jukey / wordpress-post-installation

Things I do after setting up a fresh Wordpress installation.

Collection of changes necessary after a fresh Wordpress installation

Table of Contents

• Change Base-URL without web front end access
• Secure login by htaccess protection
• Remove googleapi references
• Enable upload for files without restriction
• Export and Import

Change Base-URL without web front end access

In case the Base URL of the website needs to be changed and there is no way to log in in order to do so it is possible to add the following to the wp-config.php:

define('WP_HOME','http://example.com');
define('WP_SITEURL','http://example.com');

Using this solution you cannot any longer edit the base URL in the General Settings page in the admin panel.

Secure login by htaccess protection

A lot of attacs against wordpress installations are using the login page and login using a stolen or guessed password or using a security vulnerability. It become a good practice to protect the admin pages of wordpress installations by a second barrier called htaccess. This description was influenced by this blog post.

1. Create a password file

htpasswd -c /path/to/the/wordpress/directory/.htpasswd jukey

(optional) Change password

Thefollowing command changes the password for the user jukey:

htpasswd /path/to/the/wordpress/directory/.htpasswd jukey

2. Edit .htaccess

The htaccess file already contains the default entries that look like this:

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# END WordPress

Add the following below:

# BEGIN jukey
<Files wp-login.php>
 AuthName "Admin-Bereich"
 AuthType Basic
 AuthUserFile /path/to/the/.htpasswd
 require valid-user
</Files>

<FilesMatch "(\.htaccess|\.htpasswd|wp-config\.php|liesmich\.html|readme\.html)">
 order deny,allow
 deny from all
</FilesMatch>
# END jukey

Remove googleapi references

The default wordpress themes are using google fonts. In order to remove these references for privacy reasons just install the plugin:

• remove google fonts reference

Enable upload for files without restriction

Add the following at the end of the editable part of the config file:

/* Edit by Uwe */
define("ALLOW_UNFILTERED_UPLOADS", true);

/* Das war’s, Schluss mit dem Bearbeiten! Viel Spaß beim Bloggen. */
/* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Export and Import

This is relevant only if you are going to migrate existing pages and postes to the newly installed Wordpress blog. Could be found in the tools section