Custom Subdomain with HTTP to HTTPS Redirect

[danrademacher]

On the Heroku app, we need to force redirect all traffic to HTTPS for location services to work.

@gregallensworth did you figure this out for caliparks.org with something we can reuse here?

[gregallensworth]

It was pretty fussy and did take a few hours, all told.

• Run through HerokuDNS setup so the app has a name such as www.ecgmap.org.herokudns.com. https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/custom-domains

• At the domain registrar, set up the CNAME so the site points to the new hosting e.g. caliparks.org is a CNAME for www.caliparks.org.herokudns.com.

• Run through Heroku's docs to set up LetsEncrypt for the app. Note that the verification process does depend on the DNS work having been finished and propagated to Heroku's systems (can take an hour) before it can validate, and then the validation can take an additional hour. https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/automated-certificate-management

• If the site exists on multiple domains, check the domain registrar and see whether they can do a redirect for the alternate domains, e.g. ecgmap.com forwards to www.ecgmap.org

[clhenrick]

In this case we'll probably want the site to forward to a subdomain such as map.greenway.org but need to check with the client

[clhenrick]

Implemented enforcement of HTTPS server side using the express-sslify module, which is currently working without the custom domain name.

[clhenrick]

Per discussion with @gregallensworth today looks like we'll have SSL through Let's Encrypt, so now it's a matter of pointing map.greenway.org away from WikiMapping and instead to Heroku.

First step is adding the subdomain, via the Heroku CLI

heroku domains:add map.greenway.org

Then it's a matter of setting up a CNAME record with ECGA's DNS provider, explained here: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/custom-domains#configuring-dns-for-subdomains

[clhenrick]

updated above with some corrections

[clhenrick]

CNAME record should be:

map	map.greenway.org.herokudns.com.

note the trailing "." may or may not be required depending on the DNS provider

[clhenrick]

@danrademacher reassigned this to you so that we can work with @nilesbarnes to set up the custom subdomain with Heroku and ECGA's DNS.

@nilesbarnes let us know if you'd like help with setting up the custom domain.

[nilesbarnes]

Thanks @clhenrick I will likely need help setting this up/providing the info necessary.

[danrademacher]

@nilesbarnes, probably easiest if I connect directly with the person who manages your domain name assignments. IT or webmaster/manager usually.

[nilesbarnes]

@stevespindler Could you help us on this?

@danrademacher We have another person who may also be able to help us if Steve isn't able to. Since Steve manages Wikimapping wanted to check with him first.

[danrademacher]

@nilesbarnes usually this would be done by whoever "owns" domain name management for your overall greenway.org site. So the person who made Greenway.org point way from your old site and toward the new Punk'd Ave site could also repoint map.greenway.org away from Wikimapping and toward the new app. This is also where IT or sysadmin types set up how a domain handles email or other uses of your domain.

@stevespindler might have insight on who did that or where last time, or maybe his role is broader than WikiMapping, but the owner of a current subdomain doesn't necessarily have access to the overall DNS.

[clhenrick]

Second what @danrademacher has said.

@nilesbarnes do you know who handled the redirect of greenway.org to the new site once it was finished? That person would probably handle the map.greenway.org redirect or at least have the keys to do so.

[danrademacher]

@clhenrick, Niles's team is working on the DNS change for this coming Monday. As far as I can tell, we did the Heroku CLI command as you described here: https://github.com/EastCoastGreenwayAlliance/ecg-map/issues/48#issuecomment-315862743

Can you confirm that's working as expected?

In the settings, it all looks solid:

But then when I go to http://map.greenway.org.herokudns.com, I get "No such App":

I would expect to see the map load there or redirect, etc. Maybe we still need to do something with SSL?

[nilesbarnes]

@danrademacher We have our team standing by ready to help on Monday.

[clhenrick]

Looks like map.greenway.org is still pointing to the WikiMapping site. Was the CNAME record created in ECGA's DNS?

[nilesbarnes]

@clhenrick @danrademacher Nothing has been done on our end yet to begin having the new tool pointing to map.greenway.org. Dan was going to do a a new data upload on Friday. Is there anything we need folks to do on our end now to have the shift start on Monday? Or can they start the process on Monday. Goal is to launch to public on Thursday 8/17. Just want to be clear on who needs to be doing what, when.

[danrademacher]

Just checked in with Chris on this -- sounds like this is all as expected and once you all make the CNAME change on monday, it should "just work." I would recommend that you make that change just after 12 pm Eastern on Monday, just so it's during business hours here and we'll be on deck if anything needs to be adjusted quickly in our Heroku settings.

[clhenrick]

Also noting that after making the CNAME record in your DNS it may take some time to propagate, could be a couple minutes or a whole day, depends on your DNS provider. I think for most DNS providers now a days it should happen sooner then later.

You'll want to make sure that any record pointing map.greenway.org to the old WikiMapping site is removed as well. That may also be a CNAME record but could have been set up differently.

[danrademacher]

Looks like the DNS might be in place now but HTTPS is having some issue:

I just enabled Automated Certificate Management here:

Maybe that takes a bit to propagate. Will check again in a half hour

[nilesbarnes]

Now working on my end.

[danrademacher]

Confirmed!