In order to install WordPress on Windows, WordPress has to be installed and configured first. This is an important process if your WordPress hosting is based on a Windows hosting platform.

Following is the process of installing WordPress on Windows; it’s a short procedure and can be completed quickly.

Some important aspects you should be aware of before starting with the installation process:

• This installation process can be done only on specific Windows versions that comprise of IIS – such as Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server
• It is important to have administrator rights so that programs can be installed on your system

Step 1 - Steps for navigating to the Windows Installation page

• Click on the ‘Install’ button
• In case the Web PI is already installed, it will be launched automatically
• In case there is no Web PI, you will be prompted with a link through which it can be installed

The Web Platform Installer (Web PI) is a tool created by Microsoft through which you can download and install the latest components required for hosting the web applications on Windows. You can download this tool for free. The Web PI can install and configure IIS, MySQL, PHP and all the other things required.

Step 2 - Selecting WordPress installation

• After the installation of Web PI, when it is launched, you will get an information page for WordPress.
• You can start the WordPress installation process by clicking on the ‘Install’ button. This button is present on the lower right corner.

Step 3 – WordPress installation process

• The minimum requirement of components and modules required on your system for operating WordPress will be determined by the Web PI. Once this is determined, only the missing components will be installed
• The next step is to configure the database. The first step is to accept the terms. Once that is done, in case you need to install MySQL, you will be asked to create a password in order to access the root database account. Keep this password safe as you will need it later in the process of installation.
• Select a suitable website for installing WordPress. It can also be installed on any existing website in IIS or you can opt for creating a new website. Use the default settings in case you don’t need the advanced configuration.
• You will be prompted by WordPress asking for a username and password for the MySQL database in order to complete the installation process.

Step 4 - Completing the installation process

• Once you enter the WordPress setup information, the installation process will be completed by the Web PI.
• Once you click on the ‘Launch’ button present in the browser, WordPress will be launched.

This completes the process of installing WordPress on Windows.

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Passwords are usually case sensitive. If a user doesn’t remember a password, he might face a really bad situation

Follow the process mentioned below in order to reser the Plesk root password using Shell and Command Prompt

The procedure of resetting the Plesk (Linux Server) root password through Shell:

[root@plesklinux root]# cd /usr/local/psa/admin/bin

[root@plesklinux bin]# ./ch_admin_passwd —help

./ch_admin_passwd: Utility for setting the Plesk administrator’s password

This fetches password from the environment variable PSA_PASSWORD

The password must consist of symbols ranging from 5-16 and it is important to avoid using the login name, quotes, national characters or whitespace.

[root@plesklinux bin]# export PSA_PASSWORD=’newpass’

[root@plesklinux bin]# echo $PSA_PASSWORD
newpass

[root@plesklinux bin]# ./ch_admin_passwd

[root@plesklinux bin]# export PSA_PASSWORD=

[root@plesklinux bin]# cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow
newpass

[root@plesklinux bin]#

The procedure of resetting the Plesk (Windows Server) root password through Shell:

The Plesk Windows Root Password can also be reset through the plesksrvclient binary that is located in the %plesk_bin% directory.

For this, go to the Windows command prompt, enter the following command and hit enter:

cd %plesk_bin%

This command will take you to the directory where the Plesk Bin Folder is situated.

In order to get the existing root password, enter the command mentioned below:

plesksrvclient.exe –get

The existing password will be displayed in a pop up window. In order to copy it on the clipboard, click on the ‘OK’ button
In order to create a new password, enter the command given above without ‘-get’

plesksrvclient.exe <NEWPASS>

This command will enable you to add a new desired password for the Plesk Admin account.

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Here are some of tips and tricks that will help you to secure your WordPress blog.

1.) Block WP- folders from being indexed by any search engines.

This method is one of the best ways to prevent hacking. You can do it just by editing your robots.txt file. Add the following line to your list:

Disallow: /wp-*

2.) Directories should not be left open for public browsing

It is not at all safe by letting the people know what plugins you have, or what versions are they of. If there is some known exploit that is linked to a plugin, it can be easy enough for anyone to use it to their advantage. To prevent this just add the following line in your .htaccess file:

Options All –Indexes

3) Avoid using “admin” as a user name for the account.

