Wordpress Blog Site (Tool)

Log in to: http://www.mcnaircenter.org/blog/wp-admin/

Install FTP server

Log in and sudo su yourself, then:

apt-get install vsftpd

Man page for the vsftpd.conf file

http://vsftpd.beasts.org/vsftpd_conf.html

Securing the FTP:

https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/ftp-server.html

Configuration

Edit /etc/vsftpd.conf (note next restart will reflect changes in /etc/init)

#add at tend of file:
listen_port=26

Generate keys for our website with the following command:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout /etc/vsftpd.pem -out /etc/vsftpd.pem

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Texas
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Houston
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:McNair Center at Rice University's Baker Institute
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:McNair Center
Email Address []:admin@mcnaircenter.org

Edit /etc/vsftpd.conf again

#change the lines as follows:
rsa_cert_file=/etc/vsftpd.pem
rsa_private_key_file=/etc/vsftpd.pem
write_enable=YES
chroot_local_user=YES
chroot_list_enable=YES
chroot_list_file=/etc/vsftpd.chroot_list
ssl_enable=YES

Edit /etc/vsftpd.chroot_list to contain a list of usernames (e.g., ravali)

Restart the server

service vsftpd restart

The FTP server should be accessible. Beware local packet shaping. Connect through mcnaircenter.org:26. Otherise have a check that the process is running and listening:

ps -aux
netstat -lnt

Assuming all is good with the FTP server, we now need to update Wordpress.

Update Wordpress

First make a copy of the wordpress folder and dbase

 cp -R /var/lib/wordpress/ /var/lib/wordpress_bak
 mysqldump -u mcnair_wp -p wordpress > backup_12Aug2016.sql
 (enter password for dbase found in wp-config.php)

Change the permissions on every in the wordpress folder and make www-data its owner:

chown -R www-data /var/lib/wordpress
chmod -R 755 /var/lib/wordpress

Browse to 128.42.44.180/blog/wp-admin Click update now. Enter:

Hostname 128.42.44.180:26
FTP Username ravali (or some other account)
FTP Password 
Connection Type FTPS (SSL)

Leave the Akismet plugin Go to appearance, themes -> add new

Choose Accesspress Lite 2.46.7
Activate

Install all of the recommended pluggins that come with the theme

Check the media library works by uploading a file (e.g., GreenRoundLogo.png)

Create a child theme

cd /var/lib/wordpress/wp-content/themes
mkdir accesspress-lite-child
vi accesspress-lite-child/style.css 
	Add in the template from the parent folder's style.css (just the top of the file)
	Update the theme name and text domain to accesspress-lite-child.
vi accesspress-lite-child/functions.php
	Add in the section that never changes
	
<?php
function my_theme_enqueue_styles() {

    $parent_style = 'parent-style'; // This is 'twentyfifteen-style' for the Twenty Fifteen theme.

    wp_enqueue_style( $parent_style, get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
    wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style',
        get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css',
        array( $parent_style ),
        wp_get_theme()->get('Version')
    );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_theme_enqueue_styles' );
?>

Check the permissions on the new files:

chown -R www-data /var/lib/wordpress
chmod -R 755 /var/lib/wordpress

Active the child theme! Check out what it looks like: www.mcnaircenter.org/blog

Customize our theme

Middle Section

The middle area of the blog's home page as three sections -

The Twitter Feed

This widget will display the top 5 tweets of the McNair Center's twitter account.

• In the Appearance -> Widgets section, the theme has the middle section sidebar.
• Add the AccessPress-lite Twitter feed widget to the middle section sidebar
• Log into dev.twitter.com with the McNair Center's creds.
• Paste the security keys, consumer keys, etc identifying the McNair Center API into the form of the widget.
• Set/reset the number of blog posts that are required

Categories

This is a built in widget from wordpress that is being used in this section.

Custom Widgets

Add a custom (text/html) widget from the widgets to put in the 'Contact Us' and social media icons.

Styling

Image Uploads

• Images uploaded, both attached to posts and unattached, are added to the media library.
• They are categorized in the backend per the month and the year in which they are uploaded.

• Plugins involved:

• • Enhanced Media Library
    • This plugin allows us to
      • create new categories
      • assign images to categories
      • filter in the media library section by category

• • Pixabay
    • This plugin allows us to
      • find images from Creative Commons
      • add these images for each post - the Pixabay button can be seen next to the Add Media button on the create post screen.

Adding pluggins

1. Check the ftp server is running: ps -aux | grep ftp
2. Restart the ftp server if not: service vsftpd start
3. Go to http://mcnair.bakerinstitute.org/blog/wp-admin/plugin-install.php and choose the plug in

Useful resources if there are errors

Wordpress:

• https://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress_Extended#Step_9:_Run_the_WordPress_upgrade_program
• https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-45-error-after-update
• https://help.webcontrolcenter.com/kb/a992/vsftpd-ftp-server.aspx

FTP Issues:

• https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/ftp-server.html
• http://askubuntu.com/questions/666858/vsftpd-service-will-not-start-for-14-04