Instance of the Community Solid Server

[ewingson]

https://solidweb.me has gone public.
please test !

[RubenVerborgh]

That's great! I currently get a certificate error and a 404 though, are you still working on it?

[ewingson]

: yep. W.i.P.

that's strange. from two machines I use daily everything works fine, and @Vinnl accessed Penny through it. I' m not quite sure about how weaving the Databrowser in it (keyword recipe).

How did you try to sign-up or log in ?

[ewingson]

it's an IPv6 SSL issue. gotta wrap 10 fingers around it.

[RubenVerborgh]

OK, keep us posted!

[ewingson]

should be resolved.

[RubenVerborgh]

Yay, congrats with the first public CSS instance!!

[ewingson]

@RubenVerborgh @Vinnl @jeff-zucker
to keep you posted:
not sure if this is enough I can do, but as soon as we have a production mashlib 1.7.5 I will pull the site back up again then... with a frontend.......

[ewingson]

update:

• the site itself is running again
• I have used the mashlib recipe
• sign-up works, pod accessible, login gives invalid request
• the new login should work with a redirect, the old auth with a popup
• you need a trailing slash in the pod URL

conclusion: I think we must make clear, that CSS is only to be thought of as a backend.
mashlib for sure is a prominent and integral part of our work.
but I think I will switch back to a more conservative configuration and make the databrowser useable through its github.io site.
to let the user decide himself/herself autonomous which frontend/app they wanna use.

What do you think ?

[RubenVerborgh]

Yes, any Solid server is just a backend. That's the idea of Solid: to separate data and apps.

Because CSS is configurable, you can still integrate a frontend such as Mashlib onto your server. But Mashlib currently still need fixing to be compatible with the Solid spec (work is being carried out).

[ewingson]

trying to login directly gives the following message:
BadRequestHttpError: This action can only be executed as part of an authentication flow. It should not be used directly..

so I think this is by design ?
it gives the impression of a very minimal system. I try my best to fill my responsibility for the site I sign for as Admin-C.
will be in the Wednesday SolidOS meeting to catch up some feedback.

can I let the system live in the state of being ?
what are the next steps if I wanna act as a serious Pod-Provider ?
I remember someone saying "we'll keep the login Button cause people will be looking for it" ... (this implies for me - if I read correctly - "but it's not the primary purpose").
the bare system is only the platform (the ---tech---) we all together make the best possible to fill with life...

[ewingson]

just want to keep you posted, pin down some progress and get some opinions.
I have solidweb.org momentary running NSS 5.6.8 and solidweb.me running CSS 1.1.0.

a) will skip 5.6.9-beta. the new index.html are some breaking changes. (am running into a node version dilemma, maybe nvm can solve that, due to providing both on the same virtual root machine running Debian 10).

b) have no UI (frontend) momentary. I wanna make sure everything keeps staying spec-compliant, and this seems to be not the case with mashlib in this state we are in atm.

• how can I give the two systems some TLC they need ?
• can I leave things as is for a week or two ?
• will be there on Wednesday SolidOS...
• ...

[ewingson]

a) have https://solidweb.org/ updated on 5.6.9-beta and left the index.html out. so when logging in from the pod root, the new auth is used.

b)have https://solidweb.me/ running 1.1.0 without UI. but in the index I have linked to https://jeff-zucker.solidcommunity.net:8443/browse2.html , which works fine, as far as I can tell.

[jeff-zucker]

a) have https://solidweb.org/ updated on 5.6.9-beta and left the index.html out. so when logging in from the pod root, the new auth is used.

This is really very premature. We are in an active process of debugging and we already have a test server running it. It is not production ready, I don't understand why you think you should deploy it before it goes out of beta.

[ewingson]

it' s just because I always followed https://www.npmjs.com/package/solid-server

[jeff-zucker]

We put the betas on npm to make it easier to test. If you look on github you will see that none of these changes have been entered into the main branch, they are all on the auth-upgrade branch. Have you been looking at the NSS github repo? There are dozens of changes every day, there are many open issues. It will be changing constantly between now and when we take it out of beta. If you don't keep up with every one of those changes reports of errors from you serever will be useless because they will refer to outdated code. I really don't understand why you think it is a good idea to run beta software on a production server. That seems highly unprofessional to me.

