Plan for upgrading

Mmmm... What's cookin in the kitchen?

Moderator: Lucifer

User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Plan for upgrading

Post by Lucifer »

Ok, lots of you guys have been asking me when the Crack Pipe will be back, and while I still don't yet have a straight answer, I at least have a plan.

As many of you know, I took it down along with most of the rest of my network services when my website was cracked by some script kiddie. I don't feel comfortable running that old, obviously holey OS anymore and I need to upgrade it. Mandriva discontinues security updates when the new version comes out (or at least their mirrors do), so I'm going to hve to upgrade if I want to patch Apache. But I don't want to run security updates that might actually destabilize the system automatically while that machine is my mail server.

So my plan also takes care of a few other loose ends that have been needing tied for some time. Here it is:

1. After I finish this post, I'll go to no-ip and subscribe to their mail service. I've enjoyed the freedom of having my own mail server, but I've not enjoyed the responsibility that goes with it and the headaches. No-ip's a great company, and they have a very reliable service. Anyone who has an account on my machine will lose their email address. If you were ctually using that address, please let me know and I'll happily restore it on the new server. It's no big deal. (If you don't have an email address at my domain, this isn't an invitation, unless you really need one, and I'll talk)

2. I have two spare machines and the table problem I previously had resolved itself a couple of weeks ago quite accidentally. The first spare machine will receive the web server. The web server currently has 3 websites that you might be interested in on it. Mine, the wiki, and the Breakfast off the Grid website. That machine will also be dedicated. Since this machine currently has no OS, it will get the latest and greatest, and I will set it up for automatic security upgrades. If all it has on it is a webserver, how much damage can automatic upgrades do? I will also make the necessary updates to fix the stat script on the Breakfast off the Grid website at this time. It's likely that I'll be using network-mounted filesystems for webspace, since the network+hard drives on the other machine are that much faster than the hard drive going into this one.

3. My second spare machine, the one Swampy sent me, will be setup completely and my primary game server (the Crack Pipe) will be restored on it. The ladder will be clean, it will be a fresh installation. It will also be dedicated to the game server.

4. The server that currently runs all this stuff will retire to desktop status with two additions. Any additional game servers I run will go on it, and it will probably keep the database for the sites. That's a performance decision. The network and the hard drives in this machine will be faster than going to disk on the actual webserver. Don't ask me, I don't really feel like talking about my slow hard drives.

5. If all of this works fine, then I will work some more hardware into the budget. Specifically, hard drives to upgrade the two servers with so they can run a bit faster, possibly memory and other stuff. We'll see.

As for wotna, with TnA off the net right now, I'm in quite a quandary. I never signed up to run his server, but if I don't run it I have to take it down. Does someone want to run it for him while he's gone? There is a lot of demand for it. If I run it, though, my regular server policies go into effect. All that really means is that I'll cut off all remote admins, because I don't do remote admins. And I don't do hand-holding, so some of the ways I handle problems on a server might conflict with how TnA wants them done. Since it's not really my server, I don't want to do that. So does someone else want to run it for him? I haven't settled what I'm going to do with his server yet, it's kinda in limbo and may just get dropped when I finish the change. Like I say, I don't know what I'm going to do with it.

I'm starting on this plan right now with the mail service, and am considering setting up the new webserver tonight. I'll keep you posted, and as soon as I can give a definite date or something on when the new game server will be up I'll let you know.

Thanks for your patience and support!
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

*phew* I'm feeling better already.

New Mandriva installs with shorewall and has a nice UI to configure it.

New Mandriva's Apache installation by default is much more secure. No more promiscuous settings. It is a bit more work to setup, but it's much more solid.

New Mandriva's firewall (when you select network server) by default configures no active network services. I had to opt-in the web and ssh servers.

Decided to just put the database on the same machine. The problem I couldn't get around was requiring my desktop machine to be on all the time, heh. I wasn't going to install a new OS on the game server until I saw the beautiful firewall config tool. Now I'm going to, which is going to add some time because I have to put a cd-rom in it..

Now I'll look at the neato backup tool they've got. :) Must have backups, right? (not that I've had a habit of taking them before, but I'm turning over a new leaf, building a better server, you know)
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Ok, everybody pull your statsig links out of your signatures. Sorry. :(

I had the wiki up on the new server, and I just couldn't think of a good reason to keep running the old server. Unfortunately, there are some technical difficulties with the Breakfast off the Grid website, so I went ahead and just put up a page talking about it and let it go for now. I really wanted the upgraded (and theoretically secure) OS + Apache on the webserver, so I went with it. Hope I didn't make anybody mad by that.

I'll email swampy (or he'll email me) nd we'll figure out what we're going to do for a website. If any of you guys have any requests, suggestions or anything else, please open your mouths and start yakking.

