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So I bought a new notebook computer, an HP dv5-1250us, which came with the unloved Windows Vista, 64-bit version. I haven't wasted any time on Vista so far, and don't intend to, either. So the plan was to install Windows XP until Windows 7 would be available, but it turns out that the XP installation disks don't have the required SATA drivers. Rather than mucking with custom XP installation disks, I'm going for the Windows 7 64-bit RC now.

Get the Servers Up and Running

If you have Set Up a Single Drupal Installation for Supporting Multiple Virtual Hosts, then you're also sharing the themes. What if you want to make some minor customizations on one of the sites?

As mentioned in Customizing the Drupal Garland Theme, you can unshare the theme by making local copies in each site. But this is exactly what we wanted to avoid in the first place! There is a better way: create a subtheme for each site.

I've tried moving a Plesk 8.6 installation on SuSE 10.0 to a Plesk 8.6 installation on SuSE 10.3, but this doesn't work (see https://kis.hosteurope.de/support/faq/index.php?cpid=13913 (requires login)).

Downgrading to openssh-4.1p1-10 allows Plesk Migration Manager to work, and to avoid opening up vulnerabilities I've used...

/etc/hosts.deny:
sshd : ALL : DENY

and

/etc/hosts.allow:
sshd : xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx : ALLOW

Have you already had a friend call you for help cleaning up a virus infection? All the precautions that you apply to diligently maintain the security of your computers are suddenly useless when it comes to dealing with someone else's infected computer.

The web has some great resources available for such emergencies. I'm not trying to add another one here, but rather to just collect a few links that have helped me in this situation:

I'm starting to gather knowledge on how the ACL Drupal module works.

On a fresh install, the node_access table contains one entry:

This entry grants view access to all nodes. When you install an access module, this entry is replaced by module-specific node access entries.

Access Denied to Anonymous Users

On-line docs for PostgreSQL:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/index.html

Taken from a post by Barry J.:

I use XAMPP on Windows for development. Here is my process for using PostgreSQL 8.3:

1. Download and run the installer.
2. Uncomment the "extension=php_pgsql.dll" line in Apache's php.ini.
3. Re-start Apache.
4. Change $db_url in settings.php.

Taken from a post by Bill M.:

Once it's installed, there's another step called "initializing

You should always create a test site for testing purposes. If your test site does not have email, but the module you want to test requires it, you have two choices:

• On a Linux box, see http://drupal4hu.com/node/55
• On a Windows box, use your ISP's mail server by setting the following values in php.ini:
  

  [mail function]
  ; For Win32 only.
  SMTP = your.ISPs-email-server.tld
  smtp_port = 25
  
  ; For Win32 only.
  sendmail_from = your.email.address@example.com
  

Garland is the nice new default theme in Drupal 5. Here's how to customize it...

Change the Colors

Garland not only looks good out-of-the-box, but it also comes with a number of predefined color schemes and even lets you define your own using the color.module core module:

In this blog entry I'll collect a few minor items where I feel, that Plesk is not quite up where it should be.

Before Anything Else: Fix SSH

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and make the following changes (in the order of the parameters in the file):