Basic Protection

Admin Passwords

Strong passwords are essential to prevent unauthorized access to accounts. One of the most common attack vectors for WordPress is a “Brute force” attack, where logins are attempted on your site using common usernames (e.g. Admin) and passwords (e.g. Password). Your administrator account passwords should be sufficiently long, and generally use a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters. Rotating the password frequently isn’t usually necessary. The Administrator password shouldn’t be reused on other accounts.

A strong password is one of the most important defenses against “Brute force” attacks.

Restricting Account Permissions

Ensure that users only have the permissions that they require, this restricts the damage that can occur if an account is compromised. It’s also good practice as it prevents users from accidentally changing settings mistakenly modifying your site.

Account Cleanup

Ensure that accounts from users who don’t need access to your site are deleted (e.g. employees who are no longer with your organization). This reduces the number of accounts that may be compromised, and also prevents a former user from performing some malicious action.

Regular Updates

Regularly updating your website is important to prevent vulnerabilities in WordPress and in plugins from being exploited by hackers.

If you use CPanel, there are options to enable automatic updates to WordPress and Plugins. WordPress also offers automatic updates to new versions on the updates page.

Advanced Protection

Limiting Login Attempts

Limiting login attempts is an excellent additional layer of protection against “Brute Force” attacks.

There are multiple plugins that are able to limit login attempts to your site, and block IP addresses for some period of time following multiple failed logins. One such example is Limit Login Attempts Reloaded.

The free version of the plugin will be adequate for many small websites, and offers settings for number of failed logins before a lockout occurs. You may also specify the length of the first lockout and subsequent lockouts.

Login Captcha

By default WordPress doesn’t offer a login Captcha. A Captcha is a very useful tool to deter bot activity, though may not prevent it all together. It provides another layer in the protection of your website.

A very simple Captcha plugin is Simple Login Captcha, though there are many more advanced plugins that offer more protection. Simple Login Captcha is free and very simple and easy to setup.

Once installed, a Security Code will be required to login to your website

Country Blocking

Another layer of security is blocking IPs from certain countries, a large percentage of bot activity generally originates from a few countries. This solution is not best for all websites however, and generally requires more management. But it may provide extra protection if your site is receiving many failed login attempts (100+/day).

A caveat of country blocking is that it may not always work well with caching plugins, and depending on the plugin and your settings legitimate users may be blocked from accessing your site. However, some plugins allow specifying front-end and back-end blocking separately.

IP2Location, is one such country blocking plugin. It requires a free account to download the GeoIP database. You may consider limiting only the back-end of your site to your country and neighboring countries to reduce your sites attack surface. IP2Location provides statistics (if enabled) so the effectiveness of the plugin can be audited.

Logging In

Start by logging into your website. Generally the login page can be found at “yoursite.com/login” or “yoursite.com/wp-login”. The login page will look like the above.

Navigating to Posts Area

Once you are logged into WordPress you will see the dashboard, similar to shown above. Now click “Posts” from the menu on the left side of the screen.

The posts menu will expand, and a listing of all posts will appear. From here you are able to edit, modify, quick edit, delete, and create new post. Next click “Add New” to create a new post.

Working In Posts Editor

The post editor will now open, start by adding the title of your blog post in the “Add title” section.

On the top right hand side of the posts editor the gear icon, opens the settings menu. Settings are provided both for the page, and for the currently selected block.

To open the blocks drawer click on the blue “+” icon at the top left corner of the screen.

Adding Blocks To a Post

The blocks drawer provides a listing of all options available to be added to the post. Blocks allow adding images, paragraphs, headers and more.

The first block we’ll add is the “Image” block, click and drag it from the blocks drawer to the post area.

Now that the image block is added to the post, it will prompt to select which image to use for it. If there is already images on the library, you may select “Media Library” to view and select the existing image. Otherwise, to upload a new image click “Upload”, and a file dialog will appear allowing you to select the desired picture.

We now see that our image has been added to the post.

There is a caption area under the image that may be used if desired. Click just below the image to have it appear. Enter the caption where it prompts to “Add caption”.

Now, click outside the image block area. Note that the black plus button has appeared. This provides an alternative interface to add new blocks to the post. Click the icon to bring up the recent blocks dialog.

