The Server tab of Global Configuration (see Figure 10-25) is used for configuring several servers, including FTP, database, and mail. You can use this tab to apply a compression technique to enhance your web site performance; set the local time zone to display the time to your visitors; specify the FTP host, username, and password; specify the type and name of the database in which your Joomla web site is stored; specify the mailer to be used for sending e-mail; and so on.
1. Server Settings (Server Tab)
In the Path to Temp Folder field, the location of the folder in which files are temporarily stored is specified. It is filled in by default when Joomla is installed, but you can edit it later.
If you set the GZIP Page Compression option to Yes, the web pages will be stored in compressed form when in an inactive state and will be uncompressed when invoked by the visitor. This increases your web site’s speed. The only drawback of GZIP compression is that it consumes valuable CPU bandwidth on the web servers. Hence, the default value of this option is No.
■ Note GZIP is a software application used for file compression. Compression is a simple and effective way to save bandwidth and speed up a site. The reason is quite simple: HTML files are very bulky because every <html>, <table>, and <div> tag has a corresponding closing tag (words are repeated throughout the document). Compression reduces the file size by removing the repetitions without loss of information. The browser can easily download the zipped file, extract it, and then show it to the user. This compression results in quick page loading.
The Error Reporting drop-down list allows you to set the appropriate level of reporting. The error- reporting options are shown in Figure 10-26 and described following.
- System Default: This option (the default) allows the level of error reporting to be determined by the php.ini file on the web server.
- None: This option turns error reporting off.
- Simple: This option turns error reporting to E_ERROR|E_WARNING|E_PARSE, which are the standard error types in PHP, as explained here:
- E_ERROR: This is the most serious error type; it represents errors that PHP cannot recover from. The error handler in this case stops execution of the script and displays the error number and message to the user.
- E_WARNING: This is the intermediate error type; it doesn’t lead to stopping script execution. The error handler displays a warning message with the error number to the user.
- E-PARSE: This is the lowest error type; it is generated by the PHP parser to denote that some syntax error has occurred in the script. The error handler also stops execution of the script and displays the error number and message to the user.
- Maximum: This option turns error reporting to the maximum level (E_ALL).
- Development: This option returns the feedback displaying the error cause with technical details. It is mostly used by developers.
Note The output from the error reports is displayed at the bottom of every page of the web site.
The Force SSL setting makes the web site more secure. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a protocol developed by Netscape and a security technology used to establish an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. The encryption in the link ensures that all data passed between the web server and browser remains private and is not visible to unauthorized persons. To encrypt data, two cryptographic keys are used: a private key and a public key. The public key is known to everyone, but the private key is known only to the recipient of the message.
To establish an SSL connection, a web server requires an SSL certificate. To get an SSL certificate, follow these steps:
- Choose to activate SSL on your web
- Provide information about your web site and your
- On the basis of the information provided, the web server creates two cryptographic keys: a private key and a public The public key is placed in a certificate signing request (CSR): a data file containing information about you and your web site. Then the CSR is submitted to the web server.
- Upon submission of the CSR, the certification authority (CA) validates your details and issues an SSL certificate, which allows you to use
- The web server matches the issued SSL certificate with your private key and then establishes an encrypted
Note URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http:.
The next step is to configure the configuration.php file. Open the configuration.php file (found in the C:\xampp\htdocs\joomlasite directory).Find the following line:
var $live_site =”;
Replace the line with this one:
var $live_site = ‘https://www.your-domain.com’;
Save the file.
The options in the Force SSL drop-down list are as follows:
- None: SSL is not activated
- Administrator Only: SSL is valid only for the back end
- Entire Site: SSL is valid for the whole site (front and back end)
2. Location Settings (Server Tab)
The only option in the Location Settings section is Server Time Zone, which identifies the time zone in which the web site is to operate. You can set the time zone so that your web site displays local times to your visitors. The time should reflect where the site’s server is located. The default setting is (Universal Time, Coordinated (UTC))
3. FTP Settings (Server Tab)
The FTP settings in this section play an important role in the way files are uploaded to the web server. The options in this section are as follows:
- Enable FTP: You can set the value of this field to Yes to enable Joomla to use its built- in FTP function instead of the normal upload process used by PHP.
