The Boston Diaries

The ongoing saga of a programmer who doesn't live in Boston, nor does he even like Boston, but yet named his weblog/journal “The Boston Diaries.”

Go figure.

Friday, Debtember 09, 2022

Notes on an overheard conversation as the radio was playing “Blue Christmas”

“Oh! You know who that is, right?”

“A very bad Elvis impersonator.”

“No! It's Dean Martin.”

“Really? I didn't know the Mad Magazine artist had a singing career as a bad Elvis impersonator.”

“It was first recorded in 1948 by Doye O'Dell—”

“He too, was probably a bad Elvis impersonator.”

“And the following year by Ernest Tubb, Hugo Winterhalter, and Russ Morgan.”

“All bad Elvis impersonators! All of them!”

“Elvis didn't even record it until 1957!”

“They were just early with their Elvis impersonations.”

“Sigh.”

“When out from the bathroom there arose such a clatter, she sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.”

“Oh ffffffffffffuuuuuuuuddddddddddge!”

Only I didn't say “Fudge.” I said the word, the big one, the queen mother of dirty words, the “F-dash-dash-dash” word. Fortunately, the loud crashing sound masked what I said. It also brought Bunny to the bathroom door.

“Are you alright?” she asked from the other side.

“Yes,” I said, hobbling to the door, trying to keep my balance as I was sopping wet with a plastic garbage bad covering my right foot. “although I did do a number on the garbage pail.” I then opened the door to let Bunny see the resulting carnage.

[Picture of the bathroom at Chez Boca with a shattered plastic garbage pail littering the floor] There was nothing we could do. It was an ex-garbage pail, pining for the fjords!

“What happened?”

“I was trying to get out of the tub and slipped,” I said, pulling the garbage bag off my foot.

“Oh! You're bleeding!”

“Tis a flesh wound,” I said. “I've had worse.”

“Sean, you're lucky you didn't smash your head open. Those bathtubs have been known to kill people.”

I should have made a check list

Yup. I messed up again, just as I was afraid of. Using mod_md isn't that hard, it's just that any mistake you make means you just lost a few days, up to an entire month.

Sigh.

It's a bit late now, but I should have created this check list to help prevent mistakes:

  1. Figure out primary domain name (aka primary)
  2. Figure out alias domain name (aka alias)
  3. Configure MDomainSet
    1. <MDomainSet primary>
      1. Make sure primary is spelled correctly
    2. MDCertificateAgreement accepted
    3. MDContactEmail sean@coman.org
    4. MDMemer alias
      1. Make sure alias is spelled correctly
    5. MDRequireHttps temporary
    6. </MDomainSet>
  4. Configure VirtualHost alias:80
    1. <VirtualHost ip:80>
    2. ServerName alias
      1. Make sure alias is spelled correctly
    3. Redirect permanent / http://primary
      1. Make sure primary is spelled correctly
    4. Protocols h2 h2c http/1.1 acme-tls/1
    5. </VirtualHost>
  5. Configure VirtualHost primary:80
    1. <VirtualHost ip:80>
    2. ServerName primary
      1. Make sure primary is spelled correctly
    3. Protocols h2 h2c http/1.1 acme-tls/1
    4. </VirtualHost>
  6. Configure VirtualHost alias:443
    1. <VirtualHost ip:443>
    2. SSLEngine on
    3. ServerName alias
      1. Make sure alias is spelled correctly
    4. Redirect permanent / https://primary
      1. Make sure primary is spelled correctly
    5. Protocols h2 h2c http/1.1 acme-tls/1
    6. </VirtualHost>
  7. Configure VirtualHost primary:443
    1. <VirtualHost ip:443>
    2. SSLEngine on
    3. ServerName primary
      1. Make sure primary is spelled correctly
    4. Protocols h2 h2c http/1.1 acme-tls/1
    5. </VirtualHost>
    6. Other configuration settings …

My last mistake? I forgot to add acme-tls/1 to the Protocols directive.

Aaaaaaah!

It's not that I haven't done check lists before, and they're great at making sure you don't miss a step—I just have to remind myself to do them. But better late than never, as I can use this the next time I have to add a new domain.

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No AI was used in the making of this site, unless otherwise noted.

You have my permission to link freely to any entry here. Go ahead, I won't bite. I promise.

The dates are the permanent links to that day's entries (or entry, if there is only one entry). The titles are the permanent links to that entry only. The format for the links are simple: Start with the base link for this site: https://boston.conman.org/, then add the date you are interested in, say 2000/08/01, so that would make the final URL:

https://boston.conman.org/2000/08/01

You can also specify the entire month by leaving off the day portion. You can even select an arbitrary portion of time.

You may also note subtle shading of the links and that's intentional: the “closer” the link is (relative to the page) the “brighter” it appears. It's an experiment in using color shading to denote the distance a link is from here. If you don't notice it, don't worry; it's not all that important.

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