How to recover your lost admin password in Joomla

At some point in your life you will do something silly and somehow not be able to login to your Joomla install with your admin account.  Your client will change something or you mistype a password….who knows, but it happens from time to time.

Crap! How do I get in here again?

Typically the first thing people will do is dig into their database, snoop around jos_users for the admin account, and then see an entry for password that is not what they remember putting in. This is because the password is one way MD5 hash, so if your site or database gets compromised your password isn’t sitting there in plain site.

Enough with the yapping.  How do I fix it?

First things first.  Let’s not forget the obvious.  Joomla has a “lost password” function.  Access it via this url:

http://site.com/index.php?option=com_user&view=remind

This should work fine assuming you know the email address on the admin account.  Otherwise, keep reading. (more…)

Tags: Joomla, joomla 1.5, security

hAlp! I am a n00b. How do I know my Joomla site is secure?

You may be new to Joomla, you may be a grizzled veteran. No matter who you are, it is always good to make sure your Joomla site is secure and not open to sploits.

(more…)

Tags: hosting, Recommended Services, security, tools of the trade, useful tips

Pssst, I can see your unmentionables.

phpinfo is a valuable command that can allow you to find errors and learn more about your server.  Don’t share it with everybody on the internet.

"Mummy I see your phpinfo"

So last month you wanted to install this fancy new java-flippy-moo-fools-slider-transparency-bookmarklet-tab thingy on your website.

You installed it and it didn’t work as expected, so you asked the bookmarklet-flippy-moo developer what to do.

He asked you if you were using php4 or php5, and if you had GD libraries installed.  You said: (more…)

Tags: development, hosting, security, useful tips