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Late last night (~10 PM UTC), the security certificates for SoylentNews.org expired. (Out-of-date certs result in nasty warning messages being displayed by your browser.)
Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience the outage caused.
Unfortunately, that was after I (and others on staff who could do anything about it) had gone to bed.
I had personally updated the certs in the past, but the last time was years ago. (TheMightyBuzzard had previously — and subsequently — handled getting and applying updated certs.) It had been so long that I could not find my notes on the process. (Note to self: it helps to look in the correct directory tree!)
Thankfully, audioguy appeared and was able to get things updated.
Please join me in thanking him for getting things straightened out!
P.S. The current certs are due to expire December 14, 2021, Please feel free to remind us as that date approaches!
P.P.S. The technical staff is aware of various automated solutions to renewals but made a conscious decision to do them manually. Remember that people make mistakes but to really foul things up use a computer!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @04:51PM (3 children)
Warning the users that the certificate is about to expire is much less helpful than emailing the site administrator who can actually fix the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 15 2021, @07:46PM (2 children)
Well, when the site administrator who was taking care of the certificates is driven away from the site, sending an email to said admin just might not result in it getting done.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday September 16 2021, @08:26AM (1 child)
this is a problem with domain registration and app stores as well - one person (named individual) is the registration contact.
They may be a minor grade employee at a large company or government department.
The contact is their email, their phone number, and their name
They leave (quit/get fired/die).. the effort required to get the name changed is enormous- if it can be done at all.
There is almost never a 'second contact'.. one person is solely responsible for the 'ownership' of the whole company's or government department's entire web presence..
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 17 2021, @03:57AM
The tradition of using "admin [at] domain [dot] com" came about for a reason, but it became a spam magnet so we can't have nice things. :(