Node-solid-server: Cannot run multi-user Solid Server

[evmiguel]

Hello,

When I run a single user server, I am able to get to my endpoint UI fine. However, when I try to set up the server as a multi user server, I get the output shown here: https://solid.erikamiguel.com:8443/

My config.json looks like this:

{
  "root": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/data",
  "port": "8443",
  "webid": true,
  "mount": "/",
  "configPath": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/config",
  "configFile": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/config.json",
  "dbPath": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/.db",
  "sslKey": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem",
  "sslCert": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/fullchain.pem",
  "multiuser": true,
  "enforceToc": false,
  "disablePasswordChecks": true,
  "supportEmail": "",
  "server": {
    "name": "solid.erikamiguel.com",
    "description": "",
    "logo": ""
  }
}

My filesystem looks like this

root@evm-solid:~# tree /var/www
/var/www
└── solid.erikamiguel.com
    ├── config
    │   ├── templates
    │   │   ├── emails
    │   │   │   ├── delete-account.js
    │   │   │   ├── invalid-username.js
    │   │   │   ├── reset-password.js
    │   │   │   └── welcome.js
    │   │   ├── new-account
    │   │   │   ├── favicon.ico
    │   │   │   ├── favicon.ico.acl
    │   │   │   ├── inbox
    │   │   │   ├── index.html
    │   │   │   ├── index.html.acl
    │   │   │   ├── private
    │   │   │   ├── profile
    │   │   │   │   └── card$.ttl
    │   │   │   ├── public
    │   │   │   ├── robots.txt
    │   │   │   ├── robots.txt.acl
    │   │   │   └── settings
    │   │   │       ├── prefs.ttl
    │   │   │       ├── privateTypeIndex.ttl
    │   │   │       ├── publicTypeIndex.ttl
    │   │   │       ├── publicTypeIndex.ttl.acl
    │   │   │       ├── serverSide.ttl
    │   │   │       └── serverSide.ttl.acl
    │   │   └── server
    │   │       ├── favicon.ico
    │   │       ├── favicon.ico.acl
    │   │       ├── index.html
    │   │       ├── index.html.acl
    │   │       ├── robots.txt
    │   │       └── robots.txt.acl
    │   └── views
    │       ├── account
    │       │   ├── account-deleted.hbs
    │       │   ├── delete-confirm.hbs
    │       │   ├── delete.hbs
    │       │   ├── delete-link-sent.hbs
    │       │   ├── invalid-username.hbs
    │       │   ├── register-disabled.hbs
    │       │   ├── register-form.hbs
    │       │   └── register.hbs
    │       ├── auth
    │       │   ├── auth-hidden-fields.hbs
    │       │   ├── change-password.hbs
    │       │   ├── consent.hbs
    │       │   ├── goodbye.hbs
    │       │   ├── login.hbs
    │       │   ├── login-required.hbs
    │       │   ├── login-tls.hbs
    │       │   ├── login-username-password.hbs
    │       │   ├── no-permission.hbs
    │       │   ├── password-changed.hbs
    │       │   ├── reset-link-sent.hbs
    │       │   └── reset-password.hbs
    │       └── shared
    │           ├── create-account.hbs
    │           └── error.hbs
    ├── config.json
    └── data
        └── localhost
            ├── favicon.ico
            ├── favicon.ico.acl
            ├── index.html
            ├── index.html.acl
            ├── robots.txt
            └── robots.txt.acl

[dmitrizagidulin]

Hi @evmiguel! Thanks for opening the issue.

Lets get a bit more diagnostics going. Can you start your solid server with a ‘-v’ (verbose) flag, and also add here the error on the console?

[evmiguel]

Hi @dmitrizagidulin ,

The -v flag doesn't work:

root@evm-solid:/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com# solid start -v
error: unknown option `-v'

Running solid start, I get

root@evm-solid:/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com# cat /var/log/solid.out 
Solid server (5.0.0-beta.2) running on https://localhost:8443/
Press <ctrl>+c to stop

[bourgeoa]

In /data you have /localhost you should have /solid.erikamiguel.com

config.json miss the server Uri line

"serverUri" : "https://solid.erikamiguel.com",

[dmitrizagidulin]

The -v flag doesn't work:

Interesting.. what OS are you using?

(And yes, the config is missing the serverUri parameter, that was gonna be my next suggestion too.)

[ewingson]

no idea if that helps, gonna share my experiences. have tried multi-user on debian jessie. the -v option didn' t work neither. the solid init process doesn' t seem to write the serverUri variable. I' m having issues with the port cause I tried port 443 where 8443 at tomcat seems the standard. lets share more config.jsons (mentioning succeeding or not). here is mine. I' ve let the standard document root /var/www/html/ untouched since its the only website at that special box.

