The PhenixbluE » Upgrades

WP Post Scheduling Mishap

Phenix — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:30:22 +0000

I recently had to help someone I host a site for solve a very strange issue with post scheduling after an upgrade to 2.9 on his WP site. I’ve hosted many WP sites over the years and have never had this problem personally, so I had to dig around a bit.

The Issue:

When the time allotted for a scheduled post to be published occurs, the post is not published, and a message within the Admin panel only says “Missed Schedule.”

After perusing around the WP forums for a bit, I came to realize that this is a hot topic for many 2.9 early adopters. After looking deeper into the forums, I found that this has been a potential issue with Wordpress versions since the release of 2.7. Some say the “Missed Schedule” mishap can be caused by a temporary “hiccup” with a site’s DNS. As I manage the DNS for the particular site I host, I knew this to not be the case. Further research did indeed provide me with a solution.

The Solution:

Apparently with all the new fancy upgrades to the WP core, a significant amount of time (in the web world this means milliseconds!) has been added to the time it takes to run the job that actually publishes a post. From what I can tell this is due to the number of hooks that data has to be run through to make it from the edit page as a draft, to the front page of your blog as a live post. The addition of running it through the scheduling cron job pushes it too far. Can’t we just extend the allowable time to publish a post you say? Here you go:

The time limit is set around line 230 in the /wp-includes/cron.php file. The default line will appear as such:

230	wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array('timeout' => 0.01, 'blocking' => false, 'sslverify' => apply_filters('https_local_ssl_verify', true)) );

As you can see, the limit is set to 0.01 seconds by default. I tried increasing the value in increments, and finally decided on 20 seconds. You may find that this can very from server to server, so play around with it for a bit to optimize it for your setup. So here’s the updates line:

230	wp_remote_post( $cron_url, array('timeout' => 20.0, 'blocking' => false, 'sslverify' => apply_filters('https_local_ssl_verify', true)) );

So there you go! If you’ve found yourself upgrading to a new version of WP and you are unable to successfully publish a scheduled post, try this out!

ZebluePrime Gets New Digs!!!

Phenix — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:16:55 +0000

So ZebluePrime got new digs last night…….errr maybe he just washed them really! I helped him setup his own domain (zeblueprime.com) to get him off of a sub-domain i let him borrow (previously evan.phenixblue.com). Along with the domain setup there were a few changes to make within his wordpress install to make everything go smooth.

I try to keep a directory structure similar to this within my webroot:

WEBROOT/

/domain1.com

/domain2.com

/domain2.com/sub1.domain.com

/domain2.com/sub2.domain.com

/*********************DISCLAIMER***********************************/

PLEASE BACKUP YOUR DATABASE AND FILES BEFORE PERFORMING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING!!!

Step 1: Migrate files from old sub-domain to new domain directory

Create new directory

#sudo mkdir /WEBROOT/zeblueprime.com

Change to old directory

#cd /WEBROOT/phenixblue.com/evan.phenixblue.com/

Copy files from old dir to new dir

#sudo cp -R  * ../../zeblueprime.com/

Change to new directory, verify your files (including .htaccess) exist, and have proper permissions and ownership

#cd ../../zeblueprime.com/

#ls -la

NOTE: I also moved Zeblue to a new MySQL DB to keep up with the naming conventions I use for DB’s (Migrating to a new DB is outside of the scope of this post)

Step 2: Update url information within the Database (all DB edits performed via phpMyAdmin)

Update Site and Blog URL

Within the “wp_options” table, change the “option_values” for the following “option_name” rows

“siteurl” - change to: http://zeblueprime.com/
“home” – change to: http://zeblueprime.com/

Update file upload url

Within the “wp_options” table, change the following “option_value” where “option_name” is “upload_path” to

/WEBROOT/zeblue.com/wp/wp-content/uploads

Update Post URL’s

Run the following SQL

UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = REPLACE (
guid,
'http://evan.phenixblue.com',
'http://zeblueprime.com');

Update URL’s within your Post’s content

Run the following SQL

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE (
post_content,
'http://evan.phenixblue.com',
'http://zeblueprime.com');

Step 3: Verify your site works

Navigate to your site in a web browser and verify your page. post, tag, category, etc. links work (I normally test a few, and then assume they all work!). Also log into the admin interface and navigate through a few menus.

