The plug thing! It's not plugged!
Sunday, May 31
I Think It May Just Be Time For A Reboot
18:25:45 up 518 days, 12:28
I've had servers run that long before, or nearly so, but that's not bad. But it is starting to show some odd errors - lost database connections, errors starting threads, that sort of thing - that just haven't happened before.
If it gets any worse I'll reboot the server, but first I'll see about getting everything set up on Akane.
18:25:45 up 518 days, 12:28
I've had servers run that long before, or nearly so, but that's not bad. But it is starting to show some odd errors - lost database connections, errors starting threads, that sort of thing - that just haven't happened before.
If it gets any worse I'll reboot the server, but first I'll see about getting everything set up on Akane.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:28 AM
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One And The Same
Don't blame me. Blame Pat Robertson.
Don't blame me. Blame Pat Robertson.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:25 AM
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Bleh, Foo
Connection to database lost?
It's not supposed to do that - ever.
Don't know why it's decided to fall apart right now. Maybe it knows I'm setting up the new server today.
Connection to database lost?
It's not supposed to do that - ever.
Don't know why it's decided to fall apart right now. Maybe it knows I'm setting up the new server today.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:24 AM
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Saturday, May 30
K-On! Is Awesome
That is all.
more...
That is all.
more...
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
08:43 PM
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Thanks, Microsoft!
No, really.
Microsoft have a program called BizSpark that offers free development tools and server software to small web startups.
I'm a small web startup. I'm about as small a web startup as you can find. And while I'm not sure I want to move away from Python, I could use IronPython and have access to all the other Visual Studio languages - so I could easily import modules written in C# or IronRuby or whatever.
And SQL Server 2008 has some attractive advantages over MySQL, and can be licensed quite cheaply for web applications.
But I wasn't going to spend a lot of time, effort, and money testing out the Microsoft platform when open source was working pretty well. Microsoft knows this, so they set up BizSpark to remove one of those factors completely.
SoftLayer is now a BizSpark partner, which made it really easy for me to apply. So I did. And today my application was approved.
Now I just have about three metric tons of stuff to download. They are very generous. I currently have Visual Studio Express installed - it's the free edition, but it gives you access to a pretty decent set of tools for basic development. Now I have access to so many different versions of their enterprise-level development tools that I don't know where to start.
Whether and how I use the software remains to be seen. I do want to write a desktop client as a companion to Minx, so that seems to be the place to start. But in any case, I have to thank Microsoft for giving me access to all this stuff.
No, really.
Microsoft have a program called BizSpark that offers free development tools and server software to small web startups.
I'm a small web startup. I'm about as small a web startup as you can find. And while I'm not sure I want to move away from Python, I could use IronPython and have access to all the other Visual Studio languages - so I could easily import modules written in C# or IronRuby or whatever.
And SQL Server 2008 has some attractive advantages over MySQL, and can be licensed quite cheaply for web applications.
But I wasn't going to spend a lot of time, effort, and money testing out the Microsoft platform when open source was working pretty well. Microsoft knows this, so they set up BizSpark to remove one of those factors completely.
SoftLayer is now a BizSpark partner, which made it really easy for me to apply. So I did. And today my application was approved.
Now I just have about three metric tons of stuff to download. They are very generous. I currently have Visual Studio Express installed - it's the free edition, but it gives you access to a pretty decent set of tools for basic development. Now I have access to so many different versions of their enterprise-level development tools that I don't know where to start.
Whether and how I use the software remains to be seen. I do want to write a desktop client as a companion to Minx, so that seems to be the place to start. But in any case, I have to thank Microsoft for giving me access to all this stuff.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
07:21 AM
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Monday, May 25
You Know What's Cool?
We're virtualised now. I'll never have to do another messy server move. When we get the next server (which could be quite a while, since Akane has a much better upgrade path than our previous servers), all I need to do is set up OpenVZ (or Virtuozzo) on the new system, copy the container across, and then on the day of the move, stop the old container, do an rsync update, and start it up on the new server.
