How to make DTPO web server play nice with SSL & dynamic DNS

DEVONthink Tips
1

Hello everyone!

I bugged Alan on the support channel already about what I want to do, but I am looking for more input and maybe someone already knows what to do:

What I want to achieve:

  • run a DTPO web server from my Mac at home
  • the Mac is reachable via dynamic dns service
  • accessible with a regular website URL “example.com”, my TLD.
  • featuring HTTPS transport encryption

The Mac is available via “something.no-ip.org:8080” and I have a TLD which is at the moment configured to display the no-ip URL via HTML frame.

HOWEVER, the no-ip URL works fine when loading the web server, but it fails to load when put inside the frame of the TLD.

But the TLD is necessary in order to create an SSL certificate to secure the connection! I can’t obtain a certificate for the no-ip address.

Any ideas are VERY welcome! Thanks!

2

You can use Let’s encrypt to generate a proper* TLS certificate for any hostname.

*) Proper meaning browsers coming packed with the corresponding root certificate.

3

Thanks, but “been there, done that”. :confused:

LetsEncrypt can create a certificate for any regular domain like example.com. But I can’t create a cert for the address the dynamic IP service gives me, such as homeserver.dynamicIPhosting.com, since I am obviously not owning dynamicIPhosting.com.

This is one part of the problem. The other is the failure of the web server to properly load, if the URL is not identical to the dynamic IP host name, using a frame to redirect the content.

4

If your no-ip.com domain is on this list, it should work, as per LE’s documentation.

I’ve not yet looked at DTPO’s server functionality, there’s others here who can tell you what else to do - maybe you need to (software) proxy to run it behind a public address.