Online All The Time... Hopefully!

We've had a few teething problems with out Xen based server system. We kept running into an issue where the server "pauses" for an indefinite period of time then resumes as if nothing had happened. As the system never actually crashed, there was no information in any of the logs.

Upgrading the Xen version did not fix the problem. So, we've simplified things a bit. This allows us to get a server up and providing services.

We no longer use Xen for virtualisation (though we may use it in a VM in the future). We now use KVM / Qemu. The plan is to have one VM as the main (live) system. This is backed up using LVM snapshots. The main VM "talks" to the host system holding all of the data.

Eventually further VMs will be created including Dev (testing, etc) and *possibly* a VM running Xen. Why? Well, it allows us to create more VMs in a controlled environment for users, etc.

Documentation, Documentation, Documentation

After much mumbling from other members of WiredSoc, it has been decided to create a set of detailed documentation. This project has been started by myself but I'm not very far in. A lot of the detail is missing, but it's a start and not bad for two hours.

You can read the documentation here. Only wiredsoc members can edit the content.

Busy Times Here

Thursday saw the physical installation of the new wired server. After a lot of huffing and puffing (I tell you that thing was *heavy*), it's all wired in and networked.

A few points about the new server. It's far more powerful than the current/old server. Also, we're making use of Xen virtualisation. There are many arguments for this approach, including the ability to pull a virtual machine if something goes bad. There's also the flip side - more complicated administration.

A decision has been made to make the transition between the old and new server progressive. So, we launch the new service one at a time. This should reduce the problems we run into and allows the services to continue to be used until the new ones are ready.

One example is the database migration. We run both a mysql and a postgresql server. So far only the mysql server has been migrated. The process was simple, get mysql to dump everything (that includes using the --all-databases flag) and them import it into the new server. Once this was completed, we took the old server offline and updated the hosts file on our server. This was done as the hosts file was ponting the aliases to the old server not the new server as our DNS server is. Once the entries were removed, we fell back on the DNS server and the new server was providing the data.

This kept most things working except for those pointing to the old server directly. These have now mostly been updated and are working again.

Wired is not the only server I have been bringing online. I have also been working on my own family server (steelehost.dyndns.org). This is acting as a web, file, backup and proxy server. The proxy part may sound a bit odd for a family but it is running squid and ad removal. No annoying adverts! However, the downside is the ad removal can be a little overzelous. Some corporate websites have the banners replaced with "this ad has been zapped". I'll post a screenshot soon on that one.

The plan is to eventually get subversion on the server and use it for various personal software projects.

Say Cheese

So, I'm minding my own business, driving to the supermarket when what should I come across but Google taking photos for their "streetview" thing.

 

I don't really have a problem with it (they would only get a shot of my car anyway) but I found it rather odd where they were taking photos. Now, if you know Dunfermline, you will know it has some nice historical buildings in the centre of town. Google were taking photos of the new houses on the outskirts of town.

 

Anyway, if I come across the photos, I'll be sure to post a link.

Website and Monitors

I've done it. I've gone and gotten STAR a "new" website. I use "new" in quotes as a lot of the old website is still in use. What we've acutally done installed as well-known CMS and made it act as an interface to our old code.

 

Not the best of ideas, but it works. We get the benefits of the flexability of the CMS combined wiith the bespoke features unique to STAR.

 

I would post a link but I've to keep it hidden until we "launch".

However, that is not the end of this post. I mentioned about "monitors" in the title. This relates to my latest software endevour. I'm currently putting together a stream monitoring system for STAR that logs listener number over time. It's currently a fairly simple set of scripts that makes use of RRDTool. More on that when it is completed.