Press "Enter" to skip to content

nuxx.net Posts

Now With IPv6 and SSL (but no SPDY)

Published May 8, 2012

Since moving to a new server running Apache for hosting websites I’ve been able to make quite a few changes that just weren’t quite possible with lighttpd. One major change is the use of IPv6. Ever since the move I’ve set up all hosted sites with AAAA records and made them available via IPv6, and it’s been working great. While I don’t see much traffic on this yet, I’m happy to know that the sites are all able to be reached this way. For reference:

;; ANSWER SECTION:
nuxx.net.               300     IN      AAAA    2607:f4b8:5:2:e611:5bff:feac:3a60

I’ve also been wanting to move my personal site, nuxx.net, to be HTTPS-only. While not particularly important for most public content, this does protect session cookies for various admin functions that I may host under this domain, along with keeping any private content from prying eyes. Thanks to an SSL certificate from the new-to-me registrar gandi.net it was pretty easy to get this set up. I was then able to take the old non-HTTPS vhost and permanently redirect it over to the secure one, and all content simply moved over to the secure side:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName nuxx.net
    ServerAlias www.nuxx.net
    ServerAdmin c0nsumer@nuxx.net
    Redirect permanent / https://nuxx.net/
</VirtualHost>

The browser test screenshot seen above from Qualys SSL Labs SSL Server Test (live results here) shows that HTTPS is pretty well set up on nuxx.net. I’m sure it could be better, but for now I think it’s pretty good.

Thanks to the magic of this bit of SQL I was able to update all http://nuxx.net links in nuxx.net blog posts to https://nuxx.net, allowing most pages to validate as fully secure. I’ll have to do something similar on the other apps to bring them up to snuff:

UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content, 'http://nuxx.net', 'https://nuxx.net');

Amusingly, the use of HTTPS seems to dramatically cut down on automated SPAM. Perhaps some of the link spamming tools don’t want to deal with the overhead (or cert validation?) of HTTPS? I’d figure they could just ignore them, though…

Anyway, with all of this in place, I got to thinking about SPDY, Google’s shiny new protocol. An Apache module for implementing it, mod-spdy has been released and there is a FreeBSD Port for it, so I decided to give it a go. While the installation worked and Chrome showed it working (as seen via chrome://net-internals/#spdy). Unfortunately, I ran into a couple bugs. Most notable was that a number of httpd processes failed, and I ran into documented issues #36 and #39 which left me with an odd taste for this module. I’ve since disabled it, but once a new version is released I’ll probably try it again.

Leave a Comment

Deuter Race Air Lite Pack Leak and Replacement

Published May 8, 2012

When riding I almost always carry a Deuter Race Air Lite hydration pack (photo) containing stuff I may need during the ride. I’ve had the bag for less than a year and recently a leak developed at the bottom of the bladder, right at the base of the outlet’s weld. Deuter bags carry a lifetime warranty, so I submitted a warranty request.

A few days later I had a new bladder in my possession, and instead of sending the old one back Deuter just asked for a photo of the bladder and where it’s leaking. That’s what can be seen above. This leak wasn’t huge, but it was enough that with each ride the bottom of my bag would be wet, occasionally dripping on me. I was more concerned that it would grow, resulting in an unexpected failure leaving me stuck without water.

I’ve been really happy with the Deuter pack thus far, and good warranty support when it failed was a nice bonus.

Leave a Comment

Satan Can’t Punctuate

Published May 3, 2012

Lunch time today found me taking a quick ride at River Bends, and while there I came across this dumpster. Graffiti reading “Satan Was Here” on a dumpster doesn’t really surprise me, but the quotation marks surrounding the upside down cross do. Has the moronic use of quotation marks purely for emphasis really gone this far?

Leave a Comment

Fox Float RP23 Seal Replacement

Published May 2, 2012

This evening, as part of doing a bunch of needed maintenance on the Titus (cables, bottom bracket, shock, etc) I replaced the seals on the Fox Float RP23 rear shock. Using the ~$15 OEM seal kit this was surprisingly easy to do. I followed along with this video from Fox and the actual work took less time than watching the video.

The most difficult part was removing the bottom bushings, but this was pretty easily done by holding them using a bench vise and some neoprene to keep the parts from being marred and gently rotating them while lifting on the shock. Pressing the bushings back into place was even easier, done just using the vise jaws and some more padding.

