2019



I have really leaned another one =of this life's lessons today.





As any member of this list will may or may not know I have been an act=ive member of this list for 20+ years.







During this time I have learned so much about the use of WebDNA from p=eople such as Ken Grome, Donovan Brooke, and others that have since moved o=n.







I have always tried hard to return the favour and as such at times hav=e gone far and beyond the task of offering help. I have enjoyed giving back= to the community from which my skills have grown. This I believe is the re=ason why I have 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 wro=te the instructions a week or so ago on how to set up WebDNA on a fresh ins=tallation of Ubuntu 18.04 - I even went as far as to provide an image of the same available to anyone that wo=uld like it, all in the hope that WebDNA would become a quick easy solution= for members of this list to implement.







I had a number of people request a copy of this image, none of whom ha=ve taken up the offer. One user requested that I build an image that anyone= could use on any platform. However this is not possible for cloud servers =as each cloud provider has their own flavour of Ubuntu tuned to their hosting configuration. The instructio=ns that I publish will work if you follow the steps on any host and/or new =Ubuntu 18.0 installation.







And then along came Brian Harrington. 







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 was unable to log into the Ubuntu 18.04 Droplet that he created.= I offered to meet him on Skype to help him get past his hurdle - less than= a minute later 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 wi=th him from DigitalOcean. So to make things easier and so that he didn=92t =have to go backwards I simply completed the installation from the instructi=ons that I had published.







Less than 20 minutes later Brian was the owner of a shiny new Ubuntu 1=8.04 server complete with a working installation of WebDNA server that was =only requiring a license number.







As you will know, 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 advi=ce that I gave,  you would see exactly where Brian=92s problems are.





From here all Brian needed to do was upload his websites to /var/www/h=tml and set up his Virtual hosts - at this stage WebDNA was 100% functional= with all the standard file extensions that are installed with the WebDNA i=nstaller.







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 could have a wo=rking reference.







However Brian had other plans, he wanted to create a new directory /Li=brary/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 server so I believed that he had a good sense of being able to manage a Linux Server=.. Brian didn=92t want to use the installed Webmin, he wanted to do all Apac=he configuration by uploading files with FTP however he didn=92t have a FTP= client.







Brian, you may remember the Skype message that I sent you expressing m=y concern that if you work outside the standard installation you would brea=k it.







For the rest of the week I continued to help him, answer his questions=, provide advice. All the time doing my own work that Brian=92s emails were= interrupting. As I live in Sydney there were times that I was not able to =answer him immediately due to the 10 hour time difference.







Then on Friday afternoon (Sydney time) I received yet another email fr=om Brian - he had locked himself out of his server, yes, I fixed this for h=im too, repaired his non-root user with sudo privileges and advised him tha=t in 19 minutes time I would be leaving for the weekend.







So it is now Sunday morning in Sydney, I have turned on my computer th=is morning after have a =91family=92 day yesterday to see the usually quiet= WebDNA list dominated by Brian continuing to have issues with his installa=tion.







What does surprise me, and leads me to writing this email are comments= pointed to myself by Brian such as:



"TalkList members say they wi=ll help... then they are GONE and suddenly don't has access to email or sky=pe???!!! Nothing worse than someone setting you up to fail...!!!==94







Brian had a very large VHost file that h=e moved from his Mac server to the Linux environment without any alteration=s. 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=92s problems relate directly to Permissio=ns and the relocation of his server root. I note that Brian has said: =



" I have no idea why Stu=art thinks /Library/Webserver files are gonna be an issue when apache2.conf= list share folder and everything else.=94, I guess to Brian taking advice from someone that has 23 operational Ubu=ntu 18.04 servers really doesn=92t make much sense.







So Brian, if you had followed my advice, you w=ould have been 100% operational as soon as all your files had been uploaded= to the /var/www/html directory and had their ownership and preference=s checked, and had simply changed the root locations in your vhost configuration file simply with a search and replace wit=h your text editor. If you listened to the FREE advice that you were given =or you could have even asked me to do it you would have had a fully functio=nal server many days ago.







Now I would like to see a retraction of the ill placed comments that y=ou have made about me.



 















Kind regards







Stuart Tremain



Pharoah Lane Software



AUSTRALIA



webdna@p=lsoftware.com.au

























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