Help with a few projects

Sun Dec 17 00:27:25 UTC 2017

Hi all,

To the person who tried helping me fix this WordPress web server issue, 
I'm glad to say that I found a solution thanks to Ask Ubuntu on Stack 
Exchange. 
https://askubuntu.com/questions/986972/why-does-wordpress-keep-telling-me-that-it-needs-to-access-my-web-server

So in the future, if someone else has a question and the steps you had 
me to didn't work, then the last step is to check the wp-config file and 
make sure it has that extra line.

define('FS_METHOD','direct');

This fixed everything!!!!! 😌

Now all I'll need to work on is the postfix issue, and then hopefully 
that will make it easier for me to stay in touch with my visitors.

-Ulysses

On 12/12/2017 1:19 PM, Linux for blind general discussion wrote:
> Ulysses, provide your error logs & we can assist w/the postfix
> problem. If those error logs contain information u don't wish on a
> public list, then go ahead & email me privately at
> abletec at g mail dot com. You can't copy-&-paste that email, as I've
> munged it to prevent spam harvesting, but u should be able to figure
> it out.
>
> Your problem w/WordPress is that you likely don't have the user of the
> wordpress files belonging to the webserver group. Once u make that
> happen, your updating problems will disappear. U need to set the file
> permissions back to a safer level, or your site wil get hacked.
>
> Unless there's a compelling reason to do so, ie, you're developing
> some sort of Windows software, my recommendation would be to use Linux
> to host websites. It's cheaper, &, IMO, also more secure for a number
> of reasons. I realize I'll likely encounter the ire of some on this
> list for saying thus, but it really is a fact, IMO.
>
> I would also advise disabling Cloudflare until you get everything set
> up, because it tends to add an additional layer in terms of
> redirecting certain web components that makes things hard for a
> beginner to learn & figure out what's going on.
>
>
>
> On 12/12/17, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> My name is Ulysses Harmony Garcia. My web site is
>>     https://www.sensation-experience.com/ I heard about I heard about
>> this mailing list through a Facebook post.
>>     For several years, I've been trying to figure out what kind of
>> services I
>>     could use to satisfy my needs. In the early 2010's, I looked into shared
>>     hosting plans, but the more I looked at them, the more I didn't like
>> them because I wanted to be able to have full
>>     control of the server. All they let you use is a public HTML folder
>> and an FTP server port 21 or 990 for secure connections, and a web-based
>> administration tool like Webmin or C-Panel. So I continued using Dropbox
>> to host my web site. The only problem was that I had to use an http
>> colon slash slash dl dot dropboxusercontent dot com slash u slash
>> xxxxxxxx slash index dot html to render it, which is a pretty long link,
>> but at least it worked.
>>
>> Four years later, I looked into the cloud, SSD, and dedicated
>>     VPS options. By asking around, I heard of several different choices
>> such as Linode,
>>     Vultr, Digital Ocean, OVH, and through a diary entry I had made back in
>>     2014, VPS dot Next, I had to learn about which operating system I
>> would most likely
>>     use for the server. Since 2005, I have primarily used Windows,
>>     and I started using a Mac in 2011. I have never used Linux, and I
>>     probably chose to stay away from it because I associated Linux as an
>>     operating system only computer geeks would use. So when I was looking
>> for a
>>     VPS, I was lucky to find a Windows server on vps dot net. However,
>> when I told others
>>     about it, many people acted like that was a crime, or that it was
>>     impractical to use Windows as a server, and that 99.99% of the web was
>>     hosted by Linux, which was meant to be used as a server operating
>> system.
>>     I've done most of the work on my own. I first began with a Windows
>>     virtual private server at VPS dot net, but I was not able to set
>>     up the web server, database server and PHP to work on-line, except
>>     through Localhost. I wasn't able to use Internet Information Services
>>     IIS either, so I gave up on it and cancelled my server. Fortunately,
>> I kept my
>>     account active, so I could come back to it when I wasn't overwhelmed.
>> I even tried enabling Internet Information Services on my Windows 10
>> computer by using the enable or disables Windows features. I checked
>> every one of them, but when I typed localhost in the connect to computer
>> dialogue box, I got this message. IIS6 Manager  dialogue  Unable to
>> connect to localhost. The target server does not have the SMTP service
>> installed. You cannot manage an IIS 7.5 Web or FTP server by using
>> Internet Information Services (6.0) Manager.
>>     As primarily being an extroverted person, I get energy from working with
>>     other people rather than working alone, yet for some reason, I've
>>     encountered a lot of people who think that being too dependent on others
>>     was a bad thing, that being completely independent was the best way to
>>     go. I disagree with that. I mean, I can see why some people wouldn't
>>     want to be too dependent on others for fear of taking too much of
>>     someone's time or being too clingy, etc, or taking advantage of said
>>     person, but I also believe that there needs to be a balance in helping
>>     others and being self-reliable. This is where interdependence comes
>> in. Manuals are never straightforward. You can follow the directions in
>> the manual as exactly outlined and end up with error messages. Even
>> googling error messages can't guarantee that you will get a quick
>> solution. Having said that, I have joined a few community forums and
>> posted these error messages, but never received replies.
