PuppyLinux.com website down

[allenwrench1]

It is throwing up this error.

"Forbidden
You don't have permission to access this resource.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

[Flash]

How did you manage to post this?

[wiak]

On my fossapup64 system

https://puppylinux.com/

is not working (certificate error apparently - not trusted)

http://puppylinux.com

is.

Both http://forum.puppylinux.com and https://forum.puppylinux.com do work (http is successfully redirected to https version).

[puppy_apprentice]

It could be your IP problem:
viewtopic.php?p=19271#p19271

I have myself dynamic IP number and once/twice a month google.com is blocking me with message that my IP looks suspicious because there was huge amount of queries from it. If you have dynamic IP too you can get one from your provider that was earlier used by spammers, ddos'ers etc.

Or it is problem with certificates, or your browser is to old to handle newer (SSL, TLS) security layers.

Working on my side without https: prefix and from google search engine.

EDIT: This page is good to check if problem is only on your side:
https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
with http:// prefix is up and with https:// is down.

[rockedge]

On puppylinux.com the https has not been configured at this point.

[01micko]

On puppylinux.com the https has not been configured at this point.

..and it wont be,

I am not paying for a bullshit certificate

I own it, if anyone wants to take it over, be my guest.

The site is read only. No one can log in there. What is the point?

This is a prime example of google trying to own the web.

Speak up or fold.

Ball's in your court, users.

NB: the site is actually hosted on github but that doesn't seem to translate. Solution appreciated.

[rockedge]

all my certificates are for free. Go look at Lets Encrypt -> https://letsencrypt.org/

I am about to remove the URL ALIAS forum.puppy.com then. We will revert back to rockedge.org. End of problem.

THIS BULLSHIT IS SCREWING UP MY DOMAIN...which has other uses..more than just this.

@01micko you wanna get down to it? Is that it? I should pay and you don't. Tough shit I didn't make https...and by the way...I'm just stating fact....your problem if that's a bother.

[wiak]

NB: the site is actually hosted on github but that doesn't seem to translate. Solution appreciated.

all my certificates are for free. Go look at Lets Encrypt -> https://letsencrypt.org/

free certificate from letsencript.org is also used on my https://tinylinux.info website. I expect you can use same type on github hosted sites (I expect fredx181 is also doing that for https://debiandog.github.io/doglinux/ though only he could confirm that)

EDIT: Found this reference: https://github.blog/2018-05-01-github-p ... ins-https/
https://docs.github.com/en/github/worki ... with-https

https://github.community/t/do-i-need-ss ... ages/10517

GitHub is partnered free certificate authority “Let’s Encrypt”. Nowadays, custom domains on GitHub Pages are supporting for HTTPS. You have to update your DNS records with new IP address.

Once your DNS record is propagated, your site will be work accurately with HTTPS protocol. Now you should select “Enforce HTTPS” option under your repository’s settings to redirect your traffic from HTTP to HTTPS.

[rockedge]

I agree and think it should be relatively easy to get free certs for puppylinux.com especially on Github.

Many emails sent by the forum are being filtered as SPAM, especially Gmail. So I end up everyday looking twice or more, if I need to manually activate new users. I've chased down the fix and that's what I am working towards. So a little cooperation is all I expected.

[wiak]

Yes, I had to sort out correct configuraton of SPK, DKIM, DMARC for my partners business email (we have a business domain name for that). That service isn't provided by Gmail, but it has become common for email send/receive being messed up nowadays (send to spam and so on), no matter the email provider. I understand 01micko's remark about it not being important for read-only puppylinux.com page, but since that domain name isn't just being used for website these other disruptive effects kick in. Good thing is that should be just a configuration matter to add a letsencrypt certificate via github and once the DNS has settled down all fine after that (though the email SPK, DKIM, DMARC side of things takes a bit of configuration and the DNS propagation delay is painful to wait for to see if you've got it right!)

I actually get frequent DMARC communication emails (at the business admin email account), but I think that is how it is supposed to work... telling me what's going on I think, rather than saying the configuration is wrong in any way.

