Google Search Console - Requirements Overkill!

I've always had a not-so-good experience with Google's Search Console.  

I get it - they're trying to ensure that web content is meaningful.  

I get it, but damn, every single page object appears to have arcane criteria, otherwise Google will not crawl the page.

This is problematic for me, because I don't want to end up being a slave to the process of having Google process my website because, in my opinion, they go overboard with things. 

For example, there's a 40% chance that I'll include an embedded video when I submit a new post to my Wordpress-powered web page.  I've always wondered why my videos aren't being indexed by Google.  I'm now discovering that the videos won't be processed if they don't reside on a "watch page".  A blog post that reviews an embedded video will not be indexed because the video is complementary to the rest of the content on the page.  This means that I've to create a dedicate video landing page.  WTF.

That's one of many examples.  I've a large batch of pages that aren't being indexed because of the ridiculous criteria that Google requires.

The act of creating a video landing page within Wordpress isn't difficult.  Me having to walk backward to obtain all the posts that contain embedded videos so that I can add them to a watch page -- that's a lot of work. And then what?  Do I have to make the prior posts with embedded videos link to the newly built landing page's videos?

Bureaucracy overkill, that's what this is.

What I'll do is create the new watch page and add a few videos a day.  Maybe I'll be done in 6 months?  I'm certainly not going to let this overburden me. 

Rasberry Pi OS, Begone!

Last night, I tried to use a docker container on the new Pi system that I've been able to use on other systems without issue.

This experience was pretty much a nightmare.

I was able to install Docker without issue and the 'hello world' container worked fine.

When I tried to run a Wordpress container, there were cascading issues.  Granted, I know that the Pi runs on the ARM chipset, so I did have to make adjustments for that, which wasn't all that difficult.

The main issue I had related to the Pi OS misconfiguring things.  There were things being blocked by the OS due to bad routing.

While I was able to get the Worpdress container to run, I couldn't connect to it initially.  In fact, I couldn't reach the internet, using curl or any other browser client.  Apparently, curl is kinda weird on the Pi OS, as it requires usage of port 80 and I'd tried to use port 80 as the Wordpress service port.  Since I wasn't using port 80 or any other service that was configured to use port 80, I initially felt it was safe to use port 80 for the Wordpress container.  NOPE!  When I did, it broke some things relating to curl and routing.  After ChatGPT informed me that it's best to not use port 80 for the Wordpress container, I changed the port to 8888 with no success.   It ended up taking me like 6 hours to determine the issue.  ChatGPT kept repeating repair steps that weren't working, until I forced it to look for other issues.

At 4 AM this morning, I finally was able to reach the container using curl, Chromium, and Firefox, but was still experiencing connection drops when trying to use Duckduckgo.  I also noticed several other connection drops (some Wordpress plugins requires backend callbacks to 'home' using curl - those started breaking again.

The fix was to remove some default routes that were associated with the containers.  I also had to remove some rules from IPTables.  I also had to remove some IP links, and also had to add additional config context to the wp.config.php and compose.yml files.

Later in the day, I checked the container again and noticed that the problem routes that I'd removed had been re-added by Pi OS, reverting my work.

I got fed up and decided to start from scratch with another OS.  

I chose Ubuntu, since I'm already familiar with it.  The only wildcard is that this Pi system is still powered by ARM, so I might still run into some things that are currently unknown to me...I'll just have to be prepared for any chipset-related issues that may occur, but I trust Ubuntu more than Pi OS at this point.

Ubuntu 25.10 is now installed on the system's internal SSD.  I used the Pi boot options to reinstall the OS...that's a cool option, but I wish it would also give the option to use wireless connections instead of ethernet, as I had to jump through hoops to ensure I could use the ethernet where the Pi system is currently located.

As well, I wasn't prepared for the new OS install to take 45 minutes.

As frustrated as I was, it's all a learning experience for me.  As well, there's less frustration in reinstalling when I'm using a Pi.

I'd post some of my ChatGPT session, but it was messy and an hours-long chat.

I'll keep you all updated on my progress with Ubuntu on the Pi.

UPDATE (1/2/2026):  Yeah, I already deployed a docker instance of Wordpress in Ubuntu, on the Pi.  I had none of the issues I had last night with deploying the same .yml file on the Pi OS, beyond another issue with changing code so that the images being pulled supported ARM.  The two install experiences were very different.

UPDATE (1/3/2026):  I've still not noticed any issues.  All is well, I think!

UPDATE (1/10/2026):  One issue I've noticed - I've lost sound (thru HDMI connection).  I'm not able to hear system sounds or anything like Youtube audio or music streaming using Audacious.  I've been working on getting it to work but have yet to see success.  With Audacious, I can actually see the music playing, but can't hear it at all (the audio devices are showing as up).  UPDATE to this update (3/11/2026):  The sound issue is related to the monitors;  I've been trying different monitors and some have speakers while others do not.

