Setting up ghost on the Openshift

In past few days I decided that I would like to keep track on my progress in how I learn new stuff. After some consideration I hope a good way to organize my work would be to use Ghost: is just a blogging platform funded on Kickstarter last year. I have heard all the hype when Ghost got funded and tried to use it early on, but it was disaster to when it was first released. Also, I didn't have a good use case to keep working at it, but now... here is an opportunity.

Quick googling ghost resulted in number of links as a community seem to be sprouting around it. I read a good introduction on setting it up and on its current features on "Ghost for Beginners". The site covers how to set Ghost on Ghost(PRO), AWS and DigitalOcean, but there was nothing about my favorite hosting solution - OpenShift. So I figured I can write a post on setting Ghost on OpenShift.

At first I tried to set it up using OpenShift's console, but that yielded in an error:

Attempting to install through web interface failed twice, I was a bit discouraged, so finally I attempted to try running rhc command from terminal. That worked like a charm:

rhc app create ghost nodejs-0.10 --env NODE_ENV=production --from-code https://github.com/openshift-quickstart/openshift-ghost-quickstart.git

And here is terminal output:

Application Options
-------------------
Domain:                _MY_DOMAIN_
Cartridges:            nodejs-0.10
Source Code:           https://github.com/openshift-quickstart/openshift-ghost-quickstart.git
Gear Size:             default
Scaling:               no
Environment Variables: NODE_ENV=production

Creating application 'ghost' ... done

Waiting for your DNS name to be available ... done

Cloning into 'ghost'...
The authenticity of host 'ghost-_MY_DOMAIN_.rhcloud.com (54.82.127.129)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is cf:ee:77:cb:0e:fc:02:d7:72:7e:ae:80:c0:90:88:a7.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'ghost-_MYDOMAIN_.rhcloud.com,54.82.127.129' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.

Your application 'ghost' is now available.

  URL:        http://ghost-_MY_DOMAIN_.rhcloud.com/
  SSH to:     53fba91d5004466ac7000306@ghost-_MY_DOMAIN_.rhcloud.com
  Git remote: ssh://53fba91d5004466ac7000306@ghost-_MY_DOMAIN_.rhcloud.com/~/git/ghost.git/
  Cloned to:  /Users/_MY_USER_/Source/ghost

Run 'rhc show-app ghost' for more details about your app.

Ghost correctly appears in the console after that:

Here is a snapshot of Ghost homepage:

I added the user, and published test post:

Adding a custom domain name boils down to:

    1. add an alias using RHC

       rhc alias add ghost MY_CUSTOM_NAME.MY_DOMAIN.COM

    2. setting up DNS alias:

       from: MY_CUSTOM_NAME 

       to: ghost-_MY_DOMAIN_.rhcloud.com

       as: CNAME (alias)

    3. setting up DNS name in config.js:

       edit config.js and replace:

         url: 'http://'+process.env.OPENSHIFT_APP_DNS,

       with:

         url: 'http://_MY_CUSTOM_NAME.MY_DOMAIN.COM/'

I use namecheap.com and have had a great experience with them for a couple of years now. They have very easy to use admin panel (not the most intuitive, but very efficient).

Adding google analytics to the blog:

  go to your RHC folder with the application

  edit file: content/themes/YOUR_THEME/default.hbs

  just before end < /head> tag insert your GA code.

  git commit -a # to commit to code repository

  git push # to push to OpenShift

I will update this post with other steps I plan to undertake, staring from ensuring that there is a scheduled backup, over adding google analytics and google adsense to the blog.

FIX: Django, uwsgi, Apache, ProxyPass, host is localhost and using ProxyPreserveHost

I just spent some time trying to figure out how to set our Django application.

Our setup is:
  Apache (handles HTTPS and client certificates) is front-end proxy to uwsgi
  uwsgi is used to run Django application in the backend.

The problem we faced is that our redirects were broken as links build by django used 'localhost' instead of name of the virtual host. After looking through solutions, and finding some of the issues like:

• Redirect is broken when HTTP_X_FORWARDED_HOST contains multiple hosts
• django.http.get_host() breaks reverse proxying on apache

I looked into django handling of get_host() and tried to understand what's happening.

Long story short, Apache passed HOST header as 'localhost', this led to search of apache documentation, as I was thinking that I reset headers using 

   RequestHeader set X-FORWARDED-PROTOCOL ssl

   RequestHeader set X-FORWARDED-SSL on

   RequestHeader set X-FORWARDED-HOST *hostname*

   RequestHeader set HTTP_HOST *hostname*

   RequestHeader set HOST *hostname*

but apparently, apache does not pass these through the proxy... so... drumroll, saving grace is:

   ProxyPreserveHost on

and side note, ProxyPreserveHost needs to be on the VirtualHost level or higher.

I hope this short post will save you some time :)

MacOSX & Chrome: How to make scrollbars ALWAYS visible in your web application

If you are, like me, annoyed that overflow: scroll does not display scrollbars on all MacOSX computers in chrome; you can actually force Chrome to behave by just adding this to your CSS:


::-webkit-scrollbar {
    -webkit-appearance: none;
    width: 7px;
}
::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
    border-radius: 4px;
    background-color: rgba(192,192,192,.3);
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 1px rgba(255,255,255,.5);
}

How to calculate MD5 and SHA1 fingerprints using web browser?

Downloads and fingerprints

MD5 and SHA1 fingerprints often listed next to the large files one can downloads from files are there to ensure that data downloaded is the same as the data on the server. It is a good policy to always check if downloaded file has the same fingerprint as the one provided from the trusted source.

How to perform MD5 or SHA1 check using web browser?

While you can download the command line tools (shasum and md5sum) or use GUI tools to calculate MD5 and SHA1 checksum, it seems that today's browsers should be suited to let you do that calculation without resorting to specialized applications. One such tools that does not require you to download software, but lets you check MD5 and SHA1 sums right from the browser is Checksum MD5 and SHA1 calculator. This handy tool let you pick one or more files, and without uploading them anywhere check them right from the comfort of your device. It works with most of the modern browsers (IE10+, Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and it even works with your mobile devices if you ever need to do that sort of calculation (for example for .apk you just downloaded).