Migrate from GitHub

[Mikaela]

Tasks included:

• decrease TTLs for the A/AAAA records
  • it was already 3600, I don't think I will have a need of moving faster as I don't have to shut down GitHub pages while DNS is propagating.
• go through source repositories
  • apparently 4
  • archive unused there are too many, so a new emphasis on source
  • open issues linking here
    • pin them
• actually move

Why GitHub?

It was the first Git host I and probably many others registered on and I think the first one to provide a service like GitHub Pages, which I think will be the biggest problem here, but luckily Jekyll should be quite portable even if I have to build it by hand.

Why not GitHub

They are US based and have customers and practices due to it that I find problematic.

• https://github.com/selfagency/microsoft-drop-ice/blob/master/README.md
• https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us/blob/master/README.md
  • https://github.com/mohebifar/made-in-iran

Possible solutions

I need to research them:

• Experimental product somewhere that has request to not post it publicly without talking with their team?
• Neocities

Potential solutions in the future

• Netlify?
  • ❌ gitea and Netlify go-gitea/gitea#2612 - Gitea issue for Netlify
  • ❌ Support for Gitea decaporg/decap-cms#1109 - Netlify issue for Gitea
• IPFS
  • ❌ Ability to pin ipns names ipfs/kubo#1467 - Ability to pin IPNS names (which by the way are the only sane way to host a website on it)
  • ❌ Keep others’ IPNS records alive ipfs/kubo#1958 - Keep others’ IPNS records alive
  • ✔️ import and export ipfs private keys ipfs/kubo#4240 - import/export IPFS private keys (for keeping websites alive even if the main device breaks)

Not solutions

• Gitlab.com (or Google Cloud Platform) also blocks Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria
  • https://about.gitlab.com/2018/07/19/gcp-move-update/
    • https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/migration/issues/649#note_93765943
• VPS
  • IPv6- and Yggdrasil-only just won't work now
  • money

[Mikaela]

https://developers.cloudflare.com/distributed-web/ipfs-gateway/updating-for-ipfs/ causes HTML5Validator errors for me, so no testing IPFS even for fun.

[Mikaela]

Status update:

• gist & scripts repositories have moved to https://gitea.blesmrt.net/Mikaela
• at least 3 gist.github.com gists have moved into three indepedent repositories, one of them is private
• at least one gist has moved to the gist repository in https://gitea.blesmrt.net/mikaela/gist/src/branch/master/asuntohakemus-liite

[Mikaela]

Status update: only this repository remains at GitHub as I haven't decided where to move it or investigated the options. Suggestions and reviews etc. welcome.

#154 tracks Mikaela.info linking to various places and my activity in them.

[davidak]

https://neocities.org/ is probably great for static sites (havn't tried yet) and also free for small sites. But i think they are worth supporting. They host on IPFS too!

[Mikaela]

Thanks, I added it to my list to investigate (on a better time).

I have been focusing too much on other things and too little on my actual goals and things I really want to do, so I am not sure when I will get around to it though. It's almost 02 am for me at the moment.

[Mikaela]

Another to-investigate: glitch.com via https://forum.privacytools.io/t/is-there-a-better-github-pages-alternative-than-gitlab-pages/1777/8?u=mikaela

[Mikaela]

New option: Codeberg pages https://pages.codeberg.org/ .

Codeberg Pages. Static Pages for your Projects.

Create a repo named 'pages' in your user account or org, push static content, HTML, style, fonts, images.

Share your rendered content via:

https://pages.codeberg.org/<username>/

Welcome to Codeberg.org!

This looks like it would currently be a subdirectory, but I think it's worth following.

[Mikaela]

https://uberspace.de/en/ I read looked into earlier today for https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/1290 also seems like a strong candidate and due to being paid (and be low-income friendly due to "pay as you think is right", it might also be more reliable option.

I didn't read so deeply to see if they had documentation on how to integrate Jekyll, but I can do that by myself and I am sure that they support something like it as they have link to Hugo in their footer.

Unlike other candidates (partially excluding IPFS), they would give me an onion.

[Mikaela]

I have been idly wondering about UberSpace for some time, but I should really look into the other mentioned options too.

[Mikaela]

Maybe interesting https://krvtz.net/posts/ipfs-website-cheat-sheet.html

[Mikaela]

I have added ✔️ and ❌ to the future solutions issues as IPFS surprised me by implementing one of the features I saw as blockers.

VPS again might move from not a solution section as I may need to migrate from the cheap NAT VPS and anything more expensive wouldn't have a NAT and thus could host the site.

[Mikaela]

Today I had energy and inspiration to migrate the site from mikaela.info to aminda.eu and as I took the opportunity to move to a subdomain, future migration from GitHub should be even easier as I will be able to just move the CNAME.

aminda.eu (alongside www.mikaela.info & mikaela.info) itself is a Gandi redirect that doesn't need to be touched to actually migrate.