I'm Now Managing My Docker Containers Using Portainer

Every once in awhile, I end up breaking my container setups because I sometimes get confused with all the layers and config settings (and I don't even have all that many containers), so I began to investigate management alternatives.

Of course, I'm still leveraging a locally managed Linux system (Ubuntu) to run my containers.  I've not tried to install containers on Mac hosts and I'm not even going to try with Windows.  From what I understand, I've to use a VM to run Linux on a Mac host, or use Docker Desktop.  I'd rather just use native Linux since I'm a Linux power user...anything else appears to drastically add complications, plus it's kind of stupid to install Linux on a VM when I've a bunch of Linux hosts that I can immediately leverage.

I decided to try Portainer after watching some usage videos.  It was super-simple to get it running (it's containerized) and it was super easy to shut down my existing containers and run them on Portainer - I just copied each compose.yml into Portainer to set them up as containers.  While I could see the pre-Portainer container (before I'd shut them down), they were only partially manageable with Portainer.  Building them under Portainer gave me full control, though.

As well, I found where Portainer keeps it's underlying files so that I could leverage them (if need be).  I also keep copies of my compose.yml files (I do not use Git or GitHub for my files - yet).

I'm currently using five containers (three for Wordpress, one for Pi-hole, and one for Portainer), which allows me to use Portainer's community license setup, but I've also found that I can manage the currently running containers (all five) from Portainer, without licensing agents.

Portainer is something I'm going to be using as much as possible.  I haven't even tried the other solutions but Portainer gives me a more comprehensive method of managing my containers and I'm less confused with it than via CLI; I don't even need to experiment with the other solutions.  Yes, I can manage the containers natively, via CLI (as I was doing prior to using Portainer), but I'd rather not, especially as I run more stacks (I've recently started using Nextcloud and Owncloud containers - a bake-off).  I'm finding as I manage more containers, I sometimes get lost in the thick of them.  With Portainer, I'm less lost.

Pihole & Docker FTW!

I'd been planning to mess with Pihole but didn't want to mess with a Rasberry Pi.  I did some research and found that I'd the option to install Pihole on a running Linux system.  While looking at what that entailed, I also found that I could easily do it with Docker, too.

I've been running a Ubuntu system for a while now.  It is mainly a box I set up for use with NextCloud.  I hate NextCloud and stopped using it and the Ubuntu system.  The system was pretty much idle until I decided to set up a Wordpress instance in Docker for development of my Wordpress site that's on my Linode instance.  Whenever I'm trying something new in Wordpress, I test it on my Dockerized Wordpress instance first.  Eventually I'll work on replacing the Wordpress instance on my Linode host with a Dockerized instance.

Since I already have Docker set up on the Ubuntu box, I decided to give Pihole a spin in Docker.

I used this website to set up Pihole in Docker.  The whole setup was quick and painless.  In fact, my Wordpress setup uses three different Docker containers, and with Pihole now running, I'm now using four containers on that Ubuntu host.  None of them are consuming resources (thus far).

I'm now testing Pihole.  I'm totally unfamiliar with it but it doesn't appear to be a high maintenance setup.  At some point, I'll want to back up the Pihole configs, though, so I won't have to spend a lot of time setting it up again (when/if I end up blowing away the instance).

I've several hosts on my LAN using the Pihole setup and my daughter is trying it, as well.  She had a Rasberry Pi and was planning to install Pihole on it, but I told her that this is far simpler - she should use the Pi for something else, IMO.

I've added some ad lists (block lists and some whitelisting), as well.

The biggest pain as far as adware goes is Youtube, and I don't think Pihole is going to be able to block Youtube ads when using the Youtube app.  I've had some luck blocking Youtube ads on my Macbook, but I view videos on the browser when using that notebook (and I've the uBlock Origin browser extension installed in MS Edge).

Docker, Wordpress, and Linode

Maybe a week ago, I decided to refresh my Linode instance.  I'd been using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on it the past 10 years.  16.04 has been unsupported for quite a while now, but I was being lazy while still watching the server for possible compromises (the server was locked down very well).

Initially, I'd planned on a slow rollover to Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, by deploying a new host and slowly migrating over to it from the old server.  One day, I just said, "fuck it" and started from scratch.  I kept my old disk volume and mounted it to the new host so that I could grab old data whenever I needed it...having config files from the old host would help me when reinstalling the software I was using on the old host.

The plan was to migrate my two Wordpress sites to the new host but today I tried running Wordpress on Docker on an old Dell XPS 8930 and it worked well.  I first tried to just get to the point where Wordpress could install onto it.  I then tried to restore a backup of one Wordpress site onto the Dockerized Wordpress instance and I was immediately successful.  It happened so quickly that I spent the rest of the day testing it, to the point that I decided to do the same thing on the 24.04 server tonight.  It's now up and running and I've already been posting to it.  I'll monitor it the next few days and will probably back it up, tear down the whole thing, and then try some different setups, such as trying to run both Wordpress sites from one set of containers (the problem is, I need both Wordpress sites to be serving on port 80 and there's only one port 80 on the server.

