“Relayd and Httpd Mastery,” both the good and the bad

I finally have my grubby mitts on a print copy of Relayd and Httpd Mastery.

The cover is nice, but the inside has a couple problems. Specifically the TLS chapter.

I wrote this book on -current. Shortly after I finished writing about TLS, though, the -b flag for automatic backup was removed.

Someone pointed this out to me before I went to print. In my daftness, though, I misunderstood. (“Yes, yes, I know about the -b flag, what’s the problem?”)

There’s also a couple of other minor things–they changed acme-client -N to -D, and I missed one in an example. A couple sentences no verb.

These are embarrassing, but not critical if you know about them. The total error is about a third of a page, which isn’t bad for a 235-page book.

I’ve corrected the book. All ebook vendors have updated versions as of yesterday morning. Print versions ordered now should also be correct.

That leaves me responsible for three problems, though.

First, there’s no way I can have corrected print versions before BSDCan. It’s just not physically possible. So the copies I’ll have at BSDCan will have the error.

Second, 18 people ordered the print copy before I caught the error. Those 18 people are clearly both hard-core OpenBSD fans, and my hard-core fans. They are the people it’s most important I keep happy. It’s fully understandable that you’d want a correct book. If you desire a corrected print version, contact me. I’ll send you my mailing address. Mail me your incorrect book, and I’ll send you a correct one.

Yes, I’ll lose money on that exchange. Yes, I’m hoping most of you will decide to keep your “Special January 2017 OpenBSD-current Collectors Edition of Relayd and Httpd Mastery.” Yes, I’m hoping possession of that print book will turn into something that gives you hard-core bragging rights.

But you 18 folks? The ones who rushed out to get the book immediately upon release? You’re the ones I must keep happy.

So: the exchange is yours upon request.

If you’re one of those folks, do NOT return the book to Amazon! The Big A will put the incorrect copy on the shelf and ship it to someone else.

Third? Sponsors. Sponsors will get a copy of the good version. This means I must ship them after BSDCan.

Did this happen because I’m self-published? Nope. I submit the first sentence of Absolute OpenBSD as a counter-example.

Most of the time I don’t worry much about errata. I fix urgent daftness and move on. This one is particularly egregious and notably embarrassing, though–especially as it was pointed out to me before release.

The top of page 86 now reads:

find it easiest to create the backup file when create or renew a certificate. Back up the cert.pem, chain.pem, and fullchain.pem files. As I name each certificate file after the site, I can put all the backups in a location like /etc/ssl/acme/backups. Your update shell script needs something like this after a renewal.

DATE=$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S)
cp /etc/ssl/acme/www3/www3.crt /etc/ssl/acme/backup/www3.crt.$DATE
cp /etc/ssl/acme/www3/www3.chain.pem /etc/ssl/acme/backup/www3.chain.pem.$DATE
cp /etc/ssl/acme/www3/www3.fullchain.pem /etc/ssl/acme/backup/www3.fullchain.pem.$DATE

Yes, anyone who bought the book could script better in their sleep. But the screwup is my fault and my responsibility.