Recent Annoyances

More of the same annoyances...

Documentation:

I recently had to deal with install FrontPage extensions with Apache for the
first time...ugh, the documentation is all over the place. Don't get me
wrong, I appreciate people within the community taking the time to write up
what they did/experienced, but I noticed people have a nasty habit of
skipping steps that, to them seem self-evident. And that's just if you find
documentation covering the same FrontPage extensions on a comparable
platform with a comparable version of Apache to what you need to deal with.

I also have a problem with people making up terms. I tend to avoid Microsoft
at all times and WYSIWYG Web Editors doubly so, it took me a few moments to
decipher what the install script meant by "root web", "sub/per web" and
"virtual web". You can't just refer to them as document root, sub
directories and virtual hosts like everyone else I know in the Apache world?

Configuration:

Another big pain in the butt here. Just picked up a digital certificate as
I'm adding SSL support for various access points to a domain I host.
Configured Apache for https, no problem, this I know cold, hands down.

Next, Webadmin, which by default runs its own mini web server. Nothing to
complicated, just point it to the same files that Apache is using, one for
the certificate itself and one for the private key. The nice thing here is
had it been an problem I could just drop running Webadmin under its own web
server and moved it to Apache. Might still do that...

Next, adding SSL to imap/pop. Ah, now I have to the same key and certificate
in the same file in two different files, one for imap, one for pop3.

For those keeping score at home, this means I now have three copies of the
same key/certificate in four different directories for four different
services for one domain...

Luckily, this particular domain doesn't rely mail, otherwise I'd have to
configure sendmail or qmail for using the same SSL certificate as well.
Which would probably add another set of places for expecting the certificate
and key file. I suppose it could have been worst, each app could have
requested the certificate/key be encoded in a different PKCS format.

Oh well, all I hope is I remember all of this come next year when I renew
this digital certificate ;-)

-Paul

-- 
// Paul Weinstein / <[email protected]> / <[email protected]> //
//        <http://www.weinstein.org>   /   PGP ID: 0x11DF87E9      //
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-Paul

-- 
// Paul Weinstein / President / Kepler Solutions, Inc, //
//  <pdw-/[email protected]> / <http://www.keplersol.com>  //