[ewingson]

You are right, I am not a professional. I happened to stumble upon Solid in late 2018 as an (not active) autodidact. In the first months there were many updates of the npm, and I stated everywhere that it is experimental software. I have learned some things, sure (and I always respect you as a highly professional coder that keeps patiently educating me).

I recognize that I have a certain responsibility now and am growing very slowly into this new role. What I just want say is, please believe I acted in good faith and we all together have to build the handrail/railing the project needs but after all it's all about choice and I think there has to be a (not merely technical) but social and technical diversity.

I hope there has been no unredoable damage and do my best to maintain. Perhaps, the less I touch the running systems, the better. I always respect your honest opinion and think of you as a teaching pioneer. Hope to having communicated adequate. Will explain further for sure and am tomorrow in DEIT.

[ewingson]

just thought, have used too much 'I' and too little 'we' in that comment.....

[jeff-zucker]

Oh absolutely Mathias - I know you are acting in good faith. And you are doing a great job with the servers. But putting software which is meant only for testing on a production server is not a good idea.

[ewingson]

just wanted to leave the progress:
have solidweb.me running CSS 2.0.0 and the stable solidweb.org NSS 5.6.12
am sincerely considering using SolidOS as Frontend for the first, am having an accurate eye on the NSS server root and a question is left open:

if that would really help I'd probably overthink that, but I think I'll leave solidweb.me on solidweb.me/user as opposed to user.solidweb.me .

but I'm sure I'll listen to the team and am open to arguments, but for now I think I follow @RubenVerborgh 's philosophy.

[RubenVerborgh]

Sounds all good to me!

[jeff-zucker]

@ewingson great job! Thanks!

@RubenVerborgh - can you explain what @ewingson means by "follow @RubenVerborgh 's philosophy" in terms of preferring paths over subdomains for pod URIs?

[ewingson]

@jeff-zucker just seems the default. I thought I'll leave that as is. now I've got 4 or 5 users. if switch, then as soon as possible, that's well understood. but - I'll listen and consider - if I can help preparing the transition of solidcommunity.net I'll sure do.

to mention: I have no idea if that's the right way and I don't think he said so, just my interpretation

[RubenVerborgh]

just seems the default

The main reason is just that this is faster to setup on localhost. There might be other considerations for other options!

[ewingson]

2022-05-18

https://solidweb.me is running with SolidOS as frontend, to keep you posted...
if I can assist the migration of sc.net in any possible way, I for sure will...
I maintain this instance with all my heart, mind and professionality...

[ewingson]

2022-10-22

running beautifully with 94 users.
though, the server decides to make accounts public, see https://solidos.github.io/mashlib/dist/browse.html?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fsolidweb.me or curl -i https://solidweb.me

[jeff-zucker]

Or perhaps you mean that you decide to make the accounts public by not putting an index.html file at https://soidweb.me/index.html.

[ewingson]

;-) oh... I'm sure, you' re right. but I have replaced the default index.html with a custom one for info and sign up so there should be a index.html

[jeff-zucker]

Ah, so there is, my bad. And if I go there in the web-browser, that is what displays. But if I go there with the SolidOS webapp, it shows the container listing since it must send a text/turtle request. Maybe if you put an index.ttl file?

[ewingson]

negative. putting an index.ttl doesn't prevent from showing the accounts. I tried a very bare ttl. not sure, though how to make a redirect. I mean not with a 301 but with Turtle. let's ping @RubenVerborgh if he has an idea how to protect the visibility. but, beside, it's not harmful cause of course you can't see the contents but the solely fact that there is a name that has an account.

[ewingson]

my bad. POSITIVE.

protecting https://solidos.github.io/mashlib/dist/browse.html?uri=https%3A%2F%2Fsolidweb.me worked. protecting curl -i https://solidweb.me not. let me sleep a night to consider how to proceed

[jeff-zucker]

it's not harmful cause of course you can't see the contents

Still, it seems like something that shouldn't be exposed by default. Thanks for trying some things.

[ewingson]

maybe worth a try. an empty one, a custom one ? a self-describing one ? what triples may I include that make sense ?

[jeff-zucker]

A redirect to the index.html?

[RubenVerborgh]

Should work if you configure the root pod to read from elsewhere than the root of where the other pods are.

[ewingson]

hmmm , not sure if I get the action item. as workaround I configured a index.ttlbut that doesn't prevent the curl -i https://solidweb.me . the pods are in /var/www/solidweb.me/ which is passed to the server start via -f . do you have a more detailed instruction ? (I could live with the info, it's just verbose then, but........

