Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today I am configuring NGINX on my home server, ButtonMash. Let’s get started!
NGINX Reinstall
I sat down this week to work on NGINX, and any tutorials I tried –even ones specially recommended to me– kept referencing files that didn’t exist. Staff member Pokey on the bitmerge Discord server suggested I check my version. The Rocky Linux 8 repositories are distributing version 1.14.1 whereas the latest version is 2.21.6 on their website [1]. A little further research revealed that one of those noted differences –directories for sites-available and sites-enabled– are commonly packaged with NGINX and not part of the upstream codebase.
A little research turned up a quick article on ServerDiary [2]. Turns out NGINX maintains repositories with stable and mainline releases of their software for Red Hat and CentOS – the later of which I am trusting to stay open for the time being. The instruction-by-instruction directions were clearly, but briefly described, and while I followed their instructions to enable the mainline release, I’m trying to admin ButtonMash as if it were a production environment: so I reverted to the stable version. In addition to the commands found on ServerDiary, I worked out this one for myself after trying to enable nginx-stable:
sudo yum-config-manager --disable nginx-mainline
Technology Backbone
I tried configuring NGINX to blindly pass HTTPS packets from incoming IP, but it was being more trouble than it was worth. I kept getting SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG, which comes up when a browser expecting to make an HTTPS connection instead is offered an HTTP one – so far as I can tell.
There’s probably a way to convince it to cooperate. My productive time is probably better spent focusing directly on my technology backbone though. I expect I’ll learn the same skills at about the same time either way, but I won’t be redoing the project three or four times this way.
I registered a domain name from NameSilo. New interface on some pages aside, the process was as straightforward as the previous times I’ve done it. The real trick is when I master subdomains and I can use the same domain name for services intended for family use.
Going forward, my next immediate step is obtaining a security certificate from Let’s Encrypt with that domain name. Only then, will I have what I need to set up NGINX properly.
3D Printing Corner
Work here was slow again. For anyone not in the know: I printed a Sonic figure split front and back. I intend to glue and paint it. To practice, I made myself eight calibration cubes to glue together. I managed to locate some sandpaper and I sanded down the flat surfaces of four of the cubes.
Once I had a feel for how the PLA was reacting to being sanded, I sanded Sonic and worked on that brim I totally shouldn’t have printed. The two halves were more flush in a dry fit.
Side Projects
My father’s Debian install keeps freezing, only opening up when he sends a system request to kill everything in his session, returning him to a login screen. As this is an infrequent occurrence, I taught him a little about SSH. I had him sit down at DerpyChips, and after telling Derpy to forget about the Mint install at the same IP, I had my father log in remotely and practice using top to find a process ID (PID) and kill problematic programs with a little more finesse. While I’m not looking forward to the next crash, we have practiced for when it happens and I have a good feeling about this new procedure.
My laptop power cord has been slipping away from its 19.5 volt side, exposing the three, jacketed wires inside it. As much as I’d liked to have pushed it back up, wires don’t have good compression strength. Instead: I pinched the cord half way to the transformer and ran my fingers toward the end, stretching the outer case, encouraging my cord into a more presentable condition.
A while back, we made our own network cable to serve ButtonMash and now GoldenOakLibry. It’s been dropping connection this week. I was able to convince it to come back online for a few days, but almost as if it knew I needed to pad my post, it fizzled again, seemingly for good. I used a connectivity tester, and it failed a few connections. We found one that happened to be long enough, and I was able to reach ButtonMash. GoldenOakLibry needed to be disconnected and reconnected from the local switch before it came back online.
Final Question
I have several large tasks with no immediate payout expected. These projects will likely be research -heavy, making for less interesting reading. What kinds of side projects should I work on?
Works Cited
[1] F5 Networks, Inc. nginx.com, [Online]. Available:https://www.nginx.com/. [Accessed: Mar 21, 2022].
[2] Serverdiary, “How to install latest official Nginx on Centos 8 / RHEL 8”serverdiary.com, [Online]. Available:https://serverdiary.com/linux/how-to-install-latest-official-nginx-on-centos-8-rhel-8/. [Accessed: Mar 21, 2022].