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Not always online capsules

Omar Polo op at omarpolo.com

Wed Sep 22 18:00:25 BST 2021

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"Jonathan McHugh" <indieterminacy at libre.brussels> writes:

Omar,

Hi :)

Speaking of your coding, I noticed this

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https://git.omarpolo.com/mlmpl/tree/README.md

Can you imagine any considerations for creating a mailing list/newsletter approach for such a problem domain?

Apologies but I don't understand the question.

mlmpl is was a quick hack to run a smallish newsletter for fun and (no)profit. (it's still being used by the way.)

SMTP is quite resistant to offline/unreachable servers. MX *should*retry before giving up the delivery (I don't remember the exact numberthought) so this is a slightly minor problem in the mailinglist/newsletter world AFAIK.

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Jonathan McHugh

indieterminacy at libre.brussels

September 22, 2021 10:03 AM, "Omar Polo" <op at omarpolo.com> wrote:

Chris McGowan <cmcgowan9990 at gmail.com> writes:

My assumption, when I follow a link and I just get an error message,

is that the capsule is dead, and the project abandoned. I assume an

always-on internet. I'm wondering how we can change this assumption,

and make it ok for capsules not to always be online.

That, I believe, is the point of the DNS txt record. In theory, a

client, when getting a cannot connect error from the capsule could

query for a DNS txt record for the domain (presumably at a standard or

conventional place/name) which it could then display to the user

attempting to connect. This message could say something like:

"Hey looks like you tried to reach me during my capsule's off

hours. Here's when this capsule is online <schedule>. If it is

currently within that schedule and you still can't reach the site,

please let me know here: <contact details>"

Or some other appropriate message.

Love the idea, I'm tempting to drafting something in my client ^^"

I think it's better to use a free-form text instead of trying to come up

with a strict syntax to communicate when the capsule should be online.

I'm not convinced it is worth for robots to know these schedules, given

all the complex schedule one can have (and the rabbit hole for the

"perfect" syntax that covers all possible situations is pretty deep.)

(just remember to add the timezone info in <schedule> :D)

This would have the benefit of being relatively simple to implement

for clients and for capsule hosts to use, although your registrar

would have to allow txt records.

There are registrar that disallow txt records? Lot of other services

(gitlab pages comes to mind for example) requires user to set TXT

records.