Joomla install & config

How to install and configure Joomla with minimum effort, tuned for speed, SEO, security - and top performance.

Did you upgraded to Joomla 1.0.13 and now you can't login?

Do you are an early adopter and you upgraded to Joomla 1.0.13? And you have Community Builder, VirtueMart or SMF Bridge...and you cant' login right now, and/or your users are complaining about the same problem. We're sorry for you... Do you have a backup? Then is simple, restore the Joomla 1.0.12 files, overwriting the actual files with those from the official distribution package and restore the jos_users or similar (or at least the passwords column from that).

Do you have backup, don't you? No??? Ouch... humm, then the job is a bit harder, but can be done!

So, still you can do the file restore? Good, do it. Then read below!

Baba Yaga

Baba Yaga is an entity that haunts the dreams of children and a common threat that parents use when their children misbehave in Slavic countries across Eastern Europe.

But in the world of malware, BabaYaga is a form of malware that can update itself, use antivirus functionality and more. Much like the mythical creature, BabaYaga malware has the potential to haunt Joomla/WordPress or, in fact any PHP site administrators and IT support staff.

Cleaned your site? Fix Malware warnings too

You have done a great job by cleaning your recently hacked file? Excellent, but you not finished yet!

If you were blacklisted by Google, McAfee, Yandex (or any other web spam authorities), your site is showing various malware warnings to your visitors, wich can be a big turn down factor. Luckily you can request a review after the hack has been fixed.

Google is now limiting repeat offenders to one review request every 30 days.

Be sure your site is clean before requesting a review!

Clean Hacked Website Files

By comparing infected files with known good files (from official sources or reliably clean backups) you can identify and remove malicious changes.

Caution

It is important that you compare the same version of your Joomla! core files and extensions. Core files on the 2.x branch are not the same as the 3.x branch and so on.

Never perform any actions without a backup. If you’re unsure, please seek assistance from a professional.

To manually remove a malware infection from your Joomla! files:

  1. Log into your server via SFTP or SSH.

  2. Create a backup of the site files before making changes.

  3. Search your files for reference to malicious domains or payloads you noted.

  4. Identify recently changed files and confirm whether they are legitimate.

  5. Review files flagged by the diff command during the core file integrity check.

  6. Restore or compare suspicious files with clean backups or official sources.

  7. Remove any suspicious or unfamiliar code from your custom files.

  8. Test to verify the site is still operational after changes.

If you can't find the malicious content, try searching the web for malicious content, payloads, and domain names that you found in the first step. Chances are that someone else has already figured out how those domain names are involved in the hack you are attempting to clean.

Diff tools to compare suspicious files with known-good copies:


 

How to prevent to got hacked?

You simply can’t be 100% safe from getting your website hacked. But fortunately there are ways to help reduce the chances of being hacked and recover quickly if some clever hacker still succeeds.

Locate modified files

If files have been modified on your server, or files have been uploaded for instance, you can check the timestamps on those files to find out when the attacker was on your site. This is typical in the case of sites being defaced or malicious code being injected somewhere. Most of the time, the attacker will have gained access to your site shortly before modifying or uploading files to it.

Subcategories

How did you find this site? Did you asked yourself the question how a site can be found on the net? Watch your own habits, and you'll see: you are looking to the sites found on first page of the Google results for a given search term. Must be something very important, to go down to the second, and even to the third page. What else you use to find new web content? Social media? Recommendations from friends? Links on pages you like and visit? Do you know, that less, than 1% of existing web-pages are reaching the first page of the Google results for some search term? do you know, than less, than 17% of existing web-pages are even spidered regularly by the major search-engines? If you don't get spidered and/or you don't reach the magic first 3 pages for at least some search terms you are interested in - you aren't exist. And I can't believe, that anyone building a web-page plans to remain hidden... So, how you can get there? Enter the art of SEO. You will find some interesting, Joomla-specific ideas here which may help you learning it! And never forget: SEO is about what you do every day. SEO is a long term strategy - not a quick fix.

Joomla is safe!! - you can heard in every forums. Is indeed safe enough? Yes, the core Joomla, if properly configured and deployed is a reasonably secure environment. The difference can be made by several factors. and first of these factors is YOU, the webmaster. But there are others, like the hosting environment, the addons used, and couple of others. Watch your back! And keep your site safe!

... and not only. Sometimes you don't know, why your Joomla site isn't working as you want it. Here you can find some tips wich might help you finding your way!

And, remember: everyone was a beginner!

Yesterday your Joomla site worked just fine. Today is misbehaving. And you're clueless... Right? Hey, you're not the first one having this experience. You're on the good site where you might find the cure for your problem!

All kind of software tools you should have to be productive. From local development environments to programming tools, resources, tips and tricks wich can help you build your Joomla siter faster, easier.


 

Basic tricks to make Joomla work for you. Things you can solve using various configuration areas of your Joomla, your hosting environment or your components.