Once again, if you’re going to upgrade your Reaper Mangos installation, make sure you’re using 1 version below the current release or you’ll lose all of your character data (unless you’ve created a backup before) and other customization made by yourself. So without further ado here goes the guide

Requirements :

1. MySQL Community Edition (Free) … as for the installation guide, you can read my previous post on how to install MySQL on Windows

Important: Grab the version 5.0 setup.exe version instead of 5.1 or 6.0 because the 5.1 series is still in Release Candidate stage while the 6.0 version is still at early alpha stage and not recommended for production use

2. World of Warcraft Client (supported version changed on each release)

3. Reaper Mangos itself

p.s the image itself might be outdated but the process is still the same :)

Fresh Installation :

Once again, please Note : Fresh installation will overwrite your database which means everything will be from fresh

1. First you’ll need to install MySQL

2. And the next step would be extracting Maps, DBC and VMaps from your World of Warcraft installation … (Maps and DBC are required in order for mangos to run, while VMaps are optional)

3. Run the reaper-x-mangos.exe inside the reaper-eazy-mangos folder, and you’ll get something like below image for an example, and then you just need to write the full path to your mysql installation directory (where mysql.exe and mysqldump.exe can be found) ;)

If you’re didn’t write the correct path, you can be sure that you’ll get an error message at the next step

4. Now you just need to choose option number 1 to install the database as shown below, and when prompted for your mysql root password, don’t forget to write the correct password … :)

And one more thing, when you see something like in The Matrix movie (well … that’s how people called it) :) , you just need to wait until it finished and don’t interrupt the process

5. After finished with the database installation, now you need to choose option number 4 (required, unless you know how to edit the mangosd.conf manually) to adjust the datadir and adjust the exp rate, and drop rate (although the most important thing is your datadir path

6. After finished with all of the above process, all you have to do now is just open the realmlist.wtf file in your World of Warcraft installation directory (the default location can be found at C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft) using Notepad, Wordpad, or your favorite text editor and then …

Replace :

set realmlist us.logon.worldofwarcraft.com
set patchlist us.version.worldofwarcraft.com

With :

set realmlist 127.0.0.1

and then save it and close realmlist.wtf file

7. Now you just need to run mangosd.exe and realmd.exe from your mangos directory and then the next step would be creating your own username with your desired password for your own WoW server account as shown on below image followed by typing setgm to give yourself a GM level account

Btw if you can’t see what you should type inside the mangosd window from the above image, actually you just need to type :

create username password

to create the account, and then to allow your account to access The Burning Crusade Expansion pack (like BloodElf) you need to type :

setbc username 1

and finally :

setgm username (1–3)
for example setgm myusername 3

to give yourself GM Access at certain level (3 is the highest level and should only be used on your account while normal player is 0)

Optional :
If you want to change the server name into something else, you can use the reaper-x-mangos.exe to adjust it :)

Upgrading Reaper Mangos :

Make sure to backup your Characters data before upgrading

Upgrading Reaper Mangos can be done by simply running the reaper-x-upgrade.bat in Upgrade folder in reaper-eazy-mangos directory

But please note, that if you’re still using 2 version below the current release, the upgrade process is not going to be completed successfully (i’ve been trying to make sure that the upgrade process can be used by any version but it’s seems that there’s no easy way to accomplish this, but if you got a suggestion on how to process this, just let me know about it)

Note : You don’t need to worry about your custom stuff being overwritten by the upgrade process, because unlike before this time it’s only upgrade the necessary stuff only and not going to overwrite your custom stuff (but i assume that you’re using high id numbers for your custom stuff)

Finally i’d suggest you to check out the GM Commands List because there are some changes made at the GM Commands especially at the lookup command (and of course i’ll always update the GM Commands List whenever there are new command available for you to use, or there are previous command that is being replaced with new commands)

Related Links :

Complete Mangos GM Commands
Creating Public WOW Server
Creating 2 different World using Mangos
Apache Web server Installation Guide

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 241 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Reaper Mangos, Reaper Mangos Mod

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This guide’s purpose is solely for those who went through the latest tutorial for the latest ReaperMangos (normal) build and found problems with the installation.

