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I was recently asked if I had any documentation on how to create a self-signed SSL certificate for the Apache Web Server. As luck would have it, I indeed had exactly such an item!

With this in mind I have decided to add this information here also for all to share.

While this is targeted at creating a self-signed certificate, it can also be used to submit to a certificate authority.

In the following example I am assuming that you have chosen to install a pre-compiled Win32 Binary that already includes OpenSSL.

While Windows is the install of choice here, the syntax remains pretty much the same, only the file and directory structure differ. As such, if you are using Linux, Mac OS or something else just adjust the directory locations for your particular install.

This is a placeholder for the upcoming Multi-Factor Authentication Project.

Quite some time ago I put together a proof of concept illustrating the relative simplicity by which a multi factor authentication system, sometimes referred to as two factor authentication could be established for web services.

My basic design concept was to use server-side technologies to create and store an authenticated session key having achieved strong authentication with the client browser.

A couple of design parameters that I set myself early on during the development stage was to ensure ease of integration with existing web sites and the lowest possible cost in development time and maintenance while achieving the primary goal of strong authentication.

In establishing a high-availability web application you need to consider multiple levels of availability and redundancy.

In this first installment discussing MySQL replication I am referring to omni-directional replication. In my follow-up on the subject, next week, we will be covering bi-directional replication or creating what is otherwise known as multi-master replication, and yes I am doing this on Microsoft Windows.

Over the years I have had many people ask about how to do Virtual Hosting.

Despite many demonstrations, much coaching and plenty of examples, it seems that where I work at least, nobody can grasp it or as I suspect maybe they simply don't want to! I find this a little amazing considering how simple it really is.