The Grinnell College Digital Library Application Developer's Blog
Call it The GCDLADB if you like.
Remote Atom 2 min read Jul 1, 2020 | Updated: Nov 17, 2021 16:07
Earlier this year I installed and configured the remote-atom package to assist with editing content and code for my personal blog. Naturally, I wrote a blog post to document it. In the past week I’ve added the remote-atom package, and configuration to many of my Digital.Grinnell servers. The installation and configuration was virtually identical to what I described in Adding remote-atom to my DigitalOcean Server. Thus far the package and it’s configuration have been implemented on the following workstations, both personal and professional, with the following username@server configurations: ...
Updating Digital.Grinnell to ISLE v1.5.11 6 min read Sep 27, 2021 | Updated: Jan 20, 2023 22:09 Superseded by posts/137-updating-digital.grinnell-one-more-time
Attention: This is an updated copy of post 107 gleaned from the ISLE project’s update.md document. ONLY the headings from the original document and the annotations which are specific to Digital.Grinnell appear in this document! Note: This update procedure was NOT performed “locally”, as recommended, due to substantial errors encountered in my last attempt to update. Rather than diving down that rabbit hole, again, I elected to attempt this update on our staging server, DGDockerX on 2021-Sep-27. Update ISLE to the Latest Release Important Information # stop the docker service $ sudo service docker stop # download the latest docker binary and replace the current outdated docker # DEPRECATED WAY TO UPGRADE DOCKER: $ sudo wget https://get. ...
Moving Static Sites to GitHub Pages 2 min read Oct 5, 2021 | Updated: Oct 6, 2021 07:43
Pertinent Resources This section simply tabluates the posts and documentation used to effect migration of all sites from the Grinnell College static host to GitHub Pages. Resource Address Hugo: Host on GitHub https://gohugo.io/hosting-and-deployment/hosting-on-github/ GitHub: Getting started with GitHub Pages https://docs.github.com/en/pages/getting-started-with-github-pages GitHub: Creating a GitHub Pages site https://docs.github.com/en/pages/getting-started-with-github-pages/creating-a-github-pages-site GitHub: Managing a custom domain for your GitHub Pages site https://docs.github.com/en/pages/configuring-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site/managing-a-custom-domain-for-your-github-pages-site#configuring-a-subdomain Customizations Do NOT Set publishDir = "docs" Do NOT change the publishDir parameter in your configuration, if you even have one! The default public setting is correct. ...
Searching This Blog Using Fuse 1 min read Sep 27, 2021 Superseded by posts/113-blog-migration-details
A short time ago I moved this blog from DigitalOcean to Azure, and along the way I discovered that my search feature wasn’t working properly. That old search mechanism used Fuse, which has NO dependencies, but that old scheme used a Hugo theme component that I found difficult to properly maintain. So, as this blog was moving to Azure I elected to try something a little different with Fuse and found this gist to help get it done. As of this writing, the new search is limited to just finding tag references, and sometimes a search will return a 404 error because of a bad path reference. ...
Moving Static Sites to Azure 5 min read Sep 13, 2021 | Updated: Sep 15, 2021 08:11 Superseded by posts/112-moving-static-sites-to-github-pages
On Thursday, September 9, 2021, I discovered that Azure, Microsoft’s offering of host/cloud services for Open Source developers, and a favored partner of Grinnell’s IT department, had come up with a Static Web App deployment scheme that allegedly would rival what I’ve been using at DigitalOcean. So, I first tried to migrate my very simple Static Landing Page Hugo static site to a new home on Azure. The process wasn’t quite as slick and easy as at DigitalOcean, but Azure does nicely leverage GitHub Actions, and the process wasn’t too difficult to grasp. ...
Updates to VAF-Kiosk 1 min read Aug 26, 2021 | Updated: Sep 2, 2021 14:57
On Thursday, August 26, 2021, updates to a new iPad destined for the VAF (Visualizing Abolition and Freedom) installing in the Grinnell’s HSSC were completed. As of this writing the iPad has not been re-installed, but Facilities Management has been contacted to schedule that event soon. New DigitalOcean Deployment Due to small differences between the aspect ratio and resolution of the old versus new devices, the kiosk site had to be re-designed. Changes were also necessary to help ensure that users of the kiosk could not “escape” from the VAF screens and cause havoc by surfing the internet. ...
Updating Digital.Grinnell in ISLE 14 min read Jun 22, 2021 | Updated: Jun 28, 2021 13:27 Superseded by posts/111-updating-isle-v1.5.11
Attention: This is an annotated copy of the ISLE project’s update.md document. Annotations specific to Digital.Grinnell appear in specially formatted blocks like this one There was one universal change made here in the original text, specifically all references to master branches have been changed to main to correlate with updated names of the repositories involved in this process. Note: This update procedure was first performed “locally”, as recommended on 2021-June-22 when I attempted it on my Grinnell College MacBook Pro, MA10713, serial number C02FK0XXQ05Q. ...
SNOWBALL 8 min read May 15, 2021 | Updated: May 17, 2021 13:47
Digital.Grinnell and a handful of other servers/sites that I deal with crashed on the morning of Thursday, May 16. Really bad timing! I have yet to figure out what happened to trigger the tsunami, but it happened shortly before the college announced successful cut-over to a new emergency alert system. Related? I dunno. In any case, on Friday afternoon (yesterday) I got a steroid shot for a nasty sinus condition and my doctor warned that I might not be able to sleep well. ...
Adding `.htaccess` to Apache Container `/tmp` Directory 2 min read Apr 14, 2021
For some time now we’ve had a problem lurking in Digital.Grinnell, when large files are opened for viewing or download one of the DG services makes a temporary copy of the file in the Apache container’s /tmp directory. Locally, and in staging I’ve debugged the code that is responsible for removing the temporary file once the operation is complete. Running locally or in staging the process does its job, the temporary files get deleted soon after creation, but this never happens in production. ...
301 Redirect in Digital.Grinnell 3 min read Apr 14, 2021
A colleague and I were recently sifting through the Digital.Grinnell logs and came across some recurring 404, “page not found”, status messages. 404’s are not uncommon in DG, but these were particularly troubling because they were requests of the form drupal/fedora/repository/grinnell:162 and drupal/fedora/repository/grinnell:86. That’s the old, and by that I mean VERY OLD, like Drupal v6 vintage from 2012 or 2013, form for an object address. All such references were to some of DG’s oldest digital objects, too. We tried to figure out where such old address references might be coming from, but we struck out. ...