{
"root": "/var/www/html/data",
"port": "443",
"webid": true,
"mount": "/",
"configPath": "/var/www/html/config",
"configFile": "/var/www/html/config.json",
"dbPath": "/var/www/html/.db",
"sslKey": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/solidweb.org/privkey.pem",
"sslCert": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/solidweb.org/fullchain.pem",
"multiuser": true,
"enforceToc": false,
"disablePasswordChecks": false,
"supportEmail": "[email protected]",
"server":
{
"name": "solidweb.org",
"description": "free the web",
"logo": "path/to/logo.jpg"
}
}

didn' t run on 443 (port already in use), ran on 3456
and better don' t touch fullchain.pem
I haven' t figured out the markdown editing style yet

[dmitrizagidulin]

Ok, so those two things are definitely a problem:

• -v not working on some OSs (Debian, sounds like)
• and serverUri not being written by solid init.

@evmiguel or @ewingson - can you try running it via ./bin/solid start -v ? (I'm assuming you've installed it locally via github, and not globally via npm)

[ewingson]

@dmitrizagidulin have installed per npm at a live connected system. solid start succeeded at port 3456. I' m still figuring out lotsa thangs, how all components work together (apache, solid, ssl, systemd, config.json, the files solid is creating.....) would you recommend port 8443 assuming doing the apache configuration in apache2.conf (which seems tomcat as standard in debian) ?

[evmiguel]

@dmitrizagidulin I'm using Debian stretch for my Solid server, and I installed solid-server via npm.

Adding serverUri seems to have fixed the issue!

[evmiguel]

So the UI is showing now, but the popup.html is not showing when I hit "Log In"

[evmiguel]

Update: I've changed my site port from 8443 to 443. The only way I can seem to get in is https://solid.erikamiguel.com/login?response_type=&display=&scope=&client_id=&redirect_uri=&state=&nonce=&request=

Not through the popup.

[bourgeoa]

Your "serverUri" should end with port value :8443 except when using a proxy.
"port" : "8443",
"serverUri" : "https://solid.erikamiguel.com:8443",

[kjetilk]

So, for people now migrating to 5.0.0-beta (which you should), the -v flag has disappeared (since verbose is the default, see #909)

The serverUri config should point to the URI as the world sees it, so if you are running behind a proxy, you would typically run on port 8443, but as @bourgeoa says, still have the serverUri without it. If you plan to just set up a server for testing and just run that on 8443, then you'd have that in the serverUri too.

[evmiguel]

My config.json looks like this now:

{
  "root": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/data",
  "port": "8443",
  "webid": true,
  "mount": "/",
  "configPath": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/config",
  "configFile": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/config.json",
  "dbPath": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/.db",
  "sslKey": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem",
  "sslCert": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/fullchain.pem",
  "multiuser": true,
  "enforceToc": false,
  "disablePasswordChecks": true,
  "supportEmail": "",
  "serverUri": "https://solid.erikamiguel.com",
  "server": {
    "name": "solid.erikamiguel.com",
    "description": "",
    "logo": ""
  }
}

So, I've updated my server architecture to an Apache reverse proxy forwarding requests on port 443 to 8443. Here is the Apache config:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName solid.erikamiguel.com

    SSLEngine On
    SSLProxyEngine On
    SSLProxyVerify none
    SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire off  
    ProxyPreserveHost on

    # Set the path to SSL certificate
    # Usage: SSLCertificateFile /path/to/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/chain.pem


    # Servers to proxy the connection, or;
    # List of application servers:
    # Usage:
    # ProxyPass / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # ProxyPassReverse / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # Example: 
    ProxyPass / https://localhost:8443/
    ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:8443/

    # Or, balance the load:
    # ProxyPass / balancer://balancer_cluster_name

</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerAlias *.solid.erikamiguel.com

    SSLEngine On
    SSLProxyEngine On
    SSLProxyVerify none
    SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire off  
    ProxyPreserveHost on

    # Set the path to SSL certificate
    # Usage: SSLCertificateFile /path/to/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/chain.pem


    # Servers to proxy the connection, or;
    # List of application servers:
    # Usage:
    # ProxyPass / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # ProxyPassReverse / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # Example: 
    ProxyPass / https://localhost:8443/
    ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:8443/

    # Or, balance the load:
    # ProxyPass / balancer://balancer_cluster_name

</VirtualHost>

I'm still not getting popup.html to show. See screenshot below:

[kjetilk]

That's pretty weird... Connection refused... Are you sure the solid-server is actually running?

You might want to ask in the forums too, if you don't get an adequate answer here.

[evmiguel]

@kjetilk Yes, solid-server is running. See below:

[bourgeoa]

I suppose you solved your problem because I was able to register and login to my account on https://solid.erikamiguel.com.

In my opinion you had a linked to proxy problem.