Some steps explained in this f.a.q seem to be unnecessary to advanced users but are only there to make sure that nothing can go wrong, so the end result is always the same for every reader.

Reaper-X also has provided a modification (mod) version of ReaperMangos which includes handy tools/extra’s to the emulator that are not fully tested and supported by the community, using this in terms of installing will not guarantee a working emulator and may give bugs not found in the original, also I will not provide support for the mod version in this f.a.q, since it is for advanced users only.

Q: What is ReaperMangos?
A: ReaperMangos is a compiled build created by Reaper-X and Jared (Oatman) consisting of always the latest version of mangos and scriptdevelopment2 with a database to your liking. At the moment they are: The Unified Database (UDB) and The Project Silvermoon database.

Q: What are the differences between UDB and Silvermoon?
A: UDB is a clean database that tries to come closer to the real WoW game while Silvermoon is a bit more adventure like and adds custom in game related items like vendors who sell powerful weapons.

Q: How do I install ReaperMangos?
A: I suggest using Reaper-X latest guide on ( http://www.reaper-x.com/ ) since it will always have the most up to date information on how to install. Always check in the “Recently Posted” section on the right area of the site for the latest posts, guides and FAQs.

Q: Does mangos change my WoW installation?
A: No, Mangos is standalone, the only alteration made is the realmlist.wtf in the root of WoW.

Q: What does the realmlist.wtf do?
A: It tells WoW what address the server is at, naturally you need to change it, since it’s going to be connected to your server.

Info and tips related to the realmlist.wtf:
Before you make any changes to the list make sure you make an archived copy of it, so you can change back to the original for whatever reason. Download winrar here: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

Q: How do I install WoW for this?
A: Just install it like you always do, but keep in mind to first install The Burning Crusade expansion (If you have it, off course) and then patch it up to the version necessary, and then extract the DBC/maps/vmaps. Before you go into the extraction process make sure (double check) that you have the right (patch) version of WoW that is compatible with ReaperMangos and that it is properly installed.

Info and tips related to taking precautions before extracting:
Go into the WoW main menu, and you can see the version number on the bottom left, furthermore try to log in ( with any name and password you can think of ) and if you have a corrupt or badly installed WoW, it will begin to check and re-patch.

Q: I don’t have The Burning Crusade expansion pack, is this going to be a problem?
A: Not in itself, keep in mind though; that before you start mangos you need to change the mangosd.conf file (with your notepad). You will see the line: Expansion = 1, you must turn 1 into 0 and save.

Info and tips related to saving in notepad:
Sometimes when you try to save your mangosd.conf (or realmlist.wtf), windows won’t allow you, to get around that; just change the file in to your documents folder and then move it back into the original folder.

Q: I have a European version of WoW?
A: Pay attention before extracting the DBC files, open up extract.bat with notepad and change the files like in this example: locale-enUS.MPQ into locale-enGB.MPQ

Q: I have Vista, is this going to be a problem?
A: That depends on how much total physical memory you have, when you have less than 1024 mb then mangos is going to have trouble keeping up and feeding the database info so you will experience things like NPC’s in the game disappearing and probably a crash after that. This problem will occur especially with project Silvermoon since it has more so called memory leaks.

Q: I have more than 1024 MB of memory (in Vista) but it still crashes?
A: Do try to keep in mind the incredible complexity and the monikers work that goes into making this all work, there are loads of bugs that are still present; and the only thing you can do (as an beginner) at the moment is wait for a newer version.

Info and tips related to vista, server and in game bugs:
Try using different databases, at the moment of writing this f.a.q there are two; (UDB) (Project Silvermoon).

Q: mangos crashed when I started it, and it worked an hour ago?
A: Try restarting your pc, maybe your router\modem\internet connection got disconnected which can mean that MySQL isn’t working anymore, you can check that by going to your command prompt and type: MySQL -u root -p When it asks you for a password you know it still works, but do a restart anyway.