In the recent blocks dialog, we can see some common/recent blocks. This will change as you add other blocks to your post. The next block we will add using this dialog is a “Paragraph”. Click “Paragraph” from within the dialog.

A new block is added to your post. To add to the paragraph block type or paste your text where it says “Type / to chose a block”. To follow this example use any text of your choosing.

Your text will be shown similar to the above. For this example we’re using some Lorem ipsum text. Click the black plus icon again to bring up the recent blocks dialog.

Now we will add a “List” block to the page. If this is not shown, simply search for it.

A bullet point list will be added to the post. Type an item, followed by hitting the enter key to create a new list item. When completed click outside of the list block.

Observe that the list block will be populated similar to the above. Next click the black plus button to add another block.

Now we will add a “Heading” to the post. Headings should be used for title sections as they provide more functionality. It is possible to jump to headings, and screen readers and reading modes will interpret headings differently to provide the best experience to your readers. Click on “Heading” to add a heading to your post.

Type your section heading in the “Heading” prompt.

This was a simple review of a few blocks that may be added for most simple post types. There are many more blocks that can be used for formatting your posts. Explore the blocks drawer and test out some other blocks on your post to see how they appear. It’s possible to preview the page without publishing, this will be shown in the “Previewing a Post” section.

Working With Blocks

As paragraphs, headings and other fields are all rich text fields they may be modified to bold, italicize, and otherwise modify text within them. For the first example we’ll bold a word in the paragraph previously created. On the edit pane above the block click the “B” to bold the selected text.

Observe that the selected text is now bold.

Now we will add a link. Select a word, and from the edit pane click the “link” icon.

A dialog will appear to enter the URL for the link.

Press enter to add the link, and toggle the “Open in new tab” as desired.

Observe that the word is now underlined as a link.

Clicking on the link will show a popup that allows editing the link, changing settings of the link, and removing the link.

Previewing a Post

Now that we’ve made edits to the post we will preview it to see how it will actually appear on our website. Posts are subject to the formatting of the WordPress theme applied to your site, so it’s always a good idea to preview before publishing to confirm that everything is displayed as desired.

From the top right of the screen click “Save Draft”.

Now that the draft is saved click, form the top right corner of the screen click “Preview”.

A menu appears and gives us options for how we’d like to preview our site. Leave “Desktop” checked and then click “Preview in new tab”.

A new tab will then be opened in your web browser.

Review your post and confirm that all the details in it are as desired. When you are complete close the preview tab and return to the previous tab.

Publishing a Post

Before a post is visible on your site it must be published. Prior to publishing we will review some settings.

To review the post settings start by clicking the “Gear” icon on the top right of the screen.

Ensure that the “Post” tab is selected within the settings menu on the right side of the screen.

First, within the summary section there are the visibility options. Post may either be public, private, or password protected. Public posts are visible to all viewers of your website, and private posts are only visible to users who are logged in. This is a useful way to provide user only content.

The tags section provides an area to set the tags on the post. Tags allow for easier indexing and searching of your post.

The categories section allows the posts category to be specified. Categories can be used for filtering. Click “Add New Category” to add categories for your post.

The “Set featured image” section allows a main image to be applied for this post. Depending on your theme this image may be shown in the header of the post on it’s page, along with the post in a directory of all posts, in searches of posts, and more.

When all the settings have been specified as desired click “Publish” to publish the post.

Confirmation is then given that the post is live.

Click the “WordPress” icon on the left side of the screen to return to the main WordPress page. Depending on your configuration this icon may be replaced with your sites logo.

Quick Editing a Post

Quick editing is very useful for changing the publish status, categories, tags, and other metadata about posts easily.

Navigate back to the “Posts” section by clicking “Posts” on the menu on the left side of the screen.

Hover over the post to be edited, observe that the options “Edit”, “Quick Edit”, “Trash”, and “View” appear. Click on “Quick Edit”.

The quick edit panel will then open allowing for making some changes to the post. Make changes as desired, and when complete click “Update”.

For example if your website is “mysite.com”, and you have purchased “my-site.com” as well, “my-site.com” can be forwarded so when it’s entered the user is automatically directed to your primary domain.

First start by logging into GoDaddy’s website.

Then click the account icon on the top right hand of the screen. From the menu that appears select “My Products”.

