diff --git a/doc/EN/faq.org b/doc/EN/faq.org index 1fc1b5e2..22cb5db8 100644 --- a/doc/EN/faq.org +++ b/doc/EN/faq.org @@ -28,6 +28,14 @@ * Why not supply a disk image download? Shipping a Freedombone disk image ready to install on a flash disk would be easy, but disk images are relatively opaque. It would be quite easy to hide something nasty within a disk image and the user might never know. To guard against that possibility installing via the *freedombone* command is a lot more transparent, since it's really just a bash script. You can check the script code to see exactly what it's doing, and the packages are all downloaded from standard Debian repos (you can even choose which one you trust) or git repos. Doing it this way the system is fully auditable, whereas when shipping a disk image it's harder to be confident that no nefarious extras have been added. +* I don't have a static IP address. Can I still install this system? +Yes. The minimum requirements are to have some hardware that you can install Debian onto and also that you have administrator access to your internet router so that you can forward ports to the system which has Freedombone installed. + +The lack of a static IP address can be worked around by using a dynamic DNS service. Freedombone uses [[http://troglobit.com/inadyn.html][inadyn]], which supports a variety of dynamic DNS providers. +* What is the best hardware to run this system on? +It was originally designed to run on the Beaglebone Black, but that should be regarded as the most minimal system, because it's single core and has by today's standards a small amount of memory. Obviously the more powerful the hardware is the faster things like web pages (blog, social networking, etc) will be served but the more electricity such a system will require if you're running it 24/7. A good compromise between performance and energy consumption is something like an old netbook. The battery of an old netbook or laptop even gives you [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uninterruptible_power_supply][UPS capability]] to keep the system going during brief power outages or cable re-arrangements, and that means using full disk encryption on the server also becomes more practical. + +/Out of fashion/ but still working computer hardware tends to be cheap and readily available, yet still good for providing internet services. * Can I add more users to the system? Like any other GNU/Linux system you can add more users. It's easy to add users to Owncloud, XMPP or RedMatrix. However, Freedombone is designed primarily to be a single user system (i.e. a personal server) and if there are multiple users then the number of them is expected to be small - perhaps five or less. Freedombone is not intended to be "/web scale/" in terms of supporting tens or hundreds of users on a single server. Instead, each server can host a small number of users and then the servers federate together as a network of peers. * How do I reset the tripwire? @@ -162,12 +170,10 @@ service exim4 restart You should now be able to send an email from /postmaster@mynewdomainname/ and it should arrive in your inbox. * How do I get a "real" SSL certificate? -You can obtain a free "official" (as in recognised by default by web browsers) SSL certificate from [[https://www.startssl.com/][StartSSL]]. You will first need to have bought a domain name, since it's not possible to obtain one for a freedns subdomain, so see [[Using your own domain]] for details of how to do that. You should also have tested that you can send email to the domain and receive it on the Freedombone (via Mutt or any other email client). +You can obtain a free "official" (as in recognised by default by web browsers) SSL certificate from [[https://www.startssl.com/][StartSSL]]. You will first need to have bought a domain name, since it's not possible to obtain one for a freedns subdomain, so see [[How do I get a domain name?][Using your own domain]] for details of how to do that. You should also have tested that you can send email to the domain and receive it on the Freedombone (via Mutt or any other email client). When creating a SSL certificate it's important that the private key (the private component of the public/private pair in [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography][public key cryptography]]) be generated on the Freedombone /and remain there/. Don't generate the private key via the StartSSL certificate wizard because this means that potentially they may retain a copy of it which could then be exfiltrated either via [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit][Lavabit]] style methodology, "implants", compromised sysadmins or other "side channel" methods. So that the private key isn't broadcast on the internet we can instead generate a certificate request, which is really just a request for authorisation of a public key. -Firstly you should have a web server site configuration ready to go. See [[Setting up a web site]] for details. - Within StartSSL under the validations wizard validate your domain, which means sending an email to it and confirming a code. Now we can generate the certificate request as follows. @@ -282,7 +288,7 @@ Before changing any certificates it's a good idea to make a backup of the existi Make sure that you have the StartSSL certificate which was created when you initially made an account. You did save it somewhere safe, didn't you? If it's not installed into your browser then in Firefox go to *Menu/Preferences/Advanced/View Certificates*. Make sure the "*Your Cerificates*" tab is selected and click "*import*", then import the StartSSL certificate. -Now go to [[startssl.com]] and click on the keys icon on the right hand side to log in. Select the *Control panel* then *Validations Wizard* and choose *Email address validation*. Enter your email address, then wait for the validation email to show up in your inbox. It will contain a code when you can then enter. +Now go to [[https://startssl.com][startssl.com]] and click on the keys icon on the right hand side to log in. Select the *Control panel* then *Validations Wizard* and choose *Email address validation*. Enter your email address, then wait for the validation email to show up in your inbox. It will contain a code when you can then enter. Once your email is validated then go to *Validations Wizard* and choose *Domain name validation*. Enter your domain name and select *postmaster@yourdomainname*. After a while you should receive a validation email and you can then enter the code. diff --git a/website/EN/faq.html b/website/EN/faq.html index 714cf5a9..275e5aa8 100644 --- a/website/EN/faq.html +++ b/website/EN/faq.html @@ -4,16 +4,22 @@ - + +