The code and data behind xeiaso.net
site update: new domain
Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@christine.website>
+125
+125
blog/big-domain-move.markdown
+125
blog/big-domain-move.markdown
···
1
+
---
2
+
title: "Site Update: The Big Domain Move To xeiaso.net"
3
+
date: 2022-05-28
4
+
tags:
5
+
- dns
6
+
---
7
+
8
+
Hello all!
9
+
10
+
If you take a look in the URL bar of your browser (or on the article URL section
11
+
of your feed reader), you should see that there is a new domain name! Welcome to
12
+
[xeiaso.net](https://xeiaso.net)!
13
+
14
+
Hopefully nothing broke in the process of moving things over, I tried to make
15
+
sure that everything would forward over and today I'm going to explain how I did
16
+
that.
17
+
18
+
I have really good SEO on my NixOS articles, and for my blog in general. I did
19
+
not want to risk tanking that SEO when I moved domain names, so I have been
20
+
putting this off for the better part of a year. As for why now? I got tired of
21
+
internets complaning that the URL was "christine dot website" when I wanted to
22
+
be called "Xe". Now you have no excuse.
23
+
24
+
So the first step was to be sure that everything got forwarded over to the new
25
+
domain. After buying the domain name and setting everything up in Cloudflare
26
+
(including moving my paid plan over), I pointed the new domain at my server and
27
+
then set up a new NixOS configuration block to have that domain name point to my
28
+
site binary:
29
+
30
+
```nix
31
+
services.nginx.virtualHosts."xeiaso.net" = {
32
+
locations."/" = {
33
+
proxyPass = "http://unix:${toString cfg.sockPath}";
34
+
proxyWebsockets = true;
35
+
};
36
+
forceSSL = cfg.useACME;
37
+
useACMEHost = "xeiaso.net";
38
+
extraConfig = ''
39
+
access_log /var/log/nginx/xesite.access.log;
40
+
'';
41
+
};
42
+
```
43
+
44
+
After that was working, I then got a list of all the things that probably
45
+
shouldn't be redirected from. In most cases, most HTTP clients should do the
46
+
right thing when getting a permanent redirect to a new URL. However, we live in
47
+
a fallen world where we cannot expect clients to do the right thing. Especially
48
+
RSS feed readers.
49
+
50
+
So I made a list of all the things that I was afraid to make permanent redirects
51
+
for and here it is:
52
+
53
+
* `/jsonfeed` - a JSONFeed package for Go
54
+
([docs](https://pkg.go.dev/christine.website/jsonfeed)), I didn't want to
55
+
break builds by issuing a permanent redirect that would not match the
56
+
[go.mod](https://tulpa.dev/Xe/jsonfeed/src/branch/master/go.mod) file.
57
+
* `/.within/health` - the healthcheck route used by monitoring. I didn't want to
58
+
find out if NodePing blew up on a 301.
59
+
* `/.within/website.within.xesite/new_post` - the URL used by the [Android
60
+
app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=website.christine.xesite)
61
+
widget to let you know when a new post is published. I didn't want to find out
62
+
if Android's HTTP library handles redirects properly or not.
63
+
* `/blog.rss` - RSS feed readers are badly implemented. I didn't want to find
64
+
out if it would break people's feeds entirely. I actually care about people
65
+
that read this blog over RSS and I'm sad that poorly written feed readers
66
+
punish this server so much.
67
+
* `/blog.atom` - See above.
68
+
* `/blog.json` - See above.
69
+
70
+
Now that I have the list of URLs to not forward, I can finally write the small
71
+
bit of Nginx config that will set up permanent forwards (HTTP status code 301)
72
+
for every link pointing to the old domain. It will look something like this:
73
+
74
+
```nginx
75
+
location / {
76
+
return 301 https://xeiaso.net$request_uri;
77
+
}
78
+
```
79
+
80
+
<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">Note that it's using `$request_uri` and
81
+
not just `$uri`. If you use `$uri` you run the risk of [CRLF
82
+
injection](https://reversebrain.github.io/2021/03/29/The-story-of-Nginx-and-uri-variable/),
83
+
which will allow any random attacker to inject HTTP headers into incoming
84
+
requests. This is not a good thing to have happen, to say the
85
+
least.</xeblog-conv>
86
+
87
+
So I wrote a little bit of NixOS config that automatically bridges the gap:
88
+
89
+
```nix
90
+
services.nginx.virtualHosts."christine.website" = let proxyOld = {
91
+
proxyPass = "http://unix:${toString cfg.sockPath}";
92
+
proxyWebsockets = true;
93
+
}; in {
94
+
locations."/jsonfeed" = proxyOld;
95
+
locations."/.within/health" = proxyOld;
96
+
locations."/.within/website.within.xesite/new_post" = proxyOld;
97
+
locations."/blog.rss" = proxyOld;
98
+
locations."/blog.atom" = proxyOld;
99
+
locations."/blog.json" = proxyOld;
100
+
locations."/".extraConfig = ''
101
+
return 301 https://xeiaso.net$request_uri;
102
+
'';
103
+
forceSSL = cfg.useACME;
104
+
useACMEHost = "christine.website";
105
+
extraConfig = ''
106
+
access_log /var/log/nginx/xesite_old.access.log;
107
+
'';
108
+
};
109
+
```
110
+
111
+
This will point all the scary paths to the site itself and have
112
+
`https://christine.website/whatever` get forwarded to
113
+
`https://xeiaso.net/whatever`, this makes sure that every single link that
114
+
anyone has ever posted will get properly forwarded. This makes link rot
115
+
literally impossible, and helps ensure that I keep my hard-earned SEO.
116
+
117
+
I also renamed my email address to `me@xeiaso.net`. Please update your address
118
+
books and spam filters accordingly. Also update my name to `Xe Iaso` if you
119
+
haven't already.
120
+
121
+
I've got some projects in the back burner that will make this blog even better!
122
+
Stay tuned and stay frosty.
123
+
124
+
What was formerly known as the "christine dot website cinematic universe" is now
125
+
known as the "xeiaso dot net cinematic universe".