Articles about PHP

A few years ago I wrote about a simple idea: instead of maintaining huge fail2ban regexes for every weird scanner path, let your Laravel app return a very specific HTTP status code when a request clearly looks like automated probing, then let fail2ban ban the IP based on that status code.

Every website is bombarded with dozens of unwanted requests every day. The talk here is of so-called [vulnerability scanners](https://owasp.org/www-project-automated-threats-to-web-applications/assets/oats/EN/OAT-014_Vulnerability_Scanning). In this article you will learn what they are all about and how you can fight the uninvited guests.

Webform is basically the standard module for creating custom forms in Drupal. By default Webforms are treated as editorial content and therefore just have an automatically created id (like nodes). However most of the time you want to be able to create forms in a local environment and deploy them to your live website. Today I will explain you how.

Drupal's PHP filter enables users to use raw PHP code in text fields. While this is an extremely powerful ability, it quickly leads to serious security issues. Users with the ability to insert PHP code into your site, can practically do anything they want with your site. Also the PHP code is stored in the database and lives outside of your normal workflow. My Insert PHP module tries to fix the limitations of the PHP filter and provides a safer way to include raw PHP in your Drupal site.

As some of you might know, PHP scripts are compiled to bytecode right before they are executed. This process costs time and server resources. Also this is done all over again every single time your script gets executed, even if your script hasn't been changed in years. So what could be more obvious than caching the results of the compilation to reduce load on your server. Today I want to show you one way of achieving this, with a little help from the Alternative PHP Cache (APC).

Drupal has somewhat limited options, when it comes to displaying information during site maintenance. By default admins may enter a simple maintenance message. Most of the times this is just enough, but sometimes you want to be able to make the maintenance page look more appealing. For this reason I developed a Maintenance Node module.

I can't help it. Every once in a while the RPG Creator pops up in my head and I need to work on it a little. Sooner or later I get distracted by something else, but most of the times I actually make a few steps towards completion. This time I revisited the battle script and turned it into a class.

One of the best documented CMS in the wide range of Open Source systems is called Concrete5. While its market share is still minimal in comparison to the big systems like Drupal or Wordpress, it's still worth a closer look. In fact Concrete5 offers a really comfortable interface for editors and developers of smaller websites.

Besides the obligatory dice game, almost every game-interested developer might have tried to create a role-playing game. One of my long-term-projects (translation: projects, which take forever and are never finished) is the Drupal RPG Creator. There is no other project, where I have as frequently thrown over everything, just to start over again.

With Publication Link I have today released my second Add-On for Concrete5. It provides a convenient way to add links to publications to your website, including additional information on the publication itself. Like Download VCard this Add-On has been developed at labor b designbüro.

Today I'm happy to announce my first very own Concrete5 Add-On. Download VCard offers the ability to add contact information in form of a VCard download link to your website. Besides your contact information, you can also add a name to your link. Download VCard was developed at labor b designbüro.

Customizing products with a lot of options can be quite annoying. Especially when you just want to buy a simple standard product. While Ubercart provides a way to create highly customizable products, it doesn't provide a way to store presets for them. At labor b designbüro I recently developed a module, which lets customers and admins store presets for products and even share them with other customers.