Alex Günsche · June 26, 2007
The contactNG plugin was pre-released today with an announcement in the Plugin Competition Blog.
I will work on the plugin a bit more in the next days and enhance the features based on the feedback.
Please download the plugin, install it, and let me know what you think.
Alex Günsche · May 30, 2007
The InstantUpgrade plugin has gained very much attention and positive feedback during the last weeks. Now it’s time for a new era: I’ve created a version of the plugin that will make the installation and usage significantly easier. While with 0.x versions it was neccessary to change tons of permissions on most hosts, the new version offers file transfer via FTP with the users credentials, so no permissions must be changed at all!
However, the new features, especially the FTP transfer, need very much testing before we can release it to the general public. Therefore I’d ask everybody to install the new version in their test environments and review the plugin extensively. Note: Please don’t use this version in productive environments yet.
Usage is as follows:
instantupgrade to your plugin directoryIf you encounter errors during the installation which you think are errors of the plugin, please report them. After installation, please check your WordPress installation, and if you notice errors, please report them, too.
You can report bugs as comments below this post (please not at the plugin’s home page), or you can use our bugtracker. Any notice of what could be improved is welcome, same goes for questions, feature requests, etc. Please do also provide information about your testing environment.
Everybody who provides substantial feedback will be named (w/ link) in the final release announcement, so I hope you all get a piece of the fame. 
Update (31.05, 14:28): The author of the FTP library, Alexey Dotsenko, has said he will put his work under the GNU LGPL. 
Alex Günsche · May 11, 2007
WordPress 2.2 is soon to be released, and WordPress 2.3 also approaches. As functionality keeps on changing, I decided to test the InstantUpgrade-Plugin with the new versions. Result: works fine — with WP 2.2-RC1 as well as with WP 2.3-alpha (SVN Rev. 5451).
By the way, I finished moving, and I’m back at work with full power.
Alex Günsche · April 21, 2007
No, not this site, but I myself am moving. From May 1st, I’ll have a beautiful new appartment with a shiny new office. Therefore, it can be that I’m a bit hard to reach during the next days and weeks; especially via Internet, as I’m also changing my access provider. But my girfriend will provide a shelter for me and my notebook, so that I will be able to implement my current customers’ projects. However, I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide support for my free projects this next time.
Alex Günsche · April 6, 2007
There’s a new version of the InstantUpgrade plugin. Actually, I had big plans and wanted to implement some new features for the upcoming version. But there were some issues which wanted to be addressed in the meantime.
The new version is as always available from the plugin’s page.
Alex Günsche · March 22, 2007
The InstantUpgrade plugin has received quite some attention during the last two weeks since its initial release. At the moment, the plugin package has been downloaded about 1100 times. But it has also raised a couple of questions which were asked here at zirona.com or discussed in other places. I want to say a few words and try to summarize the feedback a bit.
In general, the plugin received very positive feedback. Many people wrote me that they were astonished how quick and easy the upgrade was indeed. I have to admit that I myself am surprized how good it seems to work for the vaste majority of users. However, some people did encounter problems, in fact due to certain safe mode configurations. (This is why the plugin’s next version won’t work in safe mode at all.) However, as far as I know, everybody was able to restore his/her WordPress installation, so there was no grave damage so far. (phew…)
We all know that making files writable by the webserver is potentially dangerous. For InstantUpgrade, you must make very many files writable. There is no way around that, because FTP user (you) and Webserver are different system users on the server in most cases. But that’s ok in this case, because with the first run, all those files will be owned by the webserver and have proper permissions again.
However, the WordPress base folder will remain world writable. This might allow the webserver or other users to create files there — if they come to access this area at all. If you want to avoid this very unlikely possibility under any circumstances, you must not use the InstantUpgrade plugin. However, if you have your .htaccess or your theme/plugin files world writable, or you use plugins that execute inline PHP, don’t you come to me whining about security.
Apart from this, there is — in my opinion — no reason to consider this plugin insecure. But if you believe to have identified another issue, please let me know.
Another thing I’ve read a couple of times are statements like “If it’s so good, why isn’t it in the WordPress core?” or “I hope they will soon integrate this with the WP core.” Although I feel honoured when hearing thes proposals, I’m afraid, they’re a bit unrealistic. The installation of the plugin requires some steps that (a) might ask too much from novice WP users, and (b) can turn out to be impossible on some hosts.
I would however appreciate, if — with time — there could be a better cooperation with the WordPress developers. The InstantUpgrade plugin must be as future proof as possible, and I am afraid that most people won’t upgrade the plugin itself too often. So if there’s a change in WordPress for which the plugin is not laid out, there might be errors during upgrade. Of course I monitor the development of WordPress, so I pretty much get the idea what expects us with new releases, and you can be sure that I will bring out a new version of InstandUpgrade soon enough before the WordPress upgrade.
I have also received some ideas for upcoming versions. Some are things I had considered myself, and had rejected for various reasons. Others are good inspirations for improvements. So if you have an idea what could be a feature of an auto-upgrade plugin, please let me know.
Alex Günsche · March 16, 2007
The boys from Automattic have (finally!) extended the website wp-plugins.org to a standardized plattform for WordPress plugins.This will hopefully make plugin management a lot easier for users and developers.
By the way: Matt says: “[…] having all these plugins isn’t that useful if you’ve got no place to find them”, which is of course a bit misleading, because wp-plugins.net has always done a good job at least for me.
