Migrate kgbook.org hosting to Github pages

[aidhog]

Currently the kgbook.org web server is a machine in the University of Chile, but it might be more convenient to just host the site on Github pages? That way, edits to the HTML will go live directly after a minute or two.

The downside is that Github works for static content, with no support for PHP. But we're mainly using PHP to statically compile the HTML in any case.

If we want to migrate, the first step would be to rename the HTML-Book repo to Knowledge-Graphs-Book (the same as the org). Github should redirect anything from the old name to the new one. Then the book will appear at https://knowledge-graphs-book.github.io/. We then need to do a few configs to send kgbook.org there, and set up HTTPS.

What do you think?

[miselico]

We should be able to use a github runner to run the PHP code. I think the renaming of the repository is no longer necessary on github. Also https is done transparantly by changing the setting on github.

[aidhog]

Seems that I don't have access to the settings of the repo to check this out, so it might require @Antoine-Zimmermann to set it up if we decide to go ahead.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

I looked at how runners work and it needs to be self hosted by the one who creates it. I won't host the runner myself. So I added Aidan as maintainer of this repo. I suppose this should allow him to add a self-hosted runner on his machine and connect it to this repo.

[miselico]

I do not think a self hosted runner is needed, the ones at gihub should suffice. Because this is a public repository, it should also not take from your runner budget. I will give it a try in a fork later this week.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

I do not know how runners work, but at least from the Settings, section "Runners", I can only create self-hosted runners.

[miselico]

I am partially there. Working on https://github.com/miselico/HTML-Book

Could you tell how the php is exactly compiled? I should be something like

php book.php > index.html

Are there some other arguments needed? Also, are there more dependencies not included in the repository?

[miselico]

The workflow seems functional now. The only thing still needed are the steps to build. I would need:

1. The dependencies for PHP.
2. The steps executed to create the index.html

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

My workflow is bizarre and I do not explicitly compile the file in this way. I go to the book.php in my browser on my own web space where I cloned the repo. This allows me to check visually that it works, that there is no obvious error in the output (because I don't trust myself when I edit code). Then I save, from my browser, the web page in HTML. I never made the compilation from explicit invocation of the PHP command on my computer.

[miselico]

The hosting on github seems to work fine: http://www.cochez.nl/HTML-Book/

[miselico]

@Antoine-Zimmermann could you privately share me the output of phpinfo() ? Then I can see what is required.

I have to fiddle a bit, but I am pretty sure I can set it up such that if you go to kgbook.org/beta/branchname , then you get the version which is currently in that branch. Or something similar with pull requests.

If that works, then you push to master and the changes get applied on kgbook.org

[miselico]

Also, do you have a bibtexbrowser.local.php file in your local setup?

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

Re. phpinfo(), I can't use it on this server. I may ask for info from the admin. Re. bibtexbrowser.local.php, I don't have such a file.

[miselico]

The main thing I seem to need is the content of $_GET It appears bibtexbrowser expects there to be something, but I cannot figure it out.

For my clarity, is there only one page you request to get the whole thing compiled, including the bibliography?

On Mon, Mar 6, 2023, 23:00 Antoine Zimmermann @.***> wrote:

Re. phpinfo(), I can't use it on this server. I may ask for info from the admin. Re. bibtexbrowser.local.php, I don't have such a file.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/Knowledge-Graphs-Book/HTML-Book/issues/36#issuecomment-1457073324, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA5VU255RLJFXFE7LD65FOTW2ZNBFANCNFSM6AAAAAAVPZBCKA . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

bibtexbrowser was originally made to create browsable HTML bibliographies from BibTeX. With $_GET, you can change display parameters in various ways. But I don't use this at all. I created my own way of displaying the bibliography.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

I made an experiment. I started from a Linux Mint 22.04 that does not have PHP installed. I did sudo apt-get install php, which installed PHP 7.4. I compiled book.php with php book.php > index.html, which did not work. I had to enable the extension mbstring, which I did via sudo apt-get install php-mbstring. Then book.php compiled but a lot of PHP code was not interpreted. In fact, I'm using a lot of inline <? ... ?> instead of <?php ... ?>, which works if you have abbreviated PHP tag enabled. Instead of changing the PHP config, I changed all the <? into <?php. It works. While doing so, I found 2 minor bugs in references.php that I fixed.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

I will push these changes later, I currently get a Git error but no time to take care of this now.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

I pushed changes. Many files are affected. It should now compile to HTML very nicely on most PHP processors.

[miselico]

Cool, thank you! If it works from a fresh install, it should work for me as well. I will try it out soon.

[miselico]

It seems to work! A main issue was that I needed to downgrade PHP from 8.2 to 7.4. The 7.4 version is EOL, but I don't think it is a real issue. This is not running as a public facing service, only for the compilation.

[miselico]

As mentioned in the pull request, this is working on my fork now. I have the fork here: https://github.com/miselico/HTML-Book , whenever a push to a branch is made, it compiles and places it in https://github.com/miselico/HTML-Book-staging , for example the green-background branch.

I now hosted them under my own domain in

https://www.cochez.nl/HTML-Book/ https://www.cochez.nl/HTML-Book-staging/green-background/

[aidhog]

Thank you all, for the advances. Should we go ahead then and switch the hosting?

