Re: converting my local site to be https only access

From	davidson@freevolt.org
Newsgroups	linux.debian.user
Subject	Re: converting my local site to be https only access
Date	2017-05-02 01:40 +0200
Message-ID	<tCt57-70S-1@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
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On Sun, 30 Apr 2017, Gene Heskett wrote:

> On Sunday 30 April 2017 20:19:21 davidson@freevolt.org wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 30 Apr 2017, Gene Heskett wrote:
[trimmed]
>>> lynx support at lynx.isc.org has been deleted. And it won't work
>>> without talking to isc.org first.  Even after being re-installed.
>>
>> Lynx works just fine. I expect your configuration file simply has some
>> references to obsolete remote locations.
>>
>> Does this work?
>>
>>   $ WWW_HOME="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEBKAC" lynx
>>
>> or this?
>>
>>   $
>> WWW_HOME="file://localhost/REPLACE-ME-WITH-A-PATH-TO-SOME-LOCAL-HTML-D
>> OC.html" lynx
>>
>> And does this...
>>
>>   $ grep '^STARTFILE:' /etc/lynx-cur/lynx.cfg
>>
>> ...confirm that you have something obsolete like
>>
>>   STARTFILE:http://lynx.isc.org/
>>
>> in your lynx.cfg ?
>>
> it was.
>
>> Then fix that broken reference. Edit /etc/lynx-cur/lynx.cfg, replacing
>> that STARTFILE url with whatever you like.
>>
>> FWIW, I think
>>
>>   STARTFILE:file://localhost/~/
>>
>> makes a sensible default.
>
> except I am then trapped in my home dir.

Well, as Greg W. pointed out, you aren't really restricted to whatever
links happen to be present in the startfile/"Main screen".

When running in "Novice" mode, the shortcut key for loading an
arbitrary url (G) is helpfully listed at the bottom of every screen:

   Arrow keys: Up and Down to move.  Right to follow a link; Left to go back.
   H)elp O)ptions P)rint G)o M)ain screen Q)uit /=search [delete]=history list

But if you would like the default "Main screen" to be something more
web-access-centric, the choice is yours. Maybe

  STARTFILE:https://duckduckgo.com/lite/

or

  STARTFILE:https://www.google.com/

would fit the bill. Or something else entirely. Obviously you will
know better than I do what your users will find helpful.

Somebody upstream of us apparently thought that a site about lynx
would be a good initial default. Not a bad choice, if you ask me. Too
bad the site had to move.

>> Or, if for some incomprehensible reason you think a remote website is
>> an appropriate default startfile, you could use
>>
>>    STARTFILE:http://lynx.invisible-island.net/
>>
>> instead.
>>
>> While you're at it, you might want to cast your eye over any other
>> lines returned by this...
>>
>>   $ grep '^[A-Z_]*:[[:blank:]]*https\?://' /etc/lynx-cur/lynx.cfg
>
> Which was a wisc.edu url.

Thought so: http://scout.wisc.edu/

Which was presumably the value of DEFAULT_INDEX_FILE .

Whatever scout.wisc.edu may have had there in the past, the content
currently shown on that page is pretty much worthless as a general web
index.

So you'll probably change it to something better.

>> ...and see if you wouldn't rather change them to something more
>> up-to-date, more reliable, or more appropriate for your installation.
>>
>>> So A: file a bug against lynx, best to remove it as its apparently
>>> been EOL'd by isc.org
>>
>> Huh? You would remove a program simply because isc.org removes a
>> couple web pages?
>>
>> Development of lynx continues unabated:
>>
>>   http://invisible-island.net/lynx/lynx-develop.html
>
> Sorta seems to me that ought to be kept uptodate in re that by the
> debian folks.

Sounds reasonable to me.

On the other hand, it is the site administrator, rather than Thomas
Dickey or the debian maintainer for lynx-cur, who is in the better
position to determine helpful values for both STARTFILE and
DEFAULT_INDEX_FILE in a given lynx install. I imagine (or hope) they
are frequently customised.

Anyways, maintenance of Wheezy is now in the hands of the Debian LTS
team:

  https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/FAQ#Where_can_bugs_be_reported.3F

   Where can bugs be reported?

    Please report bugs that you found in the packages to the
    debian-lts[1] mailing list. The bar for severity will be raised
    (minor issues will no longer be fixed).

    1. https://wiki.debian.org/LTS/Contact#debian-lts

>> Good luck with your project.
>
> I have atm, the darnest collection of Murphy's work I've ever seen. So I
> am inclined to fire up amrecover, back it up a week, and recover
> the /etc/apache2, /etc/httpd, and /var/www/html trees.  That sould put
> me back to a working, non ssl, web server.  All this got started because
> the next firefox says it will not look at a plain http site, and I was
> trying to make robots.txt kick googlebot in the gonads and out of my
> site, its eating more #$%& bandwidth than my site traffic is.  So once
> I've restored normal http operations, I'll come back and see if I can
> find some help converting it to https.

It'll be interesting to follow along.

Thread

converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-04-29 05:40 +0200
  Re: converting my local site to be https only access Felix Dietrich <felix.dietrich@sperrhaken.name> - 2017-04-29 10:30 +0200
    Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-04-29 15:10 +0200
      Re: converting my local site to be https only access Jochen Spieker <ml@well-adjusted.de> - 2017-04-29 20:30 +0200
        Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-04-29 20:50 +0200
          Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-04-30 23:10 +0200
            Re: converting my local site to be https only access Dejan Jocic <jodejka@gmail.com> - 2017-04-30 23:50 +0200
            Re: converting my local site to be https only access Eike Lantzsch <zp6cge@gmx.net> - 2017-05-01 00:00 +0200
            Re: converting my local site to be https only access davidson@freevolt.org - 2017-05-01 02:20 +0200
              Re: converting my local site to be https only access Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2017-05-01 03:00 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-01 03:40 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access davidson@freevolt.org - 2017-05-01 21:50 +0200
              Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-01 03:40 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-05-01 15:30 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-01 16:10 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access rhkramer@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 17:20 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-01 19:00 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access rhkramer@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 21:00 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access rhkramer@gmail.com - 2017-05-01 21:00 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access davidson@freevolt.org - 2017-05-02 01:40 +0200
                Re: converting my local site to be https only access Ric Moore <wayward4now@gmail.com> - 2017-05-03 18:40 +0200
  Re: converting my local site to be https only access Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 12:40 +0200
    Re: converting my local site to be https only access <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-05-02 13:30 +0200
      Re: converting my local site to be https only access Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 23:20 +0200
        Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-02 23:40 +0200
          Re: converting my local site to be https only access <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-05-03 11:30 +0200
            Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-03 14:40 +0200
              Re: converting my local site to be https only access <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-05-03 15:30 +0200
    Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-02 22:50 +0200
      Re: converting my local site to be https only access Jonathan Dowland <jmtd@debian.org> - 2017-05-02 23:20 +0200
        Re: converting my local site to be https only access Gene Heskett <gheskett@shentel.net> - 2017-05-02 23:50 +0200

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