Contributors: A-Z Index

A

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Allen Ellis Image Founder

Original designer for ocPortal

Also conceived and coded the Theme Wizard and Point Store

Son of one of the early inventors of Internet protocols (Usenet, aka Internet newsgroups)

Token non-brit

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C

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Chris Graham Image Founder

Original developer of ocPortal, former lead developer of Composr CMS

Masters degree in Computer Science from The University Of Sheffield

Undertaken work for over 15 FTSE-100 companies, as well as many small and mid-sized organisations. Includes a number of banks and major brands.

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Chris Warburton developer for ocProducts

Made some key contributions to ocPortal

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H

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Haydn Maidment project manager for ocProducts

None available

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J

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Jim Davidson contributor

written many tutorials via Arvixe

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P

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Patrick Schmalstig Image Lead Developer

Joined Chris Graham behind the scenes in the development of Composr CMS in 2016.

Took on the lead developer role in 2023 when Chris Graham stepped back to attend to his new lifestyle changes.

Spearheaded the development of Composr CMS v11 and the new website, Composr.app.

Formed the company PDStig, LLC to take on professional support and development for Composr CMS users especially after the discontinuation of ocProducts, Ltd.

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Philip Withnall Early Developer

Coded the chatroom, blogging support, the analytics system, and OcCLE (now Commandr)

Masters Degree in Computer Science degree from The University Of Cambridge

Other work has included helping out with Firefox, and ongoing work on GNOME

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R

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Robert Goacher Image Founder

Ran some of the early websites where ocPortal came from

Technically the original developer of ocPortal, in that he wrote the first few lines of code

Heavily involved in the feature design process

Hosted some of our early meet-ups

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S

Name Photograph Title / Role Contributions / Notes
Steve Jarvis project manager for ocProducts

Wrote many tutorials via Arvixe

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Newest 10 Entries

Question What is the purpose of "confirmed" and "non-confirmed" sessions?
Answer Composr distinguishes between confirmed and non-confirmed sessions for added security:
  • Confirmed: When you actively log in with your credentials.
  • Non-confirmed: When you return to the site and are automatically logged in via cookies.

You can configure zones to require confirmed sessions, preventing access from cookie-based logins alone. The Admin Zone uses this by default.

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Question How can I enhance the security of my Composr installation on shared hosting?
Answer Shared hosting environments can be inherently less secure. Here are some tips:
  • Choose a Secure Host: Opt for hosts that offer suEXEC and open_basedir for better account isolation.
  • Test Security: Verify the host's security measures with the provided filesystem_browser.php script.
  • Restrict _config.php: Remove world-writable permissions from _config.php after installation.

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Question How does Composr protect against Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks?
Answer Composr utilizes multiple layers of defense against XSS attacks:
  • HTML Filtering: Configurable levels of filtering prevent malicious script injection.
  • Content Security Policy (CSP): Restricts the sources from which scripts and other resources can be loaded.
  • Input Sanitization: Data is sanitized before being processed to prevent malicious code execution.
  • Output Encoding: Data displayed to users is properly encoded to prevent interpretation as active code.

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Question What are the different types of security alerts in Composr?
Answer Composr has a variety of hack-attack codenames that trigger security alerts and logging. Some common examples include:
  • DODGY_GET_HACK: Suspicious URLs with potentially harmful characters.
  • EVIL_POSTED_FORM_HACK: Possible CSRF attempts via malicious form submissions.
  • SCRIPT_UPLOAD_HACK: Attempts to upload PHP scripts, potentially malicious.
  • DOWNLOAD_PRIVATE_URL_HACK/TRY_TO_DOWNLOAD_SCRIPT: Attempts to download sensitive files.
  • BRUTEFORCE_LOGIN_HACK: Repeated failed login attempts.
  • SQL_INJECTION_HACK: Attempts to exploit SQL queries for data extraction.

You can customize alert handling for each type in data_custom/xml_config/advanced_banning.xml (Admin Zone > Security > Configure advanced banning).

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Question What are some tips for secure website maintenance?
Answer
  • Avoid FTP: Use secure alternatives like SFTP or SSH for file transfer.
  • Secure Email: Enable SSL for IMAP and POP3 email protocols.
  • Strong Passwords: Use unique and complex passwords for different services.
  • Secure Computers: Keep your own devices patched and secure.
  • Maintenance Password: Remove the maintenance password from _config.php when not in use.

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Question What are the main security features of Composr?
Answer Composr has a robust set of security features to protect your website, including:

Passwords:
  • Visual representation of password quality and enforcement of complexity rules.
  • Password expiry and prevention of re-use.
  • Secure password hashing, even if the database is compromised.
  • Temporary passwords for staff setup.

Login Restrictions:
  • Two-factor authentication via IP address approval.
  • IP address banning, including wildcard banning.
  • Session locking to IP addresses.
  • Configurable session expiry times.
  • Ability to prevent privileged actions from auto-logged in sessions.
  • Optional member approval process.

Auditing Systems:
  • Comprehensive audit logging of administrative actions.
  • Logging of user actions and IP address history.
  • Tools to analyze audit logs.
  • Failed login logging.
  • Hack attack detection, logging, and banning.
  • Email notifications for changes to user credentials.

Framework Security:
  • Protection against CSRF attacks.
  • Click-jacking prevention via CSP implementation.
  • Secure coding standards and scanning techniques.
  • Configurable HTML filtering to prevent XSS attacks.
  • Secure code modularization standards.

Other features:
  • Granular privileges and access permissions.
  • Content submission validation process.
  • Rootkit detection system.
  • Spam prevention systems.
  • Web application firewall rules.
  • Moderation systems.

