Waldron Digital

Website, blog & random musings of Mike Waldron

Archive for the ‘hosting’ tag

Password Protecting GoDaddy Webalizer Stats in /usage

without comments

At work I recently moved our hosting to a GoDaddy Linux Virtual Server utilizing Simple Control Panel/TurboPanel.  Everything worked fantastic with the exception of .htaccess/password protection for the Webalizer statistics located at /usage for each respective site.  GoDaddy support was clueless and couldn’t help.

I would place an .htaccess file in each site’s respective directory in /var/www/stats/sitename.com and it would still be accessible to the public.  The reason for this was that TurboPanel/Simple Control Panel was not placing the “AllowOverride All” option for the “usage” path in the /etc/httpd/conf.d/turbopanel.conf file. If you edit this file manually, TurboPanel will overwrite it next time you make a change to your configuration so that’s not a good solution.

After some Googling, I found an answer here which was slightly flawed, but saved me a ton of time figuring it out myself.  Utilizing the fix below you can permanently fix the TurboPanel configuration template to automatically add the “AllowOverride All” option when it generates the /etc/httpd/conf.d/turbopanel.conf file. This will enable the .htaccess file to work for /usage.

Using Nano/VI/Pico or any text editor (nano is used in my example):

nano /usr/share/turbopanel/webapp/WEB-INF/classes/     (continued on next line)
    com/godaddy/turbopanel/framework/systems/apache/apache-config.xsl

Find the following lines under "<!-- Webalizer -->":

<xsl:text>Allow from all</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$tab"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$lbracket"/>
<xsl:text>/Directory</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$rbracket"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
</xsl:when> 

Change the above to:

<xsl:text>Allow from all</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$tab"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$tab"/>
<xsl:text>AllowOverride All</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$tab"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$lbracket"/>
<xsl:text>/Directory</xsl:text>
<xsl:value-of select="$rbracket"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
<xsl:value-of select="$newline"/>
</xsl:when>

After editing, restart TurboPanel and Apache:

/etc/init.d/turbopanel restart
/sbin/service httpd restart 
 

For good measure, after you’ve completed the above, go into “Simple Control Panel” and edit one of your sites.  Make sure Webalizer/statistics are enabled and click save.

Now when you place an .htaccess file in one of your statistic folders it will actually work!  Hooray!

Leave a comment if this helped you or if you have anything to add.

Written by Mike Waldron

October 18th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

GoDaddy vs. Network Solutions, Keeping it cheap

without comments

It came time to renew my Internet hosting services recently, and as my side-consulting-business is really dropping off, I wanted to keep hosting expenses as low as possible.  Previously my domains and hosting services were provided by Network Solutions.  I use DNAMail (DSL Extreme’s hosted Exchange service = CHEAP!) for my e-mail, so I really only needed web hosting and a place to park my domains.

I’ve been a loyal customer of NetSol for several years, but with some significant outages in both the hosting and DNS space and lackluster pricing, I figured now would be a good time to make a switch. 

Hosting with Network Solutions was $119 annually (includes a free domain or renewal), which was more than I wanted to spend this year.  I proceeded to head over to GoDaddy.com, transferring both domains and purchasing one year of hosting, all for the low price of $66!  

I’m quite pleased with the services and support offered by GoDaddy.  You can’t beat it for the price.

Written by Mike Waldron

September 15th, 2008 at 8:53 am