Click the “My Account” button on the left hand side of the screen and then select “Domains”.

Here you will see the portfolio of all domains owned by the account. On the domain you’d like to forward click the three dots to bring up the menu, and then select “Edit DNS”

The DNS Management page will then be shown.

Scroll down to find the Forwarding section. First, on the “Domain” row click “Add Forwarding”

A popup will appear that prompts for forwarding details. For this example we will forward to google.com. Leave the forward type as “http://”, accept the default forward type of “Permanent”. Don’t worry, it’s still possible to modify or change the forwarding in the future as needed.

Once all the details have been filled in click “Save”

A new row will appear showing that domain, forwarding destination and type. At this point “domaintoforward.com” will forward to “google.com”, however we also need to set up “www.domaintoforward.com”. Do so by clicking the “Add Forwarding” button on the “Subdomains” row.

Specify the subdomain to forward from as “www”, leave the type as “http://”, and then fill out the target to forward to. Leave type as “Permanent” and then click “Save”.

That’s it! The forwarding section should look similar to the above.

Wireguard VPN can provide a very effective means of accessing your network remotely. Allowing secure acess to computers, printers, network storage devices, security camera systems, and more.

This guide will walk through setting up WireGuard on a debian based system.

Installing WireGuard 

To install WireGuard, first ensure that your system is up to date. Then from the terminal install wireguard using your package manager of choice such as below. We will also install qrencode. Though this is not needed it is helpful for configuring mobile devices.

sudo apt-get install wireguard
sudo apt-get install wireguard-tools
sudo apt-get install qrencode

Setting Up Server Configuration

The keys and configuration will be generated as the root user, and file permissions will be set so that the keys and config are kept secure. Keys and config will be generated within the “/etc/wireguard” folder. To navigate to the folder and change the permission execute the commands below:

sudo -i
cd /etc/wireguard
umask 077

We must create our configuration file. First ensure you have not exited sudo, and are still in the “/etc/wireguard” directory. Then the file can be created using nano (or your favorite text editor) as below:

nano wg0.conf

Using the text editor populate the file with the following:

[Interface]
Address = 10.6.0.1/24
ListenPort = 51820

Generating Server Keys

Use the below command to generate the server private and public keys.

wg genkey | tee server.key | wg pubkey > server.pub 

Then add the private key to the configuration file using the command below:

echo "PrivateKey = $(cat server.key)" >> wg0.conf 

Registering The Server

To make it easy to start and restart the server, and ensure wireguard runs on boot we will register it as a service. Use the commands below (as root) to register and start the server.

systemctl enable wg-quick@wg0.service
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start wg-quick@wg0

Generating Client Keys

The keys will be generated as the root user, and file permissions will be set so that the keys are kept secure. Keys will be generated within the “/etc/wireguard” folder. If you are no longer in the wireguard directory, and/or have exited sudo. Repeat the command below, otherwise proceed to the next step.

sudo -i
cd /etc/wireguard
umask 077

Now that we’ve navigated to the wireguard directory as the root user and set our permissions we can proceed to generate the key(s). This step will be repeated for every client that a key is to be generated for.

client="clientname"
wg genkey | tee "${client}.key" | wg pubkey > "${client}.pub" 

Now that we’ve generated our public and private key pairs we will generate our pre-shared key (PSK). This provides additional security. A unique pre-shared key should be generated for each client. In this step we will use the same name as defined by the client variable previously.

wg genpsk > "${client}.psk" 

Adding Client(s) to Server

Our newly generated keys must be added now to the server configuration. If the server already has a clients configured this process will add additional clients without overwriting existing ones. Generally the server configuration file will be called “wg0.conf”. If this is not the case, replace “wg0.conf” with the name of your configuration file.