Info and tips related to command prompt (how to in XP and Vista):
Click Start » Accessories » Command Prompt, or go to start/run and type: cmd.

Q: Mangosd.exe is giving an error message stating that it is missing some files or maps?
A: If you don’t have The Burning Crusade; then change the mangosd.conf file (with your notepad). You will see the line: Expansion = 1, you must turn 1 into 0 and save. If the error still occurs than double check the map path you’ve given when you had to specify which directory the maps are in.

Info and tips related to data maps:
You can put the three maps (DBC MAPS VMAPS) in every directory you like but keep in mind that the longer the directory structure is, the more mistakes you can make, so it is wise to make the structure small, for example: c:\maps

Q: Could you please upload the vmaps for me?
A: It is not possible for Reaper-X to upload the vmaps, because it’s really huge, about 1.76 GB. Also from a downloading perspective this is a little too much for comfort.

Q: Rapid share or Megaupload sucks, could you put ReaperMangos on a different site?
A: They don’t suck, your cookie handling, system configuration sucks. Yes it’s true that once you downloaded a file; you will have to wait, but hey it’s for free.

Info and tips related to cookies, to get a working Rapidshare:
There are a lot of ways to get to your cookies settings, I, m sure you can get there trough the tools\options menu in your web browser, the bottom line is that you must enable all the cookies for the site; otherwise downloading might fail to work. Also cleaning up your system might work. Also read for information on Google what is essential (to install) for having a working Rapidshare.

Q: “Reading” but I’m lazy?
A: I know.

Q: I can’t extract the vmaps, because DBC extractor crashes or does not function correctly?
A: On older systems then XP with service pack two; you might need .NET Runtime 2.

Info and tips related to .NET Runtime 2.
You can find information on what .NET Runtime 2. And how to download it at the following
link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

Q: I installed .NET Runtime 2 and still can’t extract the vmaps?
A: If DBC extractor still isn’t extracting the vmaps; the only option that remains is to disable the vmaps function for Mangos by changing the following:

Open the mangosd.conf with your notepad and change the lines:
vmap.enableLOS = 1
vmap.enableHeight = 1

Into:

vmap.enableLOS = 0
vmap.enableHeight = 0

Q: When I try to install the database; Mangos opens up in a new window and stands idle?
A: You must have administrator rights and/or user account control in XP/Vista.

Info and tips related to administrator rights and/or user account control:

Vista: Go to start/search and type: Accounts then go to user accounts and Turn User Account Control off. Leave the user accounts window open and check on the right if the word administrator is in your account box. If it isn’t then log in to your Administrator account which is the one you created during the initial startup of Vista you must have one because Vista won’t allow you to have only user rights accounts.

XP: This information will be provided next update. (But it is in a way similar to Vista)

Q: Every installation step was successful; I want to play, but how?
A: Click mangosd.exe and let it finish, then click realmd.exe and let it finish; leave them open.
In the mangosd.exe window type the following: create monkey bush
now start up WoW and login to your account with Name: monkey, Password: bush

Info and tips related to GM (Game/Server Master) rights:
This is for advanced users, but some info on this seems necessary, only use the GM option when you want to create a dedicated server, if GM is on as a player then certain and or more instances/creatures won’t work properly. (Confirmed on UDB forum)

Q: I tried a database and I want to try a different one, do I need to re-install MySQL?
A: You don’t have to re-install MySQL, just make sure to backup your character data if you want to keep your characters, and you can just replace the new database trough the reaper-x-mangos.bat, it will replace the data in MySQL with the new data.

Info related to losing character data:
Regretful as it is, sometimes people make mistakes, and therefore it is not guaranteed that your character data is always 100 percent save when you’re installing a new version of ReaperMangos. Remember that all of this (the emulator and the Reaper-X build) is an experiment and still in the so-called alpha stage.