Currently the setup is using three small containers (one for MySQL, one for Wordpress, and one for phpmyadmin).  I leveraged the YAML files of two other nerds, using both to build my own YAML file, which I used to pull the images and configure the containers.  I ran in to issues more than a few times, but between what I learned last year on acloud.guru and trial and error, it wasn't all that difficult.  What I haven't done (YET) is build my own dockerfiles.

I usually also use the Linode host as a file server (sharing pictures with friends and forums), and I was doing that using Apache, so that's a 3rd application that I'd need to use port 80...not sure how I'm going to set all this up, but the neat thing about Docker is that I can blow it away and start over (keeping my .yml compose files to work with and tweak), again and again, until I get it right.

This was the first time outside of training that I used Docker and I honestly should've been using it a long time ago.

I actually had a lot of fun doing this.

UPDATE (7/28/2024):

I'm having some issues trying to determine how to host two sites on one Dockerized Wordpress setup.  I can probably use the muti-site Wordpress setup but I need to study up on how to alter the wp-config file using the docker-compose.yml file.

Or, I can probably just run two Docker setups, one for my firearms blog and one for my car blog.

I also want to be able to share my many pictures and files using Apache, but found that I can't run Apache AND Worpdress, as both use port 80.  I may have to use some type of proxying.

Lastly, I can just reinstall Wordpress in a non-Dockerized fashion, while experimenting with Wordpress in Docker.  This is probably the more reasonable approach, as I can study up how to leverage Docker at my own leisure but have a production (and native) Wordpress setup.

Wordpress Woes

I did a dumb thing last week.

I'd been holding back on upgrading my Ubuntu server to 14.04...for good reason:  I was running software versions that weren't compatible with my version of Ubuntu.

Well, I upgraded anyways (after months of holding off).  It broke my web server and also reverted my Wordpress site back a few versions (3.8.x or something like that...I'd been running version 4.0).

That was this past Saturday.  Today is Tuesday afternoon and I'm almost finished restoring the site.

Things that broke:

Wordpress
PSAD
Apache

I'm going to specifically speak to Wordpress now.

This was actually an Apache/Wordpress combination issue.  I believe the version that Apache was upgraded to was 2.4.x.  It changed the default webserver location from /var/www to /var/www/html, which broke a LOT of my content.  The fix was easy:  I moved everything from /var/www to /var/www/html, ensuring the file and directory permissions didn't change.

Then, I found a multitude of issues with my Wordpress site's content:

1. All image links broke, meaning they wouldn't render, even after moving content to /var/www/html (but I could upload new pictures without issue -- and they'd render).
2. I couldn't perform upgrades to v4.0 via the GUI.
3. I couldn't install new plugins.
4. I couldn't install templates.

First thing I did was upgrade (manually, via CLI) to v4.0.  That cleared up some issues.

Next, I worked on trying to get the plugins to work.  I couldn't install new plugins.  I also couldn't update old plugins to new versions.  The error I would get was, "Unable to locate Wordpress content directory".  I'd also get "Unable to locate Wordpress plugin directory".  What I did was download (via web browser) the "third party host fix" plugin.  I loaded it to my Ubuntu server via SCP.  I then unzipped it, and moved the uncompressed directory to the plugins folder.  It still wouldn't work.  I found that a symlink was missing from /var/lib/wordpress/wp-content/plugins, so I created a new one:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 60 Sep 30 19:48 third-party-host-fix -> /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/third-party-host-fix

That's linked to /usr/share/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/third-party-host-fix...that also the directory where the actual plugin content is located.

After I did that, I was able to see the plugin in the UI.  I activated it successfully.  I then tried to update a plugin...I got a different error:  "Wordpress could not create directory".  Ugh...

I found the solution on how to fix that issue at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WordPress.  I went to /usr/share/wordpress/wp-config.php and edited the following:

Changed:

define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', '/var/lib/wordpress/wp-content');

to read:

define('WP_CONTENT_DIR', '/var/www/wordpress/wp-content');

That fixed the issues of installing or updating templates and plugins.

The only issue I need to resolve now is the image rendering issue, but I think I'll just reload all the images, one at a time (there aren't all that many, I believe).

This was a horrible experience but the benefit was that it got me to delve and fix the issue (vs. just wiping everything and reinstalling the whole distribution).

UPDATE:

New issues --

1. Can't remove plugins.  Error message:  "Plugin could not be deleted due to an error: Unable to locate WordPress Plugin directory."
2. Using Photo Gallery plugin - galleries will render but the images will not show within the gallery UI.  I also can't seem to view the images via browser...may be another incorrect coding issue or even a permissions issue.

UPDATE 2:

1. I've fixed the issue with the Photo Gallery plugin.  I basically dumped the picture back in the directory where the plugin was looking for them (/usr/share/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery).  I hate how hodge-podge this is...crap is everywhere without standardization, but I'm to the point where I just want the site functional again.  I just hope things don't break when I next upgrade Wordpress.
2. I'll look into the "can't remove plugins" issue tomorrow.