Sydney JUG April 2017

1. Tips for Site Builders and
Administrators
Tim Plummer
11th April 2017

2. 1

3. How to upgrade to PHP7
• Firstly, what PHP version do you currently
have?
• System->System Information

4. Why not stick with older PHP?
• PHP 5.5 or lower is past end of life

5. Why PHP7?
• Simply changing the PHP version to 7 can
make your Joomla site run up to 50% faster
• Supported since Joomla 3.5

6. How to upgrade to PHP7
• Many web hosts allow you to select PHP
version in Cpanel
• If multiple sites in hosting account, you can set
PHP version for each

7. How to upgrade to PHP7
• Select PHP version and press save
• Now check your site to make sure nothing breaks
(ideally do all this on a staging copy not live)

8. How to upgrade to PHP7
• If something breaks, you can revert back to
previous PHP version until you fix issue (such
as upgrading third party extension)
• If you see depreciated notices or warnings,
you can reduce your error reporting in global
config to none.

9. How to upgrade to PHP7
• In your system info you will see updated PHP
version

10. 2

11. Why turn on SSL?
• If you don’t use SSL, visitors to your site may
get warnings in their browser
• Google loves SSL, so enabling it could improve
SEO
• Important for sites processing payment
transactions

12. How to turn on SSL
• First you need to install SSL certificate
• Let’s Encrypt offer free SSL certificates
• Some web hosts such as Siteground make this
easy via their Cpanel
Use this affiliate link if you sign up with Siteground so Tim gets $50
https://www.siteground.com/index.htm?afcode=6a5c9c06a90863bcace08276ca55ee25

13. Installing SSL certificate
• Select domain, enter your email and press
install

14. Edit your configuration.php file
public $live_site = '';
//change to
public $live_site = ‘https://www.yourdomain.com.au';

15. Edit .htaccess
• To redirect all HTTP requests to HTTPS.
• Add this code to bottom of file
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} OFF
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

16. Global Config
• Force HTTPS for entire site

17. How to turn on SSL
• Site should now be HTTPS

18. 3

19. A quick lesson in CSS

20. How to debug CSS issues
• Browsers have built in tools
• Right click->inspect element

21. How to debug CSS issues
• You can see what CSS applies to that element

22. How to debug CSS issues
• You can add CSS on the fly to see what it will
look like
• Changes only temporary for browser session

23. 4

24. Set error reporting to NONE
• For production site, error reporting should be
set to none

25. 5

26. Always have an offsite backup
• I use Akeeba Backup, with automated daily
backup going to Amazon S3

27. 6

28. Hide your admin URL
• Prevents people from brute force guessing
your password
• Akeeba Admin Tools Professional

29. Hide your admin URL

30. Hide your admin URL
• Now to access backend you need to add
parameter
www.yourwebsite.com.au/administrator/?sydneyjug
• If you try admin URL without parameter, it will
redirect you to front end

31. Hide your admin URL
• You can also automatically block repeat
offenders

32. 7

33. Debug Javascript
• Firefox, tools->web developer->browser console
• Make sure show errors is turned on
• One JS error can cause all subsequent JS code not to
execute

34. Tim Plummer
www.timplummer.com.au
@bfsurvey