I just set up a 1999.io blog again

For a time, I was using Dave Winer’s blogging tool, Fargo. After support for Fargo faded I followed up with his newer tool, 1999.io and loved that too.

Dave’s a busy guy with lots of ideas, and he followed those ideas elsewhere, leaving 1999 behind. Supporting the tools he builds doesn’t seem to be Dave’s favorite pasttime, so 1999 languished.

Still, it’s a pretty nifty blogging tool. It’s open, uses nothing but age old web stuff like OPML and RSS, and is relatively easy to install for someone comfy with server stuff.

Anyhoo, 1999 has been mentioned a few times recently over on Micro.blog and it got me wondering if I could still get it running.

It turns out that I can. I have it running at 1999.baty.net.

Here are a few notes about the process.

I spun up a small EC2 instance running Ubuntu. Then I followed Dave’s instructions nearly to the letter.

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nodejs
sudo apt-get install npm
git clone https://github.com/scripting/nodestorage.git
cd nodestorage
npm install

My config.json looks like this…

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{
"myPort": 1999,
"websocketPort": 2000,
"myDomain": "1999.baty.net:1999",
"where": {
	      "flUseLocalFilesystem": true,
          "publicPath": "publicFiles/",
          "privatePath": "privateFiles/"
         },
"homePage": {
             "productnameForDisplay": "Jack's 1999 Blog"
            },
"twitterConsumerKey": "z[REDACTED]s",
"twitterConsumerSecret": "p[REDACTED]X"
        }

I installed nginx so that I could serve the static files generated by 1999 directly (and not at port 1999).

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server {
        server_name 1999.baty.net;
        root /home/jbaty/nodestorage/publicFiles/users/jackbaty;
        index index.html;

        location / {
                try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
        }

}

Up to this point it all worked without a hitch. I hit a wall while trying to get it running with an SSL certificate. I’d forgotten that 1999 doesn’t work well with SSL. I could’ve sworn I’d solved it at one time but I can’t remember how.

So for now it’s just running on port 80 at an old-school http URL. I have no idea if I’ll do anything with it, but it’s fun to play with.

UPDATE 2019.09.06: I really want to keep trying, but I’m suddenly hitting too many snags and I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble. It’s a shame, really.