XF 1.4 Upgrade to 1.4 - license question

[squirrly]

We are running 1.3.1 right now. I made a copy of our live install so that I can test the upgrade to 1.4. What do I need to do so that the license is suitable? In theory it's exposed, but since only myself and another admin know that it exists, it's not really like we're trying to run two boards on one license.

 

[rainmotorsports]

You won't get caught running it for 5 minutes to test the upgrade process. But its easier to ip protect than password protect, as using htaccess password protection has a couple of steps. IP not so much.

Assumes an apache server, place this in the .htaccess file on the dev site with your IP instead, can add additional:

Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
Allow from 100.100.100.100

 

[Martok]

From here: https://xenforo.com/community/threads/pre-sales-faq.4951/

How many installations can I make with a single license?
Each license permits you to install the software once. However, you may create a single additional test installation for testing purposes only. Any test installation of this kind must be password protected, and access to it must be limited to you and your website staff.

So yes, you should protect the site so it isn't available to the public.

I'd recommend keeping a test site anyway, it's always useful to test stuff on there before rolling it out on the live site. Also when there are problems, admins often complain that they can't disable all add-ons and revert to the default style on a live site to find out where the problem lies. With a test site you can do all of this to resolve issues before implementing on the live site.

 

[Paul B]

I would recommend everyone has a test site to test upgrades, etc.
We have already seen two large sites suffer downtime due to add-on related problems when upgrading to 1.4.2.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/how-to-duplicate-a-live-site-to-use-as-a-test-site.2792/

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/how-to-install-xenforo-locally-to-your-pc-using-xampp.355/

https://xenforo.com/community/resou...and-the-install-directory-using-htaccess.353/

That last resource can be adapted to cover the whole site, as mentioned above.

 

[rdn]

We have already seen two large sites suffer downtime due to add-on related problems when upgrading to 1.4.2.

May I know what are those addons?

 

[Paul B]

It was User Essentials but an update has already been released to resolve the issue.

 

[squirrly]

Question re: the .htaccess - I created the passwd file and before doing anything else, when I refreshed the test site, it required me to login to proceed. So, do I need to protect admin.php and/or the install directory beyond that?

 

[squirrly]

Ok, so then it gave me an error in general. I did the step for admin.php and now the regular front page I can access, but I can't access admin.php, which is a problem. It's not even giving me a place to login.

 

[Paul B]

You only need to password protect access to the installation (the main URL), not admin.php nor the install directory.

If you can't get it working, disable registration (or close the site if only administrators will be accessing it) and remove the general view permission for the unregistered user group.
If the URL isn't easy to guess then that will more or less achieve the same.

 

[squirrly]

Ah, so, I think I'm confused then.

This set of directions:
https://xenforo.com/community/resou...and-the-install-directory-using-htaccess.353/

I did this part:

Then create a corresponding passwd file. This is how to do it using cPanel.

1. Log in to cPanel
2. Click on Password Protect Directories
3. Select Web Root
4. Click on the forum root folder
5. Check Password protect this directory
6. Name it as "ACP"
7. Click Save

1. Create User
2. Enter Username
3. Enter Password
4. Click on Add/modify authorised user

A passwd file will be created in /.htpasswds/public_html/<name_of_your_forum_root_folder>

But that's when I get the error and can't get to anything.

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@thebabywearer.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

When I do this:

Protecting admin.php
To protect admin.php, edit the .htaccess file which is in your forum root directory (e.g. /community) and add the following to it:
Code:
<Files admin.php>
AuthType Basic
AuthName "ACP"
AuthUserFile "path/to/passwd/file"
Require valid-user
</Files>
The "path/to/passwd/file" will look something like "/home/my-domain/.htpasswds/public_html/community/passwd".

Then I can get to the main user page but not the admin cp.

What'd I screw up?

 

[squirrly]

Ok, I can close the site easily enough, but it'd be nice to get it the right way too.

 

[Paul B]

You would need to inspect the server error log to see what the actual error is.

 

[rainmotorsports]

Ok, I can close the site easily enough, but it'd be nice to get it the right way too.

As I said before restricting it to one or two IPs is easier and quicker. Its just a pain when u want any staff to be able to get in from anywhere.

 

[squirrly]

As I said before restricting it to one or two IPs is easier and quicker. Its just a pain when u want any staff to be able to get in from anywhere.

Not really feasible with the frequency of IP shifts our staff have.