Q: What is your mangos/world database name?
A: That depends on what value you provide during the installation (if you’re using Reaper Mangos), but for reference the default value for mangos database is named mangos while the realmd database is realmd

Q: What are some gm commands in wow?
A: If you’re running Reaper Mangos, you can always get an updated list for each release from this page

Q: How to host wow server?
A: Well actually you have two choices for this, the first one is you can always rent a dedicated server to run your wow server process while the other one is from your own computer. The downside of running from your own computer of course, your internet speed won’t be capable of holding too many users at once unless because your internet connection speed won’t be as fast as connection speed that is used by Datacenter, but since that is the cheapest way to do it most people prefer to run the server from their home instead

Q: How to make wow server public?
A: In order to create a public server you need to setup port forwarding first, and then you need to setup an apache web server with php to be able to server http request for the registration page

Q: What port does mangos use?
A: Mangos by default use port 3724 for the realmd server (login server) and 8085 for the world server (inside game). Also as a side note, if you change the default realmd port into another value, then you’ll need to tell your client to use that port (by default wow client connect to port 3724 for the realmd selection)

Q: What kind of servers are WoW run on?
A: The answer is depend, some people run it on their own computer or you can called it as home server, while others choose to rent a dedicated server (that is not going to be cheap) from various dedicated server provider

Q: How to add a game master to wow private server?
A: You can add game master by simply issuing setgm username (1/2/3) while 1 is the lowest level and 3 is the administrator from inside the mangosd window (prompt)

Q: How to be a GM on WoW?
A: If you’re asking to be a real game master on Blizzard Official server, then i’d suggest you to look at their jobs offering page (if there’s any). But if you want to be a gm on your own server then you can simply use the above command (if you use mangos). If you want to be a gm on your friend server, just ask them directly :P

Q: How to compile Mangos and Scriptdev2?
A: You can read my post on a detailed guide to compile mangos and scriptdev2

Q: I found a bug or a certain quest doesn’t work?
A: Check the following info and tips.

Info and tips related to bug reporting and working features implemented in the mangos emulator:
When you have a bug regarding the installation of Reaper mangos you can do that on http://www.reaper-x.com , for in game bugs there are different forums, but keep in mind that in order to do that, you must have knowledge about how everything works and to follow the rules of conduct assembled by the community.

These are the main forums where to go to for further information regarding fixes or bug reporting:

www.scriptdev2.com
www.mangosproject.org
www.udbforums.org
http://projectsilvermoon.net/

Q: I don’t know what “rules of conduct assembled” means?
A: Than I suggest staying away from the forums!

Q: I have an error message with ReaperMangos that’s not in this f.a.q?
A: I will try to update this f.a.q on a regular basis, also (if you didn’t do it already) try to read this complete f.a.q from top to bottom and try anything that might relate to your problem.

Q: There is a new (patch) version of WoW, when will mangos support it?
A: That is difficult to say, that depends on the update and if the mangos and scriptdev2 team decide if this patch is something that must be dealt with immediately, Waiting is the only thing to do here.
A: I, m not happy with the service provided for the emulator and/or this build!
A: Remember, It is a privilege to download and use ReaperMangos not a right!

SiegeLink signing out,

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 58 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Emulators, Guide

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And if you’re just like me and want to get a good free flv converter for Windows, i’d suggest you to use FFMPEG. It’s fast, free … although it doesn’t have a nice graphical interface included by default but i think if you just want the fast and the easiest way to convert flv files, this program might come in handy ;)

Okay but how to do it ?