- FTP Host: In this field, you specify the URL of the host server with which you will be performing FTP.
- FTP Port: In this field, you specify the port that is used by FTP. The default setting is 21.
- FTP Username: In this field, you specify the name of the user who is allowed to access the FTP server.
- FTP Password: The password that Joomla will use when accessing the FTP server is specified in this field.
- FTP Root: In this field, you specify the root directory in which you want the uploaded files to be kept initially.
4. Proxy Settings (Server Tab)
The Proxy settings help when configuring the proxy server, if any. If set to Yes, the Enable Proxy field in this section will display the fields that prompt for information about the proxy host, proxy port, proxy username, and proxy password.
5. Database Settings (Server Tab)
The database settings include information about the database used for your Joomla web site, including the type of database, the location of the database server, the name of the database, and the users who have permission to access the database. The options in the Database Settings section are as follows:
- Database Type: The type of database to be The default setting is MySQLi, but it can be changed during Joomla installation.
- Host: The server in which the database The server IP address is entered here. It is typically set to local host by default.
- Database Username: The username with which you access the database is entered in this field.
- Database Name: The name of the database in which the Joomla web site is stored is specified here.
- Database Tables Prefix: The term to be used before every table in the selected database is specified, which enables you to have multiple Joomla installations in the same database. The default setting is jos_, but it can be changed. There is a warning attached to this setting that reads as follows: “Do not change unless you have a database built using tables with the prefix you are ” So you should change the database prefix only if you have already created a database with tables having the prefix that you will specify here.
6. Mail Settings (Server Tab)
The mail settings are set during the initial setup of Joomla, but they can be changed whenever necessary. The following are the options in the Mail Settings section of Global Configuration:
- Send mail: Set this field to Yes if you want to send mail from your
- Mailer: This setting determines which mailer to use to deliver e-mail from the site. The default setting is PHP Mail Function, but it can also be changed during the initial setup of Figure 10-27 shows the different mailer options, and they’re described following.
- PHP Mail: This option uses the mail function that is built into
- Sendmail: This option uses the Sendmail program, which is typically used when creating HTML e-mail Sendmail is a widely used mail transport agent (MTA). MTAs are meant for sending mail from one machine to another: they work internally to move e-mail over networks or the Internet to their destinations. Sendmail supports a variety of mail transfer protocols, including SMTP, ESMTP, HylaFAX, QuickPage, and UUCP. Most of the mail servers on the Internet today run Sendmail.
- SMTP Server: This option uses the site’s SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) SMTP is a network protocol used to send messages from the mail client to the mail server. Messages can only be pushed with this protocol, meaning that they can only be sent to the server, not retrieved from it. The protocols POP and IMAP are used to retrieve the message from the server.
- SMTP Authentication: If the SMTP server requires authentication to send mail, set this to Yes; otherwise, leave it at This option is used only if Mailer is set to SMTP.
- SMTP Security: Choose the desired SMTP security protocol used by your mail
- SMTP Port: Specify the port number of your SMTP The default port value is 25.
- SMTP Username: This is the username to use for access to the SMTP It is used only if Mailer is set to SMTP.
- SMTP Password: This is the password to use for access to the SMTP It’s used only if Mailer is set to SMTP.
- SMTP Host: This is the SMTP address to use when sending It’s used only if Mailer is set to SMTP.
■ Note After verifying the configuration, an SMTP server gives permission to the sending machine to send an e-mail message. The message is sent to the specified destination, and a validation that it has been delivered successfully is performed. If the message has not been delivered successfully, an error message is sent to the sending machine. There are two limitations of SMTP: it cannot authenticate the senders and hence cannot stop e-mail spamming, and it is a text-based protocol in which message text is specified along with the recipients of the message.
- From Email: The e-mail address used by Joomla to send site e-mail is specified in this field.
- From Name: This is the name that Joomla uses when sending site e-mail messages. By default, Joomla uses the site name specified during the initial setup.
Users, visitors, and administrators play a major role in the success of any web site. Let’s have a quick look at how configuration can be set for the users of your site. Open the Global Configuration page and from the list of components shows on the left, click the Users Manager to open the Users Configuration page. You learn more in the following section.
Source: Harwani B M (2015), Foundations of Joomla!, Apress; 2nd ed edition