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Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:39 pm
by EagleRock
Hey everyone,

While most of you wouldn't know this, Delorean is currently running on Debian Testing, which is an unreleased version of the Debian Operating System. Basically, Testing is like a rolling beta release that is always ahead of the stable release. As such, Testing often receives many upgrades and requires more downtime and configuration than the stable release.

Well, Debian announced that the upcoming release, version 6.0 (nicknamed "Squeeze"), has been frozen. In other words, no more new features will be added, and once all important bugs are fixed, version 6 will be released.

Once Squeeze is official released, I will be switching Delorean to the stable release of Debian, in favor of the more volatile and updated testing release. Ultimately, this will mean better uptime and system stability. While the stability hasn't exactly been poor while on Testing, you'll notice less downtime and issues in the future.

Anyway, in order to settle into the stable release, once it's released, I'm going to need to do some system cleanup and ensure the system is ready for the transition. It might require some downtime as I switch over to Stable, but once we're settled in, the system should perform nicely.

I'm sure most of you won't care, but I figured I might as well discuss it here. Feel free to ask questions, too, if you wish.

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:49 am
by ByteSlinger
Well, I care. I'm glad to see that you'll have even a more stable server than before. We really haven't had too many issues at this end, and I know I speak for everyone here that we all appreciate the fact that you're hosting this BBS, and putting all of your time and effort into it just because you're a good guy.

Thanks for the update, and good luck with the upgrade to Stable. It should go as well as we all can expect....mmm...if you expect Murphy's law.

(a $300 motherboard will blow, protecting the 10 cent fuse that still works just fine)

Seriously, I hope the update is uneventful!

*Salutes*

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:04 pm
by SlntCobra1
What you two said: <insert computer geek speak here>.

What we read:

"Herp derp herp derp herpa derp derp derp herpa derp." :lol: :lol: :lol:

Just kidding, but I do hope everything goes well.

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 2:34 pm
by EagleRock
SlntCobra1 wrote:Just kidding, but I do hope everything goes well.


Well then, allow me to say herpa derp derp derp.

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 3:05 pm
by SlntCobra1
EagleRock wrote:
SlntCobra1 wrote:Just kidding, but I do hope everything goes well.


Well then, allow me to say herpa derp derp derp.



ACHIEVEMENT: -25 INTELLIGENCE!

Boy, we're real smart, ain't we? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:49 pm
by RohantheBarbarian
DeLorean?

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:23 pm
by SlntCobra1
RohantheBarbarian wrote:DeLorean?



Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 11:44 pm
by Pandamir
SlntCobra1 wrote:
RohantheBarbarian wrote:DeLorean?




Lol epic. Was expecting some other car to be there.

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:21 am
by EagleRock
SlntCobra1 wrote:
EagleRock wrote:
SlntCobra1 wrote:Just kidding, but I do hope everything goes well.


Well then, allow me to say herpa derp derp derp.



ACHIEVEMENT: -25 INTELLIGENCE!

Boy, we're real smart, ain't we? :lol: :lol: :lol:


Actually, I'm plenty smart. You not being able to understand me doesn't make me dumb for saying it, it makes you dumb for not being able to comprehend it. :P

SlntCobra1 wrote:
RohantheBarbarian wrote:DeLorean?




Stealing the YTMND's I showed you, eh? Allrighty then, allow me to contribute one myself:

http://emmett.ytmnd.com/

By the way, while we're talking about it, isn't the Delorean a great car to name a server after? :-)

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 1:15 pm
by ByteSlinger
Then again, if you have a problem with the Delorean and have to do some troubleshooting....
Image


Well, that may take longer than you think...

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 12:18 pm
by EagleRock
Just an update on this: Debian Squeeze (Version 6.0) has entered deep freeze status, inching us closer to release. This means that the Testing version of Debian gets NO new packages, unless they fix release critical bugs. So, slowly but surely we're getting there. Once it goes full release, I'll reconfigure the update scheme and go through a crapload of package cleanup. That will involve several reboots and whatnot, but the system will be far more stable for it.

Depending on how ambitious I am, I might have to repartition my system disk, too, since Delorean's requirements have changed over the years. The /var partition in particular likes to fill up ridiculously fast... I should have a few extra unallocated GB left in my LVM disk, but if that doesn't cut it...yeah. This'll be rough, folks. :-)

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 3:29 pm
by ByteSlinger
Looks like you'll be first cloning your drive with the "dd" utility, and then smacking around the partitions with sfdisk. I'd clone the cdisk to a bigger drive first, then mount that - and then extend the partition on the cloned drive, leaving the original untouched, just in case Murphy's law jumps in during the middle of the repartition process. You know, like blowing a circuit breaker or dropping tunafish into the open motherboard (yes, that happened to me. Taught me two things: (1) Mayonnaise is a wonderful electricity conductor, and (2) Most motherboards don't like tuna. It gives them fits and makes them shoot sparks and smolder a lot!)

I'm sure it will go as well as all of your other projects... hehehe.... :twisted:

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 11:19 pm
by EagleRock
ByteSlinger wrote:Looks like you'll be first cloning your drive with the "dd" utility, and then smacking around the partitions with sfdisk. I'd clone the cdisk to a bigger drive first, then mount that - and then extend the partition on the cloned drive, leaving the original untouched, just in case Murphy's law jumps in during the middle of the repartition process. You know, like blowing a circuit breaker or dropping tunafish into the open motherboard (yes, that happened to me. Taught me two things: (1) Mayonnaise is a wonderful electricity conductor, and (2) Most motherboards don't like tuna. It gives them fits and makes them shoot sparks and smolder a lot!)

I'm sure it will go as well as all of your other projects... hehehe.... :twisted:


Actually, I got smart when I set this thing up, and all of my partitions are set up using LVM (Logical Volume Manager), so I can resize these partitions at will. On my system disk, the bulk of the space is taken up by /srv, which is where I keep all my non-distro applications (such as Source Dedicated Server, my Minecraft server, and I also plop webroot into there too). The /srv parition can easily lose 5-10 gig without even noticing. So, I can shrink /srv's ext3 partition down about 15-20 gigs (to give a safe buffer so I don't have superblock issues), run lvreduce on that logical volume, then re-expand the ext3 paritition to fill up the /srv LV.

After that, I can simply run an lvextend on the /var partition, giving me the 10-15 gigs I need, extend the ext3 partition, then I'm done. Theoretically, I could do all of that while the system is live and the partitions are mounted, but I know better than that.

So, if I do screw around with disks, basically the only thing I'll need to do is make sure my latest backup is current, drop to single-user mode, unmount my shit, then just wait for all the filesystem work to chug along. :-)

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 12:31 am
by ByteSlinger
Good thinking there - but if you're planning for long-term, do you think now would be the time to upgrade to a higher capacity drive? Or will yo just add physical volumes to the logical mount and do spanning?

Re: Server News - Future plans for Delorean

PostPosted: Sat Dec 18, 2010 2:47 pm
by SlntCobra1
Image

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Your fingers keep moving, but all I read is "herp derp herp derp der der derpa herp!"