1. First you’ll need to get the FFMPEG Binary for Windows of course, and this can be done by visiting this page

2. Now when you’ve downloaded it into your harddrive, of course the next step would be extracting it somewhere, but if you just want the easiest way, i’d suggest you to extract the FFMPEG.exe into your Windows directory (for example C:\Windows) so you can type it anywhere you want, or you can also add the FFMPEG location into your System Environment Variable path if you know how to do it

3. The third step would be … getting the FLV files from Youtube using the hard way, or you can use various online Youtube Downloader if you prefer to do it that way

4. Now when the FLV file already downloaded to your harddrive, all you have to do is just open the command prompt (Start Menu -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt) or by simply typing CMD in the Run command

5. Now for the last step, you just need to type this :

ffmpeg -i flv-source.flv flv-output.mp4 (i usually choose to convert it into MP4 directly but you can always change it into whatever you want, like wmv, avi, mpg, for example because ffmpeg will adjust it automatically)

Note : on the above example i choose to use 350kb bitrate for the output video file

6. And done … now you can watch the converted video file freely

As a side note, you can always adjust what options are used when converting the video files, and if you need to look at all the FFMPEG commands, you just need to type ffmpeg

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 7 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Codecs, Guide

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1. Create / Write a useful content first

This step is the most important thing you should do first, because in order to get your site listed on various major search engines, you’ll need to create a useful content or two. Of course the best thing you could do is create a unique post that your site visitors think it could be useful for them

2. Avoid placing advertisement on your website

Most people think that they can make money directly right after they just created their first web site / blog ever which is wrong. Because when you just launched a new website, you’ll need to create a good impression to your site visitors, and ads are well known to drive visitors away from your new website (especially to those who dislike ads)

3. Ask for honest opinion about your web site from your friends

After finished with the above two steps, now you’ll need to ask some of your friends to visit your new web site and ask them for their honest opinion about your web site, and you’ll need to listen to their opinion carefully because they are going to be the first one who’s going to visit your web site and perhaps can also helps you to promote your web site

4. Make other site link to your web site

Back then getting other web site to link to your website can be considered as hard task, but now you don’t need to worry about that anymore and that’s all thanks to various social bookmarking web site that can be found easily on the web, such as Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, Reddit and Digg

Those social bookmarking website of course can bring an incredible amount of new visitors to your site especially if you can get your site listed on their frontpage (the worst case is your server might get overloaded because of the huge incoming visitors). But even though your site didn’t make it to the frontpage of those social bookmarking website, you’ll still get a backlink to your site, and that’s really help your site to get listed by major search engines

That’s it … and of course if you know some other good tips to those who are just creating new website, feel free to write it in the comment area below :)

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 13 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Website

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To make installation of WoW Mangos even easier, based on various suggestion / comment made by the commenters on this site, i’ve decided to create a new complete guide using lots of images instead describing each step carefully especially at the extraction process of Maps, Vmaps, and DBC which caused problem on some people because they keep getting various error message related to missing vmap, vmdir, map, etc

As a side note, this process is based on my release (i already include all the tools required) so if you’re using someone else mangos release, you can always adjust the path accordingly (i mean the tools itself of course) or find the tools by yourself :)

Okay and here are the steps …

Requirements :

• DBC Extractor known as MPQE
• Ad.exe to extract Maps
• VMaps Extractor and Assembler to create vmaps

Fresh Installation and Upgrading :

Note : the default WoW Installation Directory is C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft

Note 2 : the default data directory of your WoW Installation can be found at C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Data\enUS

Note 3 : Make sure to delete the buildings, vmaps, and maps directory (if there’s any, left from the previous extraction process) before running the .bat files to extract maps, vmaps, and dbc files

Note 4 : All the Tools needed to extract DBC, VMaps and Maps can be found in Tools directory of my release

1. Extracting Maps :

Copy below files into your WoW installation Directory :

and then run extract-map.bat from your WoW installation directory … and wait … until it finished (it’ll automatically close itself when finished). And here’s what it should look like after you run the extract-map.bat

2. Extracting VMaps :

Copy below files into your WoW installation directory :

then run makevmaps_SIMPLE.bat from your WoW installation directory and wait until finished

When you see something like above image, just wait until PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE MESSAGE appear on your screen. If you close that window before it finished the process, you’ll need to redo the vmaps extraction process from start … estimated time : 40 Minutes – 2 Hours or more depending on your computer speed

And here’s what is should look like when the VMaps extraction process finished :