[01micko]

all my certificates are for free. Go look at Lets Encrypt -> https://letsencrypt.org/

I am about to remove the URL ALIAS forum.puppy.com then. We will revert back to rockedge.org. End of problem.

THIS BULLSHIT IS SCREWING UP MY DOMAIN...which has other uses..more than just this.

@01micko you wanna get down to it? Is that it? I should pay and you don't. Tough shit I didn't make https...and by the way...I'm just stating fact....your problem if that's a bother.

A solution was offered to "which has other uses..more than just this" and you seemed not to respond (was private email involving several of us. This can still be the solution.)

Do whatever you like, but I'm doing what I can to resolve the situation. My host doesn't support let's encrypt, I tried, but I'm tied in for a little while and will be dumping them as soon as practicable.Don't worry

I pay plenty mate. Don't worry about that.

NB: there may be more issues at puppylinux.com while I try to resolve this.

[p310don]

Found a pretty simple fix...

puppylinux.com gives me the 403 error

www.puppylinux.com works fine

@rockedge can you change the link at the top of this page to have the www in front? Makes things work OK until @01micko can sort out the other stuff.

[wiak]

Found a pretty simple fix...

puppylinux.com gives me the 403 error

www.puppylinux.com works fine

@rockedge can you change the link at the top of this page to have the www in front? Makes things work OK until @01micko can sort out the other stuff.

With respect, that doesn't really solve much p310don. Could just as well make the link at the top of the page be to http://puppylinux.com

As far as I understand it the major concern is related to forum emails going to spam because no https certificate used for puppylinux.com (?)

[rockedge]

@01micko

A solution was offered

I am well aware of the solution. I am going to set up the account and we will transfer the domain name puppylinux.com to it.

I don't see many responses to the emails I've sent as recently as yesterday. Private as well so I really don't know what you are implying.
As a matter of fact I had to use Facebook messenger of all things to get any discussion about this going a few days ago.

As far as I understand it the major concern is related to forum emails going to spam because no https certificate used for puppylinux.com

This is exactly the problem and added is that the 2 domains are on totally different hosts and forum.puppylinux.com is an ALIAS for puppylinux.rockedge.org....

[01micko]

We're getting there, it's a complex problem. Lets just be civil and get on with it.

We will get there.

Cheers.

[ozsouth]

I've posted at linuxquestions.org puppylinux section, that due to certificate issues that are
now being worked on, our forum can currently be found at https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/

[01micko]

I've posted at linuxquestions.org puppylinux section, that due to certificate issues that are
now being worked on, our forum can currently be found at https://puppylinux.rockedge.org/

forum.puppylinux.com is, for the short term, a redirect to puppylinux.rockedge.org pending a proper solution which may take a little while but things should be acceptable for now..

[wiak]

Things have been worse for me. For the past twelve hours, until 15 minutes ago, my rubbish rural copper-line ADSL broadband was unwilling to make a PPP connection (i.e. didn't work). Took 2 hours to get the service provider to answer the call - they never have a clue because the underlying network provider is a different organisation. Anyway, they did confirm there had been outages reports from my area and logged my situation for later resolution, which finally, as I say just recently happened. Back online... sigh. I hate how much we rely on Internet connectivity (yes, I did have data on my phone, but here in rural-land just have painfully slow 3G, and a weak signal requiring me to hold the phone up - but yes I did create a temporary hotspot via that last-resort phone connection.

I had a very similar no-PPP connection situation a few years back. Took them 5 days to find the cause so today I feel relatively lucky. Mind you, they insisted my modem must be faulty that time years ago (and sent me a free replacement), and actually nothing wrong with it - someone must instead have their cables crossed in a wiring cabinet somewhere, or whatever...

Anyway, relax, my issue was nothing of course to do with forum.puppylinux.com not being directly reachable.

wiak

[BarryK]

@01micko
You have my sympathy, I understand the pressure you must be under.

In my case, my host is omnis.com, a shared account, and setting up the free Let's Encrypt for bkhome.org, easyos.org etc., was automatic, just a matter of ticking a couple of checkboxes.
Their knowledge base:

https://www.omnis.com/knowledge/2112.html

Which was good, as I haven't got a clue how to do it manually.
The one thing that I did do manually was create a .htaccess file under each domain, for example in bkhome.org/www:

Code: Select all

RewriteEngine On
 RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
 RewriteRule ^.*$ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [R,L]

...which changes a URL with "http://" to "https://"

[mistfire]

Hello

Finally I successfully logged in to this forum.

