I have a bit of bad habbit, I install joomla on xampp and test all extensions and things im planning to add on the website there. Then I go to live website and try to start it from scratch, but it get very confusing and stressing this way..
I am thinking of just uploading the xampp joomla site to a live server but I am worried about these things:
I have installed/uninstalled some extensions (10+) do these leave behind any corrupted files in general or cause any problems?
Any tips cause im really worried now, the website has grown a lot and I cant start it from start even looking at the notes I took while making it. Uninstalled extensions do they leave any files behind or cause any problems? Right now the website works good on XAMPP.
Any tips or suggestions greatly appreciated,
Ammy
Most extensions uninstall fairly cleanly. You can be sure by using an FTP client and looking under /components, /plugins, and /modules (and/or their counterparts under /administrator) for leftover directories with the extension's name. You can also use PHPMyAdmin or somesuch to look for leftover database tables with similar names.
Even if files and tables are left behind, they're unlikely to cause problems with the site. I understand the desire to keep a tidy codebase, but that's not a good reason to build a site twice.
Most extensions delete their files on an uninstall. This is because Joomla does this job itself, the extension doesn't have to do anything for this to work.
However the tables are a different beast. While it would be very easy for extensions to delete their tables on uninstall, there are different ideas about this. Some argue that they don't want to be responsible for deleted data and thus leave the tables behind.
Also entries in the assets, categories, tags mappings and menu tables are likely to be lying around after an uninstall. Most extensions will not clean those tables up during uninstall.
There may also be leftovers in files, if the extension used some library like fof or similar. There is no ckeck if the uninstalled extension was the last one that used that library. So you need to uninstall those manually, but you need to know if it's used or not.
The leftover tables and entries don't generate any problems except for a bit more memory usage. However a leftover library may be a huge security issue as it may contain a bug which could be abused. Since no extension is using it anymore, it will never get updated and the bug doesn't get fixed.
Related
Good day/night great minds,
I have a perfectly functional website hosted online at the following url: www.gmaworld.com (malware infected). Unfortunately This site is infected with malware. I am looking to transfer the contents to another setup to get rid of the malware.
My concern however is how to backup/retain the current addons that i have in the current set up so i dont loose them during the new setup.
I have read through most of the migration/upgrade articles for joomla and none seem to mention anything in this regard. If it does help, I am using the shaper_qubic theme.
I will appreciate every bit of advice to help me ensure a successful transfer of my addons.
Thank you.
If you are rebuilding your website to eradicate malware, the best course of action is to re-download Joomla and third party extensions from the official websites and start again.
It's possible (by examining the contents of the extension XML install file) to download all the relevant folders and files which you could then zip back into a Joomla install file but this would be a tedious process, likely prone to manual error and possibly still have vulnerabilities if these aren't the latest versions.
To keep a website secure, you should be installing Joomla and third party extension updates on a regular basis. If you have commercial extensions on your website, you'll need to renew your subscriptions in order to have access to updates.
If cost is an issue, then try to replace commercial extensions with free extensions or try to implement features using core Joomla instead. This is often possible when new features are implemented in the core.
An alternative way to retain your extensions is to clean up the malware without rebuilding your site.
The myjoomla.com audit / clean up tool does this quite well and is a much quicker way to recover your website compared to a complete rebuild.
You will probably still need to update Joomla and third party extensions to the latest versions to prevent a recurrence.
You have best free options available and not only that it is super easy to take backup and restore your site anywhere either in localhost or any other webhost. I hope you have access to backend Administrator side
Steps
Download Akeeba backup http://extensions.joomla.org/extension/akeeba-backup and install it.
Take a backup of your entire site going to components->Akeeba Backup .backup will have extension JPA backup.jpa format. it wont open in normal extractors. To open the zip file follow the next step.
Download the extract wizard from https://www.akeebabackup.com/products/akeeba-extract-wizard.html . This will help you to extract the backup file in your desktop.
To Clean the website files use kaspersky Internet Security demo version. it cleaned many of my infected files. And do a vulnerability scan installing it in localhost to know where are the loopholes.
A relative asked me to fixed a Joomla website (v2.5.16) who has been hacked last year, probably due to lack of update (is up to date now), unfortunately I have no information about this. The issue is that the front end take 2~ min to load. The administration is loading normally so whatever the issue is, it depend of the front end. I already disabled all modules one by one and switched the template with another one to make sure that thebug is not in template or plugins folders, without success.
I must add that the problem is "probably" more recent than the hack, according to this person. So maybe there was a script somewhere reaching a random server which may not work anymore.
PS : the website is on a shared hosting. I have the FTP access but no ssh.
I know that I don't give any details which can lead to resolve this, but I need more a method to track what can go wrong and where than a solution.
