detect when a user is trying to access locally and guide the user

[cpg]

this app should detect when a user is trying to access locally and guide the user.

since there are no server components, it probably should be done with JS detecting the Host header and advising the user to:

• make sure their client device DNS server is their HDA
• if that is the case, to hard refresh (maybe providing advice based on the browser used)

[MajidSas]

I can fix this as soon as I finish with writing the proposal, if no one is working on it yet.

[MajidSas]

If they reached this website it means that they tried to access their HDA using "amahi.net", so detecting the host-name will always return "amahi.net". In this case, we only need to guide them on how to fix their DNS settings on their client machine, which is what the interactive troubleshooter is providing at the moment. So, what we need to add is the second point (hard refreshing their browser to get the new IP based on the new DNS settings).

Moreover, it is likely that they have an issue with their DNS if they tried to access their HDA through using its IP address. In this case, we need to detect this by adding a small script in the platform (amahi/platform) to show a message that provides a link to amahi.net interactive troubleshooter.

What do you think? Am I getting this right?

[cpg]

This is not correct. They may have tried to access this site with other hostnames, long or short. Anything other than www.amahi.net or amahi.net (exactly, without a host in front) needs to be addressed as a failure and the user must be instructed about possible solutions.

[MajidSas]

I understand the issue better now, because I was able to reproduce it (or something similar).

I installed a new hda on my server with the home domain set to amahi.net. I found that the new installation did not change the hostname of the server to the new one (amahi.net), so I had to change it manually. When I tried to make some tweaks sometimes a domain like hda.amahi.net work correctly. Other times all the server's domains (*.amahi.net, amahi.net) work correctly but my client device couldn't resolve internet addresses. It could be an issue with the IP address of the DNS server I used, where it might be blocked in my network (my university's network is very restrictive, I can't use 8.8.8.8 for example).

In any case these are some of the things that I think are related to this issue:

• The server's hostname (it should be amahi.net).
• The contents of the file /etc/resolv.conf should point to the correct IP addresses.
• The user might need to clear the DNS cache in their browser (or maybe their OS). For Chrome, it can be cleared through chrome://net-internals/#dns, in Firefox it can be done in about:config. There are probably other ways too.

I'm writing this just to make sure that I got everything right, and to document this for later because I'm very busy at the moment to work on it.