3. Extracting DBC :

Copy below files into your data/enUS directory of your WoW installation

And then run the extract.bat from your WoW data directory and wait until it finished, and here’s what it should look like when the dbc extraction is finished

4. Moving the VMaps, Maps, and DBC directory

Now since you have finished with the above process, all you have to do is just moving the VMaps and Maps directory like shown on below images into somewhere for example C:\WoW\data

and then now you need to go inside your data/enUS directory and then move the DBC Directory there into C:\WoW\data too. As shown below

To make things clear, here’s what it should look like when you’ve moved the above three directory into your C:\WoW\data

That’s it … you’re done … as a reminder, you should keep that C:\WoW\data folder to make upgrading mangos process easier and to save time of course (unless there’re some big changes at your WoW installation like new patch) ;)

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 496 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Emulators, Guide

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While personally i do not have any problems when upgrading Wordpress, but i thought it’d be best to share these tips especially to those who want the easiest way to upgrade their wordpress installation even when you’re going to upgrade to another major version (such as from 2.0 to 2.1, 2.2 to 2.3, etc)

And here are the tips :

1. Know how to backup and restore your wordpress database by yourself and don’t depend to someone else to do it for you. Because if you know how backup and restoring your wordpress database you can always revert to your previous installation just in case the upgrade process failed. You can read Lorelle’s post about this process

2. The less plugins you’ve installed, the more easier for you to upgrade. While this is not really a big deal to those who know what they’re doing (read: tech savvy users), but for most people it’d be best for you to install plugin that you think best for you and you feel necessary to install that plugin. A good example of this is, i think most people know that back then Wordpress (before 2.3) doesn’t have the Tag features built-in into the Wordpress core, and in order to get that features most people use a plugin in order to satisfy their need to use tags on their blog … and the next thing that could happen to your blog is just like what Everton from Connected Internet just experienced on his test blog (but i’m sure that he can handle that problem later)

The most worrying aspect of my test WordPress 2.3 upgrade, was that my categories disappeared from my sidebar. Has anybody else had any upgrade problems? I think I’m definitely going to stay on 2.2 for a while, at least until the tagging functionality improves.

3. Use only simple themes, that doesn’t need to be upgraded even when you’re going to upgrade your wordpress installation. A good example of this is the Wordpress K2 Theme (i don’t mean any offense though). While K2 is a good theme, but i often read that many people keep having problem with it, from performance problems, or they just simply having issue when they just upgrade their Wordpress installation to another major upgrade

4. Always keep KISS Principle in mind ;)

Basically if you keep things simple, you don’t need to worry about anything when upgrading your Wordpress, so point #4 is the most important thing of all

Note : The above point is of course can be considered as not a big deal especially to the tech savvy users

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 3 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Wordpress

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And that’s because i do not want my visitors to see lots of beautiful MySQL error message when viewing every page of this site (i’m quite sure you feel the same way too) because of the recent database schema changes in Wordpress 2.3, but … how to do that ? if you ask me …

The answer is simple, as long as you have access to edit your .htaccess file (some web hosting company doesn’t allow you to edit the .htaccess file, and that’s why i said so) :)

And here are the complete instruction :

1. Create a new html page saying that this site under maintenance or anything you like :) , and save it as maintenance.html (this is just an example, feel free to use another filename)

2. Edit your .htaccess file in your root public_html directory

and add these lines :

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^123\.456\.789\.0
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/maintenance.html$ [NC]
RewriteRule .* /maintenance.html [R,L]

Note : Replace 123\.456\.789\.0 with your own ip address

And here are the description about what the above line does :

1. The first RewriteCond is used so that you can still access your site, by detecting your ip address
2. The second RewriteCond is used so that every request to maintenance.html file will not be redirected, this is used to prevent infinite redirect loop
3. The third RewriteCond is used so that others that is trying to access your site in any page will be redirected automatically to your maintenance.html page using temporary redirect so that search engine robot will check again later

3. Now you just need to upload the above file into your public_html directory and continue the upgrade process

But what if you’ve finished upgrading your wordpress, and you want your visitors will able to view your site again ?

