. Tailing the Apache Access Log was a resolution to a problem that I encountered when… Continue reading Tailing the Apache Access Log
Tag: Security
Content related to any aspect of security.
308 response code – redirection and messing with daemons…
This post is part of the “.htaccess redirection fun with mod_rewrite” series. The most useful feature of .htaccess and mod_rewrite, in the opinion of this author, is redirection. Redirection is identified to a browser by response code 308. By redirection we mean mapping any URI into any other URI. Response code 308 is the redirection… Continue reading 308 response code – redirection and messing with daemons…
response code 410 – It’s gone, son…
One of the pains of being a website administrator is securing the login to the administrative portion of your website. Ideally, the website tells someone other than the true administrator to bugger off in a nice way. What better way for that to happen than for the website to tell the visitor: “That login? It’s… Continue reading response code 410 – It’s gone, son…
.htaccess redirection fun with mod_rewrite
For the holidays, I decided to gift readers with a series of some useful but fun posts titled “.htaccess redirection fun with mod_rewrite“. The series is dedicated to the fun you can have with Apache redirection while keeping tight security of your website. Though not for the faint of heart, one can have fun toying… Continue reading .htaccess redirection fun with mod_rewrite
Hi folks,
We’ll start the discussion by introducing the Lynx browser. It’s what is call a text only browser. That means nothing active of any kind other than the text of the page. I call it a safety browser because nothing can infect you as long as there is nothing but text downloaded, and not ever executing that. The beauty of this browser is that because it does not support JavaScript, Adobe Flash, or other similar active content, nefarious websites will have an exponentially harder time downloading and installing malware.
Lynx is a platform independent text browser, meaning it basically runs on any operating system:
– Lynx is available in source code and for Unix flavors, MacOS, Windows 32, and DOS386+
– Several Linux distributions already carry it, just install the lynx package using apt, yum or whatever is appropriate for your distribution.
– The package website is https://lynx.invisible-island.net/release/
One caveat of using this browser is that many dynamic sites will break. The other is that even with this browser, failure to follow basic internet hygiene protocol will get you infected…
Peace and safe computing!
Catwhisperer