Every WordPress installation creates a default user “admin” to access account and unfortunately the world is aware of it, including hackers, and they can easily launch attacks on your website to guess password. If a hacker already knows your user name then that is half battle. So it is always recommended to delete or change the admin account user name.

4.) Change the WordPress table prefix

By default WordPress table prefix is wp_ and you can change it prior to installing WordPress by changing the $table_prefix value in your WP-config. PHP file. If ever by chance any of the hacker is able to exploit your website using SQL Injection, this will make it really harder for them to guess your table names and quite possibly keep them from doing SQL Injection at all. If you want to change the table prefix after you have installed WordPress then you can use the WP Security Scan plugin to do so. It is highly recommended to take a good backup before doing this though.

5.) Take regular backups of your website and database

You always need to take regular  backups of your files and directories as well as the database. The WordPress database backup plugin creates backups of your core WordPress tables as well as other tables of your choice in the same database.

6.) Secure WP-config. PHP file

You can keep your database username and password safe by adding the following to the .htaccess file at the top level of your WordPress install as this will make it harder for your database username and password to fall into the wrong hands in the event of a server problem.:

<FilesMatch ^wp-config. php$>deny from all</FilesMatch>

7) Better WP Security plugin

This plugin secures the WordPress blogs to maximum security without much hassle.

There are many such basic things that you need to keep in mind in-order to secure your WordPress. Above given are few of them. Suggestions and solutions are most welcome.

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To understand what is the failover clustering and its general requirements you can go here.

To install failover clustering solution, here are essential steps to remember:

• 2 servers based on Windows Server 2008 need to be installed
• At least two network cards required: a public card (with dedicated IP) to connect each node in the cluster and a private cloud (or HA) that connects nodes to each other via a VLAN dedicated and private addressing mode and distinct (and no configuration gateway and DNS).
• Provide an IP address for MSDTC
• 5 (LUNs) partitions ( database systems, data, logs, backups, and tempDB) + 2 ( quorum , MSDTC) on a SAN.
• Create AD accounts service: One for the SQL engine and one for SQL Agent.
• And finally, the type of quorum that will be using the default Node and Disk Majority.
• .Net Framework 3.5 or above need be installed.

You can also take a look at the checklist of items to meet the needs before installing SQL Server 2008 R2 failover cluster: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189910(v=sql.100)

Implementation of a failover cluster

In our example, we will opt for a quorum , majority disc.

Preliminary Operations

Activation cluster

• Before installing the cluster, it is important to ensure the activation of the feature Failover Clustering. To enable (if not already), go to Server Manager and Features:

Cluster Validation

• On the first node, open the administration console of the cluster:

• Launch the validate a configuration wizard to create validate configuration. Then follow all steps in the wizard in the wizard step by step, by taking care to run all tests (hardware, software, networking storage, compatibility, etc…).

• Validate / check the record of the tests

Note : In case of errors, it is highly recommended to correct them before installing the cluster.

Construction Cluster

As soon as the validation done successfully, the construction of the cluster can be considered healthy. To do this:

• Launch the failover cluster management wizard to create a cluster ( create a cluster … In the previous steps).

• A create cluster wizard pop box will open where you need to add nodes to the cluster future.

Before You Begin

• Specify the details of the name and the IP address of the cluster that you need to create:

• Confirmation of the first configurations and upgrades.

• By default, the quorum type chooses the cluster Node and Disk Majority . However, it is possible to change its configuration (including when Windows chooses to opt for a different disk than the one you want) from the administration console of the cluster.

• This includes the possibility to choose the type of quorum configuration to use.

• Or even to confirm or modify the choice of dedicated disk quorum.

Installing and Configuring MSDTC

MSDTC ( Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator ) is a Windows feature that coordinates distributed transactions across different nodes in a cluster.

