Category Archives: internet

Linux, Web Server

Let’s Encrypt Cert & Nginx (Using a Web Proxy) on Centos 6.x

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This was done on Centos 6 where prebuilt ‘certbot’ packages are not available. On Centos 7, install ‘certbot’ from the EPEL repo.

cd ~root;
mkdir certbot;
wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto;
chmod 755 certbot-auto;
./certbot-auto;

This installs packages, including gcc, which you may want to uninstall as it’s bad practice to have compilers on a external facing (public) Web server.

On my server I have a different configuration file for each server we’re proxying for. These are in /etc/nginx/conf.d/ and using a naming convention of:

domainname.domain.conf

For example, example.com would be:

example.com.conf

Edit your config file and add this after location / { … } :

location /.well-known {
alias /tmp/static/.well-known;
}

Then:

mkdir /tmp/static/;

Run certbot:

./certbot-auto certonly

Continue reading Let’s Encrypt Cert & Nginx (Using a Web Proxy) on Centos 6.x →

Android, internet, OnePlus, phone, Tech

OnePlus One: No LTE or Network

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I recently upgraded my OnePlus One to Android 6.0.1 and while I can make phone calls I don’t have any network connectivity unless I’m on WiFi. The symptoms are;

  • Can’t send email,
  • No access any websites
  • Phone is not on a LTE network

This awkward fix, posted byrohitvermamech on the OnePlus Forums  get’s LTE and networking working again:

Step 1:
Go into Settings > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names > Restore Defaults
The list should now have many many more choices of APNs. Choose the correct APN. Then go into Settings > Mobile Networks > Network Operators (make sure you are connected to WiFi) click “Choose Automatically”. Then turn Aeroplane Mode on and back off.
Step 2:
VERY IMPORTANT! Restart your phone.
Step 3:
Go into phone and dial *#*#4636#*#* and choose Phone Information. In Phone Information set the Preferred Network Type to LTE/GSM auto (PRL) [even if it says it already, do it again]. Turn off the radio. When the radio is turned off, turn the radio back on. Go down to the SMSC and hit “Refresh” and then “Update”.

 

internet, Web Server

404 Errors On Pagespeed Generated JS & CSS

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To improve performance of the SBGrid Web site I’ve been using Google’s Pagespeed Module for Apache. There is a module available for both Apache & NGinx, and  it can improve the performance of a Web site using a number of methods such as minimizing the number of JavaScript and CSS files that need to be downloaded.

We were seeing random 404 errors on Google Pagespeed auto-generated JavaScript and CSS files on the SBGrid’s Web site. These would only occur after the Web server was running for 2 days or more.

The fix for us was to increase Pagespeed’s caches and to give the host (it’s a VM) more RAM.

These are the values that we set:

  • ModPagespeedFileCacheSizeKb
    • Set the target size (in kilobytes) for file cache.
  • ModPagespeedLRUCacheKbPerProcess
    • Set the total size, in KB, of the per-process in-memory LRU cache.
  • ModPagespeedLRUCacheByteLimit
    • Set the maximum byte size entry to store in the per-process in-memory LRU cache.

This is what we set them to:

ModPagespeedFileCacheSizeKb 102400
ModPagespeedLRUCacheKbPerProcess 1024
ModPagespeedLRUCacheByteLimit 16384

Use these with care and make sure that your host has enough RAM to fit everything into memory without paging.

Original Image from my Flickr Feed.

References:

 

internet, Wordpress

Wp-Supercache & Wp-mobile plugin

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Recently I updated the wp-supercache plugin. It’s a plugin for WordPress which is the blogging software that runs this site. Wp-supercache is used to cache pages and is very useful if this blog should happen to get Slashdotted.

Wp-supercache now supports the wp-mobile plugin. What isn’t obvious from the wp-supercache settings is that you need to install the wp-mobile plugin. Get it at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/ unzip it, and then read the included README.txt to configure it properly.

Firefox, internet, Linux, Ubuntu

(2.0.0.16 > 3.0.8) == true ?

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I use Kayak.com whenever I’m planning a trip any where, it’s a good source to determine who flies to what destination and whose got the lowest price. Today, there’s a wee bug on their website where they tell me I should upgrade to Firefox 2.0.0.16, this would be sound advise except for the fact that I’m using a newer version of Firefox:

Kayak.com Firefox versioning bug

So I think someone needs to look at the math used here, because 3.0.8 is greater than 2.0.0.16. This is using Firefox on Ubuntu Linux.

Update: This may not be a Kayak.com problem and may be a problem with how Ubuntu build Firefox. In the Firefox “about:” page (type about: in the URL bar). It reports the following:

Firefox "about:" page.

There is a Ubuntu bug that may be related to this, and I’ve added a comment and the screen-shot that’s immediately above.

internet, Tech

WordPress 2.7.1 Editor

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I recently upgraded this WordPress installation from 2.7 to 2.7.1 using Dreamhost’s upgrade tools. However, the friggin’ feckin’ post editor is busted, at least in Firefox 3.0.6 on Ubuntu Intrepid. I can still use the QuickPress editor, which is only good for basic posts. If I want to add images or files, I’d have to manually upload them and link to them … anyways what a pain. If your planning on upgrading to WordPress 2.7.1 I’d suggest you wait a wee bit.

The problem I’m having is that on the “New Post” page, where the categories sections should be is instead an embedded (maybe an iFrame) of the WordPress Dashboard. When I try and type in the editor the pages changes to a near blank page with only the editor buttons showing. Grrrr …

I’ve tried the following steps (recommended on various sites and forums) to no avail:

  • Disabled all plugins
  • Disabled Google Gears
  • Cleared the browser cache

However, it works fine in KDE’s Konqueror browser. When I get the time, I may compare the generated HTML, and see if I can determine what’s causing the problem. Here’s a screenshot … sheesh now I can’t even insert a screenshot using Konqueror gotta do it manually. Look at the “Categories” section on the right-hand side:

internet

But I don’t want a PDF?

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WTF is Citibank thinking with their web interface:

We are making improvements to the way you receive your statements. Over the next several months, we will begin to replace all HTML statements with PDFs.

When I’m looking at my old statements I don’t want to have to wait for a PDF to download, then for Adobe Acrobat to open just so I can briefly look at an old statement.

Come on there Citibank, give me a default option to view this information in HTML (as a webpage) so I can see if it’s the information I need, then let me choose if I want it as a PDF, or excel file …

internet, Tech

That Pizza will be 2.6 million …

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That Pizza being pizza.com! Some lad bought the domain name in 1994 at the “dawn” of the internet age, and has owned it ever since. After seeing how much vodka.com sold for (about 3 million dollars) he put Pizza.com up for auction and got 2.6 Million US dollars!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7331042.stm

In January, Mr Clark decided to sell it after hearing that another domain – Vodka.com – was sold for $3m in 2006 …
“If someone’s willing to pay that much for Vodka.com, maybe there’s more interest in pizza.com.”

The online auction was launched on 27 March. The first bid was $100, jumping to $2.6m a week later.

Having accepted the latter offer, Mr Clark hopes to get his windfall in a few days’ time when the transaction is completed.

He said he now regretted not buying more domain names in the 1990s.

I remember when I started at college at UMass Boston, I was a student lab operator in the Unix lab (support staff) and me and a workmate (and friend) Josh started joking around looking to see what Domain names we could register. This was in 1999 or 2000 and any word in the English language we could think of was already registered as a domain name. Wish I’d gotten on this internet lark in the early 1990’s and purchased a few domain names too!