#SSL / TLS
Build APM on Windows, Part 7: Deploy, Run, and Apply Security Patches
The final part of the series on building Apache + PHP + MariaDB on Windows. Install into C:\APM, start and test it for the first time, open it to the LAN safely, walk through six real bugs (PidFile, MariaDB plugins, the DB port, the ASLR 500, paths with spaces and brackets), and cover the procedure for the next security release.
Build APM on Windows, Part 3: Apache httpd 2.4.69 with CMake
Build APR, APR-util, httpd 2.4.69 and mod_fcgid with CMake and Ninja on Windows. Explain why each option is set, use dumpbin to find the DLLs needed beside httpd.exe, prevent links to debug DLLs, and test the config with httpd -t.
Build APM on Windows, Part 2: Fetch Source and Libs with vcpkg
Steps 1 and 2 of building Apache yourself on Windows. Read 00-fetch.ps1 and 10-deps-vcpkg.ps1 line by line, verify the sha256 of every source archive, then have vcpkg build OpenSSL 3.5 LTS and 8 other libs from source, with commands to check the results at every step.
Reading ID Cards from the Web with a Localhost Agent
Browsers cannot access smart card readers directly. A workable approach is to write a small agent that opens a port on localhost and let the web page call it. This article covers secure contexts, CORS preflight, port conflicts with other agents, PC/SC in SHARED mode, decoding TIS-620 manually, and the day antivirus flagged the program as a backdoor.
Auditing a Deployed Laravel Site — 3 Layers in Priority Order
After deploying Laravel to production, check security in 3 layers — probe externally for exposed endpoints, check files/permissions on the server, then grep for vulnerabilities in the code. This article provides commands and P0-P2 priorities for deciding what to fix first.
Mail Stopped After Moving to Cloudflare — Proxied Mail Records
After adding a domain to Cloudflare and pointing DNS at the host, incoming mail suddenly stops — the most common cause I see is leaving mail/smtp/pop records proxied (orange cloud), even though Cloudflare's proxy only handles HTTP/S. This article covers which records must be grey + token/SSL pitfalls.
Lost the .com: Move to .net on DirectAdmin Without Data Loss
A .com domain expired and ended up with a domain squatter — how I moved the whole site (files/mail/DNS/SSL) to a new .net domain on DirectAdmin with a single CMD_CHANGE_DOMAIN command, plus 4 follow-up tasks that do not happen automatically
DA Migration Finale — Security Fixes and Hardening After Stabilizing
Wrapping up the cross-distro DirectAdmin migration series with security work after the server stabilized — sudoers wildcard CVE, OpenSSL SECLEVEL, ModSec exclusions before CRS, a csfpost drop-in, and 5 layers that survive DA updates
Moving DA from CentOS 7 to Debian 12, Part 4 — Cutover and 17 Issues
The actual cutover, where the near-0 downtime plan fell apart because of the DA Legacy license and slow qcow2 reads, ended with 1 hour of downtime and 17 issues in quick succession after the switch — critical web stack outages, medium issues affecting subsets of services, and minor debugging notes.