Possible Downtime - New News

**Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:32 pm**

The computer that Medusa lives on (affectionately known as Server A, informally known as Zim) is showing its age. It has gone what we refer to in the I.T. biz as "bat-shit insane" and required a hard re-boot three times in as many weeks (this is abnormal -in the past it has gone greater than 500 days at a time without needing restarts). There seems to be no configuration stuff contributing to the problem, so the next option is Bad Hardware.

What's this mean for you?

Over the next several weeks there may be occasional outages. While I'll do my best to keep these to a minimum and as short as possible, they may sometimes extend to several hours or, worse, days. Sorry about that.

In the meanwhile I'm assembling a new server to replace Server A (Zim). The new server will, with luck, be brought online sometime during the week of August 14. The new server will be affectionately known as Gir. When it blows up (hopefully five years from now) its replacement will be known as Gaz. Draw your own conclusions.

How can you help?

Think positive thoughts. Buy T-Shirts (the "Debauchery in Mexico" fund is now being redirected into the "Buy a new server" fund). If you're in the I.T. field and have good Google skills, find an efficient way for me to migrate from a proprietary email server solution (Netscape Messaging Server 4.x) to an open solution (probably Yumex or Postfix). I need to maintain the user store in LDAP and find a way to move several gigs of message store from NMS' structure to something more commonly digestible.

**Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:40 pm**

Put me down for another 4 shirts BossMan. Same size dispositions as the last order. And thanks for the pre-emptive heads-up re: potential/planned outages. Good to see. Poor old Zim (short for Zimmer frame?). Off to that great junk-heap in the sky, eh?

**Tue Aug 08, 2006 8:54 pm**

Fintan wrote:Put me down for another 4 shirts BossMan. Same size dispositions as the last order.

You'll never get your spiffy guitar like that.

Poor old Zim (short for Zimmer frame?). Off to that great junk-heap in the sky, eh?

Zim (the name-sake of Server A) is an incompetent alien invader.

No - Zim will not go on the slag heap. Zim will probably end up in a closet here at the house doing some unimportant low-level work that won't make lots of people angry when it crashes hard.

The main driver for replacing Zim is that it is a consumer machine assembled Summer of 2001. Its hardware is just not designed for 24/7 use over this time span, and the work expected from it has increased over the years. It's time for it to join its predecessor (assembled in 1998, retired in 2001) in the closet.

**Tue Aug 08, 2006 9:04 pm**

DzM wrote:You'll never get your spiffy guitar like that.

Don't you worry your pretty little clever head about THAT score, me laddy-o... it's gonna be a happening thing ASAP. Just print them darned shirts, ye creative scurvy lubber, and build a server to last the ages. Yarrrr. Faster. Harder. Longer. Stronger. More, more, more!

**Mon Oct 16, 2006 7:00 pm**

DzM wrote:In the meanwhile I'm assembling a new server to replace Server A (Zim). The new server will, with luck, be brought online sometime during the week of August 14. The new server will be affectionately known as Gir. When it blows up (hopefully five years from now) its replacement will be known as Gaz. Draw your own conclusions.

OK, so "August 14" didn't happen.

But for those of you following along at home, here's the current news:

o Zim has been stabilized (I'm nearly positive I even had something to do with it)
o Gir is now in my greedy little hands and being configured
o Gir will replace Zim in production sometime the week of October 23

Gir is quite a beast. I'm in love and so very tempted to keep it as my desktop computer and using my old Desktop computer as the replacement for Zim. But that would be wrong.

**Mon Jan 01, 2007 1:29 am**

Once more: an update.

Zim is now retired. Gir is now (as of 12:00pm PST, December 31, 2006) in use.

While not running at 100% yet, Gir is now the server answering all your requests.

Gir is a dual CPU 1.5GHz AMD Opteron system with two 100GB drives, 2GB RAM, and dual Gigabit Ethernet connection (if only the Internets tubes connecting it to the outside world could handle that amound of traffic ). Zim, the now retired machine that has been handling things since 2001, is a single CPU AMD 1.2GHz 32-bit Sempron (or something) or other with ~750MB RAM and a single 80GB HD. It is now going to be the desktop machine for my father-in-law.

Yay new computer!

**Mon Jan 01, 2007 1:43 am**

All Hail Gir! Huzzah!

**Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:37 am**

Fintan wrote:All Hail Gir! Huzzah!

Up GIR and associates

**Mon Jan 01, 2007 1:38 pm**

DzM wrote: It is now going to be the desktop machine for my father-in-law.

Zim.... retired to be a common desktop. At least its still tickin and clickin. But damn.... the history!

Anywayz.... Hail Gir!

**Mon Jan 15, 2007 3:55 am**

DzM wrote:Gir is a dual CPU 1.5GHz AMD Opteron system with two 100GB drives, 2GB RAM, and dual Gigabit Ethernet connection (if only the Internets tubes connecting it to the outside world could handle that amound of traffic ). Zim, the now retired machine that has been handling things since 2001, is a single CPU AMD 1.2GHz 32-bit Sempron (or something) or other with ~750MB RAM and a single 80GB HD. It is now going to be the desktop machine for my father-in-law.

I love it when you talk that crazy tech-speak.

And thanks for spending the dough-I can't imagine shirt sales covered the whole shebang.

**Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:05 pm**

Is Gir performing well? I am having a lot of trouble with server response over the last week. Anyone else? I'm using Firefox, and I've noticed that when its having trouble, other sites are accessed fine.

**Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:32 pm**

Eric V wrote:Is Gir performing well? I am having a lot of trouble with server response over the last week. Anyone else? I'm using Firefox, and I've noticed that when its having trouble, other sites are accessed fine.

Can't say I do

**Mon Feb 26, 2007 12:20 am**

Eric V wrote:Is Gir performing well? I am having a lot of trouble with server response over the last week. Anyone else? I'm using Firefox, and I've noticed that when its having trouble, other sites are accessed fine.

Yeah Eric, I've been having trouble jumping from page to page, I have to leave it be for awhile or log out and in again.

**Mon Feb 26, 2007 2:22 am**

Eric V wrote:Is Gir performing well? I am having a lot of trouble with server response over the last week. Anyone else? I'm using Firefox, and I've noticed that when its having trouble, other sites are accessed fine.

There are still teething problems being worked on. I had hoped that nobody was noticing them.

I'm working on fixing them. Don't know right now what's causing the problems.

**Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:20 am**

No problems here. Are those cute little pages that take you directly to the last entry new?

Possible Downtime - New News

Possible Downtime - New News

Re: Possible Downtime - New News

Who is online