A big challenge when setting up a new Zabbix installation is “how do I test my media+action+notification+trigger” setup? I’ve come up with a pretty easy way to do this that doesn’t require butchering your server or messing with it’s historical data. (more…)

For the most part, I’ve containerized all of my dependencies inside of my Laravel projects. But, one thing was missing: npm. (more…)

A question I’m asked often is “how do I pay back my mentor?” (If you’ve read other entries, you know I’m a big fan of mentoring.) Well, mentors have various reasons for doing their work, so not one solution fits all. But, I can tell you one thing that they’ll appreciate no matter what. (more…)

Currently, there are two pretty common packages for interacting with your database: Eloquent and Doctrine. Eloquent is part of Laravel and Doctrine, while used often on its own, is usually referenced with Symfony. If you’ve come to read this article, you’re probably versed in Doctrine and wondering why you can’t just - or shouldn’t just - use it with your new Laravel project. (more…)

tldr; Using Sqlite in Laravel (or most PHP apps) for unit testing causes false positives in unit tests. Things that work will not work when you move to production and use a different db like MySQL. Instead, spin up a test database that is the same tech and engine as your application will be. (more…)

When it comes to Open Source Software, you have a number of choices to make for licensing your software. When you provide a license for your software, you, as the copyright holder, are giving various types of permissions and warranties for the use of this software. You might even define the way it can be used and if modifications have to be submitted back to you. But, what do you “license” software that is closed,... (more…)

Before I begin a security audit, I try to make sure that the client owns their website. Normally, this is pretty easy and obvious. However, sometimes it takes a little bit more work. That’s why I had thought of launching the tool called Possessor. (more…)

When you’re trying to demo your work in progress to a client, it can be difficult to know where to draw the line between working and non-working features. On one hand, you want to show them some context so they can understand the current feature. But, then what happens when they invariably try to explore the context (which may not be done)? Let me put that in a more concrete example. (more…)

Open source software is wonderful for many reasons. One of the best is we can see and inspect the software for vulnerabilities. But, far too many people actually do this. Let me demonstrate, using a Laravel package, how this lack of review might backfire and cause you grief. (more…)

This MySQL error isn’t as hard as you might think to solve. Let’s find out why it’s happening and what we can do to fix it. (more…)