Cloud Confusing

Are you trying to upload a database to your site, but it’s getting rejected by phpmyadmin? That’s a common issue, but unfortunately it can happen under a number of circumstances and there are many places where the file size restriction can live, making the issue difficult (or at least tedious) to troubleshoot.

Recently this happened to me when trying to install a 200MB database onto a local installation of WordPress, using MAMP for the heavy lifting. My localhost setup would have no issues with a database of this size but phpmyadmin rejected it every time. I wanted to get my local environment set to match the production version, so this was a necessary step.

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Sal February 5th, 2018

Posted In: Localhost / Environment

Tags: Databases, MAMP, phpmyadmin

Getting to know the S3 endpoints has been one of the worst parts of S3 hosting. In fact, it’s been one of the worst parts of all of AWS since I started my cloud hosting journey years ago. Understanding the Amazon Web Services S3 Website and REST API endpoints has been endlessly confusing and has caused me hours of frustration. Now I have somewhat of handle on it and would like to relay my distilled learnings.

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Sal December 24th, 2017

Posted In: AWS

Tags: API, Endpoint, Hosting, REST, S3

In my previous article about hosting a static website on S3, I realize that I may have rushed past the section on DNS. The AWS Static Site Quickstart tool does most of what you need, but upon further review, I can say that it doesn’t do everything and it doesn’t do DNS particularly well. So let’s revisit Route 53 and run through some of what I’ve managed to piece together.

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Sal December 18th, 2017

Posted In: AWS

Tags: Amazon S3, DNS, Hosted Zone, Hosting, Static Website

So you setup build a static website hosted on Amazon S3 and you gave it a custom domain name. What’s next? HTTPS of course! Here’s a guide on how to do it in about 5 minutes. AWS makes SSL both free and easy, but it can be a little confusing the first time around.

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Sal December 7th, 2017

Posted In: AWS

Tags: AWS, Certificate Manager, CloudFront, Hosting, HTTPS, Route 53, Static Website

Welcome to CloudConfusing.com. This is going to be a diary, a manual, an explainer, a tutorial… and hopefully so much more. At the barebones level, it’s one product manager’s quest to cloud self-sufficiency.

After years of disliking and, admittedly, fearing the world of hosting and network operations, I’ve gotten frustrated with “cheap WordPress hosting”, overpriced static sites services, hard-to-use PaaS solutions, and all the rest. So I’ve taken it upon myself to become an Ops journeyman and start handling all my own hosting work. I’ll start with Amazon Web Services and go from there.

The site will inevitably be a journal of my wins, losses, and frustrations along the way, but — more than that — I’d like it to be a manual for how others can succeed in their own cloud computing endeavors.

My underlying theory (or at least my hope) is that the cloud is easier to manage than we might expect, and it’s getting easier every day. Also that these are actually useful skills and the being able to build something on the open web is valuable and will continue to be valuable, if not in practice than at least from an academic standpoint, for the foreseeable future. Barring that, all this is interesting and probably an OK use of time.

Wish me luck!

Sal December 5th, 2017

Posted In: Meta

Tags: Explainer, Hosting

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Cloud Confusing

Explaining hosting, AWS, Wordpress, static sites, and all manner of cloud solutions.

How To Increase The File Size Limit In phpmyadmin

Amazon S3 Website vs REST API Endpoints

Amazon S3 Hosting and Route 53 DNS – Let the Confusion Begin

How to Add HTTPS to an S3 Static Site

Cloud Confusing – The Start