@Antoine-Zimmermann, can you add @miselico as a maintainer of this repo so he can help to configure it? Once it's ready, let me know and I can switch the domain over (if you all agree).

[miselico]

@aidhog @Antoine-Zimmermann wrote me in private that he progressed already. I am now merging the workflow into the repository and make sure it works.

The only missing part is getting the DNS configured, I think.

[miselico]

The workflow works. It built the github pages. When I created the branch https://github.com/Knowledge-Graphs-Book/HTML-Book/tree/test-staging , the compiled version was created in https://github.com/Knowledge-Graphs-Book/HTML-Book-staging

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

Thanks, Michael. There is probably nothing more to configure on this repo regarding this issue, but I added you nonetheless as maintainer.

[miselico]

From what i can see, things look configured correctly. so, I think we should go ahead with the DNS change. @aidhog start from step 5 here: https://docs.github.com/en/pages/configuring-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site/managing-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site#configuring-an-apex-domain

After that we should also consider doing https://docs.github.com/en/pages/configuring-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site/verifying-your-custom-domain-for-github-pages

[aidhog]

Thanks all! I applied the DNS configuration but reached a dead-end in verifying the HTTPS, and visiting the site was blocked by a Privacy error, so I reverted for now to the current hosting.

In order to follow:

https://docs.github.com/en/pages/configuring-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site/verifying-your-custom-domain-for-github-pages

for this organization, I would need to become a maintainer of the Knowledge-Graph-Book organisation itself (I do not have access to the settings to verify a domain) or @Antoine-Zimmermann, you would need to follow the steps indicated there, let me know what TXT record to add to which sub-domain, and then verify once it has been added. But it would probably be easier to add me as maintainer to the org. :)

[miselico]

Can you try again? Most likely this is because the DNS was not yet updated rather than anything else.

[aidhog]

Ah, I understood that the verification step I could not do was for HTTPS, but I see it's not. How is the HTTPS part configured?

I checked with dig and everything was up to date. But if you're around for a couple of minutes, I can change the domain config again?

[miselico]

Https is configured already. This is done by github.

[miselico]

I am around now, but I also do not have full access. But, I can do some tests.

[aidhog]

Okay, will change now! (I think the problem was probably with my browser having cached something.)

[aidhog]

Okay, changed! DiG seems to be fine.

(I set the www. subdomain with A records rather than a CNAME as https://knowledge-graphs-book.github.io/ 404's.)

[miselico]

Put it anyway with a CNAME

[miselico]

But A records should also work. dig @y.ns.joker.com. kgbook.org. +nostats +nocomments +nocmd gives me the github nameservers.

[miselico]

It seems to work now.

[aidhog]

Changed the www. to CNAME but can change it back.

Still not working for me ("Privacy error"). Maybe still propagating, or something cached in my browser? Will check.

[aidhog]

Not my browser (tried in Edge, shudder), so maybe something still propagating. Still getting a "Privacy error".

Are both kgbook.org and www.kgbook.org working for you? If the latter is not working, could switch back to A records.

[miselico]

I am making a small change to check whether I am really getting the github version. I am using kgbook.org , that is also how github is configured.

[aidhog]

If I ignore the privacy warnings, www.kgbook.org seems to work through CNAME, so that seems fine.

Is the connection showing as secure for you? Still showing as "Not secure" on my end.

[miselico]

It is not secure and it also does not give me the updated version created in the workflow. My DNS is not yet updated, though. I only get the updated IP addresses when I ask the NS directly.

[miselico]

I suggest we wait some time for the DNS to propagate. In the worst case the website is down for a few hours.

[aidhog]

Sounds good! In Edge kgbook.org is now secure for me (though I do not see your github comment in the source from the last commit, a ping gives me a github IP).

Chrome still gives me a privacy error, even in Incognito Mode. Something must be cached somewhere but I can't find it.

www.kgbook.org is still not secure in Edge nor Chrome.

I guess we wait and it should resolve itself eventually, thanks!

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

I got an email related to the Knowledge-Graphs-Book organisation telling me to "Please verify your Pages domain (ACTION NEEDED)". With this, I can verify a domain. But following your discussion, I am not sure if it is still needed. Should I proceed?

[miselico]

@Antoine-Zimmermann
Could you

you may need to remove and re-add your custom domain to your site's repository to trigger the process of enabling HTTPS.

See https://docs.github.com/en/pages/configuring-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site/troubleshooting-custom-domains-and-github-pages

[miselico]

FYI: the DNS works by now, it is only the HTTPS left.

I do get the github version of the page if I skip the HTTPS check.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

It works for me now. I think we are done with this issue. Thanks a lot, Michael, for the support.

[miselico]

@Antoine-Zimmermann can you also turn github pages on for the staging repository (using github pages, actions is not needed)? Mine looks like this:

You should not need to put a URL anywhere, I think it will use kgbook.org by default.

[aidhog]

All seems to be working well here as well, many thanks all!

Let me know if there's some other domain config needed.

[Antoine-Zimmermann]

@miselico, pages setup on the staging repo

[miselico]

This all seems working now. Staging is at https://knowledge-graphs-book.github.io/HTML-Book-staging/<branchname>/ e.g., https://knowledge-graphs-book.github.io/HTML-Book-staging/test-staging/ I suggest we prevent direct pushing to main now. This means people create a branch first and see what it looks like in the staging environment before merging it into the main branch.