I'm trying to set up a self-hosted Buzztouch Control Panel on Amazon Web Services EC2. I've gotten so close... I am now pretty good at setting up and configuring an EC2 instance, installing and testing a LAMP stack on it, putting the Buzztouch files on my instance, installing phpMyAdmin and using it to create a database and user accounts for that database, and the Buzztouch installation process itself. Everything is completely fine until I try to validate my API key. In my account pages on the Buzztouch web site, I clicked on the "Self-Hosted Software" link on the left side to get to my "Server API Key Details." I used the "Modify" button there to get to the page where I entered my instance's IP address, the domain name for my instance (if I put that into a browser's address bar, it opens the index.html file in /var/www on my EC2 instance. If I add "/BT-server" to that URL, the browser opens the Buzztouch Control Panel login page), the URL for the Control Panel (basically, "http://" plus the domain name plus "/BT-server"), and the "API key secret" (twice). I logged in to the Buzztouch Control Panel on my EC2 instance as fans[at]buzztouch.com, changed my e-mail address, password, and name, and clicked on the "Admin" link. I then clicked on the "Server Settings" link on the left side of the page and opened up the API key settings by clicking on "Buzztouch API Key and Secret." I copied the API key from my "Server API Key Details" on the Buzztouch web site and pasted it into the corresponding field in my self-hosted Control Panel's API key setttings. I did the same thing with the API URL. I carefully entered in the appropriate field the "API secret" I'd created on the Buzztouch web site. I clicked on the "validate" button. The word "working" appeared in red text just to the right of the button for a very brief time, and was then replaced by more red text saying "Error saving?" It was very late when this happened, and I had gotten so close before running into this problem, so it really took the wind out of my sails. I put the computer to sleep, brushed my teeth, turned out the lights, and got into bed. Then I realized the IP address I'd used, which did indeed match the one that appeared in the Control Panel's settings on my EC2 instance, had to be an internal IP on Amazon's network (it was a 172.xxx.xxx.xxx address), and that I would need a globally unique IP address to be able to reach my instance from here. That woke me up, because I thought it might be easy to solve my problem. I found that I could easily change the IP address on the Buzztouch web site, but I wasn't even given the option where "This servers IP ADDRESS is:" appears in the API key-related server settings on the self-hosted CP. I tried one more thing: I looked at the code in the PHP file responsible for that part and found where it defined the IP address. The easiest thing that came to mind at the time was replacing the content of the string variable that holds the IP address with my EC2 instance's IP address. That "worked" in that it made the right IP address show up on the settings page, but I'm pretty sure I would have needed to make more changes, probably in multiple files, for that approach to get anywhere. I figured there must be an easier way, so here I am, asking the forum for advice on how to get rid of the "Error saving?" problem.

Anybody? Help!

Really, does ANYONE know what to do here? I am stuck until I can fix this. HELP!

I've gone through all the documentation I could find on the Buzztouch web site and via web searches, and I'm completely stuck. Where are the veterans?!

Contact PSMDanny, he helps on problems like yours. https://www.buzztouch.com/psmdanny Click on "Send Message on his left menu. -- Niraj

HostGator.com is a good place to put your Self Hosting package. It works well for the BT people.

Thanks, Niraj!

I sent a message to PSMDanny and, in parallel, I'm looking at HostGator. I was hoping for "free" (for one year), but maybe one of the cheap HostGator plans will work. My funds are very, very (VERY) limited, so I'm still willing to keep fighting for a while to make this work on EC2. And since the Buzztouch web site specifically mentions Amazon EC2 as a place where one might self-host a Buzztouch Control Panel, I'm still hopeful there will be a way for me to get this working. Thanks again for the help.

Just updating: I got a message back from PSMDanny with two good suggestions. I'll try those tonight.

Updating again: when I tried one of PSMDanny's two suggestions, I got my API key validated. The problem was that I didn't have cURL working on my EC2 instance. One apt-get command and a quick restart of Apache, and I was able to validate the API key. Over the next few days, I'm going to test things a bit, try to clean up my "how to" a little bit, and then I'll be able to publish my new Buzztouch-on-EC2 tutorial. This is nice because it lowers the barrier to self-hosting even more, because most of us will fall into the EC2 "free tier" for the first year (or, if any of us doesn't, he or she will probably be very happy, because it will mean his apps are being downloaded and used a lot). I will be sure to mention in the "how to" the help I got from Niraj and Danny. Niraj, thank you VERY much for pointing me to PSMDanny.

Please tell us the nice cool apps you make with BuzzTouch. A tutorial on EC2with BuzzTouch will also be helpful. Looking forward to your announcements! :-) -- Niraj