I'm unable to login to forum many times. It always redirected to main page without getting logged in using ordinary browser unlike before where I can login using standard web browser

When I used proxy-based browser, I successfully logged in.

[wiak]

Nowadays it is common for web hosts to offer one-click attach SSL certs.

However, if anyone wants to know a lot of the nitty gritty, the following provides quite detailed information for a number of scenarios:

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/0 ... ttp-https/

[rockedge]

@mistfire

I had to clear all my browser cache's AND clear all the cookies and killed all active logins. Then the URL https://puppylinux.rockedge.org will work and let you login!

I went through the same thing and was losing my mind when I thought I fixed the site's reach ability and I could not login!! Crazy.

[wiak]

From using the forum on a pretty daily basis, I have a concern that doesn't seem to be explained simply by recent fact of forum being down. Certainly that has probably had some effect, but more generally:

Compared to how active the old murga forum appeared to be I am concerned with how much activity there generally is nowadays here. I may be wrong since I don't see any hard statistics regarding number of logins and daily posts (do we have such statistics but I just didn't see where they are?).

On the whole it feels as if only pretty much exactly the same forum members are active on a very regular basis: bigpup, mikewalsh, Clarity, mikeslr, myself, and so on; I could name a few dozen but the frequency of posts appears, to my gut feeling, to be very low in terms of overall population size. Perhaps you have some statistics to show my feeling is wrong, which would be reassuring! It's not the forum itself that would be the problem - the forum is certainly better in terms of functionality, openness, and accessibility than it ever was (despite current domain issues), but low usage would indicate less interest in the distros discussed here (being primarily Puppy itself) and if so, something would need to be done to address that.

So, maybe I am entirely wrong, but does anyone else also feel that there is less interest overall than there used to be. Very sad if that is the case. This is certainly a great forum for open discussion but not if only very few people (old regulars) talking among themselves (I mean, that's okay, but Puppy needs more than interested promoters/advocates - it needs lots of active users to make the discussions actually worth the time and effort involved in such talk).

It's different with my own distro WeeDogLinux - that may well have hardly any users at this stage outside of my own family (and rockedge)! But that is fine since I designed it just for that one family purpose, but tried to make it flexible for the use of others if anyone interested to use it but without that being important at all. WeeDog developments are assured because I want the resulting WDL products myself regardless of overall popularity (be that many or none). Puppy, on the other hand, is positioned/advocated via the likes of Distrowatch submission for general user popularity - not that Distrowatch page-view statistics mean much at all IMO.

Certainly there is a small team of developers beavering away at woof-CE, but for who??? Indeed, many of the posts I read on the forum seem to indicate that there is more overall interest (though numbers still appear low to me) in FatDog than in Puppy itself - yet the forum on the vast whole remains mainly categorized for Puppy itself.

I maybe should have raised this concern on a thread of its own to see what others felt, but frankly, I prefer to bury the discussion down here in a slighty-related thread rather than anywhere more prominent - if all is fine, good, but otherwise it needs to be discussed and something should be done about it, but what?

[peebee]

Just as an example..........

There have been 10,062 downloads of UPups (mainly BionicPup32-8.0) from SourceForge (+ others from Ibibilio not countable)

from 139 countries

since the start of 2021..........to 21.30 on 15-Mar-2021

https://sourceforge.net/projects/zestyp ... riod=daily

Seems to indicate some sort of interest - plus the fact that the % of those downloads that need to seek advice from the forum is very low is good news (maybe).

[wiak]

Just as an example..........

There have been 10,062 downloads of UPups (mainly BionicPup32-8.0) from SourceForge (+ others from Ibibilio not countable)

from 139 countries

since the start of 2021..........to 21.30 on 15-Mar-2021

https://sourceforge.net/projects/zestyp ... riod=daily

Seems to indicate some sort of interest - plus the fact that the % of those downloads that need to seek advice from the forum is very low is good news (maybe).