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Question Why are my searches slow, and how can I improve search speed?
Answer Slow searches can occur when dealing with large amounts of content. Here are some workarounds and solutions:
  • MySQL timeout setting: For MySQL 5.7+, set a query timeout to prevent searches from locking up your database. Composr automatically sets this, but you can configure it manually if needed.
  • Use InnoDB tables: Switching to InnoDB tables in MySQL can prevent slow queries from affecting other users on your website. Note that InnoDB is not officially supported by Composr yet.
  • Enable the fast custom index: As mentioned earlier, the fast custom index is optimized for handling large datasets and filtered searches, potentially leading to significant speed improvements.

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Question How does the search engine handle different languages?
Answer Composr's fast custom index supports multiple languages. Content is indexed based on its translated version, ensuring that you get relevant results even when searching in a different language.

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Question What are quoted phrases and how do they work?
Answer Quoted phrases allow you to search for an exact sequence of words. For example, searching for "red apple" will only return results containing that exact phrase. Keep in mind that enabling quoted phrases can increase disk space usage.

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Question How do stop words affect search results?
Answer Stop words are common words (like "the", "a", "is") that are ignored by the search engine because they add noise and don't contribute to the meaning of the search query. You can customize the list of stop words for the fast custom index. See the search tutorial for more information.

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Top 10 Entries

Question What are the different media types supported for banners?
Answer The Composr banner system supports various media types:
  • Images: Uploaded directly or via an image URL.
  • Text: Textual banners, including support for "hot text" that dynamically displays banners based on keyword matches within the content.
  • Frames: Banners embedded within frames using an iframe URL.
  • Direct Code: Raw HTML or PHP code can be used to integrate banners from third-party banner networks or create custom banner implementations.

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Question What is a banner wave, and how is it different from a banner rotation?
Answer A banner wave displays all banners within a specific type as a single advertising block, similar to a list of sponsors. In contrast, a banner rotation randomly displays banners from a set based on factors like display likelihood.

You can add a banner wave using the main_banner_wave block and configure it to show a specific number of banners or all banners within a type.

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Question What is a banner network, and how can I create one?
Answer A banner network is a system for exchanging banners between websites. You can create a banner network in Composr by associating banners with specific websites.

When a site joins your banner network, you provide them with an iframe code to display banners from your rotation. Composr uses a "hit balancing" system where sites in the network receive banner impressions based on the clicks they generate for other sites in the network.

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Question Can I restrict who can see specific banners?
Answer Yes, by enabling the "Permissions" configuration option in the Admin Zone (Admin Zone > Setup > Configuration > Feature options > Banners), you can control which usergroups can see individual banners. This feature allows for banner targeting and prevents inappropriate banners from being shown to specific audiences, such as adult banners to minors.

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Question What are the different types of banner deployment agreements?
Answer There are three types of banner deployment agreements:
  • Permanent: These banners are always displayed as long as there is available space.
  • Campaign: These banners have a limited number of impressions or clicks before they stop displaying. They can be associated with specific campaigns and can have their hits increased if needed.
  • Default: These banners are displayed only when there are no permanent or campaign banners available to show.
The system displays permanent and campaign banners with a 50:50 split.

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Question What should I do if URL Schemes are not working properly?
Answer If URL Schemes, which rely on web server rewrites, are not functioning correctly, you can disable them using the http://yourbaseurl/config_editor.php script. Enable the option "Whether to block the URL Scheme (mod_rewrite)" to override the main configuration setting.

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Question What should I do if an addon causes problems on my Composr website?
Answer Composr's Safe Mode can help isolate addon-related problems.
  • Enable Safe Mode: Use the safe mode link or the config editor (http://yourbaseurl/config_editor.php) to enable Safe Mode.
  • Uninstall the problematic addon: Once in Safe Mode, navigate to the addon management section and uninstall the addon causing the issue.
  • Disable Safe Mode: After resolving the problem, disable Safe Mode through the config editor.

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Question How can I manually edit my Composr database?
Answer phpMyAdmin is a widely used web-based tool for managing MySQL databases. It allows you to:
  • Browse tables: View and edit individual rows within database tables.
  • Run SQL queries: Execute SQL commands directly for specific tasks.
  • Repair corrupted tables: Access table repair functions.

Refer to the "Manually editing your database with phpMyAdmin" tutorial for more detailed instructions.

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Question How can I reset a forgotten account password in Composr?
Answer If you have access to phpMyAdmin:
  • Access the f_members table.
  • Find the row corresponding to the user whose password needs to be reset.
  • Edit the row, setting m_pass_hash_salted to the new password using MD5 encryption, clearing m_pass_salt, and setting m_password_compat_scheme to 'md5'.

If you have FTP access:
  • Obtain your IP address.
  • Edit your _config.php file, setting $SITE_INFO['backdoor_ip'] to your IP address. This enables a temporary backdoor login for your IP address, bypassing security restrictions.
  • Remove the backdoor entry after logging in and resetting the password through standard means.
Caution: Using the backdoor method is a security risk and should be done with extreme caution.

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Question My Composr installation seems corrupted. How can I repair it?
Answer Composr offers several tools and methods for repairing corrupted installations:
  • Integrity checker: The upgrader tool, accessible via http://yourbaseurl/upgrader.php, includes an integrity checker that identifies outdated or corrupted files.
  • MySQL table repair: The Admin Zone > Tools > Cleanup tools provides access to MySQL table repair functionalities. Alternatively, use phpMyAdmin or your web host's database management tools for more direct control.
  • Safe Mode: Access safe mode via the bookmarked link from the setup wizard or by adding &keep_safe_mode=1 to any website URL. This disables custom themes and caching, helping isolate problems caused by themes or custom code.

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