Share files quickly using python3

You can enable quick file sharing using python3 by activating its built-in internal webserver

 


python3 -m http.server

The default webserver will listen to port 8000, you can change to any port above 1024 without root privileges by specifying the port number after the command:


python3 -m http.server 9090

Check if your web server supports Brotli Compression

Brotli is a new compressed data format developed by Google for compressing web data. It is documented in RFC7932. Currently, almost all modern web browser support Brotli which compressed better and faster than Deflate.

Brotli is can be enabled in most popular web server including:

  • Apache HTTPD – through mod_brotli (for release after 2.4.26)
  • Nginx – ngx_brotli (provided by Google)
  • Node.js (trough shrink-ray module
  • LightSpeed (since version 5.2)
  • Microsoft IIS (through IIS-brotli extension, for IIS 7.5 and above)

Testing for Brotli Support

KeyCDN.com has provided a tool for testing whether your website supports Brotli compression.

You can go over the website and get your server tested. For nginx webserver, ngx_brotli will automatically downgrade to gzip if the browser does not support brotli encoding

 

How to analyze 404 HTTP code from weblogs

The dreaded 404 HTTP code means page not found. However multiple 403 and 404 on weblogs also can also mean there are attempts to crack the website.

The awk script down here can be useful tool to analyze weblogs and identify multiple attempts at cracking the web application.

 

awk '($9 ~ /404/)' access.log | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n

The script can also be tweaked for other HTTP status code too.

How to set Android *.apk mime-type for Nginx web server

Here’s a simple guide on how to add the correct mime-type for Android APK file for Nginx webserver.

sudo nano /etc/nginx/mime.types

In “mime.types” file, add this line within the “types” block


types {
     ...
     ...
     application/vnd.android.package-archive     apk;
     ...
     ...
}
     

Restart nginx server

sudo service nginx restart

Done!

Generating TLS/SSL Self Signed Certificate for Nginx in Ubuntu LTS

This post concerns on generating self-signed TLS/SSL certificate for Nginx in Ubuntu LTS and assumes that you’ve configured nginx server with a default site.

Step 1: Generate OpenSSL certificate

sudo mkdir /etc/nginx/ssl
sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key -out /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt

You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:CA
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Palo Alto
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Mypapit LLC
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Billing
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:Mypapit
Email Address []:mypapit+cert@gmail.com

Step 2: Edit nginx site config

You can edit nginx site config here, replace ‘default’ with your own server config.


sudo nano -c /etc/nginx/sites-enable/default

You will see this server block.


server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;
        server_name your_domain.com;
        root /var/www/your_domain.com;
        index index.html index.htm;

...
...
}

Add additional line (in italic)

server {
        listen 80;
        listen [::]:80;

    listen 443 ssl;

       server_name your_domain.com;
        root /var/www/your_domain.com;
      index index.html index.htm;

        ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/nginx.key;
        ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
        add_header Strict-Transport-Security max-age=31536000;



...
...
}

Save file, and restart nginx server

sudo nginx -t
sudo service nginx restart

Test configuration by going to https://your_domain.com.

Done!

Bonus: Add HSTS header and Serve only TLS

HSTS header

Howto install OwnCloud with NGINX in Ubuntu LTS

OwnCloud is a PHP-based Cloud-storage web application for remote storage with file synchronization capabilities.

Step 1
You need to install several packages in order to configure OwnCloud with nginx in your server

sudo apt-get -y install nginx-full php5-fpm php5-sqlite

Step 2: Download Owncloud
Download Owncloud, replace $OWNCLOUD_VER with the latest Owncloud version.

export OWNCLOUD_VER="8.1.0"
cd /var/www/
sudo wget -c https://download.owncloud.org/community/owncloud-${OWNCLOUD-VER}.tar.bz2

Step 3: Extract Owncloud
This will extract owncloud to /var/www/owncloud/

cd /var/www/
tar jxvf owncloud-${OWNCLOUD-VER}.tar.bz2

Step 4: Setup Nginx
You need to setup NGINX

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
sudo nano -c /etc/nginx/sites-available/owncloud

Step 4a: Setup ‘owncloud’ nginx site

Please change server_name directive to your own ip address or your own domain.
You can also download textfile and upload it directly to your server: http://pastebin.com/2P8h1zNB

#
#/etc/nginx/sites-available/owncloud
# 
server {
  listen 80;
server_name cloud.example.com;
server_name 192.168.1.47;

  # Path to the root of your owncloud installation
  root /var/www/owncloud/;
  # set max upload size
  client_max_body_size 10G;
  fastcgi_buffers 64 4K;

  # Disable gzip to avoid the removal of the ETag header
  gzip off;

  # Uncomment if your server is build with the ngx_pagespeed module
  # This module is currently not supported.
  #pagespeed off;

  rewrite ^/caldav(.*)$ /remote.php/caldav$1 redirect;
  rewrite ^/carddav(.*)$ /remote.php/carddav$1 redirect;
  rewrite ^/webdav(.*)$ /remote.php/webdav$1 redirect;

  index index.php;
  error_page 403 /core/templates/403.php;
  error_page 404 /core/templates/404.php;

  location = /robots.txt {
    allow all;
    log_not_found off;
    access_log off;
    }

  location ~ ^/(?:\.htaccess|data|config|db_structure\.xml|README){
    deny all;
    }

  location / {
   # The following 2 rules are only needed with webfinger
   rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta /public.php?service=host-meta last;
   rewrite ^/.well-known/host-meta.json /public.php?service=host-meta-json last;

   rewrite ^/.well-known/carddav /remote.php/carddav/ redirect;
   rewrite ^/.well-known/caldav /remote.php/caldav/ redirect;

   rewrite ^(/core/doc/[^\/]+/)$ $1/index.html;

   try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;
   }

   location ~ \.php(?:$|/) {
   fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
   include fastcgi_params;
   fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
   fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_path_info;
	  fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
   }

   location ~* \.(?:jpg|jpeg|gif|bmp|ico|png|css|js|swf)$ {
       expires 30d;
       # Optional: Don't log access to assets
         access_log off;
   }

  }

Step 4b: Enable ‘owncloud’ settings

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enable/
sudo ln -sf ../sites-available/owncloud .
nginx -t
service nginx restart
service php5-fpm restart

Step 5: Finishing off Owncloud setup

cd /var/www/
mkdir /var/www/owncloud/data
chmod 0770 /var/www/owncloud/data
chmod 0770 /var/www/owncloud/lib/private/
sudo chown -R www-data.www-data /var/www/owncloud

Step 6: Goto the IP-Address or domain name of your owncloud installation

First screen
setup-owncloud-first

Welcome to Owncloud
welcome-to-owncloud

Owncloud File Manager and Settings
owncloud-filemanager

What’s Next?

After completing installation you may:

  1. Install Android, iPhone or Desktop client to sync all your files
  2. Install TLS/SSL Certificates to secure your Owncloud connection
  3. Install MariaDB/MySQL for efficient synchronization

Warning: Do not enable Pagespeed and SPDY in OwnCloud

OwnCloud servers does not support PageSpeed and SPDY module, so please disable those extension if its exists within your nginx configuration.

Recommended Owncloud book