Linux Notes: Move files from one directory to another

I needed to upload some backups, then move them to my /home directory. I only use Linux a little bit, not even every day (But moreso recently), so sometimes the simple things are hard.

I was doing this:
mv backup-9.16.2010_15-28-13_user.tar.gz /home/backup-9.16.2010_15-28-13_user.tar.gz

and then repeating for each file. Then I tried

mv backup-9.16.2010*.gz /home/backup-9.16.2010*.gz
and got an error that /home/backup-9.16.2010*.gz was not a directory, leading me to understand that

mv backup-9.16.2010*.gz /home

Was all I needed.

Site Hacks

I found out today how some site attacks have gotten through. They used "../" to traverse directories in my include files and find a file that, when loaded, would include the contents of thier User-Agent string. Then they put php code into their User-Agent string and re-visited the site with that specially corrupted query string and BAM! they were in.

The solution: sanitze the query string to exclude the double dot.
written like this:
\.\.
for regex matching.

That's one less open door!

Update: 2010-09-07:
For the attack above to work, the null byte had to be parsed. (all my includes had the extension concatenated to the end of the query string value. The null byte "%00" was used to make PHP ignore the concatenation.) In PHP4, magic_quotes_gpc would prevent this. In PHP5, magic_quotes_gpc is deprecated. Only sites using PHP5 were effected on my server.

More Array Stuff

Using the code in my previous post, I disabled the existing echos and tried this:

$selected_array='test_array';
echo("{${$selected_array}['first']}");
echo("{${$selected_array}['array2'][1]}");
?>

The output was
1b

As expected, so I can access the array I need based on the $selected_array var.

PHP mixed arrays

I wanted to verify that I could mix scalar data and array data in the same array. Here's what I came up with.

$test_array=array(
'first'=>'1',
'second'=>'2',
'array1'=>array('begin'=>'one','middle'=>'2','end'=>'three'),
'array2'=>array('a','b','c')
);

echo ("first is {$test_array['first']}
");
echo ("second is {$test_array['second']}
");
echo ("array1 begin is {$test_array['array1']['begin']}
");
echo ("array1 middle is {$test_array['array1']['middle']}
");
echo ("array1 end is {$test_array['array1']['end']}
");
$count=0;
foreach ($test_array['array2'] as $value){
echo("array2 key $count is $value
");
$count++;
}
?>

The output was:
first is 1
second is 2
array1 begin is one
array1 middle is 2
array1 end is three
array2 key 0 is a
array2 key 1 is b
array2 key 2 is c


This means we can use mixed data in one array and access the scalar and composite data as expected.

MS Does it right? IE8

I am not a huge fan of Microsoft because I generally don't trust corporate giants and their software tends to bloat.

That being said, I am hearing and experiencing good things regarding IE8. I have heard that it is the most standards compliant browser. That's a good thing right? Not if the site you are visiting relied on old IE7 functionality. Well, that's where the Compatibility Button comes in handy! Then, theres the inPrivate Browsing, and the ability to delete items, one by one, from the address bar MRU.

I hate to admit it, but I kind of like this MS Product. Let's see if my opinion of that remains in the next few weeks.

Back to Normal

I have returned my blog to it's normal appearance. I am not completely satisfied with the FTP integration, but it might work.