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Install XAMPP on Windows 10

XAMPP is very popular many people use for the building, testing the application on your local system. It includes MariaDB, PHP, Perl, and options for FileZilla, Tomcat, etc… It’s free opensource, very easy to set up and use. It can be installed on Windows, Linux, and OS X. I am using Windows 10 Pro, I will go through the install and list some issues/ how to fix issues. You can use Bitnami Application to install ready-to-use applications. It’s well trusted with over 1 million applications per month, which you can use to install from your local installers, single VMs, multi-tier VMs, container images, or Kubernetes Helm charts.

Installation of XAMPP

You can download: https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html
Once you have downloaded the XAMPP, open the installation to start installing, the default location is C:\xampp noted if you install inside of the Program File you might have an issue with permission

I am going to install on default location c:\xampp, click Next

Then it will ask you which components you want to install, select one you like and then click Next

Then it will give you installation location choice, please choose and then click Next

Then click Next (if you want to learn more about Bitnami, you can have it checked otherwise unchecked)

Ready to Install, click Next

Now, it’s going to install whatever you have selected in above choices of the component, then you will see finished screen. That’s it you can start using it.

First time you will get option to select the Language, select it and click Save In case you need to change after you can go to XAMPP Control Panel>Config>Change Language

Then you should see the XAMPP Control Panel, here you can start using, default requirements web server and database, I am going to use Apache and MySQL. You might see error, ports in use, I will list below on fix.

Common Issues/Fixes

Apache port in use: open Config>Service and Port Settings>Apache
Change ports that are not in use both Main and SSL port

You might also need to change MySQL port, default is 3306

Once you have thing running and see any error, you can check out the logs for Apache and PHP, which will give you more details.



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How to upgrade osTicket to 1.10.4

The osTicket is a great truly open source ticket system, you can customize to fit your business needs. If you are running an older version of osTicket, it’s best to keep up to date with stable releases to keep your ticket system protected. If you wait too long for an upgrade and newer version have many changes then it would get harder. The upgrade process is about the same for most version unless major version which might have database changes and it will run the upgrade script. Here is how to upgrade from version 1.10.1 to 1.10.4

  1. Make sure you have a good backup of Database and files of osTicket
  2. Then put the system in the offline mode: by going to /scp/settings.php
  3. Download the new version from https://osticket.com/download/ and choose the osTicket Core, v1.10.4 (Latest Release)
  4. Upload to your server v. 1.10.4 and replace current files/folders from Upload folder from your downloaded, and exclude the script folder/files
  5. Make sure you have the correct permission, then go to the URL/SCP of the osTicket system and login
  6. Delete the /setup folder and update any customization you may have, once all is good you can put system back online

That’s it, if customized PHP core files, those needs to be re-applied after the upgrade. If are using plugins, make sure it supports the new version. Most if not all open source project is fully customizable and downside to is keeping up to date with any customization been done to the core system. You will find many solutions to the problem in a forum where people report and help out each other. Please read your error message and logs of your system web server, PHP, osTicket, it gives many ideas about why things are not working. Many of them due to PHP version not supported. If you were to get help from the forum, please include your system information, like osTicket, PHP version, web server, and remember forum support is free, so don’t order/demand to fix your issues.

Note because 1.10.1 to 1.10.4 upgrade did not have any database changes so you will not see the upgrader screen. If you want you can run manually upgrader: /scp/upgrade.php, most likely you will see the message: “Nothing to do! System already upgraded to v1.10.4 with no pending patches to apply. ”

Common issues/solution:

error: Valid CSRF Token Required
solution: edit include/class.ostsession.php line around 191

catch (DoesNotExist $e) {
$this->data = new SessionData([‘session_id’ => $id]);
+            $this->data->session_data = “”;

 


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Nagios network monitor upgrade to Version 4.4.3

Nagios is a great open source network monitor released new version 4.4.3 last month.  It’s a great free tool, you can customize to fit your network and monitor live.  Know the issues before your user’s reports to you, you can see the history of your network health, so you know your network is stable or find out if you are having some issues in some part of your network.  So keeping up with the newest version to monitor your network is very important.  Let’s get started first, make sure you have a good backup and check your Nagios config if you have any errors correct it first.  Also, if you are using any plugin make sure they support the new version too.  I am using Ubuntu server and Apache for a web server.