Within the “AllowedIPs” section, the “x” must be replaced with the IP address to use for the client. These addresses should be in sequence starting at “2” (as “1” will be used for the server). E.g., if you are adding your first client below replace “x” with “2”.

echo "### Begin ${client} ###" >> wg0.conf
echo "[Peer]" >> wg0.conf
echo "PublicKey = $(cat "${client}.pub")" >> wg0.conf
echo "PresharedKey = $(cat "${client}.psk")" >> wg0.conf
echo "AllowedIPs = 10.6.0.x" >> wg0.conf 

To load the client configuration the server must be restarted.

 systemctl restart wg-quick@wg0

Check that the server is running and configured correctly using the command below:

wg 

Setting Up Client Configuration Files

First we’ll create a configuration file for the new client below and add the previously generated private key to it. Replace “x” with the same number used previously to define this client. For the DNS line, supply the IP address of whatever handles DNS requests for your network (this may be your router). Replace “*YOUR PUBLIC IP*” with your public IP address. If you do not have a static IP look into a dynamic DNS service.

echo "[Interface]" > "${client}.conf"
echo "Address = 10.6.0.x/24" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "DNS = x.x.x.x" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "MTU = 1420" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "PrivateKey = $(cat "${client}.key")" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "[Peer]" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/24" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "Endpoint = *YOUR PUBLIC IP*:51820" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "PersistentKeepalive = 25" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "PublicKey = $(cat server.pub)" >> "${client}.conf"
echo "PresharedKey = $(cat "${client}.psk")" >> "${client}.conf" 

Copying Configuration To Client

If the client is another computer we can simply copy the “.conf” file to it. The windows wireguard client makes it easy to import a “.conf” file, which is covered in the next section.

Alternatively, if you are using a mobile client (i.e. a smartphone) the configuration can be transfered using a QR code. To do so, use the command below (qrencode must have been installed prior).

qrencode -t ansiutf8 -r "${client}.conf" 

This will produce a QR code that is scannable from within your terminal session.

Windows Client Setup

To setup the windows client start by downloading and installing it. The installer can be found at: https://www.wireguard.com/install/

After install, launch the wireguard client and then click “Import tunnel(s) from file” to import the configuration file that was exported in the last step.

That’s it! You’ll then see the details loaded in automatically from the config file. Simply click “Activate” to establish the VPN connection.

This guide will display the process using the Popup Anything plugin, and it assumes you already have it installed. If Popup Anything is not installed. Start by adding the plugin to your WordPress.

Navigate to Popup Anything from the navigation bar on the left side of the window. Then click “Add Popup”.

Add a title for your popup. The “Behaviour” tab lets us set features about how the pop up will act. Though the premium plugin offers many more features, basic covers many use cases. Scroll down to set features like how the popup will appear.

Further down on the “Behaviour” tab we can set features about our Popup’s behaviour. For this example we’ll be using a stock image. As such I’ve set the “How Popup Appear?” drop down to “Image Click”. Other types of Popups, such as a simple text link, are also possible. Lastly take note of the “Popup Shortcode”, we’ll need to come back for this later.

Now navigate to the “Content” tab. Here is where we can define the content that will be displayed when our popup image is clicked. For this example I’ve just used another stock image. You can adjust the heading and subheading as required, or remove them entirely.

Now Return to the “Behaviour” tab and copy the “Popup Shortcode”.

At this point, we are done setting up our Popup. Now click “Publish”. We can always return to modify settings further.

For example, you may want to remove or modify the “Custom Close Text”, and “Security Note” that are found on the bottom of the “Content” tab.

Now navigate to the page where you’d like to include the Popup. Though the process here is being demonstrated using the Gutenberg editor, many Pagebuilders are similar.

We will be adding a Shortcode block. If your page builder doesn’t have a Shortcode block, try using a textbox. Some builders (e.g. BeaverBuilder) work by placing Shortcode directly as text.

Paste the Shortcode previously copied into the Shortcode block (or textbox). You can move this around and place it within your layout as desired.

That’s it! Now when the page is viewed the image will show, and when clicked our Popup will display.

Syncthing

For these other file types, and when the devices you need to synchronize files between might not always be connected to the internet, synchthing can be a great solution.

Syncthing allows multiple computers to synchronize files in a given folder. Any number of devices can be added to the shared folder, and multiple folders may also be shared. Syncthing works across different platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux), and also has an android app.

How it Works

Syncthing stores files locally on each machine with a copy of the shared folder. Files are synchronized over the local network, or internet. Transfers can occur directly from computer to computer or via a relay depending on the network configuration.

This means that files in a syncthing share are always available which can be of huge benefit for computers that travel to job sites where internet connection may not be available.

Install

Start by navigating to: https://syncthing.net/downloads/

Select the appropriate version above for your operating system. On many Linux distributions Syncthing will already be in your repository, and installing it will setup a daemon to run at boot.

