In this entry I will explain my method of improving the Windows Command Prompt and its command-line. To turn it from a crude shell prompt into an ANSI coloured interface with a useful set of tools that can commonly be found on Linux and Mac terminals. We will also integrate a number of optional popular programming languages, a software package manager and other features. This will require some existing knowledge of Windows and its command-line.
Why a proxy?
Apache’s Tomcat is a complex beast whose primary role is to render JavaServer Pages. While it can be configured to use and serve the modern web it’s often an unnecessarily complex procedure. By using a dedicated reverse-proxy server such as nginx it allows you to separate web applications from the task of web serving.
In this entry, I will guide you through updating the standard terminal editor used by Ubuntu from its classic 2009 revision to its latest release.
The other day I was toying around with HTTP2 support and Jetty 9.3 on my Ubuntu Server 14.04 VM install. I had mostly followed the helpful instructions in the Jetty: The Definitive Reference on setting up the application as a web server with support for http, https, deploy modules. But whenever I tried to implement HTTP2 support Jetty would fail with an unhelpful Java error dump.
$ java -jar /opt/jetty/start.jar --add-to-startd=http2
org.elecipse.jetty.start.graph.GraphException: Missing referenced dependency: alpn-impl/alpn-1.8.0_45-internal
org.eclipse.jetty.start.graph.GraphException: Missing referenced dependency: alpn-impl/alpn-1.8.0_45-internal
at org.eclipse.jetty.start.graph.Graph.selectNodes(Graph.java:470)
at org.eclipse.jetty.start.graph.Graph.selectNode(Graph.java:447)
at org.eclipse.jetty.start.graph.Graph.selectNode(Graph.java:415)
at org.eclipse.jetty.start.Main.processCommandLine(Main.java:302)
at org.eclipse.jetty.start.Main.main(Main.java:74)
Usage: java -jar start.jar [options] [properties] [configs]
java -jar start.jar --help # for more information
The Jetty log files and Google were equally unhelpful in finding a solution. But after some painful trial and error I worked out a fix.
In this guide I will walk through the process of hardening HTTPS connectors used by Apache Tomcat. As unfortunately the default configuration of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS using Tomcat 7 and OpenJDK 7 are vulnerable to a number of attacks and weak encryptions.
This entry will guide through the process of creating a self-signed certificate to use on an Apache Tomcat 7 or 8 HTTPS connector. Self-signed certificates allow secure, encrypted HTTPS connections but are not certified by any trusted certificate authority. So first time client connections will receive all kinds of warnings from their web browser. Because of this they are not recommended for use in production environments but are useful for secure LAN traffic or testing HTTPS configurations.