I have really leaned anot= her one of this life's lessons today.
As any member = of this list will may or may not know I have been an active member of this = list for 20+ years.
During this time I have learne= d so much about the use of WebDNA from people such as Ken Grome, Donovan Br= ooke, and others that have since moved on.
I have = always tried hard to return the favour and as such at times have gone far a= nd beyond the task of offering help. I have enjoyed giving back to the comm= unity from which my skills have grown. This I believe is the reason why I h= ave been contracted by WebDNA users from around the world.
I have seen many users over the years with configuration problems,= in particular the last few weeks with Ubuntu 18.04, hence the reason why I= wrote the instructions a week or so ago on how to set up WebDNA on a fresh= installation of Ubuntu 18.04 - I even went as far as to provide an image o= f the same available to anyone that would like it, all in the hope that Web= DNA would become a quick easy solution for members of this list to implemen= t.
I had a number of people request a copy of this= image, none of whom have taken up the offer. One user requested that I bui= ld an image that anyone could use on any platform. However this is not poss= ible for cloud servers as each cloud provider has their own flavour of Ubun= tu tuned to their hosting configuration. The instructions that I publish wi= ll work if you follow the steps on any host and/or new Ubuntu 18.0 installa= tion.
And then along came Brian Harrington.=C2=A0<= /div>
I must preface this with the fact that everything = that i have done for Brian was at no charge, purely a gesture of good will = that I extend to all members of this list.
Brian w= as unable to log into the Ubuntu 18.04 Droplet that he created. I offered t= o meet him on Skype to help him get past his hurdle - less than a minute la= ter I had connected to the Droplet (a virtual server) using ssh, Brian had = some confusion as to how that was achieved, and had not received the image = that I had shared with him from DigitalOcean. So to make things easier and = so that he didn=E2=80=99t have to go backwards I simply completed the insta= llation from the instructions=C2=A0that I had published.
Less than 20 minutes later Brian was the owner of a shiny new Ubuntu= 18.04 server complete with a working installation of WebDNA server that wa= s only requiring a license number.
As you will kno= w, if you have read the published instructions, Webmin is also installed on= the Droplet.
What happened next is purely comical= , if I published the emails that I received and you read the warnings that = I provided, plus the repeated advice that I gave, =C2=A0you would see exact= ly where Brian=E2=80=99s problems are.
From here a= ll Brian needed to do was upload his websites to /var/www/html and set up h= is Virtual hosts - at this stage WebDNA was 100% functional with all the st= andard file extensions that are installed with the WebDNA installer.
<= div>
As an additional task I set up two Virtual Hosts, one on= 80 the other on 443 with the ssl certificate that he supplied so that he c= ould have a working reference.
However Brian had o= ther plans, he wanted to create a new directory /Library/Websites to be the= root directory of his webserver, remember this is the same person that has= had no experience with a Linux server, he has had experience with a Mac se= rver so I believed that he had a good sense of being able to manage a Linux= Server. Brian didn=E2=80=99t want to use the installed Webmin, he wanted t= o do all Apache configuration by uploading files with FTP however he didn= =E2=80=99t have a FTP client.
Brian, you may remem= ber the Skype message that I sent you expressing my concern that if you wor= k outside the standard installation you would break it.
For the rest of the week I continued to help him, answer his question= s, provide advice. All the time doing my own work that Brian=E2=80=99s emai= ls were interrupting. As I live in Sydney there were times that I was not a= ble to answer him immediately due to the 10 hour time difference.
Then on Friday afternoon (Sydney time) I received yet anoth= er email from Brian - he had locked himself out of his server, yes, I fixed= this for him too, repaired his non-root user with sudo privileges and advi= sed him that in 19 minutes time I would be leaving for the weekend.
So it is now Sunday morning in Sydney, I have turned on m= y computer this morning after have a =E2=80=98family=E2=80=99 day yesterday= to see the usually quiet WebDNA list dominated by Brian continuing to have= issues with his installation.
What does surprise = me, and leads me to writing this email are comments pointed to myself by Br= ian such as:
"TalkList m= embers say they will help... then they are GONE and suddenly don't has = access to email or skype???!!! Nothing worse than someone setting you up to= fail...!!!=E2=80=9D=
Brian had a very large VHost file that he moved from h= is Mac server to the Linux environment without any alterations. He believes= that it was easier to change the configuration of the Linux/Apache server = than to use search and replace on his VHost file. Brian=E2=80=99s problems = relate directly to Permissions and the relocation of his server root. I not= e that Brian has said:=C2=A0
"=C2=A0<= font color=3D"#000000">I have no idea why Stuart thinks /Library/Webserv= er files are gonna be an issue when apache2.conf list share folder and ever= ything else.=E2=80=9D, I guess to Brian taking advice from someone that= has 23=C2=A0operational Ubuntu 18.04 servers really doesn=E2=80=99t make m= uch sense.
<= font color=3D"#000000">So Brian, if you had followed my advice, you would h= ave been 100% operational as soon as all your files had been uploaded to th= e /var/www/html=C2=A0directory and had their ownership and preferences chec= ked, and had=C2=A0simply changed the root=C2=A0locations in your=C2=A0vhost= configuration file simply with a search and replace with your text editor.= If you listened to the FREE advice that you were given or you could have e= ven asked me to do it you would have had a fully functional server many day= s ago.
Now I= would like to see a retraction of the ill placed comments that you have ma= de about me.
=C2=A0
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