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January 19, 2006

301 Redirect

Just want to post a follow-up to my previous post. After I updated the domain configurations, all my sites have been re-indexed by Google. I strongly suggest you configure your domains this way.

Category : Apache

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

Apache and Google

This post is more about Google, but I think it's very important and I should mention it.

Let me use this blog as an example to explain the problem. This blog can be accessed by typing freebsdblog.org or www.freebsdblog.org in your browser, there is no any difference to you. But Google treats them as two different websites, since they have exactly the same content, Google may dump out one of them due to duplicated content penalty. If Google bans the one you have been promoting, that would be a big problem.

This may sound very silly, but it has been discussed for years and reported by many webmasters. Recently, my sites also had some problems like this, although I'm not very sure about the reasons. If you try Yahoo, Google, MSN or FreeBSD, all of the big guys redirect you to the www version with permanent redirection (HTTP 301). Anyway, I strongly suggest you configure your domains this way, by which you will only benefit from it:

Continue reading "Apache and Google"

Category : Apache

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at 05:36 PM | Comments (1)

January 12, 2006

Beastie Blog

Glad to know Dale's Beastie Blog via his comment. He posts very frequently - 38 within three days? Unbelievable! I love to read other's blog, not only can I know how to setup something, but also I can know what I missed, what I can improve and what I should avoid from his errors.

FreeBSD community seems to be a very small world. When I was asking questions in an IRC room, I was very surprised to know the webmaster of FreeBSDDiary.org and LayeredTech's admin were also there. I really wish to see more websites dedicated to FreeBSD to expand the small world.

BTW, I don't use IRC any more...Have to ask very smart questions which should not be easy (or will be teased) and can be answered in one sentence (or no one will bother).

Category : FreeBSD General

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at 01:47 AM | Comments (3)

January 05, 2006

A One-year Look Back

It's been one year since I started using FreeBSD. I still remembered the first day when I got the server, I was wondered why nothing worked on the server, no command completion, no wget :-). It was a fresh FreeBSD installation with only ssh enabled. Then I asked some very silly questions in the IRC room, and knew what port is.

I had lots of problems such as Awstats exploit and phpBB, and I still have lots of pending tasks, e.g. spam filter, automate backup, etc. But basically the server has been running well with little down time. I didn't learn FreeBSD hard as I planned (yes, I always have lots of GREAT plans), instead, I was mainly driven by urgent needs or problems.

This is my server's uptime, it's pretty good, isn't?
> uptime
1:31PM up 208 days, 10:17, 1 user, load averages: 0.07, 0.11, 0.07

If you are a new FreeBSD user, the small list may be useful:

1. Avoid programs with bad security record, such as phpBB.

2. Use portaudit and CVSup to keep your ports up-to-date.

3. Use AllowUsers to limit the logins, bind the ssh login to a static IP if possible.

4. Reduce server visibility and change the ports of common services such as ssh and ftp.

5. A little performance tuning may help.

6. Examine the server log files and directory /tmp frequently. If you find unusual messages, make sure you understand them and eliminate them if necessary. When you don't see error messages often in /var/log/messages, the server is running smoothly.

Category : FreeBSD General

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at 08:31 PM | Comments (6)

January 04, 2006

Anonymous FTP Account

Several months ago, I switched to pure-ftpd from proftpd for my Linux VPS and FreeBSD server, but I didn't test the anonymous login on Linux, just found it's enabled by default!! Fortunately, it wasn't abused. If someone used it for video download, I could face a big bill for bandwidth usage. Very lucky.

I did test it on my FreeBSD server, and got the error message "Unable to set up secure anonymous FTP". But now I realized this message might be from FreeBSD system other than pure-ftpd, because I got a different message on Linux after I disabled anonymous login: "This is a private system - No anonymous login".

Anyway, don't take anything for granted, a simple test is the best way to avoid silly error like this.

Category : FTP

Posted by FreeBSD Newbie at 01:24 AM | Comments (0)