This should conclude all of the required modifications to change the domain of your WP install. This is by no means the only way to do it, just the way I chose to. You can also check out the Wordpress Codex for other options.

P.S. I typed up all of this after the fact, so some of the commands may not be perfect, and there’s the slight chance I may have skipped a step, but most will be able read between the lines!

-Phenix

Server Migration

Phenix — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:41:29 +0000

This Friday, July 24 2009, at approximately 5:00pm will take the server that hosts this site, and all other sites (*.thephenixblue.com, *.phenixblue.com, *.jmsearcy.com, *.vsumug.com, *.vsumug.org, *.vsusinfonia.org, *.firehouseink.com, *.ceramicsdiva.com, *.thewebroot.com) will go offline. During the offline period all sites will be migrated to new server hardware, as well as additional upgrades to Apache, PHP, and MySQL. The current server is identical in hardware, but resides on Mac OS X 10.5 client alongside other applications and services. The new server uses Mac OS X 10.5 Server, and is a dedicated box that will have no console interaction other than System Administration. During the migration I will also be pruning some older directories no longer used and striving for a cleaner and leaner setup! The entire migration will hopefully only take a few hours (transfer WWWROOT & MySQL DB’s, reassign permissions, account creation, create Virtual Hosts & Directories, and update DNS). The DNS changes may take up to 24 hours to propegate (normally only 1-4 hours). That’s the ideal work flow……pending any unforseen doom! I will keep everyone up to date via twitter (@jmsearcy). Thanks in advance for your patients patience!

New Server Specs:

20″ Aluminum iMac
2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB DDR2 (667Mhz) RAM
250GB SATA HD
Gigabit Ethernet
128 Mb ATI Radeon 2400HD Graphics
8Mb/s High Speed Cable Internet
Sitting on a desk next to the kitchen!

If you don’t like the fact that I use an iMac for a web server send me money for an xserve!

If you don’t like the fact that that I hosts sites off of an 8Mb/s connection, send monet for OC3!

If you don’t like the fact that my server is on a desk next to my kitchen, send money for a Data Center!

-Phenix

New Site Plans

Phenix — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:00:25 +0000

So I’ve got some new plans for this site:

Site migration

This will including a possible migration to a standard WP install, rather than the current WP MU hosting. I’m also toying with a possible change in URL to http://thephenixblue.com or changing the overall domain to http://phenixblue.com (for overall better SEO).

Add 1-2 contributing authors in addition to myself

I would like to get one person to cover Technology topics focusing more on the Linux OS platform, in addition to having a good understanding of the Mac and Windows OS platforms. I’m looking for someone that can offer an open and unbiased opinion on hardware, software, security, and other accepted practices surrounding Linux, and other platforms. This will help me focus on a smaller scope of information, and still offer the same broad coverage I originally intended for this site.

I also want to add one person to cover some Artistic design tutorials. I’m looking for someone that has experience with Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, and other industry standard design software. This person would be responsible to writing general application tutorials, as well as tutorials covering standard, and non-standard creative tasks, works, and methods. I would prefer someone that has experience on both Mac and Windows platforms. Any experience with screen casting is a plus, as I would like to offer some video tutorials.

Anyone with the experience I’ve mentioned, that has an interest in contributing to this sites content, please use the contact form, or send an e-mail to support@thephenixblue.com with a list of credentials, and a brief explanation as to why you would like to write for a Free Public Technology News Site.

Future Plans for Web Server

Phenix — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:22:24 +0000

I have already tweeted a generic request for anyone with experience/expertise in the following areas:

Remote data Replication
Remote Load Balancing
Remote Failover

The ideal setup would be to have 1 web server (Server A) at ground zero that dynamically replicates it’s files to another web server (Server B) 20-100 miles away, while simultaneously sharing the load across the two, and also providing an automatic failover to the other in case one goes down. I have never before venrutred into the realm of any of these topics, so I barely have a surface knowldge if this scenario is even possible, let alone practical. Should I configure this setup differently? I have already reserahced and found (as well as been referenced to) rsync for data replication. I will also note that all of this will be on the Mac OS X 10.5 platform (slight possibility to move to 10.5 server) using a residential ISP connection. Thanks in advanced to anyone that can help out,

-Phenix