Author Archives: A Tech named Bob

Filezilla will not connect to server using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

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Filezilla will not connect to server using Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

Symptom(s):

Filezilla is unable to connect to the server using the Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), however regular file transfer protocol (FTP) works fine. Additionally, you have confirmed that the required ports for the Secure File Transfer Protocol have been enabled on the firewall. The generic port for SFTP is port 22 and the port for FTP is 21, port 20 may be required if the server is running the ftp services in passive mode.

Solution(s): 

  1. SSH into the server and edit the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file, if your config is in another location you can use the “locate sshd_config” to identify that location.
  2. Once in the file find the following commented out line: #Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server.  Leave the line commented out, if its not commented, go ahead and comment it out using a hash tag (#).
  3. Below the commented out line add: Subsystem sftp internal-sftp  then reboot the server.
  4. Your Filezilla should now be able to connect.

Sending’ reported error (0x80040119): ‘The message cannot be saved to you IMAP e-mail account Sent Items folder, because Outlook is offline or the e-mail server doesn’t allow items to be saved to the Sent Items folder’

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Symptom: Outlook reports the following error – Sending’ reported error (0x80040119): ‘The message cannont be saved to you IMAP e-mail account Sent Items forlder, because Outlook is offline or the e-mail server doesn’t allow items to be saved to the Sent Items folder’

Solution:

  • Go to File-> Account Settings-> Account settings-> (YOUR EMAIL ACCOUNT) -> Change…-> More Options…-> Advanced
  • Set Root folder path to “Inbox” and force a Send/Receive

This fix should allow you to now automatically sync with Squirrelmail, Round Cube, or Horde.

 

Blank Screen after installing WordPress 4.4.2

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Installing or upgrading to WordPress 4.4.2 on Apache results in a blank screen.

Updated: 3/14/2017

Symptoms:

After installing WordPress 4.4.2 on an Apache Server, the screen displays a blank screen.  If you check the Apache server error logs you will see the following:  PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘[‘ in /var/www/vhosts/”Your Site”/wp-content/install.php on line 66.

Solution:

You are running an incompatible version of PHP, the server PHP level should be at PHP 5.6 or higher. This is required in order to run WordPress 4.4.2, to resolve this issue upgrade your server’s PHP to the latest version.  This should be done anyway for security reasons.

KB3000850 won’t install in Windows 8

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This was probably one of the hardest issues I have had to troubleshoot, therefore special thanks goes out to Brian Lewis’s Post Here: http://mythoughtsonit.com/2015/04/cant-install-update-windows-8-1-x64-based-systems-kb3000850/

The being said, this issue occurs when a Kodak Printer is or has ever been installed on the Windows Machine.  Even if the drivers have been deleted, this issue will still occur at the 8.1 service pack will fail at 8%. I had to expand off of Brian’s Original post since the naming convention is different on my system.

 

The Fix:

Open the log file:  “C:\Windows\INF\setupapi.dev.log” and search for “wiaek002”

Eventually you will see an entry labeled “inf: Unable to load INF: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\wiaek002.inf_x86_27b2a95e98070c3c\wiaek002.inf”  – The system cannot find the path specified.  Make sure you write down the part after the x86, specifically “27b2a95e98070c3c” this is unique to your machine.

Create these this folder:
– C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\wiaek002.inf_x86_27b2a95e98070c3c  (Except use your number)

Copy these files into the folder created above
– C:\Windows\Inf\wiaek002.inf

Install the Update.

Magento – During Upgrade Mage/Conflicts

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Symptom:  During the Magento Connect Upgrade you receive errors indicating that the new version or upgrade of mage conflicts with the existing installation:

Solution: 

Using SSH, go to the root directory of your Magento Install, change directory to “pkginfo” and remove “All_Mage_Latest.txt”.

Once removed, return to Magento Connect and refresh, proceed with the installation again and the error should be gone.

SpamAssassin not Filtering certain domains

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Problem: Spamassassin is not properly filtering domains such as link, click, xyz, science, and similar.

Solution: Your Registrar Boundaries file is out of date.

In Ubuntu, go to /usr/share/perl5/Mail/SpamAssassin/Util/

Use: wget svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/trunk/lib/Mail/SpamAssassin/Util/RegistrarBoundaries.pm  (It will probably download as RegistrarBoundaries.pm.1)

cp RegistrarBoundaries.pm to RegistrarBoundaries.pm.old

cp RegistrarBoundaries.pm.1 to RegistrarBoundaries.pm

sudo service spamassassin restart

Enjoy!

