simfactory download page points to outdated version

[Roland Haas]

currently http://simfactory.org/simfactory/download/ points to https://svn.cct.lsu.edu/repos/numrel/simfactory2/branches/ET_2011_10 for the "current" version, which is from the last release

Keyword:

[anonymous]

They currently refer to 2016_06 which is multiple years out of date: http://www.simfactory.org/simfactory/download/

They need to be manually updated after each ET release.

[Roland Haas]

This is still the case. Who actually has access to the repo that hosts the website?

[Steven R. Brandt]

It's registered through godaddy.

[Roland Haas]

Ok, who can change the website content though?

[Ian Hinder]

simfactory.org seems to be a server hosted at CCT:

$ host simfactory.org
simfactory.org has address 130.39.21.124$ host 130.39.21.124
124.21.39.130.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer weave.cct.lsu.edu.
124.21.39.130.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer simfactory.org.

At some point in time, the website was a branch in the simfactory subversion repository:

Ian-Hinders-MacBook-Pro:simfactory ian$ pwd
/Users/ian/Sites/simfactory
Ian-Hinders-MacBook-Pro:simfactory ian$ git svn info
Path: .
URL: https://svn.cct.lsu.edu/repos/numrel/simfactory2/www
Repository Root: https://svn.cct.lsu.edu/repos/numrel/simfactory2
Repository UUID: cde0f5ca-dead-0410-9a94-d5ce4c5b1455
Revision: 2435
Node Kind: directory
Schedule: normal
Last Changed Author: knarf
Last Changed Rev: 2435
Last Changed Date: 2016-10-17 21:15:16 +0200 (Mon, 17 Oct 2016)

Hopefully there was a hook which updated the checkout on the webserver after each commit.

From the commit log, Frank, Erik and I have commits, so we probably had commit access. However, I can no longer commit.

There is no www branch in the bitbucket simfactory 2 repository https://bitbucket.org/simfactory/simfactory2/branches/, and there is no bitbucket repository in the simfactory project for the website.

Steve, perhaps you could have a look at weave.cct.lsu.edu and see how the webserver is configured?

[Roland Haas]

Since the repo https://svn.cct.lsu.edu/repos/numrel/simfactory2/www/ is publicly visible anyway, would it make sense to transfer the commit history into https://bitbucket.org/simfactory/simfactory.bitbucket.io/src then redirect on https://www.simfactory.org to https://simfactory.bitbucket.io ?

That of course still requires that someone who can still commit to the current svn repo changes index.php (or .html) to contain the redirect to the bitbucket page.

[Ian Hinder]

Really, we should get to the bottom of what's going on with the existing simfactory.org website. Someone at CCT must know something about this? Or Erik?

The redirect you mentioned would be ugly, as the user would go to simfactory.org and be redirected to simfactory.bitbucket.io, and then continue to see that URL. Better would be to point the DNS entry at that site using a CNAME record. Unfortunately, unlike github, for which this works perfectly, bitbucket does not support this, and has no plans to support it (see https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues/11257/support-custom-domains-cname-for-static). Another option for static hosting that I have used is netlify. This will create a static website for free based on a git repo (both github and bitbucket are supported), and I have used them before. I just tried it out with the simfactory.bitbucket.io repo, and the result can be seen at at https://stupefied-sinoussi-ff89d6.netlify.com/simfactory2/userguide. They use randomly-generated site names by default. It took about a minute to set up. However, they support CNAMEs, so you can repoint a domain to point at their site. They also support TLS via LetsEncrypt. I have used both these features and have had no problems with them.

[Roland Haas]

That sounds nice, given that bitbucket does not let us use "nice" urls, even if it means involving another company (that may fold).

To clarify: to use netlify.com we could keep the website repos on bitbucket (or github unless github supports https with our own URLs) and set up some hook to have a push to the website repo (or a branch in it) update the website on netlify.com?

Do they support only strictly static websites or Jekyll based automation similar to what eg github supports?

[Steven R. Brandt]

I'm back from all my travel. I'll try to get access to this machine and the svn repo.

[Ian Hinder]

Roland: yes, we would keep the repos where they are, and don't even need to set up a hook. Netlify automatically detects the change to the repo and regenerates the site. They also support Jekyll and possibly other things.