Simple … you just need to remove the above .htaccess rules, and to make sure that your site visitors will be automatically redirected to your main page, you can add below line to your .htaccess file

Redirect 301 /maintenance.html http://www.yourdomain.com

And you’re done :)

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0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Software, Wordpress

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To start off there are few links to where you can grab WGet for Windows (feel free to choose)

1. Christopher Lewis Wget Page
2. GNUWin32 Wget Package
3. Bpuype Wget File

Although if it’s for me, i just grab the Christopher’s Visual Studio Project file combined with Wget from it’s SVN repository because i prefer to compile it by myself (to make few adjustment to the user agent so it’ll use Mozilla Firefox User agent by default and also other Mozilla Firefox Header), but let’s keep this aside shall we ? :P

Okay now, i assume you’ve downloaded your WGet files, and already extracted it somewhere in your harddrive. The next step would be, adding your WGet path into Windows Environment Variables Path, so you can access it easily from anywhere

Step to do it :

1. Open Windows System Properties page (Press Windows Key + Pause / Break) or Right click on my computer and choose properties
2. Choose the Advanced Tab and then click on Environment Variables
3. Add new Path Variable to your username or edit the Path variable for your system
4. Add this line like below image (adjust your wget path accordingly)

And you’re done … now you can type Wget anywhere from the command prompt :)

But wait … if you’re using Mozilla Firefox, you can also use Wget to download something from the web, and in order to do this you just need to install FlashGot Extension for Firefox, and then add this line to the Flashgot command line arguments :

Quoted from Flashgot page :

-c [--directory-prefix=FOLDER] [--referer=REFERER] [--post-data=POST] [--load-cookies=CFILE] [--header=Cookie:COOKIE] [--input-file=UFILE]

And you’re finished :)

Well basically the above should be working fine with Firefox 2, but because Firefox 3 recently released to the public, i’m having problem with the Command Prompt window not showing although the wget process is running in the background (it’s listed on the task manager but the window can’t be seen)

And so if you’re running Firefox 3, you can try using these configurations instead of the above:

Executable Path:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe

Command Line arguments template:
/C start wget -c [--directory-prefix=FOLDER] [--referer=REFERER] [--post-data=POST] [--load-cookies=CFILE] [--header=Cookie:COOKIE] [--input-file=UFILE]

And voila … you can see the downloading process again just like on Firefox 2 ;)

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | One comment

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, How To, Internet Tools, Open Source, Software, Tutorials, Windows

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But as a side note, this redirect trick (or any other redirect trick using php, etc) may or may not working especially if your site mostly visited by tech savvy users even if the affiliate website itself didn’t show your referal link, because they can always see it through the HTTP header

Redirecting from the root of your domain name

Step to do it :

Open or create new .htaccess file on the root of your www / public_html directory and add this line :

Redirect /myaffiliate http://www.myaffiliatewebsite.com

the above line mean, if you type http://www.yourdomainname.com/myaffiliate it’ll be redirected automatically to www.myaffiliatewebsite.com using 302 Found HTTP Header

But what if you want a 301 Moved Permanently HTTP Header instead of 302 HTTP Header (almost every redirect trick i’ve seen so far is using 302) ? … if that’s what you want … then you can use this

Redirect 301 /myaffiliate http://www.myaffiliatewebsite.com

Redirecting from subdirectory

Step to do it

1. Create new directory (for example : redir)
2. Create new .htaccess inside and add these into your newly created htaccess file

Redirect /redir/affiliate http://www.affiliatewebsite.com

The above line mean, if you type http://www.yourdomainname.com/redir/affiliate it’ll be redirected automatically to your affiliate link

Redirect to multiple product in the same affiliate website with a single line (useful on site like Amazon)

Let’s say you’ve become an Amazon Affiliate, and you want to link to that product page without adding new line into your htaccess file … then you can add this line into your .htaccess file

