It's all Assad's fault!

I now have SPDY support on my website. Though I don't know if I've done it the right way. My site is on a VPS running Debian 6. This means the version of OpenSSL in the repositories is version 0.9.8, SPDY requires at least version 1.0.1.

So, time to get the latest OpenSSL. I have left the repo version installed and then compiled the latest from source letting it install in the default /usr/local/ssl:

$ cd ssl-source
$ curl -O http://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-1.0.1e.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf openssl-1.0.1e.tar.gz
$ cd openssl-1.0.1e
$ ./config
$ make
$ make test
$ sudo make install

We now have the default OpenSSL 0.9.8 installed by Debian and our own version installed to /usr/local/ssl/bin. If we type openssl to the prompt Debian looks for a binary of the same name in the $PATH variable. We have to add /usr/local/ssl/bin to this variable so we can actually use our new version. To do this system wide on Debian we can add an openssl.sh file to directory /etc/profile.d/ containing the lines

PATH='/usr/local/ssl/bin:$PATH'
export PATH

This is the only way I could get to work. If you are running a different distro of Linux then you'll need to refer to the appropriate documentation of editing the $PATH variable. Thus, now when we type openssl, it'll look in /usr/local/ssl/bin first. Now it's time to compile nginx against the newer OpenSSL. We also need to apply the SPDY patch. Further we need to edit the source files to work with a custom OpenSSL location:

$ cd nginx-source
$ curl -O http://nginx.org/download/nginx-1.3.14.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf nginx-1.3.14.tar.gz
$ cd nginx-1.3.14
$ curl -O http://nginx.org/patches/spdy/patch.spdy.txt
$ patch -p1 < patch.spdy.txt
$ sed -i -e 's|\\.openssl/||' auto/lib/openssl/conf
$ ./configure --sbin-path=/usr/local/sbin --with-openssl=/usr/local/ssl --with-http_ssl_module --with-http_spdy_module
$ make
$ sudo make install

Obviously you may want to install the nginx binary to a different sbin path. I don't know why the openssl conf has .openssl directories that work with the default openssl installation but not our self-compiled installation. But that's it, now you should be able to add the spdy directive to the relevant config files and your sites should be SPDY enabled.

Edit: nginx have now released a new development version, 1.3.15, which includes the relevant SPDY patches. So we do not need to apply these patches, but we still need to run the sed command on the nginx source to compile against our self-installed version of OpenSSL.

It's Christmas soon. I'm spending it with both my girlfriend's family and mine, which will mean a nice long drive for me.

In the mean time I'm really enjoying the content on 24ways and webadvent.org. Anyone know anymore such directories?

So Barack has done it. He has another four years in office. Let's hope without pandering to get re-elected he can try and play genuine hard-ball with any of the Republicans who mess around in the House or the Senate. After all, the \“\best is yet to come\”:

Angela Epstein has written an article in the Daily Fail complaining about the coming changes in child benefits. In part I agree with her, the fact that one household where both parents earn less than £50,000 can still receive full benefits but a household with one parent working earning more than £60,000 will receive no benefits is absurd. Angela further argues income shouldn't come into it.

On this I disagree, household income should be considered. You may ask why should the children suffer, as she does:

But why should my children lose out, simply because their parents have had the temerity to work hard and earn a good living?

This is where I have a difference of opinion with Angela. I agree that children shouldn't lose out. However, Angela, you are in a position where your children shouldn't. How about you buy one less pare of Laboutin shoes per year, or go on a one week holiday as oppose to two week holiday.

The point is, you have choices to make so that your children don't suffer. A poor house hold doesn't. They can't afford to fully and completely provide for their children. It is absolutely right that we provide assistance for them.

We can have discussion as to how exactly is the best way to means test and their will always be a small number of people who are at the cutoff point and thus feel hard done by. Thats just a fact of life.

But I humbly disagree that child benefits shouldn't be means tested at all.