From a penetration testing perspective to identify if a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is in place is essential. The next question is, does an administrator need to know this? My view is, anyone who is in charge of any system that has implemented some sort of WAF needs to verify this tool is working, at […]

How to detect a WAF – Web Application Firewall

How to enable log rotation on FreeBSD
This is a very short simple entry but it may help you. As many others you may be running a web server, or any other service that creates some logging information. Enable log rotation on FreeBSD will keep those log files in a manageable size (at least more readable) and they won’t grow and expand […]

How to install Redis for WordPress on FreeBSD
I happen to self-host a few WordPress sites on FreeBSD. And as much as one can configure OP-Cache to improve PHP’s performance, object cache is a must for many WordPress sites. This how to install Redis for WordPress on FreeBSD will explain how to install an object cache (Redis) for WordPress (via plugin) on this […]

WordPress administration over SSL
If you are a WordPress user or prettend to become one and you have some IT administration knowledge this guide is of your interest. Many hostings already provide easy point and click solutions to administer WordPress over SSL. However you may be self hosting WordPress or you’re just a curious person. What is TLS? TLS […]

FreeBSD Jails
The FreeBSD jails is a virtualization technology you may have skipped for too long. It is an operating system level virtualization and is one of the differential characteristics of FreeBSD from Linux. Solaris took it to the main corporate use with Zones and as it couldn’t be any other way the Illumos folks also play […]

Linus on ZFS
Disclaimer: What you are about to read may contain inaccuracies. Feel free to discuss them somewhere else. This is also my opinion and as such it may change through time, maybe tomorrow, next month, next year, next decade or never. I do also make very few reviews (if any) of what I write here so […]

Lynis or how to quickly audit your system’s security configuration
A colleague of mine pointed me out to Lynis, a system’s configuration audit tool which checks the hardening of any running UNIX or UNIX-like system, including the BSDs. This tool has a built in check list and a set of sane and safe configurations and compares them to the target system. As output we find […]
FreeBSD particularities
As some others unix-like operating systems FreeBSD has some particularities aside to the UNIX heritage, licensing and the like. The init system is the way a system starts up and the BSD has always been different. If you happen to be a UNIX admin I am sure you are aware of this and the folks […]

Abandon Linux. How to export and import FreeBSD Jails ‘a la Docker’
FreeBSD Jails is an awesome tool similar to Docker but much older which allows administrators and developers alike to have several securely contained userland environments sharing one kernel. Does it sound familiar? This is operating-system-level virtualization and it’s different than what you find on KVM or Xen camps. For more detailed information I’ve published some […]

Symbolic and Hard Links in UNIX and Linux
Symbolic and Hard Links are useful ways to reference to information on a disk, both found in UNIX and Linux systems. While they seem similar in the surface they are quite different in how they work and it what can be achieved when using them. If you find the articles in Adminbyaccident.com useful to you, […]