For windows download the zip folder and extract it at a location of your choice (e.g. C:\Program Files\Syncthing). To have Syncthing run automatically on boot shortcut to Syncthing from the startup folder, add a task in Task Scheduler to run it at boot, or similar alternative will need to be setup.

Setup

Syncthing is managed through a web interface. This is beneficial as it allows GUI setup on headless servers and for easy remote management. Access to this interface can be password protected, though it is best to limit access with firewall rules. Exposing it to the internet is undesirable in the majority of cases.

If Syncthing is installed and running it can be accessed by navigating to the following on the computer it is installed on. (Unless you’ve specified another port, 8384 is default)

http://127.0.0.1:8384/

Adding a Folder

To add a folder start by clicking on the “Add Folder” button. The “Add Folder” window will then appear.

Within the “Add Folder” window, start by setting the “Folder Label”, this can be anything (that’s valid as a windows folder, so some special characters cannot be included). The folder ID will be generated automatically as some string of alpha and numeric characters separated by a hyphen.

This is all that’s needed to setup a folder. If no File Versioning is required simply click “Save”. Otherwise navigate to the “File Versioning” tab. Additionally if you have already added other devices, the “Sharing” tab will show them and allow the new folder to be shared with them.

File Versioning allows this device to store multiple copies of a file. This can be very beneficial in the case that something was changed by mistake. Trash Can, or Simple File Versioning are likely the best picks in most cases. Read more about versioning below:

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/versioning.html

Once done setting up the versioning requirements. Press “Save”.

Adding a Remote Device

Syncthing adds devices by their unique ID.

To access the ID of your current device. Navigate to “Actions > Show ID”

The ID code for your device, and a QR code will be shown. Save this code securely as we’ll use it on another device to link them together.

On another device (different from the one we got the code from). On the main page select “Add Remote Device” to add a new device.

Paste the Device ID of the different device in, then give the device a memorable name. Additional settings can be modified from the “Sharing” and “Advanced” tabs. Sharing will allow sharing existing folders. A setting called “Introducer” is available to have the device automatically share all of its connected devices. This makes setup for many devices much quicker.

Advanced provides connection settings that may be beneficial in specific cases, such as specifying a connection address directly. Though these are not needed for basic setup.

Once completed with setup click “Save”.

Usage

Syncthing is now setup and will allow for synchronizing files between two machines. This can be extended by adding more machines to a folder, and to have multiple folders. Syncthing is not a backup solution alone, and a proper backup procedure on at least one of the devices that host a syncthing folder is recommended (though all is preferable). Syncthing does provide another layer in a backup solution however, and provides great availability for files across multiple devices.

Google

Google search console will be linked to a google account, so you must create a google account if you don’t have one already.

Now navigate to the google’s search console page https://search.google.com/search-console

Enter your domain name within the “Domain” section. We are using the domain verification as it will cover the entire website, whereas “URL prefix” doesn’t cover all domains.

We’ll be working through the generic case, this is done by selecting “Any DNS provider” from the drop down at the top. If your provider is on the list however, you may desire to work through their process. Save the TXT record that’s generated. This will be added to your DNS later.

Bing

Access the Bing webmasters tools at http://www.bing.com/webmasters

On the right side enter your website URL and then click “Add”.

Click on “Add CNAME record to DNS” and save to string of text. We will add these to the DNS next.

Adding DNS Record

The process will be shown using GoDaddy’s interface. Though the process is very similar for most hosting providers

Navigate to the DNS management console. This will allow us to add the records required by Google and Bing.

For the Bing record, this will be created as type CNAME, with the name equal to the string of letters and numbers, and the value being “verify.bing.com”. As with the previous record, a TTL of the shortest time option will be used.

Now return to Google and click “Verify”. Following, you will see the above indicating that the property has been successfully linked. If you receive an error message, verify that you’ve entered the records correctly (check for an extra space added after any data – this will likely cause issues). Otherwise, if everything appears to be correct wait some time before trying again, as it can sometimes take a few hours before records become available.

Return to Bing and click verify. You should now see the above message. Bing Webmasters tools are now verified and your website is setup. Look for future guides on tips and tricks for getting the most out of these tools.

Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a simple text file that determines if a search engine is allowed to index your website, and if so what pages they are allowed to index. There are generally three components to the robots.txt file, the user-agent string, allow/disallow directories, and the sitemap location.

User-agent: this can be used to define different indexing settings for different web crawlers. If you wanted to disallow an extra directory just for the Googlebot you’d be able to add the User-Agent: Googlebot, and follow it with the directory to disallow. Otherwise, User-agent: * applies to all web crawlers.

User-agent: * 
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Allow: /wp-includes/js/
Allow: /wp-includes/images/
Disallow: /trackback/
Disallow: /wp-login.php
Disallow: /wp-register.php

Sitemap: https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

The above is an example of a fairly standard WordPress robots.txt. Additionally there are many plugins that will automate part of the setup process, or provide an easier way to edit the file through WordPress (by providing a virtual file). At the bottom of the file following include the Sitemap tag, followed by the location of your XML sitemap, ensure also that the sitemap isn’t blocked by the robots.txt.

Sitemaps

A sitemap is an XML file that that includes all the webpages in your site and their location. Along with other information such as the rough frequency the page will change, its last changed date, and the pages priority. There are many plugins for WordPress that can be used to generate sitemaps, along with online sitemap generators.

Above is the sitemap for this website, it links the a number of sub-sitemaps that include more information.

Under the sitemap-misc, is the location of the sitemap, and the homepage.

Webmasters Tools

If you haven’t already verified your domain to use the webmasters tools, follow the guide here

Now that our robots.txt file and our sitemap are setup we can use the webmasters tools provided by search engines to ensure that they are properly indexing our websites and processing our sitemaps. Generally there is a verification process before being able to access these tools that may required access to modify your DNS records (usually adding a CNAME or TXT record). Once you are verified you will be able to access these tools. We’ll review googles search console below, the process for Bing and others is very similar.

To confirm your sitemap has been successfully detected and parsed, navigate to the sitemaps section

We can see above that the sitemap has been submitted and processed successfully. If your sitemap has not been processed submit it using the “Add a new sitemap” section. Next we will click on the sitemap to view more information about its processing and validate that everything has been processed correctly.

Above we can see the individual maps that have been processed, and the URLs related to them. All of them are showing as a success status, and the number of URLs discovered is consistent with how many were submitted in the map.

If you receive an error, such as a 404 from an address in your sitemap, verify that it is up to date and doesn’t contain links to any pages that no longer exist. Once it’s been corrected resubmit it so that Google and other search engines will be able to index it correctly.

Assessing Your Current Performance

First thing we need to do is assess your websites current performance. This will tell us if optimizations are needed, and provide insights for what we can best to do optimize the site.

Find the tool at: https://pagespeed.web.dev/

The page speed tool provides insights on performance in both mobile and desktop applications.

Review the diagnostics and opportunities section to determine what issues can be slowing down your website.

We are going to focus on items like the opportunities above, there are many plugins that can automatically convert images and serve them in formats that will accelerate page loading.

Additionally there are many caching plugins that will resolve issues like the above and yield great performance improvements.

Image Optimization

Optimizing images allows us to make great gains for page speed, especially on mobile. Though it’s possible to manually convert your images to a more compressed format (like WebP), and resize them if they are too large manually, it would be a time consuming process. Instead we’ll opt to use one of the many Image optimizer plugins available to us. One such plugin is “EWWW Image Optimizer”, but there are many with similar functionality.

When being activated for the first time EWWW presents a setup wizard that will optimize its settings based on your goals. Unless you need to free up some space on your server, sticking with “Speed up your site” will result in greater improvements. (You can bypass the setup wizard by selecting “I know what I’m doing, leave me alone!”)

On the next page, enable “Remove Metadata”, “Lazy Load”, and “WebP Conversion”, setting the max size to 1920×1920 is also probably sufficient for most use case. Keep in mind this will limit the max resolution of any picture on your site to 1920 x 1920, if you use an image for a full page background that is of a higher resolution you may consider increasing those values to 2160 x 2160, or even 3840 x 3840.

What the options do:

• Remove Metadata
  • Removes extra information that is embedded within picture files (e.g. camera information and location information). Removing this information decreasing picture size without affecting quality.
• Lazy Load
  • Modifies the CSS of your webpage to only load images once they are in view. This can greatly decrease the websites initial loading time.
• WebP Conversion
  • WebP is an image format developed by google that allows for significant image size savings without a decrease in quality. Not all devices are compatible with WebP however, though EWWW will setup CSS to serve WebP only if the client supports it.