It doesn't take a lot to get 10,000 downloads over such a long period for any public ibiblio/ftp.nluug/sourceforge listed item of software. I used to publish a small system utility app on an old famous site called 'freshmeat' and there were (according to its published statistics) apparently thousands of downloads every week, but why I don't know (certainly not because the utility became famous...) - who knows what net activity triggers such statistics, but believe what makes you comfortable... Also, there are many who are addicted to the habit of distro-hopping/testing, but that doesn't imply using a distro more than just a quick test amongst many other distros tested (especially those with small/easy downloads). Any distro download is much more likely to result in a 'reject' than an 'accept' - most of us here do such multi-distro downloading/rejecting all the time!

Anyway, a distro is just a distro, but a forum is a community that needs active membership to keep it alive and kicking or there is no point visiting it to talk only to the same old faithful - that is my concern - not really how many downloads any distro appeared to obtain via some prominent public listing (probably anything listed on sourceforge appears to be downloaded thousands of times in a few months via the 'statistics' somehow generated).

I remember similar statements applauding the 'apparently' tens of thousands of daily visitors to old murga forum; most were probably bots or some other irrelevance.

In practice, a distro such as Puppy, if it were really being used would tend to attract forum membership/user-enquiries. If it doesn't, then forget the sourceforge statistics - I doubt their true relevance. A distro's forum is the most reliable guage of interest, I'd say. Don't rest on your laurels because of sourceforge saying XXX downloads in three months - means nothing. If a well-known for discussion distro forum's membership (especially active membership) shrinks, then that distro is in trouble.

[wiak]

Puppy distro should be comparing itself (successwise) with MxLinux:

Quotes from MxLinux website:

In order to be listed on DistroWatch, MX Linux was presented as a version of antiX and released its first version in March of 2014. It received its own DistroWatch page as a separate distribution with the release of the first Public Beta of MX-16 on November 2, 2016

The MX Dev Team is composed of a group of volunteers of various backgrounds, talents and interests. Its administrative structure can be represented thus: 8 people on the team.
...
Because the use of systemd as a system and service manager has been controversial, we want to be clear about its function in MX Linux. Systemd is included by default but not enabled.

Just happens to also be listed on sourceforge (but other mirrors too) it seems (though again I feel downloads not as important as forum activity):

sourceforge only downloads: 14,192 this week.
including: 3,773 for x64 iso and 1,187 for i386 iso

2020-12-15 to 2021-03-15 sourceforge only downloads: 196,338 (albeit not just isos, but MxLinux also has mirrors all over the world...)

MxLinux has a very active forum:

MxLinux forum most users ever on line: 1866 (48 online there as I write this)
Puppy forum most users ever on line: 107 (7 online, including myself, as I write this)

It is irrelevant that Puppy faithful prefer Puppy to MxLinux. There has to be good reason why MxLinux is so successful compared to official woof-CE developed Puppy. Puppy has been around since 2005 so has no excuse in terms of not being established for long. Something makes the majority consider MxLinux better and Puppy development should have long ago been addressing that issue, rather than resting on these less-than-impressive global statistics.

Personally, I have long expressed the (unpopular) forum opinion that Puppy is resistant to move on from old design of the past. Woof-CE design has encouraged lack of innovation and overall design change. If Puppy was once innovative it has been conservative by model and attitude for years, which has resulted in fracture and (somewhat successful attempts) to produce alternatives for forum discussion, such as the various Dogs. But that pretty much non-marketed (e.g. no DebianDog posted up for Distrowatch inclusion) innovation does not help old Puppy itself.

Puppy (by official decree at least) continues to be created by that woof-CE blob that ensures much of the traditional Puppy design remains inscribed in stone. MxLinux forges ahead. I am not surprised in the least. Minimum dm on MxLinux is XFCE, which is a bit much here for many, but truth is it isn't difficult to use a more basic desktop on underlying MxLinux system, so even that isn't an issue that makes Puppy more attractive - the global preference for MxLinux says it all of course.