To activate and install (on node 1):

• Open the management console cluster.
• Under the cluster name, click the right button on Services and Applications and select  Configure a Service or Application … :

Select Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC):

Enter the name and IP of the MSDTC resource:

Specify a shared cluster available for MSDTC disk:

Confirm the configuration:

To implement functionality and to configure logs, follow the below guideline:

• Edit the following registry key on one of the nodes:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Cluster Resources <ResID> MSDTCPRIVATE MSDTC

Create a new “MaxLogSize” key (DWORD) and give it the value 512 (decimal)

• In the console Component Services, navigate to:

Component Services Computers My Computer Distributed Transaction Coordinator DTC Cluster Name> MSDTC> cluster

• In the properties registration tab, specify a capacity of logs

Implementation of SQL server nodes

Installing SQL Server 2008 R2 on the first node

The installation steps are similar to the installation of SQL Server 2008 R2 in standalone . We will here discuss the key steps :

Preparing to install:

Choice of components:

Specify the virtual network instance name:

By default, the instance name is used as the Instance ID. This is used to identify installation directories and registry keys for our instance of SQL Server, and is very useful when it is desired to run multiple instances within a cluster. For a default instance, the instance name and ID would be MSSQLSERVER.

• Checking constraints Storage

Specify the name of the resource group of SQL Server: SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER) :

• Select the disks used by SQL Server (data, logs and backups)

• Specify the public IP address that is used by the SQL Server address:

• Choice of security policy in the cluster allows to use SIDs Service :

• The following steps are usually the same as for installation in standalone. Cluster Installation Rules, it only remains to validate and complete the installation:

Adding a second node SQL Server 2008 R2

• On node 2 run the installation media on SQL Server 2008 R2, and then select Add Node to a SQL Server failover cluster:

Follow the same steps for installing SQL Server 2008 R2 on the first node (see previous section). This will include:

• Validate the information on the existing cluster:

• Make sure the service account (SQL, SQL Agent, …) is the same as for the first node.

After installation, you will be able to perform a failover from the first node to the second node, and vice versa:

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Cloud computing or cloud services are everywhere. But this new concept is still unclear to the general public.

How do you define cloud computing?

People have been using cloud services for a long time without knowing it. The best examples are Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail. The main aim behind these email services are to provide an access to resources that are somewhere around the Internet and can be accessed free of charge. However, in case of webmail where the user requires a guaranteed level of services with additional security, cloud service providers then charge them a bit like water, gas, or electricity consumption, you pay for what you use.

Can we say that eNlight is a revolution for the IT industry?

It is an economic revolution, but not technological. Because it is based on long established technologies.

What is the value of cloud computing?

It is mostly economic and therefore ideal for entrepreneurs, as there is no capital investment required to purchase heavy hardware resources. The second advantage is auto scalability. For example, online stores, which have the peak load, in festival seasons and much less load the rest of the year. For these kind of businesses cloud hosting service is beneficial as it provides the necessary resources during the peak time and allows to scale down resources when the load is much less.

Where are the eNlight cloud resources located?

They may well be in our giant data centres in US, UK, and Asia. The more data centre allows us to provide greater response time and help us to offer services all over the world.

Apart from enlight cloud, which are other types of cloud server hosting solutions bodHOST offers?

For additional securities to large enterprises we offer private cloud and enterprise cloud solutions, which are not shared. The goal is to provide the same benefits with additional secure control over the large company’s private cloud environment.

Can it be possible to padlock the data in a private space, means a digital safe place?

Such type of service exists and it makes sure that nobody can access the data, including the cloud service provider. In this type of service, data usually in the encrypted format and only the user has the keys to access. When we want to store our private data, it works effectively, but to offer a similar kind of service to customers is a little bit complicated because to provide unique copies of key in large scale and it is a challenging task (not impossible) but today, we are not able to offer this service to general users.

Can you imagine, in the future, we no longer need to buy more powerful computers and hard drives to work and store data?

Not really. Although, many research and developments are performed in the cloud, but I think we will always need the above powerful resources. In addition, the contextual  data in the future  will require that the computer who knows in what situation the user is located. We will need to interact with smarter systems and therefore we can say that cloud computing will increase the capacity of the workstation.

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