If it's the case, for the help of everyone could you paste your /config.json file and your Apache config
You also should have /data/solid.erikamiguel.com without port :8443.

I have a docker installation on Synology with inverse proxy activated for a list of xyz.:443 to xyz.:8443. This way you control the list of Pod's on your PodHub.

Then to help the maintainers could you please close the issue

[evmiguel]

@bourgeoa My config.json and Apache config can be found above. How were you able to login? I'd like to follow your steps so that I can reproduce.

[evmiguel]

@kjetilk I've opened up all ports to my instance:

Still getting:

[kjetilk]

Any ideas, @dmitrizagidulin ?

[bourgeoa]

I suppose you solved your problem because I was able to register and login to my account on https://solid.erikamiguel.com.

In my opinion you had a linked to proxy problem.

If it's the case, for the help of everyone could you paste your /config.json file and your Apache config
You also should have /data/solid.erikamiguel.com without port :8443.

I have a docker installation on Synology with inverse proxy activated for a list of xyz.:443 to xyz.:8443. This way you control the list of Pod's on your PodHub.

Then to help the maintainers could you please close the issue

[bourgeoa]

As I told I registered with an External WebID with no problem and logged in with that external WebID.
I tried to register an other user without using external WebID and login but I do not succeed
I cannot help you more for the time being.
I will try to build a new Solid server unde V5.00.beta2
Actually I run with V4.3.1 with reverse proxy and have tested V4.4.0.0 without proxy and did not had any problem.

In your situation I will try V4.4.0.0 without reverse proxy, then with it (your need to change serverUri)
And if success retry with V5 beta2.

I don't know how to manually parameter a proxy. (I use the Synology app to do it)

[bourgeoa]

Some hints :
when you rebuild your server make a clean install clear or delete at least /data and /.db

[dmitrizagidulin]

@kjetilk @evmiguel So, the first thing that looks suspicious in those Connection Refused errors is that it's trying to connect to localhost:8443/jwks, not to solid.erikamiguel.com/jwks.
So part of it I suspect is that something got generated (the OIDC provider config, or something else) _before_ you added the serverUri to your config, so it's still using the default url of localhost:8443.

So basically, you want to clear your .db/ directory, at very least, and restart. (I forget if popup.html is also generated at startup).

[evmiguel]

@dmitrizagidulin deleting ./db and restart worked!

[evmiguel]

Just for everyone's reference. To fix the connection refused error, I deleted .db/ folder per @dmitrizagidulin 's tip.

My final config.json looks like:

{
  "root": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/data",
  "port": "8443",
  "webid": true,
  "mount": "/",
  "configPath": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/config",
  "configFile": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/config.json",
  "dbPath": "/var/www/solid.erikamiguel.com/.db",
  "sslKey": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem",
  "sslCert": "/etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/fullchain.pem",
  "multiuser": true,
  "enforceToc": false,
  "disablePasswordChecks": true,
  "supportEmail": "",
  "serverUri": "https://solid.erikamiguel.com",
  "server": {
    "name": "solid.erikamiguel.com",
    "description": "",
    "logo": ""
  }
}

My final reverse proxy config looks like:

<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerName solid.erikamiguel.com

    SSLEngine On
    SSLProxyEngine On
    SSLProxyVerify none
    SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire off  
    ProxyPreserveHost on

    # Set the path to SSL certificate
    # Usage: SSLCertificateFile /path/to/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/erikamiguel.com/chain.pem

    Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"

    # Servers to proxy the connection, or;
    # List of application servers:
    # Usage:
    # ProxyPass / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # ProxyPassReverse / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # Example: 
    ProxyPass / https://localhost:8443/
    ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:8443/

    # Or, balance the load:
    # ProxyPass / balancer://balancer_cluster_name

</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:443>
    ServerAlias *.solid.erikamiguel.com

    SSLEngine On
    SSLProxyEngine On
    SSLProxyVerify none
    SSLProxyCheckPeerCN off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerName off
    SSLProxyCheckPeerExpire off  
    ProxyPreserveHost on

    # Set the path to SSL certificate
    # Usage: SSLCertificateFile /path/to/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/cert.pem
    SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/privkey.pem
    SSLCertificateChainFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/solid.erikamiguel.com/chain.pem


    # Servers to proxy the connection, or;
    # List of application servers:
    # Usage:
    # ProxyPass / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # ProxyPassReverse / http://[IP Addr.]:[port]/
    # Example: 
    ProxyPass / https://localhost:8443/
    ProxyPassReverse / https://localhost:8443/

    # Or, balance the load:
    # ProxyPass / balancer://balancer_cluster_name

</VirtualHost>

[litianc]

I met the same problem, and deleting ./db and restart worked! Thanks all

[belvederef]

For anyone stumbling on this, the file is actually ./.db. Mind the dot, it is a hidden file.