 

SSH, SASL, Hackers, and more…

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SSH (Port 22 if you haven’t moved it) and the SASL mail authentication will get hammered with Brute force attacks on a regular basis if a system is available on the Internet.  However, there are ways to mitigate these attacks…

Fail2Ban for Linux bases systems does an excellent job of stopping these kinds of attacks.  These instructions are for installing fail2ban on a Ubuntu Server 14.04.

From the Command-Line and a sudo authorized account:

Sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install fail2ban

Copy the Config file: sudo cp /etc/fail2ban/jail.conf /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

Edit the Config: vi or nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.local

Bantime is defaulted to 600 seconds (10 Minutes), I prefer 1200 (20 minutes) or 1800 (30 Minutes) since most clients that trigger the ban are well deserving.

Maxretry defines how many attempts in Findtime (600 Seconds or 10 Minutes) a user can try to login before triggering the ban.  3 attempts in 10 minutes is a great qualifier for a web server, if its a server in a production environment that has multiple users leveraging ssh, you may want to raise the attempts.

You can then turn fail2ban on for other web services towards the bottom of the configuration file.

 

phpBB upgrade gets stuck during the database upgrade process when upgrading from 3.0.* to 3.1.*

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phpBB upgrade gets stuck during the database upgrade process when upgrading from 3.0.* to 3.1.*

Symptom(s):

The phpBB automatic upgrade appears to get stuck during the database upgrade process when upgrading from version 3.0.* to 3.1.* and never proceeds on refresh.  No error is given since the issue is occurring within the configured folder and file permissions assigned to the Apache Web Server.  The error can actually be located in the Apache Server error log file.

Solution(s):

  • If you check the Apache logs, which are typically located in the /var/log/httpd or /var/log/apache2 directories, its actually a directory permissions / owner issue.
  • When files are uploaded by a user account the control panel assigns user permissions instead of Apache permissions.  The script needs to run as Apache since it is running locally on the web server itself and not as the user whose permissions it was assigned.

Solution #1:  If you have root access:  Change the owner of Cache and Store folders located under your phpBB installation to www-data:www-data (Or psacln if plesk) using the chown command from the shell prompt, (i.e. chown www-data:www-data /Your-php-install/cache), then refresh the upgrade screen to complete the upgrade.

Solution #2: If you do NOT have root access: Temporarily set the folders of Cache and Store to 0777, continue the upgrade and then restore permissions to 0755. This can be done by using the chmod command from the shell prompt, (i.e. chmod -R 0777 /your-php-install/cache),  then refresh the upgrade screen to complete the upgrade.  Once completed make sure you run the command again using chmod -R 0755 /your-php-install/cache and store folders respectively.  The -R denotes “recursive”, which means all the permissions are changed for all files and folders recursively under the cache directory.

Note: In all Apache installs where files will be accessible to the internet, the best settings for permissions are to set 0644 for all files within the directory and to set permission 0755 for all directories that will be accessed externally or on the Internet.  0644 basically means that www-data or Apache can read and write to the file and everyone else including the Internet can only read the file and nothing else.   0755 means that www-data or Apache can read, write, and execute the file, but everyone else including the Internet can read and execute the file, which is required for directories to work properly.

Shellshock Patch

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Symptoms: Your system is susceptible to the Shellshock Patch, unless you have updated in the last two weeks, this is probably the case.  This article applies to Linux based systems.

Solution:  In Ubuntu, run sudo apt-get update, then run sudo apt-get install bash.  This will update your system against the latest vulnerability.

If you are using centos, use yum.

Outlook 2003 Error: Your outgoing (SMTP server does not support SSL secured Connections)

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Symptoms: You are unable to send mail from Outlook and the error message you may receive is that your outgoing smtp server does not support SSL Connections.

Solution 1 of 2: Confirm your Email provider uses an SSL connection, if they do NOT use an SSL connection, go to Email Accounts > View or Change > Select your Account > Change > Select More Settings > Navigate to the Advanced Tab > And Uncheck SSL for outgoing mail server.

Solution 2 of 2: Your Server Requires an SSL Connection.   Go to Email Accounts > View or Change > Select your Account > Change > Select More Settings > Navigate to the Advanced Tab > Under Outgoing SMTP Server change the port from 25 to 465, make sure SSL stays checked.

The default port for SSL secured SMTP traffic is 465, many internet providers will block port 25 by default.