Now that EWWW is setup, all new uploads will automatically be optimized. However to optimize existing pictures uploaded to the site we will use the “Bulk Optimizer”.

Use the Bulk optimizer to optimize existing images based on the settings you have previously selected. The optimization process may take a while, especially if you already have a lot of images uploaded. Once it’s complete, there may be a noticeable increase in speed to your website, especially to the image loading.

Caching

Caching will also greatly increase the performance of your webpage. Caching can allow the server to store and serve static HTML version of pages, direct the clients browser to save information to reduce load on the server. Many caching plugins can also perform other optimizations such as minimizing CSS by amalgamating it into a single file, and same for JavaScript. Other optimizations to a pages HTML are also possible.

The plugin I’ll be demonstrating is called “WP Fastest Cache”, though there are many that provide similar functionality.

After activating for the first time “WP Fastest Cache” will not initially be enabled. The settings shown above will work for most users.

What the options do:

• Cache System
  • Must be enabled for caching to be on.
• Preload
  • Have WP Fastest Cache perform caching of all pages in the background, this means that pages will be cached and ready for the next visitor.
• Logged-in users
  • This option is desirable if logged in users are shown different/dynamic content. Serving them a cached page may cause issues.
• Mobile
  • If your site has distinct formatting for mobile and desktop this must be checked.
• New Post
  • Have the cache updated when a new post is made or a page published.
• Update Post
  • Have the cache updated when a post or page is updated.
• Minify HTML
  • Optimizations to reduce HTML file size.
• Minify CSS
  • Optimizations to reduce CSS file size.
• Combine CSS
  • Combines multiple CSS files into a single file, this can provide a big benefit if many plugins are installed, or on a more complicated theme
• Combine Js
  • Combines JavaScript header files to reduce HTTP requests. To combine the entire JavaScript file the pro version of the plugin is required.
• Gzip
  • Uses compression to reduce the size of files sent.
• Browser Caching
  • Instruct the clients browser to cache files locally. This can provide large performance improvements for repeat visitors.

Validating Improvements

Now that images have been optimized and caching setup your page will likely be much snappier and more responsive than before. To quantify this effect, re-run googles page speed insights. Don’t be concerned if your website is not getting a perfect score, even google’s mobile version does not get perfect marks.

What is Dynamic DNS?

Generally unless you’re paying extra for a Static-IP address at your home or office your Internet Service Provider will assign you a dynamic IP address. Dynamic IP addresses can make it tough for you to access devices from your home or office remotely (e.g. workstations, printers, file servers, etc).

If you have a need to access these devices, either a Static-IP, or Dynamic DNS is required. Dynamic DNS relies on a device in your network notifying the DNS server that your external IP has changed and having it update the DNS record to point to your new external IP address.

The basic process for most Dynamic DNS systems is shown below.

Requirements

A GoDaddy domain name, and an internal device to act as a client (i.e. server, workstation computer, router) to be used for updating the GoDaddy DNS records.

Creating the DNS Record

The first thing we need to do is create the new DNS record.

Login to GoDaddy and navigate to the “All Products and Services” section. Then Click “DNS”. If you have multiple domain names ensure that you are working with the correct one.

Click “Add” to create a new DNS record.

Fill the record in like above. The type must be “A”. The “Name” will be the subdomain you will use, this can be changed as desired (e.g. gateway, office, etc). Fill the value as “0.0.0.0”, this will be changed once we link our Dynamic DNS client. Set the “TTL” to either “1 Hour” as shown, or “1/2 Hour”. Longer times will result in a lapse of service when your Dynamic IP address changes.

Creating our GoDaddy API Key

Now we will create the API key that our client will use to securely connect to GoDaddy to update the DNS.

Navigate to: https://developer.godaddy.com/keys

Click “Create New API Key” to begin creating your key.

It’s a good idea to name the key something unique and identifiable. For the “Environment” select “Production” then click “Next”.

The API Key and Secret will then be shown. Be sure to copy these before moving on, the secret can’t be recovered after this. (If you lose your secret you must generate a new API Key).

