Site not secure - request for a certificate

[anna]

The last year I have experimented trying to get encryption to work for BA by pulling on levers, pushing buttons and generally messing up settings. As you can see I have been somewhat less than successful in my adventures to add that extra S in the address bar.

My apologies to our host. I did indeed look deeply into this, lastly at the start of the summer but it appears that LetsEncrypt support has been added during the summer, just after my struggles. We are currently running encrypted but it do not work 100%. If someone can not log in to their account, please try another browser and contact me to let me know what browser/OS you are using. (Since you can not post here if you can not log in.)

[Shannon SteelSlave]

Vista is my Operating system on all of my computers.Chrome works best for me, Mozilla tends to hang, like pausing everything whilst typing for example. (The smileys freeze their animations)

[bound_jenny]

OS: Windows XP. Browser that works: Chrome v49.0.2623.75

First impressions - much slower page loads than with Firefox without https.

Otherwise seems good until further notice.

Hoping that the extra plumbing doesn't cause trouble down the road.

Jenny.

[Gregovic]

Seems to work pretty much normal for me under Windows 10, using Firefox 68.0.2. Thanks for the work you put in Anna

[ruru67]

My browser is complaining that, "Parts of this page are not secure (such as images)". A quick squiz at the HTML suggests that it's mainly the ad images at the bottom of the page - they still have http://... URLs. Not sure how you'd fix that - I suspect the image links themselves are a configurable list, but there's also a separating image between each one (http://forum.boundanna.net/gfx/rotate/trans.gif), and that's probably in page or footer code somewhere.

That's obviously not important from a privacy/security point of view (a party intercepting your traffic already knows what site you're going to...), but it would be nice to tidy up.

There are a few other places where there are http:// links but I don't think these are problems - worst case they end up being redirected. Internal links seem mostly OK (with no http:// or https://).

There's also the shortcut icon link link which is still http://forum.boundanna.net/favicon.ico. Again, not sure how you'd fix that in phpBB.

[ruru67]

.. and when I posted that, I got the "posting successful", page, but when it went to redirect me back to the thread page, I got:

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to forum.boundanna.net:80. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length. Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

The URL it was trying to load was: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12350&p=89000#p89000

Note the :80 after forum.boundanna.net - obviously the http -> https redirect isn't recognising forum.boundanna.net:80 as a name it has to redirect, consequently the browser is trying to do SSL to a non-SSL (port 80) server port, and getting an error.

[ruru67]

The offending code, in the HTML header of the "This message has been posted successfully" page, is:

Code: Select all

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3; url=https://forum.boundanna.net:80/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&amp;t=12350&amp;p=89001#p89001" />


The :80 is completely extraneous. That's either a configuration funny, or a bug.

[sweh]

The offending code, in the HTML header of the "This message has been posted successfully" page, is:

Code: Select all

<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="3; url=https://forum.boundanna.net:80/board/viewtopic.php?f=3&amp;t=12350&amp;p=89001#p89001" />


The :80 is completely extraneous. That's either a configuration funny, or a bug.

Yup, I just got that. Which scared me 'cos I started to fear my long(ish) post had just got lost! Fortunately it was just the redirect page

[anna]

An error occurred during a connection to forum.boundanna.net:80. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length. Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG

That is indeed the very issue I am currently having and I can not see how I should get rid of it. Anyone getting it, please manually remove the :80 from the address bar to load the page normally untill I understand what is causing it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

My browser is complaining that, "Parts of this page are not secure (such as images)"

Yes, some images was not secure, an easy fix. I just ran out of time to do it at the time.

[Blacky]

Login and reading work perfectly for me on a Win7 Pro 64 bit machine with Chrome.
In a minute I'll know if posting works and will let you know.

Edit:

As expected:
- the posting itself worked just fine
- for a split second the "success-screen" popped up...
- just to be followed by the known redirection-error.

Apart from that, Win7 64 with Chrome works.

2nd Edit:

If you outrun the auto-redirection things work fine. The links displayed on the "success" screen thus link correctly. I don't know whether that's of any help, though.

[bound_jenny]

I'm systematically getting timeout errors right after I sign in (after the successful sign-in page) and right after submitting a new post or thread (after the successful post page). That's especially maddening since the pages load much slower than before. Basically it takes three times as much time to do the same things as before because I'm constantly reloading everything.

I think that there's something wonky right after any sort of success message.

Maybe Sir C should put a fresh hamster in the machine.

Jenny.

[lobster]

We are currently running encrypted

wow! That is something, very nice. I'll give the site a try, but it looks just fine (macOs, using Safari). Thanks again

Maybe Sir C should put a fresh hamster in the machine.

That always helps

[anna]

I'm systematically getting timeout errors right after I sign in (after the successful sign-in page) and right after submitting a new post or thread (after the successful post page).

Yes, it is an issue that we have had when the forum forwards you to a different page. It is/was related to a very scary server setting that was like a big red button that said whatever you do, never push me.

That's especially maddening since the pages load much slower than before. Basically it takes three times as much time to do the same things as before because I'm constantly reloading everything.

I am very sorry about that, I know it has been very irritating. I needed to keep the forum running with the bug while I experimented with different magical potions. How does it work now?


The main thing is that the error, gone or not, I really, really hope it is gone now, has not caused any loss of data or damages to the database.

For me the site is currently faster than ever and I hope it is the same for everyone else* and that it stays this way. (*Forum speed varies a lot from time to time and on your geographic location so your experience might differ somewhat.)

[Blacky]

The redirection (from the compose pm screen to the outbox) just worked properly on an Android/Chrome smartphone.
In a minute I'll find out whether that's true for posts, too...

Edit: It is

[bound_jenny]

I don't know what you banged on with a hammer, but it seems to have worked. I didn't get the timeout on the login; now I'll see if it's fixed for posting.

Thanks, Anna. Keep up whatever you're doing, and keep whacking it with the hammer until it cooperates.

Jenny.