A few things broke because of CPanel overwriting configuration files, or version changes of underlying software, or moving from 32-bit to 64-bit. Next time, none of that will happen.
Really!
We're virtualised now. I'll never have to do another messy server move. When we get the next server (which could be quite a while, since Akane has a much better upgrade path than our previous servers), all I need to do is set up OpenVZ (or Virtuozzo) on the new system, copy the container across, and then on the day of the move, stop the old container, do an rsync update, and start it up on the new server.
A few things broke because of CPanel overwriting configuration files, or version changes of underlying software, or moving from 32-bit to 64-bit. Next time, none of that will happen.
Really!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:45 PM
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Saturday, May 23
Two Removes Are Equal To One Fire
Moving mu.nu into its new home right now.
I've reached the quiet spot between frantic preparation and even more frantic bug-fixing, where the files are doing their final update. Back to panic mode in 3... 2...
All finished! Not too much pain involved, either. Just waiting for the DNS changes to roll out now.
Moving mu.nu into its new home right now.
I've reached the quiet spot between frantic preparation and even more frantic bug-fixing, where the files are doing their final update. Back to panic mode in 3... 2...
All finished! Not too much pain involved, either. Just waiting for the DNS changes to roll out now.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
04:36 PM
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Sunday, May 17
Just An Observation
The CPanel installer is as crazy as a bedbug.
It actually works four times out of five. But reading the log files it creates will give you the impression that not only has it failed, it's crashed your server and the two adjacent servers and set the rack on fire.
Update: It installs 2.6GB of stuff. Or in one case, 3.1GB. I'm reinstalling that one.
My favourite part of the whole install process is this:
But you knew that already, right? After all, if you wanted to indicate success, a string of neon-green boldface messages that use the word "failed" four times and "error" five times would be your first choice.
The CPanel installer is as crazy as a bedbug.
It actually works four times out of five. But reading the log files it creates will give you the impression that not only has it failed, it's crashed your server and the two adjacent servers and set the rack on fire.
Update: It installs 2.6GB of stuff. Or in one case, 3.1GB. I'm reinstalling that one.
My favourite part of the whole install process is this:
!! If you want to create a support ticket with cPanel regarding this please reference 'BuildAP Report Id': '2035297' !!What this means is that the main install has completed succsessfully and it's now configuring Apache and PHP.
Stopping portmap: [FAILED]
inetd: no process killed
Shutting down kernel logger: [PASSED]
sendmail: no process killed
open3: exec of /etc/rc.d/init.d/exim stop failed at ./install line 1049
open3: exec of /etc/rc.d/init.d/exim start failed at ./install line 1049
open3: exec of /etc/rc.d/init.d/proftpd start failed at ./install line 1049
If you are getting an "undefined catalog error", please run:
Found hostname to be azusa.mu.nu, which resolves to 174.37.121.36
initfpsuexec: using apache 2.x support
error reading information on service proftpd: No such file or directory
error reading information on service exim: No such file or directory
error reading information on service cpanel: No such file or directory
error reading information on service bandmin: No such file or directory
Starting sshd: [ OK ]
Cannot open /etc/chkserv.d at /scripts/restartsrv_exim line 99.
But you knew that already, right? After all, if you wanted to indicate success, a string of neon-green boldface messages that use the word "failed" four times and "error" five times would be your first choice.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:00 AM
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Mountain Ranges 'R' Us
I just bought 5GB of content for Bryce, the terrain-modelling and 3D-rendering program. I've hardly touched Bryce since I bought it on sale late in 2007* but I do have a nice new quad-core system with a teraflop graphics card to run it on if I ever find the time.
So, you ask, if I never use the program, why did I buy all that content?
Well, it was 95% off.**
* Or indeed, when I first bought it way back in... Whenever version 4 came out.
** Individual list price is over $700, discounted price is $50, Platinum Club member price is $35, and I had my monthly $5 voucher, so only $30 in the end.
