EST. 2026 — Notes from real server work SYSADMIN · SECURITY · AI · DIRECTADMIN Issue 01
THE SYSADMIN ALMANAC
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4 articles
Security
Two Critical PHP RCE Flaws (php2shell): Patch Today
Security

Two Critical PHP RCE Flaws (php2shell): Patch Today

CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619 are PHP RCE vulnerabilities with a CVSS score of 9.2 and public exploits already available. They affect every machine using PHP to handle web requests. The patched versions are 8.5.12, 8.4.27, 8.3.36, and 8.2.35. This note covers version checks, updates on Debian, RHEL, DirectAdmin, Docker, and Windows, and temporary settings while waiting for patches.

#cve#php#security#rce
10 min read·22 Oct
WAF Returns 406 for Thai Text in POST: Fixing It Without Root
Security

WAF Returns 406 for Thai Text in POST: Fixing It Without Root

ModSecurity on the host returns 406 for certain Thai sentences in the POST body, preventing forms from saving — but as a hosting tenant, I cannot change the rules myself. This article shows how to isolate the offending text through black-box testing, then work around it with JS encoding on submit + middleware decoding in Laravel.

#modsecurity#waf#laravel#php
9 min read·15 Aug
libmodsecurity3 + nginx — only ctl:ruleEngine exclusions work
Security

libmodsecurity3 + nginx — only ctl:ruleEngine exclusions work

ModSecurity v3 (libmodsecurity3) + nginx + OWASP CRS — the ctl:ruleRemoveById taught in the guides does nothing and fails silently. This article covers what I found after trying every approach: ctl:ruleEngine works, scoped with a Host+URI chained rule, and the exclusion file must load before CRS.

#modsecurity#nginx#security#firewall
9 min read·10 Jul
Tuning ModSecurity on DirectAdmin for Shared Hosting
Security

Tuning ModSecurity on DirectAdmin for Shared Hosting

The 4 additions I made beyond DA defaults — exclusions before CRS, a 1-hit credscan ban, a fix for the incorrect MODSEC_LOG path shipped by DA, and a self-heal cron to recover from rebuild overwrites

#modsecurity#csf#directadmin#custombuild
11 min read·20 May