I recently upgraded to RedHat 7.3 with a clean install, and it comes with a default test certificate. I was down for a week because everything appeared normal within the local network. However, my web site stopped receiving hits. This went on for about a week before I tried accessing my site from outside the local network, and I was unable to do so. When using netscape I got a message of "unable to connect to the server." With IE I got the usual message of "page cannot be displayed."
I then worked with Cox Communications who provides my static IP address. I had a router configured with the static IP address, and the router would forward all port 80 to the intranet web server.
In working with Cox's Tech support they had me connect the cable modem directly to the web server, bypassing the router, and they were able to ping me. Most router will not reply to pings as a matter of security. Then Cox's Tech support was able to access my web page by using a ULR of
However, this would not work when I had the network configured so the router forward the ULR to the web server, evidentially the router strips the s from the https so the connection could not be made unless the web server were directly connected to the cable modem.
This behavior appear to be the default with RedHat 7.3. I have never had this problem with any eariler version of RedHat.
I have been trying to determine if it is possible to disable openssl, but I have not yet discovered how to do so. According to the doc, I need at least a test certificate before I can start the httpd daemon. I checked that out by scrambling the ssl keys, and sure enough, I could not start httpd.
If anyone else has had this problem and has learned how to trun off SSL, I would appreciate you sharing it with me.
Leland F. Jackson, CPA
Software - Master (TM)
Nothing Runs Like the Fox