No I do not personally use MxLinux either. For a debian-based system, I currently prefer DebianDog, for many reasons. In practice I use WeeDogLinux_Arch64 - mainly because I am developing WDL for my own family needs - whether it is better in any way or not than any other is not an issue for me (I have very little time to put into WDL development - current WDL_Arch probably only had about 3 months of effort put into whole system, including initrd, thus far - nothing added to it since Oct 2020 - it's a new but slow developing distro in that sense, but it, and other WDL systems will be developed, and underlying Arch version is Arch rolling-release operated anyway).

Being active on this forum since 2008, I'd like to see Puppy stay relevant, but for me at least, I can't say it manages.

[bigpup]

MxLinux forum most users ever on line: 1866 (48 online there as I write this)
Puppy forum most users ever on line: 107 (7 online, including myself, as I write this)

Puppy forum readings are because this is a completely new Puppy forum.
The old murga Puppy forum had readings like that MxLinux forum.

Puppy uses the repository at http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/ not Sourceforge.
Also all the mirrors of http://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/.

Distrowatch hit rankings say nothing about popularity.
That thing changes with the wind!
Puppy has been at 1 or 2 at times in the past.

MxLinux is 4 to 5 times bigger than Puppy Linux.
Small and fast, is better than, fat and good looking!

[wiak]

I didn't list any Distrowatch statistics (only actual forum visits and download stats) since I agree that they are irrelevant being only page hit counts. Having said that, I do not recall Puppy ever being at number 1 (or 2) on Distrowatch - maybe 10 once long ago?

It seems to me that the most truly independent and also innovative distro on this forum is FatDog. I've only installed it for testing purposes of some of my own little utility/apps and that a long time ago, so I don't really know much about it, but I have noted that it's functionality is often discussed/appreciated in various threads, and the number of moderators assigned to its single thread section indicates that it is well-supported. A better Pup, I'd say, but a Dog that is not dependent on upstream repos apparently.

Small download size in no ways equates to faster and more efficient by the way. A developer, moreover, could easily cut down MxLinux to Puppy size - the result would continue to have superior functionality to Puppy - actually it would resemble a DebianDog. Puppy needs to change if it is to compete. Stick-in-the-mud apparently faithful to traditional Puppy attitude will spell its death in terms of relevance.

[Grey]

Also, there are many who are addicted to the habit of distro-hopping/testing, but that doesn't imply using a distro more than just a quick test amongst many other distros tested (especially those with small/easy downloads). Any distro download is much more likely to result in a 'reject' than an 'accept' - most of us here do such multi-distro downloading/rejecting all the time!

I give a standing ovation. Absolutely agree. How is it even possible to focus on one distro, if the people have a GRUB boot screen crammed with different variations from top to bottom. The only thing that saves the matter is that these variations are united by the general principle of operation.

In practice I use WeeDogLinux_Arch64 - mainly because I am developing WDL for my own family needs - whether it is better in any way or not than any other is not an issue for me

You are at least managed to convince the family. I am unable to transfer my family or friends to Linux. Well, to tell you the truth, this is mainly due to the fact that in Russia the majority of the people (even in commercial organizations ) have a cracked pirated Windows 7-10 installed. Northern barbarians? The legacy of communism? Hmmm... Maybe, I dont know. But the presence of freebies Windows, you understand, does not contribute to the advancement of Linux. No, there are many Linux specialists and enthusiasts out there. But there is no broad "nationwide" love.

[p310don]

MxLinux forum most users ever on line: 1866 (48 online there as I write this)
Puppy forum most users ever on line: 107 (7 online, including myself, as I write this)

on murga-linux.com/puppy right now

265 users online
There have been 48316 users online since yesterday
172 Guests within the current hour

There is plenty of interest in Puppy, but Puppy's home has been murga for 15 years. It takes time for people to make the switch, and find the new home. This forum would probably never have gotten even as big as it is if the link to here (that currently doesn't work) wasn't placed on the old one by jamesbond. Most links online point to there, not here, simply because it's 15 years vs 1 year. If we ever get control of the murga-linux domain then it might be able to point to here and the user count would jump (I reckon).

And, of course if the likes of @peebee started putting more bugs into their work, there'd be more need for the forum