Re: gnuplot.info unreachable (DNS failure)

[Ethan A M. <me...@uw...>]

Thanks for the pointers.

After poking around in the SourceForge admin pages I found a place to set
up "virtual domains". Both gnuplot.info and www.gnuplot.info are already
listed there. That same page states that https access can be enabled by
request, so I placed a support request with the SourceForge site itself to
enable https access via gnuplot.info and www.gnuplot.info.  We'll see what
happens.

https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/site-support/27031/

 Ethan

On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 5:18 PM Mojca Miklavec Groenhuis <
moj...@gm...> wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Sept 2025, 00: 45 Ethan A Merritt, <merritt@ uw. edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 11: 35 AM Juhász Péter <peter. juhasz83@ gmail.
> com> wrote: The error message means that the certificate required to serve
> the site over HTTPS
> ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart
> This Message Is From an Untrusted Sender
> You have not previously corresponded with this sender.
> See https://itconnect.uw.edu/email-tags for additional information.
> Please contact the UW-IT Service Center, he...@uw... 206.221.5000, for
> assistance.
>
> ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerEnd
>
>
> On Thu, 11 Sept 2025, 00:45 Ethan A Merritt, <me...@uw...> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 11:35 AM Juhász Péter <pet...@gm...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> The error message means that the certificate required to serve the site
>>> over HTTPS is not valid for the domain name gnuplot.info
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://gnuplot.info__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!koofFjCmBlGlxmtOCelbImz1v5loEhcR-xo6w0JLq8fvwUwklPYjMJSMeOq-e-_jCe9wWKl4ZSgERWeODc4D2Pme$>
>>> (nor www.gnuplot.info
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.gnuplot.info__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!hZAtTCSEA3UZsTRDYd1Rlg-J8_Oq7DJZg-cJMaMoMBMcyZx3lwvCVqHE401p-ZikRUWZruc71FaDNhZkYYE3tw4$>).
>>> If you look at the certificate (offered by Firefox next to the error
>>> message), you can see that it was issued by Let's Encrypt to
>>> secureprojects.sourceforge.net
>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://secureprojects.sourceforge.net__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!koofFjCmBlGlxmtOCelbImz1v5loEhcR-xo6w0JLq8fvwUwklPYjMJSMeOq-e-_jCe9wWKl4ZSgERWeODadFrph0$>,
>>> and it is valid for a large selection of other domain names, presumably all
>>> projects hosted by SF.
>>>
>>
>> Thank you for your insights.
>>
>> I think you are addressing a different issue - whether the connection
>> protocol is https or http.
>>
>
> Yes, this is not about DNS failure. I don't experience DNS failure, but
> see precisely the same errors/issues as Peter described.
>
> (Nowadays http should actually redirect to https. Modern browsers also
> refuse to show http pages.)
>
> It is not surprising that a certificate issued to SourceForge would not
>> mention gnuplot.info
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://gnuplot.info__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!koofFjCmBlGlxmtOCelbImz1v5loEhcR-xo6w0JLq8fvwUwklPYjMJSMeOq-e-_jCe9wWKl4ZSgERWeODc4D2Pme$>
>> by name because that name is not connected to SourceForge except in that
>> (as I understand it) it currently redirects queries to the actual gnuplot
>> site gnuplot.sourceforge.net
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://gnuplot.sourceforge.net__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!koofFjCmBlGlxmtOCelbImz1v5loEhcR-xo6w0JLq8fvwUwklPYjMJSMeOq-e-_jCe9wWKl4ZSgERWeODckxZJT_$>
>> .
>>
>
> Except that it does matter for https. The hosting site needs to know that
> the certificate should also be for gnuplot.info
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://gnuplot.info__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!koofFjCmBlGlxmtOCelbImz1v5loEhcR-xo6w0JLq8fvwUwklPYjMJSMeOq-e-_jCe9wWKl4ZSgERWeODc4D2Pme$>
> and it needs to be explicit whether that is with or without www (or both).
> Either a separate certificate is needed for that, or the certificate used
> needs to be made aware that it needs to cover gnuplot.info
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://gnuplot.info__;!!K-Hz7m0Vt54!koofFjCmBlGlxmtOCelbImz1v5loEhcR-xo6w0JLq8fvwUwklPYjMJSMeOq-e-_jCe9wWKl4ZSgERWeODc4D2Pme$>.
> This really needs to be fixed on the hosting site, and usually the person
> in charge of the DNS is also needed in the process of making it work.
>
> Unless the administrators of gnuplot on SF have access to certificate
> settings (means you would also need to create and extend your own
> certificate), then SF support is really needed here to set it up.
>
> The current problem seems to be that the redirection itself fails in some
>> cases, or fails to pass through sufficient information
>>
>
> No. It's really a misconfigured site/certificate.
>
> > You still see the site, correct?
>
> Well ... yes and no, but the more correct answer is probably NO. By
> default you don't see the site because the web browser is protecting you
> from "the malicious site" until you approve an exception and security risk,
> but that is "an advanced use" (it is on purpose made difficult to do that).
>
> For completeness I should mention that the issue of connection via IPv6 as
>> opposed to IPv4 was raised earlier, and might be relevant,
>>
>
> It is possible that the site works correctly on IPv4 and fails with IPv6.
> My network right now doesn't support IPv6, so it's hard for me to check. It
> is unrelated to certificate issues, but it could hypothetically explain why
> DNS works for others and not for you if you have IPv6. (By correctly I mean
> resolving to the correct website. It still doesn't serve a compliant
> certificate.)
>
> Mojca
>
>>

-- 
Ethan A Merritt
Department of Biochemistry
University of Washington, Seattle