Server Setup 15: Optional Extras

If this is your first time looking at a post from this series, have a look at this summary: Server Setup 0: Contents

Now you’re up and running with what should be a stable and secure installation of WordPress and Nextcloud with Collabora.

There are plenty more tweaks you can work on yourself:

Server Administration

  • Advanced HTTPS – you can check your config with https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/. You have choices about how you want to set up your system – more secure or more compatible with older clients. This tool from Mozilla provides recommendations for the the Apache configuration you need.
  • Email configuration – This allows either system to send emails. Best way to do it us an existing email service, and let your server connect to that. s-nail and exim can both do this.
  • You can keep you system automatically up to date with the unattened-upgrades package – this keeps your system up to date. If email is configure it’ll send you an summary of what it’s updated.

WordPress:

WordPress relies on htaccess for a few things, mainly nicely writing urls for permalinks. However, .htaccess files have a problem – they’re checked every time someone visits your site. You can reconfigure apache to load the data from the .htaccess file once, instead of on every request.

Be careful, there may be multiple .htaccess files, and some plugins install their own, so use these commands to find them all:

cd /var/www/wordpress
find | grep htaccess

Nextcloud

A few ideas:

  • Work your way through the list in administration section – the links to the documentation will help a lot.
  • Background jobs: Try setting up a systemd timer or traditional crontab. Have a look in Basic Settings in the Settings menu for an Administrator.
  • Scan you installation for security issues https://scan.nextcloud.com/
  • Include .htaccess instead of loading it every time, like for WordPress.

User friendliness

These are a few niceties you might try to help with general use:

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