Continuing my server odyssey, I managed to set up NGINX, eventually, after looking at several options for alternatives to Apache. Although I was drawn to Hiawatha (mentioned in yesterday’s post), there were no current binaries available for Debian (the directory and repository came up blank). It would have been possible to compile it from source, but the instructions were long and complicated and its own documentation “strongly advises” using a binary.
So I moved the DNS back to my own server after the site’s latest short sojourn at Fastmail. Direct access to the photo albums still don’t work because I haven’t figured out how to make that apache .htaccess transformation from a standard directory to a fancy formatted gallery served through php so far. It requires moving the contents of the .htaccess file into the NGINX site configuration file since NGINX handles rewrites differently. While there’s an apache .htaccess to NGINX configuration file tool available online, the result doesn’t work for me, so I’ve reached out to the Novagallery developer. If Novagallery doesn’t work for me, I’ll find another simple system. There are even instructions available on a DIY solution [1] for doing almost exactly what Novagallery does, but although that is a solution to part of the puzzle, I think that Novagallery goes a little further.
Links
[1] Is there a way to create a simple static image gallery in nginx without any third-party utilities? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39575873/is-there-a-way-to-create-a-simple-static-image-gallery-in-nginx-without-any-thir