Unable to access web page in Roundup Tracking system main page

Just to be clear, the hosts file change needs to happen on the desktop/laptop PC you are trying to connect from - not the Roundup server. I.e. the one with the web browser you are trying to connect to Roundup with.

Also, it doesn't matter that you rerun the initialization script; but as you continued to use the domain that was already set, it wasn't necessary.

Assuming we're on the same page there - as you refer to '/etc/hosts' I'm guessing that your PC is Mac or Linux - in which case your hosts update sounds fine. If I'm mistaken and your PC is Windows I can't 100% confirm.

Assuming that's all good, then I'd first check that you can ping the server from the PC you are trying to connect from. On Mac/Linux:

ping -c 4 www.example.com

Or on Windows:

ping www.example.com

The exact output will depend on OS, but it should be clear whether it connects or not. Assuming it does, it will also display the IP and that should match what you've put in the hosts file.

If ping works but browser still doesn't, then try clearing your browser cache and cookies and try again.

Firstly, thanks for posting Andy. We really appreciate getting feedback, issue reports and questions like this. We're all fairly techy "Linux" type; familiar with Linux admin and very familiar with TurnKey in particular. So we often suffer from the curse of knowledge and it's really great to understand user issues and friction points.

To specifically respond to your post, Roundup requires a "proper" domain to function properly.

Not all TurnKey appliances require a domain to be set and they will work whether you use a domain or IP. But some web apps - like Roundup - require a "real domain" to function properly. Some will work a bit without a domain, but internal navigation fails or assets don't load. Some other appliances won't work at all without a domain.

For appliances that do require a domain, we configure the webserver to redirect to the domain. Currently the default domain to redirect to is "www.example.com" - as you're experiencing. FWIW before we added the redirect, we used to get complaints that some of our appliances were "broken".

In Roundup (and other apps that require a domain) there is a first boot script that asks the user to set a domain. So I'm guessing that one of the following things has happened:

1. The first boot scripts didn't/weren't run at all (hopefully unlikely)
2. You accepted the default "www.example.com" rather than setting a custom domain
3. The first boot script failed to set the domain properly (a bug on our end; hopefully not likely either)

If it's 1 or 2 then you have a few options:

• If your appliance is publicly accessible:
  • If you have a custom domain that you can use, create an "A" or "CNAME" DNS record that points to your Roundup app's public IP.
  • Get your own custom domain and set DNS as above.
  • Get a subdomain from one of the many dynamic DNS providers and point to your Roundup app's public IP.
  • If you are using (or willing to use) the TurnKey Hub you can create a free tklapp.com subdomain to use. Note that the Hub requires linkage to an AWS account.
• If you are running your server locally and/or it's not publicly available:
  • If running your own custom/local DNS server (probably unlikely, but perhaps?) then you could configure a "dummy" domain and appropriate DNS record. The ensure that your local PC is using that DNS server.
  • Create a "hosts" entry on your local PC with a "dummy" domain which points to your app's IP. You could even skip the reconfiguration step below and use "www.example.com" as the "dummy" domain. For both Linux and MacOS the hosts file is '/etc/hosts', on Windows it's 'C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts'.
  • Follow one of the steps above to set/reset Roundup's domain but instead of providing a "proper" domain (or accepting the default), use the IP of your app instead.

Once you have done one of those, either run/rerun all the first boot scripts:

turnkey-init

Or if you have already run the first boot scripts, you can rerun just the Roundup specific one:

/usr/lib/initihooks/bin/roundup.py

If you did enter a custom domain (or local IP) then it sounds like a bug on our end. If so, then please double check by trying one of the above (again). And either way let us know the result - regardless of whether that fixes it or not. If it errors, please share any message you get. If you confirm it's a bug on our end, we'll develop a workaround for you ASAP; and a fix for the appliance and release a fixed version ASAP.

I hope that helps. If anything above is unclear and/or you need more info/help please ask.

FWIW I have a thought on how we might improve this situation for future users, I have opened an issue on our issue tracker noting that. If you have further thoughts/ideas/feedback on that please let me know (here if you want or over on GitHub if you have an account).

Please also feel free to share any other TurnKey feedback you might have. We welcome it all, particularly friction points and bugs.

Hi Andy, apologies on the really late reply. I only just noticed this unanswered post.

Re-running the firstboot config script again should allow you to change the domain again. For example (non-interactively):

/usr/lib/initihooks/bin/roundup.py --pass=MY_SUPER_PASSWORD --email=roundup@partners.org --domain=roroundup.partners.org