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Server back from the dead...
2001-10-20 17:48:57
Ok, so what happend to the server?
Well, I've been doing regular backups of the site and database information all by hand. I figured that an automated tape backup would be cool. A good friend of mine got a nice used SCSI tape drive and sent it up to me. It sat in the bay of the server for weeks and weeks. Why? No cable to connect to it up to the SCSI card.
Finally I my friend found one laying around at work and sent it to me. I figured I would connect it up in the morning when there was the least amount of traffic and plug that bad boy in and get the backups running so I could watch them during the day.
After fiddling around a plugging it up, I restart the server. Things go good until "A read error has occurred. Press ctrl-alt-del to restart." Fine. I restart. Same message. I power down, count to 10, restart. Same message. Unplug scsi devices. Same message. Unplug everything except the system hard drive. Same message. Unplug sys HD and plug it back in. Nothing.
By this time, I have to do real work for my job. I send out the message on the mailing list (makes a good backup system for sending messages). I'm not really worried about the site itself; I have backups of the site scripts and the database is on a separte machine. It just might take lots of time to get a new HD, rebuild the server, run all patches, setup DNS and Web and such; it could take hours and hours. Yuck!
I work through the day, haunted by the dead server. "Fix me," it calls from the back room, in that creepy zombie undead voice. "Bring me back to life. People depend on me." All day long it taunted me, pestered me, annoyed me.
Finally the work day is done. I get some dinner, bring the server out of the cold morgue and place it on the operating table. I take out all the guts except the video card and system HD. It boots! I run disk diagnostics. The run and run and run and run. No problems. I put in a card. System boots fine. Another card. Boots. I finally get all the cards in and things running.
Turns out that the SCSI cable is bad. I guess I jiggled too much stuff when installing the drive. Oh well.
The whole thing brings up a good point: The hard drives are kinda old. Maybe this is a good excuse to invest in a new server... - Bit the Bullet 2001-10-07 19:06:30 Ok, I bit the bullet and signed up for a dial-up account. I'm now writing this entry from home. I'm looking for a place to move that will have some sort of high speed internet access. Hopefully I'll find it soon.
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Big Round of Maintenance
2001-10-06 14:43:11
Did a bunch of maintenance on the server. Defragmented the drive containing the database. Fixed the connection to the forum (it was using the old database and not the new one).
Thought of a way to distribute the database load amongst several database machines while maintaining data integrity over all machines. It involves one machine being the master machine and handling all writes and updates. The other slave machines would replicate off the single master DB and be only for reading (the majority of the work that the database on this site does). I'll have to research it more to make sure it will work.
Completing a round of dontation schedule thoughts to get donations running. Started looking for a lawyer to establish .org as a legal entity (one the starting points to getting hosting working here). Lawyer hunting is no fun at all, even though this is a nice thing (not like getting hit by a car and needing a lawyer).
Still working on getting internet at home. Big letdown from Verizon again (no big suprise). Went and told the property manager how angry I was about not having internet. He said I could break my lease with no penality. I won't harm him...
Rugby tomorrow. Weather is supposed to be nice. -
More site stuff
2001-09-28 23:13:18
The mail service flipping out is disturbing. I may have to move to a different OS sooner than later. I hope not. It was a big pain in the butt the first time setting that thing up with all the secondary sites also on the machine (like my personal home page that gets about 10 hits a week).
Did lots more thinking on possible hosting solutions with Quu. The donation schedule is the trickest thing. Too tight and nobody participates. Too loose and we don't have enough cash to cover the cost. Oh the torture...
I'm also commissioning an artist to get a real mascot for the site. Hopefully she will say yes. =D -
Work, work, work...
2001-09-26 10:11:55
AWA was WONDERFUL!! I got to meet LOTS of people and creators I really respect and had lots of fun doing it. I missed meeting EK, though. She seemed to disappear every time I said to myself, "I think I'll go thank EK for making videos." Oh well. Next time.
Now that I'm back, missing that Friday from work is really crunching me at work. Lots of stuff to catch up on and emergencies keep poping up for some reason. I'll get through it.
The poor server running this site is really reaching it's computational limits during peak hours. With the site being 95% database driven, those poor little Celerons are turning to slivers of glass under the pressure. Maybe some more server and database optimizations will extend their life. Dual Athlons may be in the near future. =D
Home internet connection should be up here next week, at least that's the story for now. That will make things flow here alot nicer around here.
Back to work... ;-)
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JOURNAL: Phade (Kris McCormic)
Current server time: Sep 05, 2025 23:32:56