Re: "This site is not secure" warning message

[shmem]

Unfortunately the monk image in the upper right corner has an absolute link in the page delivered, e.g.

<a href="?node_id=966"><img src="http://perlmonks.org/images/monk1sm.g
+if" border="0" alt="Frank" title="Frank" width="74" height="91" /></a
+>

instead of a relative one

<a href="?node_id=966"><img src="/images/monk1sm.gif" border="0" alt="
+Frank" title="Frank" width="74" height="91" /></a>

which makes the page insecure, since it loads unencrypted stuff into an encrypted container. There's a patch for that, but other things might blow up, too.

[hippo]

Or there's the simple fix of going to Display Settings and ticking the box next to "Monk Pictures off".

Update: This problem is now (since 11th of June) mentioned in Tidings

[taint]

This is a hostmaster error, not a user error. Why doesn't Pair have a cert? As they don't; why is perlmonks forcing a secure connection? Letsencrypt ( letsencrypt.com ) has been providing them FREE for at least a year, and they're accepted by all the major browsers. The entire process can be accomplished in some 20 minutes -- even for a large hosting outfit. I managed the whole process in 15 minutes, with ~120 hosts. IMHO this is a fairly serious matter; as when most users encounter the "frightening" message from their browser, will leave, and quite probably never come back. :-(

[pryrt]

why is perlmonks forcing a secure connection?

Technically, Pair started redirecting to https as the default action (see https://www.pair.com/support/kb/faq-default-https-settings-ssl-certificate/#1, and more discussion in the End of HTTP? thread), so Pair is "forcing" Perlmonks to use a secure connection (though, as haukex pointed out, there is a configuration that Pair has given to their hosted sites to go back to http as the default for sites that so choose).

Personally, I think that if Pair is encouraging the changeover to solely-https, then Pair should have worked to resolve known issues (having the one server of three on Perlmonks that has the pair.com certificate has been seen by us Monks ever since Perlmonks started using the Let's Encrypt certificates, and I cannot believe no one informed Pair of this problem). Since Pair didn't resolve it before changing the default to https, Pair needs to work quickly to resolve the problem. (And while hippo's suggested temporary fix to DNS config would work, I think the onus should be on Pair to configure all three servers to properly use the LE certificate for perlmonks)

On my phone browser, which doesn't allow saving the security exception, I have had to switch to the perlmonks.pair.com URL, because otherwise, I have to do three clicks (the link, "show-advanced-options" button, and the "ignore-it-this-time" link) every time the round-robin picks the bad server.... and it sure feels like it was more than 1/3 of the time (though it is probably observation bias). When I get home today, I am going to switch over to hippo's host-file workaround, because even though my browser has the exception stored, my antivirus/antimalware has started flagging in the browser, and I have to do another click for every time the bad server is selected. Fortunately, and with a touch of irony given my work's added security and IT overhead and restrictions, at work my only browsing location that's still allowing me to simply store the exception and accept the *.pair.com for perlmonks.org and browse hassle-free. :-) But I'm watching these threads for news that the problem has been fixed, and the one-of-three is no longer serving the *.pair.com certificate when using the perlmonks.org/.com domain, so I can undo the workarounds and go back to safe browsing.

[hippo]

This is a hostmaster error, not a user error.

There are two problems. One (the cert/hostname mismatch) is absolutely a hostmaster error. The other (monk pic link is http only) is a site content problem (call it a "webmaster error" if you want to be all 2nd millennium about it). They both need solving (by different people).

Why doesn't Pair have a cert?

They do - see https://perlmonks.pairsite.com/

There's a quick and simple fix for the cert/hostname mismatch and that is to have the DNS maintainer remove 209.197.123.153 from the list of A records for www.perlmonks.org and perlmonks.org. That will put extra strain on the other servers but that's almost certainly a better (temporary) situation than exists at present.

Who manages the DNS?

[AnomalousMonk]

Monk pictures off. Still throwing "This site is not secure" warnings like a 4th of July fireworks display. Does this change not take effect until site page entirely closed, then opened again, or some such?

[hippo]

Monk pictures off. Still throwing "This site is not secure" warnings

I wonder why. If it's the cert/hostname mismatch because of the *.pairsite.com certificate you have a couple of options:

• Add a security exception for the certificate (probably the worst option, but hey)
• Amend your local DNS or hosts file to avoid 209.197.123.153 from the list of A records for www.perlmonks.org
• Just use https://perlmonks.pairsite.com/ in your browser instead of www.perlmonks.org

HTH. If it's a different problem you would need to give more info.