I've been trying out this new self-hosted blogging platform, WriteFreely. It's minimalist but pretty nice.

Getting it working

I'm running version 0.12.0 from https://github.com/writeas/writefreely/releases/tag/v0.12.0

I wanna host it at https://rant.meidokon.net, as a multi-user instance so that I'll get /furinkan on it. I've installed it on illustrious in my own homedir.

Installed mariadb, added a new user and gave them a DB (both are writefreely_rant)

Followed the official guide and created a multi-user instance to play with.

Installed certbot with snap as per this guide: https://certbot.eff.org/lets-encrypt/ubuntufocal-nginx

Ran certbot and let it SSL-ify my rant.meidokon vhost

Pointed the hostname to my public IP, can't use a CNAME (was trying to use thighhighs). Also had to add a CAA record for the subdomain, I thought the top-level would've covered it, as we're already permitted for letsencrypt

Tested dryrun renewal, looks good

Auto-renewal actually looks good this time! /etc/systemd/system/snap.certbot.renew.timer

Kick off the service: systemctl enable --now writefreely-rant.service

Looking good! https://rant.meidokon.net/furinkan/