Hi all,
By way of introduction, the only reason I am a webmaster is that I wanted a domain so I could have permanent email addresses and put some pictures up to be shared with friends and family. I slapped a simple webpage together back in 2007 with Komposer. I just switched hosts, which included a straight copy/paste of my files from old to new. So, all my existing issues have been perfectly replicated in my new home.
Of course, since I am now actually paying attention, I have decided to undertake some maintenance and fixing of longstanding issues. And new ones...
I have just joined this forum after hunting around on it, and the web generally, for answers to the issues I am having with my domain. I haven't found the right information to fix my problems. Some clues, yes, but then I have new questions that aren't answered...
Among my issues is that I found that 40-50% of my hits are from an IP in Moldavia trying to hit a nonexistent page on my site or showing as referred by that nonexistent page. I attempted to block them through the cpanel and, when that didn't seem to work, I asked my host to do something. They said they updated my .htaccess file. The hit numbers have lowered, but are now coming from other IPs for, or referred by, the same nonexistent page.
I also wanted to force https and tried to do that through a redirect in cpanel. Which isn't working...
Now my email clients are suddenly having varying success pulling emails. I suspect that I have caused these issues by trying to change http to https and www.example.com to example.com. Before I blindly try to revert this, I decided to get actual counsel.
Firstly, I suspect that my .htaccess file is screwed up, or at least that it is not correct to achieve my intended outcomes. I am not very familiar with the language used here, but I think the order of commands may be wrong. And I suspect that the actual commands are wrong for the http to https and www to .example.com by redirect.
Also, I am not sure why Frontpage is referenced unless it is a universal fix for that product's "IE is the only browser that exists" issues. I have never had anything associated with it on my domain.
Here is what my .htaccess for public_html looks like: (Both example and elpmaxe are used for obfuscation.)
RewriteEngine on
# -FrontPage-
IndexIgnore .htaccess */.?* *~ *# */HEADER* */README* */_vti*
<Limit GET POST>
#The next line modified by DenyIP
order allow,deny
#The next line modified by DenyIP
#deny from all
allow from all
</Limit>
<Limit PUT DELETE>
order deny,allow
deny from all
</Limit>
AuthName example.com
AuthUserFile /home/elpmaxe/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwd
AuthGroupFile /home/elpmaxe/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp
<Files 403.shtml>
order allow,deny
allow from all
</Files>
order allow,deny
deny from 188.138.188.34
deny from 178.159.37.61
deny from 93.188.34.197
deny from 89.109.2.77
deny from 31.130.2.79
deny from 2.224.128.114
deny from 51.15.88.249
deny from 93.100.128.3
deny from 91.215.106.53
deny from 104.131.214.218
deny from 91.197.174.108
# php -- BEGIN cPanel-generated handler, do not edit
# Set the “ea-php70” package as the default “PHP” programming language.
<IfModule mime_module>
AddType application/x-httpd-ea-php70___lsphp .php .php7 .phtml
</IfModule>
# php -- END cPanel-generated handler, do not edit
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteCond %{HTTP:X-Forwarded-SSL} off
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^example\.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.example\.com$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/acme-challenge/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/cpanel-dcv/[0-9a-zA-Z_-]+$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/(?:\ Ballot169)?
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/\.well-known/pki-validation/[A-F0-9]{32}\.txt(?:\ Comodo\ DCV)?$
RewriteRule ^/?$ "https\:\/\/example\.com\/" [R=301,L]
Any suggestions or guidance is gratefully received. Thanks for taking the time to read this whole thing.
