Problems with Linux.org Website Started on Friday

sphen

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 12, 2022
Messages
871
Reaction score
753
Credits
10,429
On Friday (for some: early on Saturday), I suddenly started seeing "Page could not be loaded" errors in my browser while trying to view Linux.org. My initial assumption was that the website had gone down for some reason and it would come back up "soon". I was wrong. In a moment of bad luck that day, I happened to pick a bad "is it down?" website from a quick web search. That particular website always returns an erroneous report that Linux.org is down. I did not realize it at the time. I wish I had verified with a second website. For me, the problem is limited to Linux.org. No other website has issues.

When I got up this morning (early on Sunday), the Linux.org website was still yielding "Page could not be loaded" errors for me. I was surprised and started to dig into it. It turns out that the problem is local to my system and not general. I found and fixed a minor DNS configuration error and tried various DNS forwarder settings changes at the router and on my computer. (The router is the primary DNS server for our home LAN.) The DNS configuration error was a distraction. It did not affect anything and was unrelated to my Linux.org issues.

-> I looked at the certs, and noticed that Linux.org had a certificate update on Friday. It appears that Linux.org uses a cert from Google that is automatically renewed every 90 days. The new certificate that was issued on Friday is invalid on my older system, but works on current ones. At the same time, there is something not all correct about the certificate that one of my browsers got from Linux.org. It has a cert chain with one cert that is different than the others (different serial number). When I searched for that serial number, I found references to an issue with the same cert and cert chains in Mozilla's discussions.

I think that something is funky with the current certificate's cert chain on Linux.org. The problem should affect other websites, not just Linux.org. Very few people will be aware of it without a very contrived test that matches my special case. I can think of several workarounds, too. Obviously I was able to load Linux.org and login this morning.

-> Did anyone else experience Linux.org website loading issues for Linux.org after Friday or early on Saturday?
 


Sphen,
you sound unlucky, on Friday we had 16 outages in 24 hrs the longest 5 mins, so far today we have had 10 outages again the longest being 5 mins
bookmark this link, if you're having problems you can quickly check if its anything to do with linux-org or cloudflair, if not it may be a problem at your end
Linux.org (Recent History) - HetrixTools
 
Sphen,
you sound unlucky, on Friday we had 16 outages in 24 hrs the longest 5 mins, so far today we have had 10 outages again the longest being 5 mins
bookmark this link, if you're having problems you can quickly check if its anything to do with linux-org or cloudflair, if not it may be a problem at your end
Linux.org (Recent History) - HetrixTools
Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, no, it isn't that. This is a consistent and repeatable issue on my system only.

It is a cert chain issue for sure. I just did the quick and dirty workaround. I added the root CA cert to the system-wide certificate store and changed its trust accordingly. Now the Linux.org website works again as before on those browsers.

I would have said that this is a simple "old system does not have one of the newest trusted root CA" problem, but I saw an unusual intermediate certificate in one specific cert chain that I cannot explain.

Unrelated to Linux.org issue:
While tracking this down, I found and fixed an unrelated DNS configuration issue, too. I typo'd the IP addresses for the two fastest forwarders when I first configured the router's DNS forwarder list a few years ago. Our LAN DNS performance should be better now.
 
Last edited:
Problems with this site have been happening for a long time but more so over the last 6 mths as the site has become very popular and attracts the undesirables.
t3603.gif


Not long ago I had login problems...I logged in and clicked on a Thread...couldn't post as it said your not logged in...had to go from Brave to Firefox which fixed it...such is life.
m1512.gif
 
@Rob may have some input on the certificate renewal.

By invoking his userid I have notified him, and he will likely get to it as soon as he can.

TIA for your patience.

Wizard
 
  • Like
Reactions: Rob
Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, no, it isn't that. This is a consistent and repeatable issue on my system only.

It is a cert chain issue for sure. I just did the quick and dirty workaround. I added the root CA cert to the system-wide certificate store and changed its trust accordingly. Now the Linux.org website works again as before on those browsers.

I would have said that this is a simple "old system does not have one of the newest trusted root CA" problem, but I saw an unusual intermediate certificate in one specific cert chain that I cannot explain.

Unrelated to Linux.org issue: While tracking this down, I found and fixed an unrelated DNS configuration issue, too. I typo'd the IP addresses for the two fastest forwarders when I first configured the router's DNS forwarder list a few years ago. Our LAN DNS performance should be better now.
Hi there, this is a long shot and totally up to you however you may want to try iplocation.net type in the website and attain the resulting IP address. And input this into your DNS server.
Many thanks.
 


Latest posts

Top