WordPress 5.2 was recently released, and as always, we’ve updated our WordPress one-click installer to automatically install the latest version for new WordPress sites. WordPress 5.2 works fine on our servers (make sure you’re using a recent version of PHP for your site).
If you’ve previously installed an older version of WordPress, you should update it from within your WordPress Dashboard.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.1.29, 7.2.18 and 7.3.5 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
Today our servers began using an updated version of the Apache web server software that adds a new security feature: it collapses and ignores consecutive slashes in URLs it receives (among other security fixes).
For example, this URL (note the two slashes between “admin” and “options”):
https://www.example.com/wp-admin//options-permalink.php
… would now be treated exactly as if the web server had been sent:
https://www.example.com/wp-admin/options-permalink.php
This feature ensures that “hackers” cannot add extra slashes to bypass rules intended to restrict access to certain URLs. (The example above is a real security problem in WordPress from 2009 — it allowed hackers to access the permalink screen because the access restrictions were only applied to the exact pattern “/wp-admin/options-permalink.php”, and not to variations like “/wp-admin//options-permalink.php”.)
This change should not cause any problems, and our customers should not notice any change.
However, in the unlikely event that you have intentionally written script code that behaves differently when it sees two consecutive slashes in a URL instead of one slash, you would need to change your code to not rely on that behavior. (Two consecutive slashes in the path of a URI are not valid anyway, and other web servers will remove them by default, so relying on it would be unreliable to start with.)
As always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or difficulties.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.1.28, 7.2.17 and 7.3.4 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
We’ve supported IPv6 on customer websites for many years, but it didn’t default to “on”: customers had to explicitly enable it in our account management control panel.
Starting today, IPv6 is on by default for all new accounts signed up with us (although you can turn it off if you want).
In addition, we’re beginning a gradual process of slowly enabling IPv6 for existing sites if they haven’t chosen to disable it. If you don’t want IPv6 to be enabled for your site in the future, you should use our control panel to disable it.
Read the rest of this entry »The PHP developers recently released versions 7.1.27, 7.2.16 and 7.3.3 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.2.15 and 7.3.2 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
We’ve added a feature that allows you to do a complete “one-click” restore of your site from the control panel. The restore includes all website files, databases, and PHP settings at once, giving you a way to quickly “rollback” a site without needing to use extra tools like FTP or phpMyAdmin.
The backups page in our support section has more details.
The PHP developers recently released versions 5.6.40, 7.1.26, 7.2.14 and 7.3.1 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 5.6, 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3 series on our servers as a result.
In addition, ionCube Loader is now available for the PHP 7.3 series, so we’ve made that an option you can enable in our “My Account” control panel.
These changes should not be noticeable, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble.
We’ve updated the SSL/TLS security settings on our servers to match current “best practices” for security, disabling the long-obsolete, insecure “SSLv3” in all cases.
Our customers shouldn’t notice any changes. We made this change on our own websites a long time ago with no reports of problems, and nearly all of the largest sites on the Internet have done the same. We’re just mentioning this so that people know to contact us in the unlikely event they do have any trouble.
That said, if you do have any trouble, it’s probably because you’re using a long-outdated, insecure web browser that you should update. You can check your browser by visiting www.howsmyssl.com. If you can’t update it, using a different browser on your computer will probably help.
