Cecil will not work behind a proxy server?

[zemian]

Hi there, I am trying out Cecil, but the "serve" command hangs if I am behind a company proxy server. But it works fine if I am out of the private network. Is Cecil doing something special behind the scene that requires certain public hosts connection?

[ArnaudLigny]

Hello @zemian,

By default the serve command run a local server available at http://localhost:8000 ( localhost is a bind of 127.0.0.1).

I suppose your company's proxy doesn't allows localhost alias and/or the 8000 port.

So, you can change the host and the port used by Cecil with the following options:

• host: --host=X.X.X.X
• port: --port=XXXX

e.g.: cecil serve --host=192.168.1.15 --port=8080.

Docs: https://cecil.app/documentation/commands/#serve.

I hope I've helped you ! 😃

[zemian]

Hey @ArnaudLigny thanks for the reply! No, my company proxy does not block localhost. I can run other applications on localhost:8000 just fine. Example, php -S localhost:8000 works without any issue. Only when running cecil serve command it hangs.

Running with -v flag I see it stuck here...

$ php cecil.phar serve -v
Building website...
Path: /myproject
Config: /myproject/config.yml
Cache: /myproject/.cache
1. Loading content
2. Creating pages
3. Converting pages

[ArnaudLigny]

Hello, If an error is not correctly catched you can get a more verbose log with the following options : -vv or -vvv (debug mode).

[zemian]

I think I figured it out why it hangs. I read the Cecil docs that it will parse images and create few responsive versions of it. The sample content/index.md has this line:

![Octocat](https://github.githubassets.com/images/icons/emoji/octocat.png)

Removing this line works! So I am guessing https://github.githubassets.com is blocked by my company proxy. I hope this helps some future users!

[ArnaudLigny]

Cecil do not create responsives images by default (option must be enabled in configuration, see https://cecil.app/documentation/configuration/#assets) but it downloads remote images and put them in cache.

Your case (behind a proxy) is interesting and I think I should code a better error handling with remotes images.

[zemian]

Hi @ArnaudLigny , actually this brings me to next question. The docs https://cecil.app/documentation/configuration#assets says images responsive creation is turn off by default, and yet it's still generating it. In fact I explicitly set it in config.yml file to off, and I still see it gets generated. Is this a bug, or is there another way to turn it off?

images:
  enabled: false
  optimize:
    enabled: false
  responsive:
    enabled: false

[zemian]

I see. Thanks for the metatags config docs link!

So in the case of octocat.png, if I want to keep it in the content/index.md, how do I make Cecil not to download the image into assets folder?

[ArnaudLigny]

how do I make Cecil not to download the image into assets folder?

A remote image is not stored in the assets directory of your project, but in the temporary directory .cache/assets.

The cache is preserved between each build except if your run the build command in debug mode (with -vvv the cache is cleared) or if you run the commands cecil clear, cecil cache:clear.

And sorry: there is no option to disable the fetch process of remote image.

[zemian]

Based on the output I capture above, the image is in the generated folder cecil-test-site/_site/assets/github.githubassets.com/images/icons/emoji/octocat.1b27964ad692434f271a1dcc82277351.png, not just in cache folder! And I don't need this.

Hm.. and there is no option to turn this off! Okay. It might be just me, but I find this behavior odd.

But hey thanks for your patient and clarifying this to me! Have a good day!

[ArnaudLigny]

Indeed, I was not very clear, sorry 😅

You are right: currently a remote asset (image or other file type) is systematically downloaded and stored in the output (_site) in order to facilitate any handling (resize, compression, etc.) and to be sure the built website can be browse offline.

Maybe I should add an option to disable that.

[zemian]

Yes, that would be great to have as option. I have help created a feature request here to track it: #1338

[ArnaudLigny]

It should be fixed with the feature mentioned in PR #1342.