**TL;DR**
-[[!toc levels=3]]
+[[!toc levels=4]]
# An odyssey through lots of things that have to be right before OpenID works
next one all the rude bots will be using anyway, and some goofy provider
like mine will blacklist it.
+> If your shared hosting provider is going to randomly break functionality,
+> I would suggest "voting with your wallet" and taking your business to
+> one that does not.
+>
+> In principle we could set the default UA (if `$config{useragent}` is
+> unspecified) to `IkiWiki/3.20140915`, or `IkiWiki/3.20140915 libwww-perl/6.03`
+> (which would be the "most correct" option AIUI), or some such.
+> That might work, or might get randomly blacklisted too, depending on the
+> whims of shared hosting providers. If you can't trust your provider to
+> behave helpfully then there isn't much we can do about it.
+>
+> Blocking requests according to UA seems fundamentally flawed, since
+> I'm fairly sure no hosting provider can afford to blacklist UAs that
+> claim to be, for instance, Firefox or Chrome. I wouldn't want
+> to patch IkiWiki to claim to be an interactive browser by default,
+> but malicious script authors will have no such qualms, so I would
+> argue that your provider's strategy is already doomed... --[[smcv]]
+
+>> I agree, and I'll ask them to fix it (and probably refer them to this page).
+>> One reason they still have my business is that their customer service has
+>> been notably good; I always get a response from a human on the first try,
+>> and on the first or second try from a human who understands what I'm saying
+>> and is able to fix it. With a few exceptions over the years. I've dealt with organizations not like that....
+>>
+>> But I included the note here because I'm sure if _they're_ doing it, there's
+>> probably some nonzero number of other hosting providers where it's also
+>> happening, so a person setting up OpenID and being baffled by this failure
+>> needs to know to check for it. Also, while the world of user-agent strings
+>> can't have anything but relatively luckier and unluckier choices, maybe
+>> `libwww/perl` is an especially unlucky one?
+
+>>> Yippee! _My_ provider found their offending `mod_security` rule and took it out,
+>>> so now [ikiwiki.info](/) accepts my OpenID. I'm still not sure it wouldn't be
+>>> worthwhile to change the useragent default.... -- Chap
+
+#### culprit was an Atomicorp ModSecurity rule
+
+Further followup: my provider is using [ModSecurity](https://www.modsecurity.org/)
+with a ruleset commercially supplied by [Atomicorp](https://www.atomicorp.com/products/modsecurity.html),
+which seems to be where this rule came from. They've turned the rule off for _my account_.
+I followed up on my ticket with them, suggesting they at least think about turning it off
+more systemwide (without waiting for other customers to have bizarre problems that are
+hard to troubleshoot), or opening a conversation with Atomicorp about whether such a rule
+is really a good idea. Of course, while they were very responsive about turning it off
+_for me_, it's much iffier whether they'll take my advice any farther than that.
+
+So, this may crop up for anybody with a provider that uses Atomicorp ModSecurity rules.
+
+The ruleset produces a log message saying "turn this rule off if you use libwww-perl", which
+just goes to show whoever wrote that message wasn't thinking about what breaks what. It would
+have to be "turn this rule off if any of _your_ customers might ever need to use or depend on
+an app or service _hosted anywhere else_ that _could_ have been implemented using libwww-perl,
+over which you and your customer have no knowledge or control."
+
+Sigh. -- Chap
+
+> Thanks for the pointer. It seems the open-source ruleset blacklists libwww-perl by default
+> too... this seems very misguided but whatever. I've changed our default User-Agent to
+> `ikiwiki/3.20141012` (or whatever the version is). If we get further UA-blacklisting
+> problems I'm very tempted to go for `Mozilla/5.0 (but not really)` as the
+> next try. --[[smcv]]
+
## Error: OpenID failure: naive_verify_failed_network: Could not contact ID provider to verify response.
Again, this could have various causes. It was helpful to bump the debug level
commits, but they are only a few lines to edit into your own locally-installed
module.
+> To be clear, these are patches to [[!cpan LWPx::ParanoidAgent]].
+> Debian's `liblwpx-paranoidagent-perl (>= 1.10-3)` appears to
+> have those two patches. --[[smcv]]
+>
+> Irrelevant to this ikiwiki instance, perhaps relevant to others:
+> I've added these patches to [pkgsrc](http://www.pkgsrc.org)'s
+> [[!pkgsrc www/p5-LWPx-ParanoidAgent]] and they'll be included in the
+> soon-to-be-cut 2014Q3 branch. --[[schmonz]]
+
## Still naive_verify_failed_network, new improved reason
500 Can't connect to indieauth.com:443 (SSL connect attempt failed
Then a recent `Net::SSLeay` perl module needs to be built and linked against it.
+> I would tend to be somewhat concerned about the update status and security
+> of a shared hosting platform that is still on an OpenSSL major version from
+> pre-2010 - it might be fine, because it might be RHEL or some similarly
+> change-averse distribution backporting security fixes to ye olde branch,
+> but equally it might be as bad as it seems at first glance.
+> "Let the buyer beware", I think... --[[smcv]]
+
+>> As far as I can tell, this particular provider _is_ on Red Hat (EL 5).
+>> I can't conclusively tell because I'm in what appears to be a CloudLinux container when I'm in,
+>> and certain parts of the environment (like `rpm`) I can't see. But everything
+>> I _can_ see is like several RHEL5 boxen I know and love.
+
+
### Local OpenSSL installation will need certs to trust
Bear in mind that the OpenSSL distribution doesn't come with a collection
which needs to be backported by hand if it hasn't made it into a CPAN release
yet.
+> Also in Debian's `liblwpx-paranoidagent-perl (>= 1.10-3)`, for the record.
+> --[[smcv]]
+>
+> And now in pkgsrc's `www/p5-LWPx-ParanoidAgent`, FWIW. --[[schmonz]]
+
Only that still doesn't end the story, because that hand didn't know what
[this hand](https://github.com/noxxi/p5-io-socket-ssl/commit/4f83a3cd85458bd2141f0a9f22f787174d51d587#diff-1)
was doing. What good is passing the name in
... not submitted upstream yet, so needs to be applied by hand.
+> I've [reported this to Debian](https://bugs.debian.org/761635)
+> (which is where ikiwiki.info's supporting packages come from).
+> Please report it upstream too, if the Debian maintainer doesn't
+> get there first. --[[smcv]]
+>
+> Applied in pkgsrc. I haven't attempted to conduct before-and-after
+> test odysseys, but here's hoping your travails save others some
+> time and effort. --[[schmonz]]
+
+> Reported upstream as [LWPx-ParanoidAgent#14](https://github.com/csirtgadgets/LWPx-ParanoidAgent/issues/14)
+> _and_ [IO-Socket-SSL#16](https://github.com/noxxi/p5-io-socket-ssl/issues/16). -- Chap
+
# Success!!
And with that, ladies and gents, I got my first successful OpenID login!