[RubenVerborgh]

Those workarounds are not expected to work indeed.

• Core problem: https://solidweb.me points to /somewhere/folder/containing/all/the/pods
• Solution: https://solidweb.me points to /somewherelse or /somewhere/folder/containing/all/the/pods/root

[ewingson]

@besteves4 @RubenVerborgh @joachimvh

performing a DuckDuckGo search I stumbled upon #1490

now trying to fix it.
the problem I see, a) I already have a custom index.html and b) the root container should be readable I guess, shouldn't it ?
I just copied over wac-allow: user="read",public="read" from drive.verborgh.org.

to be clear, I describe the problem.

cd /var/www/
ls -la

gives the accounts "user1" "user2" "user3" and so on and the index.html and an index.bak.html and our logo.
shall the user accounts not be in /var/www ?
I mean they are meant to be on a public ftp server...

I think I must do some linking with ln -s???
can someone do some elaboration and detailed steps for an autodidact ?
I a) understand and b) fix.

[joachimvh]

The root container of your Solid server is a container, http://solidweb.me/, that contains all the containers that users have created on your servers (the pods). Because of how Solid works, doing a GET on a container should return all the contents of that container, so doing a GET on the root container will always return all those pods. The way to prevent this is to configure the root ACL, http://solidweb.me/.acl, so there is no public read access.

The consequence of that would be that everyone who browses to http://solidweb.me/ would get a 401/403 response since they can no longer read that resource. The way to get around that is to configure your server so that requests to http://solidweb.me no longer show the users the root container, but instead a static HTML page or some other resource. When I say "your server" in the previous sentence I mean the entire server, as this is something that has to be configured outside of the CSS. All other requests should still be sent to the CSS instance as usual.

[ewingson]

The way to prevent this is to configure the root ACL, http://solidweb.me/.acl, so there is no public read access. The consequence of that would be that everyone who browses to http://solidweb.me/ would get a 401/403 response.

I guess this solution is not wanted and therefor out of the band.

... is to configure your server so that requests to http://solidweb.me no longer show the users the root container, but instead a static HTML page ...

I have a static HTML page that is located in the root container (index.html) [a custom one]. the way I see it tonight, is to configure nginx to serve on a request on https://solidweb.me/ the resource /somewhereelse/index.html which would be /var/www/site/somewhereelse/index.html .

after a quick search (https://docs.nginx.com/nginx/admin-guide/web-server/serving-static-content/ and https://superuser.com/questions/1420826/how-to-configure-nginx-to-serve-static-files-to-be-accessible-from-root-path) I see the following solution:

location / {
        somewhereelse/index.html;
    }

when life responsibilities allow I will have a deeper look into this the other day.

[ewingson]

d2023-01-31 t04:26

solved per

rewrite ^/$  somewhereelse/index.html  permanent;

please test for side-effects...

[ewingson]

@RubenVerborgh @jeff-zucker I really give the best I am able to.

the accounts amount is growing slowly but steadily.
we have 116 users on solidweb.me as of 2022-11-08.

this cannot be underestimated, it's momentary the only CSS in the landscape, cause use.id from Digita hasn't launched yet.

how can we discover more server instances in the wild ?

[ewingson]

just wanted to update the numbers.
on solidweb.org (NSS) we have est. 2800 accounts and on solidweb.me (CSS) est. 180.

b) on https://ewingson.solidcommunity.net/public/ttl/pod-provider.ttl we have listed 18 actual and 8 deprecated Pod Providers.

[ewingson]

I started this thread 585 days ago.
https://solidweb.me is live since then.
now we have est. 200 users and I gave it a little TLC tonight.
hope it is in the sense of the project, the community, timbl and us all.
let's append a screenshot.

cheers.

[ewingson]

FYI please check https://solidproject.org/users/get-a-pod

I'll update the numbers
https://solidweb.org (NSS) 2888 users
https://solidweb.me (CSS) 258 users
https://solid.redpencil.io (CSS) 14 users

[ewingson]

this thread seems to be an appropriate place for an update.

solidweb.org (NSS 5.7.8) 3032 accounts
solidweb.me (CSS 6.1.0) 504 accounts
teamid.live (CSS 7.0.2) < 3 dozen accounts

happy 2024 !