Thanks in advance,
We have written a lengthy post explaining why a website might be slow: http://www.itoctopus.com/20-questions-you-should-be-asking-yourself-if-your-joomla-website-is-slow
From the looks of it, it might that the website is still hacked. Try overwriting the Joomla files with a fresh Joomla install and see if that addresses the problem.
Solving this issue will probably involve some or all of the following:
updating Joomla and all third party extensions to the latest versions
checking for and fixing malicious files using http://myjoomla.com or
https://sucuri.net or similar
analysing the performance of the website using http://gtmetrix.com
(it's free) or similar to pinpoint and fix what is taking the most time to
load
If the website has been hacked, you may need to reset passwords etc once the malicious files have been removed. See https://joomla.stackexchange.com/a/180/120 for more information about securing the website once it is fixed.
I'm moving a large Joomla site on version 2.5 with over 20,000 articles, images, etc into a new account I created in WHM because the current install has alot of bugs and 'work-a-arounds' to keep it going whenever there's an issue. I'm installing Joomla 3 in the new account, but with the large number of articles and images that are linked into it, I was going to use the J2XML Plugin to export the articles and import them, but not sure that's the best route to go with this.
I considered using terminal to SSH into the old account and copy that over into the new one and just do an upgrade of Joomla from there. Once again, I don't know if that's the wisest choice to go with this doing that there may still be underlying issues with the install itself even if it's upgraded.
Any advice is appreciated.
J2XML will not handle this number of articles, it also misses a lot of articles and doesn't maintain IDs (if I'm not mistaken). The only reason you might want to use SSH is to copy over the images.
You will need to re-create the website from scratch, or at least do many things manually, such as content migration, re-installation of extensions and re-creation of modules, etc...
I have been trying to get my Magento site to take some changes but it is still not refreshing the changes. I have disabled caching and flushed all of them on every single occasion I have also cleared my browser cache and it still does not take changes. I have gone as far to delete several files from the server that the theme relies on but it still functions like nothing was ever removed! What could be my issue?
You keep editing those files. I do not think those files are the files you think they are.
You question is pretty short on details, but my first guess if your system is running with the compiler enabled, which means it's loading its class files from
includes/src
Googling around to learn about the compiler would be a good idea.
I'd try adding the following to the end of your index.php file
echo '<--';
print_r(get_included_files());
echo '-->';
This will list every file PHP used during the request. Compare the full paths with the ones you're editing, and I bet you'll find a discrepancy.
Can I create a symlink to the local extension from aonther project folder? I have a common local-server and i need to implement same extension on all local project-installations. I tried to put the symlink, but some times i do not get expected output. I get it only after clearing the cache of that perticular project.
Your scenario is a common one I guess. But as Omar said, linking to the same code base of the extension through several typo3 instances is not a good practice.
But we have the same structure as yours, we realize this through SVN. All of our projects got a SVN repository and common extensions have their own repository. Through svn:externals the extensions are linked into the concrete project. This has the advantage that you can change the extension in the concrete project and after committing all other projects (that do have to update from svn though) contribute from it. I Think this would fit your needs, too.
If I understand your question correctly you have several Typo3 sites on the same server and want to share an extension between them using a symlink. I don't think that is a very great idea because many extensions use tables and every site normally has it's own database so you would have to do a lot of tinkering to get that to work.
Instead you could make all the modifications to the extension files in the typo3conf/ext/extension_name folder and then export the extension to a t3x file (Ext Manager in the Backend). This t3x file can be installed as a extension (Import extension) on all your other sites.
If you extension does not use a database and you are planning to make frequent changes then I guess you should be able to make that work (the symlink). Otherwise I recommend you use the first approach I described.
I have not tried this, but you should be able to install extensions globally in Typo3. What this means is that the given extension is placed inside '(typo3_src/)typo3/ext/' instead of 'typo3conf/ext/', presuming both sites use the same Typo3 Core/Source (and thus typo3_src is a symlink to the location of the core).
You can enable installing global extensions via the Install Tool. Once inside the tool, click on 'All Configuration', then search for allowGlobalInstall. Or put the following line into your localconf.php:
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['EXT']['allowGlobalInstall'] = '1';
At last, but not least, you need to make sure the 'typo3/ext/' directory is writeable.
Hope this will be to some help. If you have any further questions, let me know :)
As Björn mentioned, I'd sugegst to install them globally. Mind you, updating the source will require to move the extensions accordingly..
As for "expected output": be aware that the code in these folders is cached in various ways (mainly page content and config settings), and hence not always run. This is the reason a change done from "outside" the current installation is likely not to propagate to your output without clearing these caches (as you have observed).
When you actually install an extension via the extension manager, the cache should (if correctly configured) be cleared (interested parties may search for clearCacheOnLoad in class.em_index.php to reveal a clear_cacheCmd('all')). There is a small checkbox, which is normally checked, during the installation process to accomplish this.
Omar's first approach is therefore, as I see it, the more easy way to get "expected output" and less jumbling around with global extensions.