I can't setup the game server right now because I ran out of power chords. Heh. I should have one more hanging around somewhere, but I'm not searching in the dark for it while my wife's asleep in that room. If I don't have one, then I'll need to wait until I get the mail thing worked out with no-ip, because then I can tear down that other computer until I'm ready to put it back up, which means I can use its power chord. Power chords won't be a problem after the thing is setup because it'll be headless and I can use the chord that's plugged into the staging monitor right now. But I'm pretty sure I have at least one more good power chord laying around.
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Ok, mail service is on, but I don't know if it's working. Can someone send me some mail at EDITED ? Please?

edit: nevermind, I realized after posting that I had enough mailling list subscriptions that I could send mail to any one of them and it would be returned to me from a different address (which was the problem, my own machines send mail through my mail server, heh).
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Ok, the game server machine is running, working on the game server. First the master server that's supposed to be on it, then the game server. With any luck, the Crack Pipe will be back up tonight. :)

Edit: I am so spoiled. I usually build armgetron on my laptop, with the Athlon MP 2100 in it. Now I'm building it on a PII 500mhz machine and it's taking forever. Heh. For the record, the master server builds in addition to whatever else you're building, so I went ahead and configured to build the dedicated server.
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Ok, the Crack Pipe is up in a square grid configuration. No map rotation yet, sorry. Working on that still.
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Phytotron
Formerly Oscilloscope
Posts: 5041
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2005 10:06 pm
Location: A site or situation, especially considered in regard to its surroundings.
Contact:

Post by Phytotron »

Yay, no maps! Heh.

What's the emoticon for covering my mouth with my hand? Is that the : X ?
User avatar
Your_mom
Match Winner
Posts: 653
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2004 1:45 am

Post by Your_mom »

your website is cloned where the wiki should be + someone added a couple spam links. Just giving you a heads up, good luck getting things together.
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Ah, thanks mom. I did that in my hydrocodone-induced frenzy. :( Fixed, now.
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
dlh
Formerly That OS X Guy
Posts: 2035
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2004 12:05 am
Contact:

Post by dlh »

There is some spam on the armagetron wiki, but I can't select it for a diff, or actually view the page. http://wiki.armagetronad.net/index.php/Help:Contents
User avatar
Jonathan
A Brave Victim
Posts: 3391
Joined: Thu Feb 03, 2005 12:50 am
Location: Not really lurking anymore

Post by Jonathan »

Yeah, something was screwed there. :o Fixed it.
ˌɑrməˈɡɛˌtrɑn
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

My own website is back up, mostly. I still have 29 articles and the user database to restore.
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Ok, almost finished, with my own site. The Breakfast off the Grid site is still down, though. Still talking to swampy about it. :) I'm very much favoring Drupal for it, so if he doesn't reply to my email in another week or so, I'll probably just throw Drupal in instead.

Still need to get mod_rewrite working on my webserver. Dont' know why it's not, though. :(

Anyway, couple of things. :) I added another news item on my site itself that's interesting if you've been waiting for me to finish my record. I also discovered an ogg file I thought was lost forever, and it's the only song so far restored to the website. I'm considering what to do with the rest (as the news item suggests).

Other thing is, CafePress is getting black t-shirts. They're only available to premium shops right now, but we'd been talking about that awhile back, if y'all remember. So if you want to see a black t-shirt, go buy enough stuff so I can upgrade one of the shops. :)

LInks:
http://www.cafepress.com/armabreakfast
http://www.cafepress.com/davefancella

Buy off the shop you want me to upgrade. And then I'll be happy to come up with some sort of cool black t-shirt we can have for Breakfasters. ;)
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Lucifer
Project Developer
Posts: 8640
Joined: Sun Aug 15, 2004 3:32 pm
Location: Republic of Texas
Contact:

Post by Lucifer »

Looks like the box I put the game server on is broken. :( Hard drive failure, most likely. I'll look into it some more.

I can put a zip drive in it and run a game server off that. Anybody have any idea how easy it is to run off a zip disc? I can also boot off a CD, if there were a live cd that worked. Any idea how easy it is to build custom knoppix or anything like that?

Otherwise, I'm looking at moving the game server back to the old machine. Since I got it locked down a bit more, this shouldn't be a big problem.

But I've got my last trig test tomorrow, finals next week. I'll try to throw on a new master server on that machine over the weekend, at least. Game server might take longer, though.
Image

Be the devil's own, Lucifer's my name.
- Iron Maiden
User avatar
Z-Man
God & Project Admin
Posts: 11585
Joined: Sun Jan 23, 2005 6:01 pm
Location: Cologne
Contact:

Post by Z-Man »

Lucifer wrote:Any idea how easy it is to build custom knoppix or anything like that?
My computer magazine makes cover CDs with virus scanners and stuff based on Knoppix on a regular basis, that's all I know. It may be more work than it's worth. If you don't have a use for the zip drive and a CD drive, why don't you use a regular Knoppix CD and put the additional stuff on the zip?
Post Reply