… is server notices chiming, then chiming its all clear.
Part of the nightly server “to-do” it checks for upgrades to base systems which is not a problem usually (well one time before.. but we won’t go there) - the issue tonight was that cPanel 11 was released (well Stage 1, 2 is in 2 weeks), and in pushing the MASSIVE upgrade to servers which I do optionally, cPanel put the system upgrades for mail and such into the Release Tree - and whammo - all servers got their mail systems upgraded - however I had not yet done the cPanel pre-flight checklist as I was going to wait a few days.
So needless to say, I got my butt in the chair, and began looking to see what needed to be done to fix the issue - and I think I got it all squared away, minus the friends server which has no one on it, its really my testing box, where I was trying out cPanel 11 - the pre-flight checklist suggested some system updates and such, of which I had made a list this afternoon on what to do, and was going to mess with it Friday on a low-profile server that was production, however the upgrade required me to give it a live test grounds - but I am happy to say, some perl tweaks and upgrades later, servers are working good.
I went ahead and pushed the cPanel 11 upgrade stage 1, and most customers will wake up to a shiny new cPanel interface, I haven’t enabled things like Ruby on Rails -or- WebDav just yet, going to ease those updates in over the next few days, I already have a side server testing the release push of RoR - and WebDAV while active, isn’t open on the firewall just yet, maybe a few will be by morning, but all depends on how much energy I have 
So there ya have it, you wake up one day to find things a tad crazy, but in the end, its all good. If your having issues, please drop me a note/comment - and I’ll get you squared away - but chances are if your having the issues, others are too - I’ll be working on it - prayers appreciated 
Anywhoo - thats my bit for now, going to fiddle a bit more and see what I can tweak/get tuned up - have a good Wed. folks.
Posted on 6 June '07 by Chuck Brown, under work. No Comments.
Well some things came across my desk about a week ago with some potential on a new hosting platform which could really benefit both myself in the realm of time spent monitoring servers to the size of accounts customers could have - and needless to say I was stoked. The profit margin was nice, and would give me a little pad in the pocket to help pay off some investment bills in the company, and also have some for savings - so I wanted to get a test drive in to see how this wonderful system worked!
It didn’t.
Even with several positive reviews by companies I trust, I must say my experience has been anything but stellar, and I recall now all the reasons, that I decided to get going in hosting myself. Many functions were simply not there, things were made more complicated by not having features like PHP running in Suexec mode, and shotty FTP server which at times even prevented me from deleting files - and this new “control panel” functionality was very much lacking, and I found myself barely 9 hours in, regretting putting down the money to test the system, so I emailed the company asking for a refund, as even this morning similar issues were still around, and I am still barely 24 hours in.
So what I had hoped would be a nice benefit to myself, my customers, was indeed too good to be true, and thus I am back where I started, a few other avenues I plan to explore of course, as the world of hosting tech is always changing, and while I am very blessed with my current setup, I am always wanting something more for my customers, more stability, more enhanced infrastructure, etc. and while I would love to sink another couple 10’s of thousands of dollars into totally revamping things, I simply don’t have the money to throw that into, with the above system, it was set, it was created, you just leased the space - so much cheaper than doing it myself.
So the search continues, I really want to find a system that I can migrate customers to that will give them the greatest benefit, and I can provide them with greater resources, security, stability, and value, granted there are hosts out there now officially offering terabytes of storage space - I would at this point settle for giving customers standard sizes like 500MB and 1GB for affordable pricing, but sadly for now, that’s a ways away it seems.
The day goes on, aside from work research, had a fun dinner with Dan last night, tonight I have a meal with Kynan, and Wed. I have a meal with some un-named people possibly (long story) - but things are going good, getting some fair personal time in too, so trying to find/keep that balance of work/play Anywhoo - 9am, back to it, been up since 6am… ah the joys of being me Have a Good Tuesday Folks.
So its been one of those month’s thus far, heck since I aged, things have been nuts. Let’s see, first extended downtime on the new servers (boy that happened early), overdrawn at the bank due to a billing mishap (billed 6 days early, 2 checks come in tomorrow that would of covered it all), sleep messed up, brain over-thinking again. Ah the joys of my life
All in all after today things feel better - parents helped out some cover the overages at the bank which helped a lot, brother offered to help as well keep me from getting more and more in the hole with overdraft - just one of those horrible timing things, but I have $33 in the bank, and in a few days even more, which still leaves me to pay back my parents but just crazy, plus messed up sleep probably really made it worse than it really was, as much as I don’t sleep, after several weeks of high stress, emotions, etc. sleep is one thing I really have to get caught up on.
Also started a project today, I need to work on it some tonight, this project isn’t work related, isn’t even friend related - this is me working on something I should of months ago, but with my crazy life, one thing pops up, then another, but made some awesome progress, going to work a bit more tonight/this morning - whatever this magical hour is - and then in the AM head to the office for a bit, and call more on this bill, and see what I can get ironed out.
So hopefully things with my budget level out, get a few extra bucks in the PayPal, make it through taxes (gonna be a pain this year, 2 1099’s), and hopefully figure out what the heck my brain is thinking on a few life choices, then put them to prayer and the ol heart (cuz this head over thinks things too much) - but thats me in a nut shell, tired, exhausted, tad insane (you all knew that though) but alive and blessed. Off to my project. Night!
