Changes to Apache web server’s configuration typically warrant a necessary immediate restart of the Apache. This is necessary in order for the new configuration changes to take effect due to the way Apace loads configuration settings at start-up.

Examples of changes which would warrant a restart in order to take immediate effect would be changing (adding or removing) an IP address, modifying the maximum connections limit, installing or uninstalling module files, changing virtual host configurations, and the list goes on, etc.

What is a Graceful Restart, and Why Bother Restarting Apache Gracefully?

Chances are you are already aware that the above situations would require a restart of Apache. The question that needs to be answered is “Why restart with the graceful command rather than the standard restart command. Continue Reading

What’s a Ball of Tar and a Zipper Have to do with My Linux Box?

Tarball files ( .tar ) are file archives commonly used in Linux and Unix file systems to store data backups and to assist in transferring of multiple files and directories quickly. Usually, tarbal ( .tar ) files are compressed with the GZIP library in order to save space, and make transferring quicker. Gzip’d tarball files are often have a .gz or .gzip file extension succeeding the .tar, and in equal are commonly used to backup and store data, as well as for transferring multiple files and directories around on the internet quickly and easily.

Why View the Contents of an Archive Without Extracting It?

There may be occasions when you simply want to see what is inside of a tar gzip file without having to actually extract the contents. This is Continue Reading

Are you irritated by those forced advertisements placed through IFRAMEs on your free web space from your host? In this guide, I will show you how to escape the IFRAMEs used when masking / redirecting to your destination address.

These ads are displayed at the top of a forced IFRAME , with the main content being forwarded to the clients destination, all while remaining nested inside the parent frame so as to keep the main ad in the main frame on display through out the user’s entire browsing session.

Using the following JavaScript will help you get your content forwarded first, and then exit the forced ad’s by reloading itself without the IFRAME, thus no more IFRAME advertisements. Continue Reading

mIRC is one of the greatest and most popular Windows IRC clients available. Everyone who has used it will agree that mIRC is an excellent tool to put you in touch with other tech-savy individuals throughout the many IRC communities.

The program is reliable and stable, widely adopted, and sports a huge library of third party scripts which can be installed to customize just about everything in the program. Some of the most notable and yet taken-for-granted features about mIRC are it’s advanced post-connection preferences, allowing you to specify macros for actions such as joining a specific series of chat channels, specifying a user name specific to each IRC server, automatically registering a nickname you want to have privileges to, etc, all done automatically after the connection has been established, and each macro being executed appropriately dependent on which IRC network you have connected to.

Those configuration options, while being your best friend, can also be your worse enemy. Unfortunately by default, mIRC stores all the configuration preferences within the Windows registry. In this visual guide, I will show you how to make mIRC portable and able to be easily moved from computer to computer. All of this, while retaining your preferences without the need for the Windows Registry database. Continue Reading

Many Linux Based Operating System Distribution Variants will require a manual reboot or restart of the network interface card to apply any changes you have made to the networking configuration after you’ve completed your work.

So how do you quickly restart the networking interface card without bringing down the whole server for longer than necessary? Luckily, Linux allows us to easily restart the networking interface without having to reboot, meaning we can have your network connection back up in seconds rather than a few minutes due to rebooting.

Do I need to restart my NIC if I…

If you’re not sure if the changes you’ve made warrant a network restart, you can check this quick list I put together of common changes made to the networking interface configurations for Ethernet adapters. Continue Reading