There is still another evening’s worth of work to go on the bike before I’ll be able to put the shock back on, but everything went well enough that I expect it’ll work fine. I’m more concerned about getting all the drivetrain bits put together and working right.

Leave a Comment

U+1F4A9 Successfully Deployed

Published April 26, 2012

Today I successfully employed one of the new characters in Unicode 6.0, U+1F4A9, also known as PILE OF POO (dog dirt). (See the table and list of names here.)

Needing a separate, sealing garbage can for Roxie’s collected poop I grabbed a spare one from the basement, but I figured it needed some manner of appropriate labeling. This did it. I printed it on a full-page label, sealed it with packing tape, cut it out, and stuck it in place. Hopefully the can will also help keep the garage from smelling like fresh poop on warm days.

Check out this page for more information on this character and to see if your browser and installed fonts support it. Hopefully it does.

Leave a Comment

Fox Lake Road May Be Impassable

Published April 22, 2012

Yesterday’s ride took Erik, Nick, and I out west to visit an area that we’d only heard about and Erik was anxious to see, Fox Lake Road. I was not disappointed, as the segment between Honert Rd and County Line Rd. / Washburn Rd. was some nice hills in the quite-attractive Ortonville Recreation Area.

Starting out from the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail we ended up around 69 miles for the day, and a moving time of just a smidge over 5.5 hours. This met my goal, but I seem to have failed to keep my heart rate high enough for some parts of the ride. For much of it (likely while climbing) I had it fairly high, but on the flatter segments (and likely longer downhills) it dropped lower than I should have kept it. Hopefully this’ll be okay… While tired I had enough energy left at the end of the ride yesterday to make a decent effort on the Miller Rd. hills, so hopefully I won’t have problems with next weekend’s 5.5 – 6 hour ride, and whatever comes after that…

Here’s two more photos from yesterday:

· Inside the Men’s changing area at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area’s Lower Trout Lake beach.
· Titus Racer X 29er laying in some leaves along Fox Lake Road when stopping to take a break.

Now, off to Stony Creek to build some single track.

1 Comment

Poopy Avocado

Published April 21, 2012

This morning’s breakfast organic avocado from Whole Foods has bird poop on it. This amuses me. Not that it’s a problem, since the skin is essentially just a wrapper.

(Amusingly, this is one of the best avocados I’ve had in Michigan in a while. There’s no bruising, it ripened nicely on the counter, and it’s quite tasty. Danielle chose well while at the store.)

Leave a Comment

Marked Bottle

Published April 20, 2012

This evening I finally got around to marking up some of my water bottles with one-third and half marks. Since I frequently mix up two or three hours worth of sports drink stuff in them (typically from Infinit Nutrition) I like to drink half or one third of the bottle per hour. I’d previously guessed at what 1/3 and 1/2 of the volume would be, but apparently I was a bit off. The dent in the bottle must have thrown me a bit.

By the time these markings wear off I’ll likely have these levels memorized and won’t need to redo them.

(Note that this bottle contains enough mix to meet my caloric needs for three hours of riding. Despite being filled to just below the Breakaway Bicycles & Fitness logo it’ll all dissolve pretty readily in one bottle of water.)

Leave a Comment

Nupla PA375-LESG Pulaski Axe

Published April 19, 2012

Wednesday evening UPS delivered my new Pulaski, a tool combining an axe and an adz, and commonly used in wilderness firefighting and trail construction. I’ve been borrowing one for the past year or so but I wanted my own, so I looked around and ended up picking up this one, a Nupla PA375-LESG.

Made in the US and available from Amazon for ~$53 it seemed like a pretty reasonable purchase. I particularly like the ribbed handle which should make it feel a bit more solid when used with wet hands.

I also added this photo to the Wikipedia Pulaski article because it previously didn’t have a good photo of the tool’s head; just a man swinging the tool, with the head lost in shadows.

Leave a Comment

Boulevard Connector?

Published April 19, 2012

While out riding to Lake Orion and back on Tuesday I noticed that the construction of the connector between the Paint Creek Trail and the Kern Road safety path (near the Clarkston / Kern / PCT intersection) is nearing completion and it appears that the base of it will split into a boulevard (with a median / central reservation).

If this is the case and the extra path isn’t just for construction access it’ll be nice. This is a notoriously blind corner and coming down this path towards the PCT currently requires some careful looking and neck craning to be sure one doesn’t ride out in front of someone else. Hopefully this’ll improve the sight lines and make for a better intersection.

Leave a Comment