Server Upgrade

[Mike Bobbitt]

All,

Tonight I performed a fairly reaching server upgrade (Fedora Core 7 to 8 for the geeks out there). If you notice any problems with the site, please let me know.


Thanks
Mike

 

[Mike Baker]

Roger that Mike. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[slowmode]

Very nice, Thats the best one to use for websites .Ill be sure to report any problems

 

[tdwebste]

<Troll Bait>
Why not switch to debian and follow the continues upgrade approach?
<!Troll Bait>

I hope the sysadmin here can take a joke / poke.

So far I don't see any problems. I do see a very slight improvement in responsiveness.
I am assume you are using Nagios monitoring. As a system admin myself I am always a little curious what tools you are using under the hood to keep the engine running. Perhaps I may be able to help with with tools in your toolbox. At a recent past job I worked with/lead a team of admins. We remote administrated over 400+ servers and used net boot/installs as much as possible. Ya we use redhat, but the upgrades always were a task. We did try Fedora for a while, but found it to be redhat's beta ware for redhat enterprise. I find debian upgrades a little smoother and better tested. I am not happy at all with ubuntu's testing of server upgrades and upgrade strategy. On the other hand they do a great job configuring desktop environments.

Congratulates no major failurers yet. Upgrading from Fedora 7 to 8, is not something you can fall back.

 

[tdwebste]

Ah, the improvements are the result of my isp connection  ;D

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Hi tdwebste,

I haven't used Nagios before, but I'll sure check it out now. The honest answer about debian is: It's already working under Fedora. I've been a RedHat user from way back (I have RH3 disks here somewhere). I'm sure debian isn't hard to use and I hear a lot of good things about it... maybe next time I rebuild the server from the ground up I'll try it.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I often feel like I'm working on this stuff in isolation which is a recipie for making the wrong sysadmin decisions.

 

[Mike Baker]

Nothing weird here on my end Mike. Are there any other things your going to play around with for the site?

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

The playing never stops Mike.

 

[Mike Baker]

The playing never stops Mike.

;D Thats a good thing then.

 

[George Wallace]

I lost the site last night and then again about ten minutes ago.

 

[Mike Baker]

I lost the site last night and then again about ten minutes ago.

Same here George.

 

[Mike Baker]

And it happened again.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

I was working on another (different) upgrade this morning. Didn't get it finished, so I'll retry again at another time. Once this one's done it should be the last for a while.

 

[Roy Harding]

Mike - did email notifications get turned off during the upgrade?  I haven't received any since yesterday - I checked my profile and all is fine there.  (Email notifications are a valuable tool to me- they are how I keep up to date and know when to check in, however briefly, when I'm not on the site).

Roy

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Just tested, notifications work fine for me... anyone else having problems?

 

[George Wallace]

If it was in the last few minutes, I never even noticed.

 

[Roy Harding]

Just tested, notifications work fine for me... anyone else having problems?

I have been trying to solve this.  I had a look at my profile, which had MANY boards listed for notification, and yet - the information window at the bottom said I didn't have any boards/threads marked for notification.  When I "delisted" a thread, I was asked if I was sure I wanted to turn off notifications.

In an attempt to clear things up, I delisted ALL threads that had been marked for notification (there were over 36 pages - I have notifications turned on for threads I've posted/replied too - and have never cleaned these up before.)  Then, I marked a few boards and threads for notifications.  There have been postings on a couple of those threads since, and no emails received.  I also haven't received notification of PMs since Saturday (and I've received at least one since then) - BEFORE the server upgrade.

I'm at a loss - it's not my email program or ISP - all emails from OTHER sources are arriving correctly.  Related to the issue, the last "Report to Moderator" email I received was date/time stamped 02 Feb, 18:56 (PST), about the C9 rail mount thread - have there been no "Report to Mods" since then?

Roy

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Roy,

You're right, there's a problem, but it's neuther you nor me. Our server is sending the messages, but your ISP is rejecting them on your behalf with a "Service unavailable" message.

I suspect your ISP believes it to be spam. I couldn't find an e-mail address on their website, but if you know of one I can ask if they have our IPs blocked. Maybe they recently installed new filtering software and are still adjusting it.


Cheers
Mike

 

[Roy Harding]

Roy,

You're right, there's a problem, but it's neuther you nor me. Our server is sending the messages, but your ISP is rejecting them on your behalf with a "Service unavailable" message.

I suspect your ISP believes it to be spam. I couldn't find an e-mail address on their website, but if you know of one I can ask if they have our IPs blocked. Maybe they recently installed new filtering software and are still adjusting it.


Cheers
Mike

Thanks, Mike.

I'll handle it from this end.

 

[Mike Bobbitt]

Ok, let me know if you want me to talk to their tech folks. My guess is they have black/greylisted our IPs:

216.58.85.243
216.58.41.151

They should know what to do that that info.