To check the Nagios health:

Command: nagios -v /usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

Your path to Nagios might be different and unless you are sudo user you will need to use sudo command.  You may have some warning of deprecated, you can update it and fix it before the update something like this:

WARNING: The retry_check_interval attribute is deprecated and will be removed in future versions. Please use retry_interva                l instead.

If everything looks good, then next download new version of Nagios.  You can download the Nagios core from https://www.nagios.org/downloads

at download page choose Nagios Core, then new version: 4.4.3

Update process:

  1. Extract: tar –zxvf nagios-4.4.3.tar.gz
  2. switch to the directory: cd nagios-4.4.3/
  3. Stop Nagios service: service nagios stop
  4. Run command to check: ./configure –with-command-group=nagios
  5. If everything is fine:  make all
  6. Then install it: make install

Check Nagios config: nagios  -v / usr/local/nagios/etc/nagios.cfg

If any errors found then fix it and re-run the check config until no errors found, then start Nagios service: service nagios start

You might need to restart the apache2 service or whatever your web server is:  service apache2 restart

That’s it

Resources:

Nagios Core Manuals


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Install open source flat-file CMS Grav on Ubuntu

Grav is open source flat-file CMS which means without any needs of the database.  It only has two requirements web server like Apache, Nginx, IIS, etc … and PHP 5.6.3 or higher.  It uses Markdown for formatting syntax and it automatically converts to HTML.  It also has a Normal or Expert mode for editing content.  I am installing this on Ubuntu 16.04, but it should work just fine with other versions of Ubuntu as long as you meet the server/PHP requirement.  Also, Grav have two options when you download Grav core or Grav Core + admin plugin, I am using installing with Admin plugin to get more options.

Installation is very easy, once you have the web server of your choice and PHP version meets the requirement.

Download the Grav from https://getgrav.org/downloads and extract it then upload it to your web server

Then just go to your Domain URL and you should see the following screen, where you fill in your admin information and click Create User

If everything goes well it should bring you to Dashboard screen, this is your admin screen, where you will be able to add, delete, and make changes to your Grav CMS.  Also before you do anything click Backup and it will automatically back up for you.

This is default home page of Grav after fresh installation

If you want to edit your page to your Grav CMS login to admin (YourDomain/admin)
To edit Home Page, click on Pages>click Home

Now you should be to edit Content and click on the other tabs to see more options, Advance and Mode type Normal/Expert.

After the installing you may need to upgrade, just click on the Update on your dashboard and click continue

Back to your dashboard you should see fully updated, otherwise click check for updates

That’s it, enjoy it


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How to setup WordPress for website

WordPress is a very popular platform for websites and very easy to use.  All you need is a web server that supports PHP, then setup database.  Download WordPress from https://wordpress.org/download/ to your web server and extract it.

To start go to your domain URL to run the installation of WordPress, select Language of your choice and click Continue

WordPress getting start, at this point setup database and user name, which you will need on next screen, then click Let’s go!

Fill in Database information, then click Submit

Checking communication for the database info you enter, if everything went well, then click Run the installation

Welcome to new site, fill in your website information and click Install WordPress

Successfully installed WordPress

That’s it, now just customize it to the way you like it and enjoy it
You may need to check some settings and update it

Recommended Permissions:

  • Directories: 0755
  • Files: 0644
  • owner: www-data

Here are some quick list of feature which can easy to customize your WordPress site:
It also has a new editor called “Gutenberg”, which is very easy to use, if you want to use it, click Install Gutenberg

Appearance> it will change the look of your site, based on Theme
Themes – it will list all your themes
Customize– It will bring you to your current theme, to be customizing
Widgets – list all Available Widgets, which you can activate or disable
Menus – It will list Menu options and able to customize it
Header – It will bring you to your current theme, to customize your header
Editor – It will bring you to Them files


Settings> common settings changes to your site
Genaral– Site Title, Tagline, URL,Timezone, etc..
Writing -Default Post Category, Format, etc..
Reading– Homage Displays, Blog pages show options, Search engine Visibility, etc…
Discussion– Article, Comments, and other settings
Media– image size settings when you upload
Permalinks– URL link display settings
Privacy – set custom policy page


Tools> some tools to deal with your data
Available Tools – list of tools
Import – options to import data into your WordPress
Export – options to export your data outside of your WordPress
Export Personal Data – to export user data
Erase Personal Data – to erase user data

if you want official version of WordPRess installation you can find it here