>>     Back in July, I contacted a few people I know who were successfully
>> using
>>     the popular content management system WordPress, and asked if they could
>>     help out. One person, whose name I won't mention, said they could set up
>>     my web site, if I could provide $300/hr USD and that it was estimated to
>>     take four hours to set up to where I wanted it to be. Now, this person
>>     is also blind. What I do not understand is how someone who may be
>>     knowledgeable about supplemental security income could decide to charge
>>     such a high price to set up something simple, and that is
>>     semi-automated, and easy to install. I wrote a reply, and didn't hear
>>     back for a month. I re-sent my reply and was told that if I wanted to
>>     continue with the route that I choose, I would have to go on Bookshare
>>     or BARD to download books on Windows server hosting, and that I had
>>     sufficient resources on the Audio Games net forum to start.
>>     so in September, I finally found a fellow who turned out to be someone I
>>     knew by reputation, and he offered to spend his free time in helping me
>>     out, especially since he has had plenty of experience in working with
>>     virtual private servers and web hosting. If you ask him how he liked
>> working with me, he might tell you that I learn things pretty quickly
>> once I get to actually learning the steps live on Skype or phone. I also
>> record my sessions so I can look back and see what I did. By that time,
>> I was a little
>>     more knowledgeable in talking to others on this topic.
>> http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=23002 Look at post four.  I
>> told my new friend a little bit of what I've hoped to accomplish, and
>> what I
>>     have done so far, and how much experience I've already had. In 2010
>>     through 2013, I worked on building an HTML 4.1 and 5 project in high
>>     school using Notepad, and in 2013, I used CSS 3 to enhance it when I
>>     took a college class in web development. In mid July of 2013, I got
>>     myself a WordPress blog up and running, which has been since taken down.
>>     I decided to export this blog and import it into the self-hosted
>>     version, and I was able to successfully link up all of my web pages
>> to a podcast generator and the WordPress system.
>>
>> Right now we are sort of stuck on where to go, since I already have a
>>     basic HTML site with no scripts on my Ubuntu VPS, a TeamTalk server
>>     running, and hopefully an IceCast or ShoutCast server for streaming.
>> I heard that you can get
>>     an e-mail provider through Google Aps and install their mail exchange
>>     and text verification records, but they are quite costly, and I don't
>>     know if you'd have to install anything on Ubuntu to make sure the PHP
>>     contact forms worked properly. By following several guides on Linode
>> and Digital Ocean, I was able to install Postfix and S-Nail, but I keep
>> getting error messages when I am trying to send a message as a test.
>> I also got an account through Cloudflare, and if you were to do a user $
>> dig +short sensation-experience.com or root# dig +short
>> sensation-experience.com you'd see 104.28.6.155 instead of my actual
>> server's IP address. If you tried using that directly, it'd say,
>> Cloudflare direct IP access not allowed. This is to keep attackers from
>> finding out what my server's IP address is. If they tried doing a who is
>> on my domain, they'd see a privacy protect dot org notice instead of my
>> name.
>>
>> Also, I really couldn't understand how C-Panel and Webmin administration
>> tools worked until my friend showed me how he used the terminal on his
>> Cent OS VPS to install it. It sort of reminded me of PHP My Admin. You
>> simply put :2083, :2087, or :2086 at the end of your domain.
>>
>> I also installed Certbot which uses Lets Encrypt. At the moment I can't
>> seem to figure out how to force traffic to be automatically redirected
>> to https(443) instead of http(80). But now since I'm using Cloudflare,
>> I'm not sure if that will be necessary.
>>
>>     Once I get more advanced, and raised my income through Amazon
>>     Associates and stripe payments, I'd like to install a phone box or
>> PBX using Asterisk as well. Note that I am running PHP 7. My friend and
>> I tried installing Free PBX, but it doesn't seem to like it, so we had
>> to give it up temporarily, at least until they release the newer version.
>>
>> On a more interesting topic, I don't know if any of you are into speech
>> synthesis that can sing. I am very much into singing synthesis and have
>> spent quite a bit of time with DECtalk and Vocaloid. I recently got
>> interested in learning how to use Festival and make my own speech
>> synthesiser. If you look at post 57 of this thread, you can see where I
>> am at right now. http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=8877
>> So having said that, might any of you be able to help me resolve this
>> mail problem with Postfix and S-Nail? I keep getting a debug error.
>>
>> Also, for some annoying reason which my friend and I have not been able
>> to determine, I cannot install plug-ins or update WordPress directly. It
>> wants to access my web server through FTP or FTPS, and I don't have one
>> properly configured. I tried changing all file and folder permissions to
>> 7777 recursively, but I am still unable to update and install plug-ins
>> automatically. If any of you are able to help me with that as well I
>> would greatly appreciate it.
>>
>> Anyhow, I apologise for this lengthy e-mail, but hopefully that gives
>>     you all an idea of what I've done so far and where I'd like to go
>> next. :-)
>>     Sincerely,
>>     -Ulysses
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blinux-list mailing list
>> Blinux-list at redhat.com
>> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>