I just bought 5GB of content for Bryce, the terrain-modelling and 3D-rendering program. I've hardly touched Bryce since I bought it on sale late in 2007* but I do have a nice new quad-core system with a teraflop graphics card to run it on if I ever find the time.
So, you ask, if I never use the program, why did I buy all that content?
Well, it was 95% off.**
* Or indeed, when I first bought it way back in... Whenever version 4 came out.
** Individual list price is over $700, discounted price is $50, Platinum Club member price is $35, and I had my monthly $5 voucher, so only $30 in the end.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:11 AM
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Saturday, May 16
Eating Mice
Anyway, I'm going to try a new recipe tonight - teriyaki beef with snow peas on jasmine rice. Was going to use lamb, but there was no appealing-looking diced lamb at the supermarket this evening.
Anyway, I'm going to try a new recipe tonight - teriyaki beef with snow peas on jasmine rice. Was going to use lamb, but there was no appealing-looking diced lamb at the supermarket this evening.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:28 PM
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Eaten By Mice
In theory, we're scheduled to move to a new server tomorrow.
That might still happen, though it's looking doubtful. The reason it might still happen is that if it doesn't, I'll be up for hundreds of dollars in fees to keep the old servers around for another month.
And the reason it's doubtful is that we had trouble with the systems at work every day last week. Every day, US time. So between 3AM and 5AM my time. And every time, I got woken up and had to fix it.
One hardware fault, one software bug, one software bug in an error-handling routine triggered by another site going haywire, one software bug in normal processing triggered by another site going haywire, and one instance of things just not working right for no apparent reason.
Then I finally got back to setting up the new server. I found some issues with my configuration of the containers for the CPanel sites - insufficent space allocated for the kernel structures, insufficient datagram buffers (which is hardly critical, but I fixed it while I was there) and a couple of other things were we were close to the limit.
So I fixed all of that, recreated the containers, and reinstalled CPanel.
Whereupon I came unstuck, because CPanel would not install.
Turned out - after considerable cursing and deleting and recreating of containers - to be a firewall issue. CPanel's installer couldn't access CPAN (no relation) because CPAN couldn't access the server.
Fucking FTP. Passive mode is there for a reason - though it seems to work about as consistently as secondary DNS servers.
Anyway, sorted that out, but noticed that 6GB of RAM had gone walkies without leaving a forwarding address. It was physically there, but unaccounted for inside Linux. A reboot sorted that out, but then I had a slight accident with a command run on the hardware node instead of inside a container.
So I decided to do a clean reinstall of Linux and load everything again. Since I've been experimenting on the box for two weeks now, this is not overall a bad idea.
The reinstall of CentOS went smoothly. The I went to load OpenVZ - and the OpenVZ repository, and indeed the site - and the list of mirrors - was down.
Gah.
It's back now, but I've pretty much lost a day.
Plan now is to move mee.nu (and the mu.nu Minx sites), and prepare to move mu.nu. That way I can cancel at least one of the servers.
In theory, we're scheduled to move to a new server tomorrow.
That might still happen, though it's looking doubtful. The reason it might still happen is that if it doesn't, I'll be up for hundreds of dollars in fees to keep the old servers around for another month.
And the reason it's doubtful is that we had trouble with the systems at work every day last week. Every day, US time. So between 3AM and 5AM my time. And every time, I got woken up and had to fix it.
One hardware fault, one software bug, one software bug in an error-handling routine triggered by another site going haywire, one software bug in normal processing triggered by another site going haywire, and one instance of things just not working right for no apparent reason.
Then I finally got back to setting up the new server. I found some issues with my configuration of the containers for the CPanel sites - insufficent space allocated for the kernel structures, insufficient datagram buffers (which is hardly critical, but I fixed it while I was there) and a couple of other things were we were close to the limit.
So I fixed all of that, recreated the containers, and reinstalled CPanel.
Whereupon I came unstuck, because CPanel would not install.
Turned out - after considerable cursing and deleting and recreating of containers - to be a firewall issue. CPanel's installer couldn't access CPAN (no relation) because CPAN couldn't access the server.
