Help with a few projects

Tue Dec 12 21:19:35 UTC 2017

Ulysses, provide your error logs & we can assist w/the postfix
problem. If those error logs contain information u don't wish on a
public list, then go ahead & email me privately at
abletec at g mail dot com. You can't copy-&-paste that email, as I've
munged it to prevent spam harvesting, but u should be able to figure
it out.

Your problem w/WordPress is that you likely don't have the user of the
wordpress files belonging to the webserver group. Once u make that
happen, your updating problems will disappear. U need to set the file
permissions back to a safer level, or your site wil get hacked.

Unless there's a compelling reason to do so, ie, you're developing
some sort of Windows software, my recommendation would be to use Linux
to host websites. It's cheaper, &, IMO, also more secure for a number
of reasons. I realize I'll likely encounter the ire of some on this
list for saying thus, but it really is a fact, IMO.

I would also advise disabling Cloudflare until you get everything set
up, because it tends to add an additional layer in terms of
redirecting certain web components that makes things hard for a
beginner to learn & figure out what's going on.

On 12/12/17, Linux for blind general discussion <blinux-list at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> My name is Ulysses Harmony Garcia. My web site is
>    https://www.sensation-experience.com/ I heard about I heard about
> this mailing list through a Facebook post.
>    For several years, I've been trying to figure out what kind of
> services I
>    could use to satisfy my needs. In the early 2010's, I looked into shared
>    hosting plans, but the more I looked at them, the more I didn't like
> them because I wanted to be able to have full
>    control of the server. All they let you use is a public HTML folder
> and an FTP server port 21 or 990 for secure connections, and a web-based
> administration tool like Webmin or C-Panel. So I continued using Dropbox
> to host my web site. The only problem was that I had to use an http
> colon slash slash dl dot dropboxusercontent dot com slash u slash
> xxxxxxxx slash index dot html to render it, which is a pretty long link,
> but at least it worked.
>
> Four years later, I looked into the cloud, SSD, and dedicated
>    VPS options. By asking around, I heard of several different choices
> such as Linode,
>    Vultr, Digital Ocean, OVH, and through a diary entry I had made back in
>    2014, VPS dot Next, I had to learn about which operating system I
> would most likely
>    use for the server. Since 2005, I have primarily used Windows,
>    and I started using a Mac in 2011. I have never used Linux, and I
>    probably chose to stay away from it because I associated Linux as an
>    operating system only computer geeks would use. So when I was looking
> for a
>    VPS, I was lucky to find a Windows server on vps dot net. However,
> when I told others
>    about it, many people acted like that was a crime, or that it was
>    impractical to use Windows as a server, and that 99.99% of the web was
>    hosted by Linux, which was meant to be used as a server operating
> system.
>    I've done most of the work on my own. I first began with a Windows
>    virtual private server at VPS dot net, but I was not able to set
>    up the web server, database server and PHP to work on-line, except
>    through Localhost. I wasn't able to use Internet Information Services
>    IIS either, so I gave up on it and cancelled my server. Fortunately,
> I kept my
>    account active, so I could come back to it when I wasn't overwhelmed.
> I even tried enabling Internet Information Services on my Windows 10
> computer by using the enable or disables Windows features. I checked
> every one of them, but when I typed localhost in the connect to computer
> dialogue box, I got this message. IIS6 Manager  dialogue  Unable to
> connect to localhost. The target server does not have the SMTP service
> installed. You cannot manage an IIS 7.5 Web or FTP server by using
> Internet Information Services (6.0) Manager.
>    As primarily being an extroverted person, I get energy from working with
>    other people rather than working alone, yet for some reason, I've
>    encountered a lot of people who think that being too dependent on others
>    was a bad thing, that being completely independent was the best way to
>    go. I disagree with that. I mean, I can see why some people wouldn't
>    want to be too dependent on others for fear of taking too much of
>    someone's time or being too clingy, etc, or taking advantage of said
>    person, but I also believe that there needs to be a balance in helping
>    others and being self-reliable. This is where interdependence comes
> in. Manuals are never straightforward. You can follow the directions in
> the manual as exactly outlined and end up with error messages. Even
> googling error messages can't guarantee that you will get a quick
> solution. Having said that, I have joined a few community forums and
> posted these error messages, but never received replies.
>    Back in July, I contacted a few people I know who were successfully
> using
>    the popular content management system WordPress, and asked if they could
>    help out. One person, whose name I won't mention, said they could set up
>    my web site, if I could provide $300/hr USD and that it was estimated to