Alex Günsche · March 11, 2007
InstantUpgrade is a plugin for WordPress, which will perform automatic upgrades of a WordPress installation with a single click. You can upgrade to the latest WordPress version, or you can upgrade to a version of your choice. The plugin downloads the chosen WordPress version, unpacks it, deletes the old files and inserts the new ones. All these actions don’t require funky PHP extensions — they are all handled by the InstantUpgrade plugin.
This plugin might be of special interest for you if you installed WordPress for a friend or a customer with no knowledge of FTP, PHP and MySQL. But of course, everybody else will surely also apprechiate easy and instant upgrades.
Documentation, screenshots and downloads are available at the InstantUpgrade homepage. Feedback is very apprechiated.
Alex Günsche · March 8, 2007
There have been many requests for this, and now it happened: The AdvancedSearch plugin has got a little brother called “AdvancedSearch Lite”. This edition is developed for the people who always wanted the fulltext search with boolean operators, but wanted no or just a small search form. Of course, this edition also features multi-color search term highlighting.
“AdvancedSearch Lite” fulfills these requirements: As soon as you upload and activate it, the WordPress search will have a new engine. If you then want to replace the legacy sidebar searchform with a much neater and feature-richer one, you can also do this with very little efforts.
The “AdvancedSearch Lite” plugin also has its own page with downloads and comprehensive documentation. As always, we wish much fun with our work! By the way, translations, bug reports and feedback of any kind are always welcome.
Alex Günsche · March 5, 2007
BILDblog.de veröffentlichte vor wenigen Tagen einen Artikel über das von Bild.T-Online betriebene Forum www.meinung-live.de, wo Links und andere Referenzen zu BILDblog.de systematisch zensiert werden.
Ich habe das zum Anlass genommen, mich mal auf diesem Portal umzuschauen. Die Hass- und Lügenmaschine “BILD” kann ich sowieso nicht leiden, und wenn dann noch systematische Zensur geübt wird, dann möchte man doch mal sehen, mit wem man es zu tun hat.
Nun bin ich weder ein pöser Pube, noch würde ich mich als Sicherheitspezialisten bezeichnen — aber mir sind doch schon nach kurzem Umsehen einige grobe Sicherheitslücken ins Auge gefallen, die für Benutzer und Betreiber des Portals fatal werden könnten. Das Forensystem nennt sich Forum 101 und ist von der norddeutschen Internetklitsche worldweb für schlappe 2800 Euro zu erwerben. Dieses Forensystem ist anfällig für mehrere Sicherheitslücken, vorwiegend Cross-Site-Scripting (XSS) in Hülle und Fülle sowie SQL-Injektion.
Für die nicht Fachkundigen: Clientseitiges Cross-Site-Scripting ist eine Angriffstechnik, bei der ein Bösewicht präparierte URLs mit JavaScript (eine vom Browser ausgeführten Programmiersprache) spickt, das dann auf dem Rechner des Opfers ausgeführt wird. Auf diese Weise kann man beispielsweise den Benutzerzugang des Opfers übernehmen. Das System Forum101 lässt XSS-Attacken in vielen Eingabefeldern und den dazugehörigen URL-Parametern zu, d.h. so ziemlich jede Seite des Forums ist für XSS-Attacken anfällig.
Doch damit nicht genug: Das Forensystem ist anfällig für SQL-Injektion. SQL-Injektion wird durch schlampige Programmierung möglich, wenn Benutzereingaben ohne Überprüfung als Parameter für einen Datenbankzugriff verwendet. Dadurch kann man unter Umständen in die Datenbank des Forensystems einbrechen und beliebige Daten lesen/ändern/löschen — beispielsweise Benutzernamen und -passwörter. (Kleiner Tipp an die Forum101-Entwickler: Man sollte LIMIT-Deklarationen nicht ungeprüft aus der URL entnehmen.)
Im Übrigen werden Angriffe gegen Benutzer noch dadurch vereinfacht, dass das Passwort anscheinend im Klartext in der Datenbank liegt, statt es mit einem Hash zu schützen. (Zu sehen ist das daran, dass man das ursprüngliche Passwort bei der “Passwort-Vergessen”-Funktion bekommt, und nicht ein neues.) Somit muss ein Angreifer die Passwörter für die Anmeldung mit einem fremden Zugang noch nicht mal ändern, d.h. ein Zugriff bliebe sogar weitestgehend unbemerkt.
Mit solchen gravierenden Schwachstellen wird das System Forum101 schnell zum “Room 101″ für alle Beteiligten. Um es nochmal zu verdeutlichen: Diese Erkenntnisse sind das Ergebnis einer müßigen Kaffeepause. Nicht auszudenken, was man bei genauerer Untersuchung dieses Gefrickels im Wert einer kompletten Büroausstattung noch so alles finden würde. Bleibt die Frage, warum sich Bild.T-Online für dieses Paket entschieden hat — wo es doch eine ältere Version von phpBB auch getan hätte. Vermutlich ist das hervorstechende Merkmal (oder “Unique Selling Point”, wie der PRler sagt) die ausgeklügelte Zensurfunktion.
Hinweis: Das unbefugte Ausspähen und Manipulieren von EDV-Daten ist — wie wir alle wissen — in Deutschland strafbar. Bei der oben dargestellten Recherche sind keine Daten unbefugt ausgespäht oder manipuliert worden. Dieser Artikel ist nicht als Aufruf zu Straftaten zu verstehen, sondern stellt einzig und allein eine kritische Betrachtung des Forensystems “Forum101″ dar.