Fucking FTP. Passive mode is there for a reason - though it seems to work about as consistently as secondary DNS servers.
Anyway, sorted that out, but noticed that 6GB of RAM had gone walkies without leaving a forwarding address. It was physically there, but unaccounted for inside Linux. A reboot sorted that out, but then I had a slight accident with a command run on the hardware node instead of inside a container.
So I decided to do a clean reinstall of Linux and load everything again. Since I've been experimenting on the box for two weeks now, this is not overall a bad idea.
The reinstall of CentOS went smoothly. The I went to load OpenVZ - and the OpenVZ repository, and indeed the site - and the list of mirrors - was down.
Gah.
It's back now, but I've pretty much lost a day.
Plan now is to move mee.nu (and the mu.nu Minx sites), and prepare to move mu.nu. That way I can cancel at least one of the servers.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:24 PM
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Tuesday, May 12
Speed For Need
Akane, the new mu.nu/mee.nu hyperserver, is as fast as 100,000 PDP-11/70's.
Akane, the new mu.nu/mee.nu hyperserver, is as fast as 100,000 PDP-11/70's.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
05:55 PM
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Sunday, May 10
A Big mu.nu Welcome
To Akari, Azusa, and Kodachi!
Akari is a quad-core system with 6GB of RAM; Azusa and Kodachi are dual-core systems with 4GB of RAM. All running CentOS 5.3 64-bit and CPanel. They'll be taking over duties from Midori and Sakura.
Next up are Nabiki and Kasumi. Nabiki is a quad-core system with 4GB of RAM and a dedicated SSD; it's our new database server. Kasumi is our replication server, to couple our data extra-double-safe. It's a one-and-a-half core system with 1GB of RAM.
Yeah.
As that last might have alerted you, these are not real, physical, stuff-you-can-kick servers, they're virtual servers under OpenVZ. It takes about seven seconds to create a new server, but it took about five hours to get all the configuration settings correct* and install CPanel.**
Took a little reading to get up to speed on all the commands and options, but I'm saving about $2500 a year by not paying for the pretty user interface of Virtuozzo, and for $2500 I'm willing to do a little reading.
* At one point I had Akari, Azusa, and Kodachi running with 30% and 20% of a CPU - rather than 30% and 20% of the total number of CPUs. That was a leetle slow.
** CPanel's installation takes a while at the best of times. It takes about five whiles if you've accidentally restricted your server to only use one-fifth of one processor.
To Akari, Azusa, and Kodachi!
Akari is a quad-core system with 6GB of RAM; Azusa and Kodachi are dual-core systems with 4GB of RAM. All running CentOS 5.3 64-bit and CPanel. They'll be taking over duties from Midori and Sakura.
Next up are Nabiki and Kasumi. Nabiki is a quad-core system with 4GB of RAM and a dedicated SSD; it's our new database server. Kasumi is our replication server, to couple our data extra-double-safe. It's a one-and-a-half core system with 1GB of RAM.
Yeah.
As that last might have alerted you, these are not real, physical, stuff-you-can-kick servers, they're virtual servers under OpenVZ. It takes about seven seconds to create a new server, but it took about five hours to get all the configuration settings correct* and install CPanel.**
Took a little reading to get up to speed on all the commands and options, but I'm saving about $2500 a year by not paying for the pretty user interface of Virtuozzo, and for $2500 I'm willing to do a little reading.
* At one point I had Akari, Azusa, and Kodachi running with 30% and 20% of a CPU - rather than 30% and 20% of the total number of CPUs. That was a leetle slow.
** CPanel's installation takes a while at the best of times. It takes about five whiles if you've accidentally restricted your server to only use one-fifth of one processor.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
09:51 PM
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Thursday, May 07
Joy In The Early Evening
We blew up a high-end Intel SSD at my day job today. That isn't supposed to happen.
We blew up a high-end Intel SSD at my day job today. That isn't supposed to happen.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
12:13 AM
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