>    take four hours to set up to where I wanted it to be. Now, this person
>    is also blind. What I do not understand is how someone who may be
>    knowledgeable about supplemental security income could decide to charge
>    such a high price to set up something simple, and that is
>    semi-automated, and easy to install. I wrote a reply, and didn't hear
>    back for a month. I re-sent my reply and was told that if I wanted to
>    continue with the route that I choose, I would have to go on Bookshare
>    or BARD to download books on Windows server hosting, and that I had
>    sufficient resources on the Audio Games net forum to start.
>    so in September, I finally found a fellow who turned out to be someone I
>    knew by reputation, and he offered to spend his free time in helping me
>    out, especially since he has had plenty of experience in working with
>    virtual private servers and web hosting. If you ask him how he liked
> working with me, he might tell you that I learn things pretty quickly
> once I get to actually learning the steps live on Skype or phone. I also
> record my sessions so I can look back and see what I did. By that time,
> I was a little
>    more knowledgeable in talking to others on this topic.
> http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=23002 Look at post four.  I
> told my new friend a little bit of what I've hoped to accomplish, and
> what I
>    have done so far, and how much experience I've already had. In 2010
>    through 2013, I worked on building an HTML 4.1 and 5 project in high
>    school using Notepad, and in 2013, I used CSS 3 to enhance it when I
>    took a college class in web development. In mid July of 2013, I got
>    myself a WordPress blog up and running, which has been since taken down.
>    I decided to export this blog and import it into the self-hosted
>    version, and I was able to successfully link up all of my web pages
> to a podcast generator and the WordPress system.
>
> Right now we are sort of stuck on where to go, since I already have a
>    basic HTML site with no scripts on my Ubuntu VPS, a TeamTalk server
>    running, and hopefully an IceCast or ShoutCast server for streaming.
> I heard that you can get
>    an e-mail provider through Google Aps and install their mail exchange
>    and text verification records, but they are quite costly, and I don't
>    know if you'd have to install anything on Ubuntu to make sure the PHP
>    contact forms worked properly. By following several guides on Linode
> and Digital Ocean, I was able to install Postfix and S-Nail, but I keep
> getting error messages when I am trying to send a message as a test.
> I also got an account through Cloudflare, and if you were to do a user $
> dig +short sensation-experience.com or root# dig +short
> sensation-experience.com you'd see 104.28.6.155 instead of my actual
> server's IP address. If you tried using that directly, it'd say,
> Cloudflare direct IP access not allowed. This is to keep attackers from
> finding out what my server's IP address is. If they tried doing a who is
> on my domain, they'd see a privacy protect dot org notice instead of my
> name.
>
> Also, I really couldn't understand how C-Panel and Webmin administration
> tools worked until my friend showed me how he used the terminal on his
> Cent OS VPS to install it. It sort of reminded me of PHP My Admin. You
> simply put :2083, :2087, or :2086 at the end of your domain.
>
> I also installed Certbot which uses Lets Encrypt. At the moment I can't
> seem to figure out how to force traffic to be automatically redirected
> to https(443) instead of http(80). But now since I'm using Cloudflare,
> I'm not sure if that will be necessary.
>
>    Once I get more advanced, and raised my income through Amazon
>    Associates and stripe payments, I'd like to install a phone box or
> PBX using Asterisk as well. Note that I am running PHP 7. My friend and
> I tried installing Free PBX, but it doesn't seem to like it, so we had
> to give it up temporarily, at least until they release the newer version.
>
> On a more interesting topic, I don't know if any of you are into speech
> synthesis that can sing. I am very much into singing synthesis and have
> spent quite a bit of time with DECtalk and Vocaloid. I recently got
> interested in learning how to use Festival and make my own speech
> synthesiser. If you look at post 57 of this thread, you can see where I
> am at right now. http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=8877
> So having said that, might any of you be able to help me resolve this
> mail problem with Postfix and S-Nail? I keep getting a debug error.
>
> Also, for some annoying reason which my friend and I have not been able
> to determine, I cannot install plug-ins or update WordPress directly. It
> wants to access my web server through FTP or FTPS, and I don't have one
> properly configured. I tried changing all file and folder permissions to
> 7777 recursively, but I am still unable to update and install plug-ins
> automatically. If any of you are able to help me with that as well I
> would greatly appreciate it.
>
> Anyhow, I apologise for this lengthy e-mail, but hopefully that gives
>    you all an idea of what I've done so far and where I'd like to go
> next. :-)
>    Sincerely,
>    -Ulysses
>
>
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