Oolite Website Domain & Fixing the Expansions Manager

[hiran]

While it is good that we are looking at the release process now, let's continue that discussion in

Simplify release process

so this thread can stay focusing on the fixes that newcomers need to do to get the Expansion Manager running.

[timer]

But you understood what I am after, that is the first good thing. If you find something that works I will not bother if it is the original mechanism or something similar.

plz test it on dev branch build https://07e4fb61.oolite-web.pages.dev/
I love CF =)

is it what u want?

[hiran]

But you understood what I am after, that is the first good thing. If you find something that works I will not bother if it is the original mechanism or something similar.

plz test it on dev branch build https://07e4fb61.oolite-web.pages.dev/
I love CF =)

is it what u want?

If is partly what I want. Clicking the link you provided leads me to the homepage. Going to Downloads brings up the downloads page and it changes as you describe. But now I get two different behaviours:

If I copy the link, open a new browser window or tab and inject that link (which ends with #download), I get the expected Downloads page.
However if I open a new browser window and enter the main page https://07e4fb61.oolite-web.pages.dev/ I get the homepage. Now I edit the address bar and append #download and press enter. My expectation is to end up on the Downloads page - but it does not happen.

I am not familiar with the technology behind. But why do we use https://07e4fb61.oolite-web.pages.dev/#download when https://07e4fb61.oolite-web.pages.dev/download could do the job?

[Cholmondely]

is it what u want?

Thy eminence!

Sorry to be a pain, but it looks as though the new version of Oolite might not be coming out for another year or so - and that the current version will not be updated to refer to your new website.

This means that the Expansions Manager will not work - except for those brave souls who scroll down to the bottom of the page and download the nightlies.

Would it be possible to put up some sort of notice on the https://www.oolite.space/download/ webpage?

Maybe something like this:

Due to loss of our Oolite.org website, the in-game Expansions Manager no longer works as it should. Follow instructions here (https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 85#p288785) to fix it.

Bluntly, I (as a dumb pilot) do not understand how to follow the instructions! If somebody can come up with a better set of instructions, that would be good! (added to which, when I search for .GNUstepDefaults, my computer finds nothing!)



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Oh! And I stumbled across this!

[hiran]

is it what u want?

Thy eminence!

Sorry to be a pain, but it looks as though the new version of Oolite might not be coming out for another year or so - and that the current version will not be updated to refer to your new website.

This means that the Expansions Manager will not work - except for those brave souls who scroll down to the bottom of the page and download the nightlies.

Would it be possible to put up some sort of notice on the https://www.oolite.space/download/ webpage?

Maybe something like this:

Due to loss of our Oolite.org website, the in-game Expansions Manager no longer works as it should. Follow instructions here (https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 85#p288785) to fix it.

Bluntly, I (as a dumb pilot) do not understand how to follow the instructions! If somebody can come up with a better set of instructions, that would be good! (added to which, when I search for .GNUstepDefaults, my computer finds nothing!)



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Oh! And I stumbled across this!

Alternatively offer OoliteStarter, which works around the problem...

[Cholmondely]

Alternatively offer OoliteStarter, which works around the problem...

With the Expansions Manager, you ask it to update the OXP list after it prompts you. How does Oolite Starter handle this?

[hiran]

Alternatively offer OoliteStarter, which works around the problem...

With the Expansions Manager, you ask it to update the OXP list after it prompts you. How does Oolite Starter handle this?

Oolite Starter grabs both the expansion manager's manifest (online) and scans the local addons directories on
- startup (we need to know what to display)
- after you exit Oolite (data may have changed through the builtin expansions manager, or save games were created)
- whenever you click Reload (probably you fiddled around with the filesystem yourself or are just curious)

That's why it is able to show online and locally available expansions and install/enable whatever is missing when activating an expansion set.

If you want to inspect/modify the URLs that are used to grab the manifest, just check $HOME/.oolite-starter.conf.

[hiran]

1. Can you actually update oolite.space by committing changes to github? It looks to me that changes you make on oolite-web are applied to a CloudFlare test site that nobody knows anything about.

repo oolite-web has 2 branches only-media and only-static - any commit to only-static calls auto-rebuild and updating site by CF. This site at this moment bind to domain oolite.site But this is only CF settings - what domain point at this site, and we can switch it at any time.

Thank you for that information, timer.

So I made some modifications to two files in https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite ... /root/html and I can see the matching result on https://oolite.site/#whatsnew and https://oolite.site/#download.

Question: how can we get these changes into https://oolite.space?

[hiran]

I now checked both settings on
- Github (https://github.com/OoliteProject/oolite-web)
- CloudFlare (oolite.site and oolite.space)

Github
Since there is no .github/workflows directory I'd assume there are no github actions. Yet under Actions I can see workflow runs. Magic?
The workflow was triggered manually some time ago and seems to deploy to github pages
So it seems not relevant - Github does not push content to Cloudflare.

CloudFlare
Browsing through the different options we have, the settings for oolite.site and oolite.space look the same to me.
I'd expect something to show up on Workers Routes or Rules. Something that reveals where the pages actually come from.
But it seems Cloudflare is not pulling from Github.

Either I do not have enough privileges, or I am missing relevant stuff. Even following a tutorial like this did not add clarity.

How does a change in the git repository automatically forward to https://oolite.site?

[hiran]

After some more investigation I could find at least some hints. In Cloudflare the DNS settings contain the magic. Yes, after all it only acts as reverse proxy. I created a diagram to show the content flow.



The missing actor is some unknown or presumably manual component that used to copy oolite-web into the webserver. It is no longer present today.
The red arrow is assumed only. I do not have enough privileges to verify or modify it in any way.
But the two different flows for the websites oolite.space and oolite.site are visible. The old server that is bound to be decommissioned still exists but could vanish anytime.

[timer]

How does a change in the git repository automatically forward to https://oolite.site?

CloudFlare and GitHub interact through application in "GitHub Apps". The oolite-web repo has "Cloudflare Pages" app installed.

176.124.198.146 is my own vps server, this is a proxy for the old origin server. My vps has an entry in the hosts file with oolite.org and its source IP address, nginx forwards requests to it. It also contains the main manifest file and updates it periodically (~15 min) from the origin server. If the origin server is down, the origin site is down too, but the OXP manager retains access to the main manifest file.

Question: how can we get these changes into https://oolite.space?

Do you really want to "deactivate" the original server and replace it with a new site WITHOUT a manifest editor?
The main manifest file will remain frozen until we develop a new way to change it...

[phkb]

Do you really want to "deactivate" the original server and replace it with a new site WITHOUT a manifest editor?

If not the entire thing, can we at least push an update to appear on the "Latest news" section?

[timer]

If not the entire thing, can we at least push an update to appear on the "Latest news" section?

If we are talking about updating the original server - we have no access to it :(
All I can do is make it visible through my proxy.

[phkb]

All I can do is make it visible through my proxy.

Ah, got it. Thanks.

[timer]

Well... let's link the origin site to old.oolite.space and there we can edit the manifest if necessary.
And move the new site to oolite.space
How do you like this decision?

upd: And then we can on the new site link "upload your manifest files" set to "https://old.oolite.space/admin/" (as temporary decision)