RewriteRule ^show/(.*)$ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/$1/YourAmazonID [L]

What the above line do is, whenever you type http://www.yourdomainname.com/show/ANY-AMAZON-PRODUCTID it’ll be redirected automatically to http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ANY-AMAZON-PRODUCTID/YOUR-AFFILIATE-ID

Another example on how to make your Amazon Link look pretty is you can also use this :


RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} id=([^&]*)$
RewriteRule ^products\.asp$ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/%1/YOURAMAZONID? [L]


Basically what the above code do is, everytime you type mydomain.com/products.asp?id=AMAZON-PRODUCT-ID even without the existence of products.asp file on your webserver, it’ll be redirected automatically to the Amazon link using your Referal ID :)

As a note, Mod Rewrite must be enabled on your server to do the last redirection trick

That’s it … i hope this small tips can be useful for you :)

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 18 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Webmaster Tools

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But first as a reminder, this is not a perfect way to secure your wordpress installation (because of various reasons / factors), but at least it’s going to harden your wordpress installation

And as a note, this is tested only on Apache Web server, and you’re allowed to override the configurations using .htaccess file and lastly … you need to have mod rewrite installed and activated (don’t worry if you can use Custom Permalinks that mean you’ve mod rewrite enabled on your hosting / server)

Okay without further ado … here are the tips :

1. Disable Directory Indexing

By disabling directory indexing, you can prevent people seeing through your directory structure

Step to Disable it :

Create or edit .htaccess file on your public_html directory and add this into your htaccess :

Options -Indexes

2. Removing Wordpress version number

Some people think that hiding your wordpress version number is not necessary, so feel free if you want to implement it or not

Step to Remove it :

Remove this line from the header.php file of your currently used theme :

<meta name="generator" content="WordPress <?php bloginfo('version'); ?>" />

also if you’re feeling a little bit adventurous, you can also remove the generator line from wp-includes/feed-*.php. Because by default wordpress is going to show your wordpress version number from your blog feed

3. Protecting WP-Admin Directory

In this example i’m going to tell you how to protect your wp-admin directory by checking your IP Address (it can be used even on dynamic ip address)

Step to Protect it :

3.1 If you’re using Static IP Address

Create new .htaccess file inside your wp-admin directory and add these lines into the newly created .htaccess file


<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^123\.456\.789\.0
RewriteRule .* http://www.domain.com/ [R,L]
</IfModule>


3.2 If you’re using Dynamic IP Address

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^123\.456\.
RewriteRule .* http://www.domain.com/ [R,L]
</IfModule>

What the above configuration does, is checking your IP Address first to see if you’re allowed to any file inside the wp-admin directory or not and if you’re not allowed to view it, you’ll be redirected automatically to specified address (you can use any address) by using 302 Found Header (Temporarily Moved)

As a side note, if you want the easiest way to password protect your wp-admin directory you can use this plugin by askapache or if you prefer to do it using the manual way … you can check blogsecurity website

4. Protecting wp-login.php and wp-register.php or any file you choose

Now you’ve protected your admin directory … but there’s one more step to do, especially if you’re the only person on your blog and also disabling user registration.

So this time we’re going to protect wp-login.php and wp-register.php, and here are the step to protect it :

Step to do it :

– Open the .htaccess file on the root of your public_html directory and choose which method that you like

4.1 Deny Access to wp-login.php by showing forbidden message


<Files wp-login.php>
Order deny,allow
Deny from All
Allow from 123.456.789.0
</Files>


4.2 Deny Access to wp-login.php by redirecting it to the specified address :


<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} wp-login.php
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !^123\.456\.789\.0
RewriteRule .* http://www.domain.com/ [R,L]
</IfModule>


As a note, you can also use Dynamic IP Address just like on Protecting WP-Admin Directory Method

That’s it … you’re done … hope this small wordpress tips can be useful for you

Copyright © Reaper-X Technology – www.reaper-x.com | Permalink | 15 comments

0x87485B96 | Tags : Guide, Linux, Wordpress

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