SSL certificate requirement

Build a Solid App Developer Experience
1

Hi,

In order to get going as a developer, I am following the instructions on Installing and running Node Solid Server. There appears to be a requirement to create an SSL cert. This in turn requires that I have a domain name pointing to my server (I am using LetsEncrypt as suggested and Debian running on a virtual machine).

Is there a way around the need for an SSL cert for development purposes. Otherwise I guess I will need to register a temporary domain solely for this? Is there a simple solution to avoid this step?

Thanks
Ivo

2

Hi,

gives more details. Like editing your /etc/hosts

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3

Thanks Rimmartin

4

The article on the link above was really helpful. I went with the option of a self-signed certificate and that seemed to work. I can start solid and (with some exception confirmations) I can now access the “Welcome to Solid Prototype” index page on https://localhost:8443. I have followed the registration process and created a new user and I can log in using the newly create credentials. However, when I log in I dont see the data browser - I just see the “Welcome to Solid Prototype” index page but the LogIn has changed to Logout.

When I try to manually enter the URL of the profile card https://localhost:8443/profile/card#me I get an error saying I do not have permission to access.

I can see that a json file with the profile data has been created in the .db/users folder but Is there an additional step I am missing to allow access to a user’s profile data via a logged in session?

Thanks
Ivo

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5

Many people are getting this with the current master branch. I would suggest keeping an eye on https://github.com/orgs/solid/projects/1#card-14842941 when it merges. Such bugs are on the sprint list

Yesterday i gave release/v5.0.0 branch a try and it was highly unstable. Some things were committed since so I was getting ready to try it today. I actually got the furtherest with the Vivaldi browser, I think because of first use. My firefox doesn’t work with this branch and chrome has permission issues too. And passing the WebId to rddflib.js fails. Update my solid-auth-client master branch as well.

Currently I start every development session from scratch cloning fresh copies and register a user if possible and then fill in my test data. With that sprint I think some stability is coming

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6

It also looks like some cookie stuff is being written out of usage; might help on restarts.

7

Firefox times out on https://localhost:8443/
Chrome allowed me to register but no getting to the user pages
Vivaldi gets into trouble now too

There is now server logging showing time like
solid:get /index.html on localhost +1m
solid:get /favicon.ico on localhost +7m

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8

Thanks. It’s comforting to know it’s not just me. I haven’t started down the path of setting up a local github repo yet. I installed solid with npm.

I assume I can just do a “npm update solid” at the appropriate time when the latest version is released? I’d rather get the server up and running and get familiar with it before I start getting git setup and start contributing.

Rgds
Ivo

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