Steps to fix the remote problems on hostgator servers

cotyewens

With a default install on hostgator servers it is impossible to subscribe to someone else remotely.
It is also impossible to send a message to an install on another domain.

I'm trying to fix this with the hostgator support and hopefully this thread will bring a working solution to the community (hopefully).

So here is how I described the problem to hostgator:

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Hello

I have installed the status.net microblogging script on xxx.com
This script allows to send messages to installs that are on other domains.

But when I try to do it from my installation I get this error message:

(Sorry! We had trouble sending your notice (500 Internal Server Error). Please report the problem to the site administrator if this happens again.
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I then gave them my login details and explained them that they had to type a command like

@username@domain.com message

to send a message to the domain.com install. I gave them my username on identi.ca so they could test it themselves.

I also asked them if PHP was running in FCGI mode.

Here is the 1st reply I got:

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Hello, After some further investigation, we noticed the script is attempting to reach http://ws.geonames.org/hierarchy?geonameId=2988507&lang=en when you make a post, and it is timing out. We were able to get this information from running an strace on your account when we hit the post button. Here is the output we are seeing: 18793 12:37:37 send(4, "<12>Sep 8 12:37:37 statusnet: [xxx.com:18793.09155f64 POST /status/notice/new] GeonamesPlugin: Error for ID 2988507: Request timed out after 2 second(s)", 157, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 157 I would also like to mention that we run our php in Suphp mode, not fcgi mode. The information you are seeing is basically stating that php on the server can run fcgi scripts, however it is not in fcgi mode. I would suggest contacting the developers of the software as it appears to be getting timeouts when trying to reach http://ws.geonames.org. Please let me know if you have any questions.
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So I added this in config.php to disable the geoname plugin:

unset($config['plugins']['default']['Geonames']);

But it didn't change anything.
A command like "@username@domain.com message" still generates the same error message: (Sorry! We had trouble sending your notice (500 Internal Server Error). Please report the problem to the site administrator if this happens again.

I informed hostgator about that and here is their reply:

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Hello, Does your script require connections via a non-default port to a remote server? Our firewall may be blocking this type of connection. If this is the case, please let us know.
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So here is where we are right now. I have not replied yet because I don't know the answer.

So, does statusnet require connections via non-default port to a remote server?

jordanc

Can you subscribe to users on another site like identi.ca or is the problem just messaging users on other sites?

cotyewens

It also happens if I try to send a message to an identi.ca member.

Hostgator has put the ticket on hold until I can reply to them about the port question. Do you know if statusnet requires connections via non-default port to a remote server?

jordanc

@cotyewens It uses standard http ports.

cotyewens

Thank you Jordan. Ok so I have reopened the support ticket with hostgator with this information.

cotyewens

Now they ask me this:

Hello I noticed the following error while running the script.
Could you please check with the developer if PHP GMP ( http://php.net/gmp ) is required for the application to send the posts ?

18793 12:37:40 send(4, "<11>Sep 8 12:37:40 statusnet: [mydomain.com:18793.09155f64 POST /status/notice/new] PEAR error: Crypt_RSA package requires PHP GMP package. See http://php.net/gmp for details", 174, MSG_NOSIGNAL) = 174

jordanc

@cotyewens Yes, you need php-gmp or php-bcmath for Salmon signatures if you have OStatus enabled for cross site posting. Sorry I didn't think of that earlier.

cotyewens

Thanks for the info. That's actually a great news I have good hope that this will work on hostgator servers after I tell them this :)