Prepping Joomla! For Deployment

Joomla! is an extremely popular open source CMS, and one that is used in production environments the world over. We’ve set up quite a few Joomla sites in our day, so I thought I’d share our handy guide to prepping your development installation for a live launch. The topics will cover anything from basic server side security to specific plug-ins we find useful. In no particular order…

1: Choose a good password, for everything.

Your database password, your admin password, your FTP password, etc. should be solidly locked down with good passwords. I mean no dictionary words and simple acronyms. Use some symbols in there as well. Honestly, this can make all the difference and for goodness’ sake DO NOT use anything as simple as ‘123456′ or ‘password.’ If you neglect this, you deserve to be hacked. You should even change the admin user name to something else.

2. Use the most recent version of Joomla!.

Try very hard not to use an old version because you’ve use it before and are familiar with it, or because a plug-in you’d like won’t work in the new one (there is a Legacy mode for that, though you should try not to use it if you don’t absolutely need to). Also, update it often.

3. Optimize your URL structure.

The newest version of Joomla! has some nice SEO optimized URLs right out of the box, but you can improve this even further by simply renaming the htaccess.txt file in the installation’s root to .htaccess. Now hop in the Site’s configuration and enable ‘mod_rewrite’. If you’d like even more overriding control with your URL structure, try the plugin named ’sh404sef.’

4. Secure your folders with an index file.

This one is a general tip that most guys running a web server already know about. Make a blank html file named ‘index.html’ and upload it to each of the folders that you feel may be left open to prying eyes. A good example is the template folder and all subsequent folders.

5. Use SEO improving plug-ins.

My favorite SEO plug-in is JoomSEO. This plug-in allows for auto generated meta tags based on keyword density, titles, and categories for each article. This is a must have because otherwise the meta tags are for the most part site wide. (Please note that if you use sh404sef that you may have to disable its meta generating feature to make this work correctly.)

6. Perform a health and security audit on Joomla!.

Use Joomla! Tools Suite to do a quick audit of your site and try to plug all the holes that it finds. This tools suite is a great asset.

7. Prepare regular backups.

There are many ways to do back-ups, including off site backups using Amazon’s S3 service, but the fastest and simplest way to protect yourself should something go south is to install a plug-in like ‘JoomlaPack’ to do automated backups for your site. This plug-in packs your current site into a redistributable zip file ready to be installed just like a new Joomla! site. Great for cloning sites as well.

8. Set up your cache.

The cache is a standard feature for Joomla!, make sure its working by checking out the ‘cache’ folder in the root install directory. There should be a bunch of files in there, if not, make sure the folder is writable and that you’ve enabled the cache in the ‘Site Configuration’.

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This should pretty much cover all the basics, you can always further optimize your server using compression, CSS sprites, image optimization and far-future headers, but those are all high effort/low return ideas that are best reserved for sites with extremely high traffic.

What else do you do to prep your site for production?

Our Special Wordpress Theme

If you’d like some customization done on the theme, I highly recommend going to our sister site GazelleThemes.com for an awesome and affordable Pro Package for Clean Home. Right off the bat, this has blurb customizations, new color schemes and an improved design (not to mention full customization support)! Unfortunately, due to time constraints, we cannot help users with the free-use GPL theme you’ll find on Wordpress.org.

Today marks a big day for us, we’ve released the same custom theme that cloaks this very site! Well, it is a very heavily modified version of this theme, but it retains the style that we’ve got going on. I am rather partial to my minimalism themes (just check out my personal site) but this way it remains clean and sparkly.

Without further ado, I present Clean Home (v 1.2.1), our house theme. You can download it for free now right here. So what’s special about this theme? Let me list the ways:

• Lightweight - A grand total of two images, both 2×6. The rest is XHTML and CSS.
• Minimalistic - No more distracting of your users, with our theme, your content stays king.
• Attention Grabbing - With a semi-customizable (1.1.3) blurb, you can say something right away that people just have to read.
• Full Widget Support - I even took care of some all (1.1.3) of the standard widgets’ CSS for you.
• Valid XHTML and CSS - As long as you stay valid on your end…
• GPL License – New! – Do what you will with the theme!
• Multiple Widget – Now with three sidebars (1.1.4) for maximum customization: top navigation, blurb, and sidebar.
• (Pro) Fully customizable blurb - select between hidden, random phrase, image, and per-post assigned text.
• (Pro) Adsense - three separate locations for Adsense integration.
• (Pro) Color selection - Over 7 color schemes.
• (Pro) Style selection - 2 distinct styles, selectable from inside the options.
• (Pro) Feedburner integration - an email subscribe button plus automatic feed redirection.
• (Pro) Fully customizable Home Page - select different categories and how many articles to showcase!

If you’d like some common custom options, visit our sister site Gazelle Themes for cheap purchasing options for the Pro Package. Otherwise, this is just our way of giving back to the wonderful open source community that makes our business possible.

Go ahead and download it now! Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments! Enjoy!

Check out our home page for any Missouri Web Design help you may need!

What Is Open Source?

Open Source, of the software type, is an umbrella term for software whose code base (or underlying design plan) is available for public use and scrutiny. It is usually maintained by a community of volunteers or by paid employees of companies that also utilize the software in business. There are many popular open source projects that range from stand alone operating systems like Ubuntu to online developmental frameworks like Ruby on Rails.

While open source can at first seem a little confusing, the benefits are very clear. Privately developed and marketed software is considered “closed source” because interested parties cannot download the code base for personal reuse or examination. Popular closed source programs would be Microsoft Windows or Adobe Photoshop. Open source software is often free to download and reuse.

Some of the open source projects that commonly pop up in our projects are content management systems, blogging software, and forum software. Here are some popular ones:

• Wordpress. A popular, free, and open source blogging software that runs online.
• Drupal. A free content management system. It is open source and quite popular.
• Joomla!. While not as popular as Drupal, Joomla! is also free and open source.
• PunBB. A common, free, and open source forum software that enables visitors to have conversations.

By utilizing these open source programs (and many, man more), Mid Missouri Web Design stays at the front of the curve and keeps prices low. Because we have hundreds of eyes scanning your site’s design, your’s will be among the most secure on the internet.