What a month, what a crazy couple of months - not saying its bad, just taking a toll to say the least, mentally, physically, emotionally - and the newest, financially - but its all settling out, slowly but surely, but I’d really love a nap, a cold drink, and a swimming pool.
So why am I awake? Oh the usual old story with me, I took a nap trying to get a headache to stop, and woke up rested, but of course, way off schedule in the realm of normal hours and sleep, and of course with once again a almost fully functional brain that is doing what it likes to do - think (stoopid brain!) so here I sit, sipping a glass from the bottle, my poison of choice, Martinelli’s Sparkling Cider - oh yes, I know how to roll.
But today brings some possible good news I hope, get to see if a new company I am dealing with will be good to work with long term and are business people that are honorable - if not, probably time to find a alternative - just one of those things in business I suppose - probably not a major deal, but just one of those things.
Can’t decide now to goto sleep, go for a drive, go for a walk, or just sit here pondering what to do with my day - part of me wants to make it a day around the house, catch up on some laundry, maybe re-arrange the room a bit, and make it a tad more livable - who knows…. time shall tell. Have a Good Tuesday All.
Well I can’t say it was all bad, it was a rough patch or three, but I appear today to be alive and things are working good - but sadly this weekend left me exhausted (not just because of the server stuff) - but there were some positives after all things were said and done.
Got to goto the movies, which was nice, relaxed a bit, enjoyed a good flick, heck even had some nancho’s I mean that in itself should be a good day (they were tasty), but then it was bashed away by servers on Saturday night - but things got ironed out, and life was happy again in the early AM of Sunday so I crashed out, and slept fair.
Sunday I woke up was playing a bit when my sister called me to tell me about the Target Ad which had the Nintendo Wii on sale for CONSOLE ONLY (which is what I had wanted) for $250, I called my local target and they had “plenty” so I rushed over (only a 10m drive tops) and got there and picked up the Wii, and Wii Play - so I have 2 Wii motes! But its super fun, and was just sitting down to a game of pool with my dad when the phone got txt’d like crazy - all servers down. The previous night’s issue from upstream found its way to ALL the servers 
So Sunday evening I got it ironed out, got to talk with the right dept. and got tons of apologies for them not taking proper actions to inform me that a client was running a spoof’d banking site aka a Phishing site - so with the servers brought back up, and the bad site taken down, life was once again happy, I hit the Wii to take out some of the extra adrenaline in my system then crashed out - but none the less, I am exhausted - might be from the Wii, but I am leaning more towards it being from the frustration from the servers - that really tends to take a lot of out me.
Anywhoo - here we are in a new week, I am emailing the management team of my upstream, with recent changes, I want to be sure the upper-ups know what is going on, and see about getting some credits on my account - but time will tell, but I am already looking for another provider for backup, I want to be sure to keep folks clear/running smooth - and not have to have entire servers of folks suffer because one site’s scripts were out of date.
Prayers are appriciated, I am just ready to fall over and fall asleep here at this desk - but there are things to do! So I am off to do them. Have a Good Day Folks!
Well Saturday is done. Not to say I didn’t have some fun, and finally get to unwind a bit, but the evening finished up with a server going down for an extended period, and working with the upstream to find the issue, which in the end was a high-level core firewall accidentally had started blocking my IP for no reason that was on file. So internal network wise, I could see it from the other servers and vice versa, however the outside world could not see it.
So 6 hours was the final count (more or less, 5.8 hours) which is not good, so the upstream is putting in some safeguards to prevent this from happening again, at the very least the two of us are notified of a block - it could of been something silly like a rouge script, or a client needs to update a script, but if we know what’s causing the issue, I can suspend a site till things are fixed up.
But my Saturday had some fun, I had hoped to have a dinner with some friends who missed my birthday shin-dig, but no one called - my sister invited me to the movies went and saw Freedom Writers - twas a good flick - just wish my entire day was as fun as watching a movie
I need to unwind and fall-asleep, part of me wants to watch the server a bit more, but I’m gonna hand it over to God … and take a nap. Prayers appreciated, hopefully life calms down soon, or I get a little more umph.
Posted on 4 March '07 by Chuck Brown, under work. No Comments.
No really, I am excited about the moves - modern hardware, up-to-date software - but there are minor glitches to be had, things that would be most common would be path’s, if customers had /home2 - that is now /home - Frontpage users are always a concern as its configurations NEVER update properly in a migration.
DNS however is synced up nice a pretty, goes across 3 servers, and a hotspare - so DNS requests should be even faster, updated mail systems, etc. etc. - going to be very nice, with a newer batch of servers in the works around July if business perks up - so lots of cool stuff on the horizon.
I have a ’service call’ tomorrow, not excited about that, but it could play out nicely, it may suck worse than I imagine it will - this call was more or less thrown on me, not offered, apparently since I own 2 Mac’s and have fixed up one or two in my time, that certifies me to repair entire networks of Mac’s - ah the joys of me being there to pick up someone’s mess (long story).
Anywhoo - not sure I’ll be blogging the next few days, prayers are appreciated - hopefully each day goes smoothly, might do one move tonight - just so much to do, so little time Friends hosting with me on Homestar, heads up, move is happening tomorrow night @ 8PM (PST).
Hope you all have a good week/weekend - see you in 6 days, when hopefully life is back to normal, and things are movin on up.