Connecting your Client

Now that the DNS record is created, and we have generated an API Key we are able to setup our client.

This will depend on the hardware that you have available some routers/firewalls have a preset offered for GoDaddy under dynamic DNS options. There are alternatives if you do not have a device that supports GoDaddy directly

Navigate to your router or firewalls configuration webpage and search for “Dynamic DNS” or “DDNS” options. If your device has a Dynamic DNS option for GoDaddy it will most likely look similar to the above (PFSense shown). Use the API Key generated previously as the Username, and the Secret for the password.

If your device doesn’t support GoDaddy, or doesn’t have Dynamic DNS options continue below. Scripts are provided for both Windows and Linux devices, these may be run on a workstation (preferably one that is always on) or a server.

PowerShell script (Windows):

$mydomain = "mydomainname.com"
$myhostname = "mysubdomain"
$gdapikey = "apikey:keysecret"

$myip = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://api.ipify.org"
$dnsdata = Invoke-RestMethod "https://api.godaddy.com/v1/domains/$($mydomain)/records/A/$($myhostname)" -Headers @{ Authorization = "sso-key $($gdapikey)" }
$gdip = $dnsdata.data
Write-Output "$(Get-Date -Format 'u') - Current External IP is $($myip), GoDaddy DNS IP is $($gdip)"

If ( $gpid -ne $myip) {
  Write-Output "IP has changed: Updating on GoDaddy"
  Invoke-RestMethod -Method PUT -Uri "https://api.godaddy.com/v1/domains/$($mydomain)/records/A/$($myhostname)" -Headers @{ Authorization = "sso-key $($gdapikey)" } -ContentType "application/json" -Body "[{`"data`": `"$($myip)`"}]";
}

Save the above script as “dnsupdater.ps1”. Replacing “mydomainname.com” with your domain, “mysubdomain” with the subdomain set previously, and “apikey:keysecret” with your generated API Key and Secret values. Ensure these are separated by a colon.

Running this script will result in the GoDaddy DNS record being updated to your current IP address. Run this at regular intervals of between 10 and 30 minutes using Task Scheduler to ensure that your DNS is always up to date.

Bash script (Linux):

#!/bin/bash

mydomain="mydomainname.com"
myhostname="mysubdomain"
gdapikey="apikey:keysecret"
logdest="local7.info"

myip=`curl -s "https://api.ipify.org"`
dnsdata=`curl -s -X GET -H "Authorization: sso-key ${gdapikey}" "https://api.godaddy.com/v1/domains/${mydomain}/records/A/${myhostname}"`
gdip=`echo $dnsdata | cut -d ',' -f 1 | tr -d '"' | cut -d ":" -f 2`
echo "`date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'` - Current External IP is $myip, GoDaddy DNS IP is $gdip"

if [ "$gdip" != "$myip" -a "$myip" != "" ]; then
  echo "IP has changed: Updating on GoDaddy"
  curl -s -X PUT "https://api.godaddy.com/v1/domains/${mydomain}/records/A/${myhostname}" -H "Authorization: sso-key ${gdapikey}" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "[{\"data\": \"${myip}\"}]"
  logger -p $logdest "Changed IP on ${hostname}.${mydomain} from ${gdip} to ${myip}"
fi

Save the above script as “dnsupdater.sh”. Replacing “mydomainname.com” with your domain, “mysubdomain” with the subdomain set previously, and “apikey:keysecret” with your generated API Key and Secret values. Ensure these are separated by a colon.

Run the script to update the record and confirm that it is configured correctly. We can schedule this script to run at regular intervals using Cron.

To create a Cron job use:

user@machine:~ $ crontab -e 

Within the cron file add the following line:

*/30 * * * * /full/path/to/file/dnsupdater.sh > /dev/null 

Replace the “30” as desired with your time in minutes. For additional output “/dev/null” can be replace with “dnsupdate.log”, this file will log the last execution.

Credits

Thanks to Tod-SoS on Instructables for the above Bash script and Powershell script (https://www.instructables.com/Quick-and-Dirty-Dynamic-DNS-Using-GoDaddy/)

Thanks to smcconnell on the netgate forms for the PFSense screenshot (https://forum.netgate.com/topic/142130/godaddy-dynamic-dns-guide)