Upgrading Server

I'm planning of upgrading one of the server i maintain on my office. It's Slackware-based, so the upgrade process will be easy and straightforward since i have been using the same procedure over years and it's working on all of my machines that i used.

The only problem is the applications inside the server that needs to be checked with newer version, especially the web applications. Hopefully there won't be any major problem and i could have a safe and enjoyful upgrade.

Bandwidth Cap

I think my server got a huge traffic today, so i decided to even decrease the limit of connection available to public users on working hours so that the bandwidth is more utilized for the students that might be using the server.

Thanks to mod_bw, it's easy to configure such thing and even better, with some help of BASH and Crontab, i can even make it more flexible because once it's set up, they can work on themselves without having me to set up every day.

Fair Bandwidth Usage

In order to provide fair bandwidth usage to community and to the school that provides the bandwidth, i decided to make some changes into the server that i currently manage. I know some people will be annoyed by this change, but it's something i must do since the top priority of the server is to provide facilities for students.

Minimizing rsync connection
In the past, i didn't give any limit to the rsync connection. Some people abuse this service and use all of the bandwidth provided. So, right now, i reduced it to 10 connections max. When that number reached, you will have to wait.

No ISOs at rsync
ISOs are no longer included in the rsync collections. Everything now comes down to repositories only. ISO should be downloaded directly via HTTP which has it's own bandwidth limiter during office hours (7 AM - 5 PM, Indonesian Time)

Monitor Closely
I have added the logging transfer options so that i can monitor what has been transfered to the public. The purpose of this repository is to help people to get packages easier and faster. If there's no one using it, i might shut down the repository and change to others that might be in high demand.

Removed Fedora and sorted repository list
I have removed Fedora on my repository list for some time, but i forgot to delete it from rsync list. Now, it's gone and the list has been sorted in ascending orders.

Renamed repository list
I have changed the slackbuilds.org repository into slackbuilds so that it's simpler and shorter. For those who used this server to sync with SlackBuilds, please update your rsync script as soon as possible.

Migrating Server

Yesterday, i moved one of my server on my campus to another ISP (we used two ISPs) because the other ISP had a hardware problem and they couldn't fix the problem within acceptable time frame (it's number two biggest ISP in this country ). The strange thing was that this server is still accessible from outside, but unable to connect to other site.

Since this server hosts several important sites, i had to react quickly and moved the server to the other ISP and since then, i have to wait for at least 24 hours for the DNS entries get propagated around the world. Right now, they are back to normal business and i can start updating my repositories back again

Second Virtual Server

I built a virtual server on top of VirtualBox last year with some hope that the students can take advantage of it if they need a LAMP server for a spesific subject related to web development. I didn't really think about it because at first, i only wanted to try the headless installation article that i saw on one of ID-Slackware's member blog post. The server was up and running up to now and it has been used on several course, including for final project as well.

Since Slackware 13.37 has been released, i wanted to build another virtual server using the new Slackware 13.37, so this morning, i decided to make a new one. It's up and running now and it has almost the exact configuration as the first one, except that i make it more up to date for the applications and libraries installed on it.I also allocate more space on it, so that it could be occupied by more and more students project.

One note about this new installation is that it's the first time i used XFS as the default filesystem for all of the partition (except for swap). I heard a lot of article and benchmarking said that XFS is a nice FS for server, so i wanted to try this one, so i used it as the default. For now, i can't see the results yet, as there are no projects or loads, but there will be soon enough.

If you are curious about the server, you can take a look the spec here.

Maintaining Server

I have a new side job today, which is maintaining one of the server on my campus. It's a powerful server with Intel i7 and 3 GB as the backend. It's running Slackware 12.2 and it was previously installed and configured by my colleague.

My first task today is reconfiguring PHP so that it could load GD library. I solved this problem by removing php packages from Slackware's packages using removepkg and start compiling PHP from source. It's the best option to get optimum PHP package according to our need. Since it uses i7, the compilation process was very fast and i was really surprised to see how fast it is, even though i was watching the process on ssh session.

I like this new job