Web server information plugin

ram — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:08:12 +0000

I do all the development work for this site on my local machine, using a mirror copy of the live database and WordPress installation. Once I’m happy with any changes made I apply them to the live web server (usually via Subversion). I use the HOSTS file to redirect all browser calls for hiddentao.com to the local IP address (127.0.0.1) so that I can properly test URL linking and redirection. This way I can experiment as much as I like on my local copy without worrying about causing any damage to the live website. The problem is, when viewing the local copy of the site it looks exactly the same as the live website, especially since I’m using the same database data. And I’ve always got lots of browser windows open, as I test and compare changes between the live website and the local copy. Very recently I caught myself making some big changes in the live website administration pages, thinking I was accessing the local copy. I decided that I needed an easily visible way of knowing which server the website I’m accessing is running on.

And behold – the Server-Info plugin. Once enabled it will display a floating box at the top-left-hand corner of the webpage, containing the hostname and IP address of the webserver. The box will remain in that position, even when you scroll the page:

Note: You can change the look and feel and layout of the box by editing the CSS file that comes with the plugin.

By default the information box only gets shown when viewing an administration page. But in the administration options for the plugin you can set it to show on blog pages too, with the ability to restrict this to e.g. when the user is logged in.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Server-Info

ram — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:00:59 +0000

Server-Info is a WordPress plugin which displays information about the web server hosting your WordPress installation on all administration (and optionally, blog) pages. Specifically it displays the hostname and IP address of the server.

The rationale for such a plugin is that if you maintain a mirror copy of your website elsewhere (e.g. on your local computer) for development purposes, then it would be nice to know when you’re viewing the live website (i.e. the one that’s accessible to everyone on the internet) rather than the other one, just so you don’t make any unintended changes to your live website without realising.

This plugin requires PHP 5 and WordPress 2.7. It has been tested on upto WordPress 2.9.

License: GPL 3.

Current version: 0.1

Skip to: Installation Usage Customisation Changelog

Installation

Download Server-Info.
Unzip it into your WordPress plugins folder such that the plugin files are at: wp-content/plugins/server-info/...
Enable the plugin within your blog’s administration options.
All done!

Usage

If the plugin was successfully enabled then you should a little, floating green box in the top-left-hand corner when viewing your blog administration pages, e.g:

This box is fixed in position – it will stay visible at that point even when you scroll the page.

Customisation

By default the server information box only gets displayed when viewing your blog administration pages. In the administration options for the plugin you can set it to show on blog pages too, with the ability to restrict this to e.g. when the user is logged in.

You can customise the look and layout of the actual information box by editing wp-content/plugins/server-info/server-info.css.

Changelog

Version 0.1 (Mar 30, 2009) – the initial release.