Day Minus Five: Either It Works or It Doesn't

It's five days to the start of #the1000daysofsteem diary game.

I decided to take this break to upgrade my new web site. I created a new site using a virtual server from VPS.net. My stack involves Debian 10, PHP and SQLite3.

The installation ran smoothly up until the point where I tried to install the TSL Certificate (TSL replaced SSL). I am using the services of Lets Encrypt. This is a really wonderful service that gives free certificates.

The LetsEncrypt installation usually goes quite smoothly. In this case it crashed. I spent multiple hours gnashing my teeth while trying to figure out what went wrong.

This morning, I decided to give the game one more try. I removed then reinstalled Apache2 and ran the script for Let's Encrypt ... and the thing worked.

I realized that the problems I had was probably due to DNS propagation. My guess is that the new address for my webserver had not propagated through the DNS system and that LetsEncrypt was trying to authenticate the certificate with the wrong DNS info.

I find administrating web servers exhausting. Everything is highly automated. The problem with automation is that it either works or it doesn't. Debugging the problems that occur when things go wrong seems to be getting harder and harder.

Unfortunately, the time I wasted trying to debug the TSL problem has severely cut into the time I wanted to spend programming.

The image shows the logos for the program stack on a picture of a local track. Yes, I copied the idea for the picture from the stock photo I used in the last post.