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This afternoon around 13:00 GMT, NAO will be moved to a new server. Expect some minor outages and a maintenance period which (hopefully) won't last too long. You'll be informed once the move has been completed and everything should work as expected again. If after that you still encounter any problems, please let us know.
Further details will be posted when available.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

If you can read this, NAO is up and running on the new server.
If you cannot read this, see an optician.

PS, I bet my connection to the new server is faster than yours. :-P

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

This post was edited by null on Dec 26, 2004.

Congrats on the switch-over!

Of course, if your connection truly is better, you have to understand that you'd be outdoing Americans in something, which means that the Department of Vaterland Homeland Security is already sending over a strikeforce to deal with the situation.

Thbbbbt

Congrats on the switch-over!

Thanks. :-) I suppose the fact that people have successfully logged since the switch is an indicator that it works.

Of course, if your connection truly is better, you have to understand that you'd be outdoing Americans in something,

Well, the main reason my connection is better is that the new server is part of my apartment-internal LAN, so unless they bombard my Ethernet switch there's not much they could do. :-) But I'm pretty unworried since there aren't any oil resources worth mentioning in my apartment.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

This post was edited by null on Dec 26, 2004.

new server is part of my apartment-internal LAN,

How fast is your uplink? I'm curious because I have some websites running from my own personal server on a DSL connection. Since NAO gets alot of hits per day I'd like to know how much bandwidth you have for the uplink. I planned on putting a message board on one of my sites but haven't yet. I'd like to first figure out if the bandwidth I have could support the kind of hits that NAO regularly gets.

Is this server running FreeBSD?

Since NAO gets alot of hits per day I'd like to know how much bandwidth you have for the uplink.

At present I have 300 'real' kbps, i.e. 37.5kB/s, which could be upgraded to up to 800kbps with the current modem. For speeds above that I'd probably have to order a fiber connection. Since most of NAO's traffic is text, mod_gzip achieves compression rates of about 66%, effectively doubling or tripling the actual bandwidth. So far it's more than enough to for NAO and a couple of other (low-traffic) sites hosted on the same server.

Is this server running FreeBSD?

Of course. :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

At present I have 300 'real' kbps

Cool, that's what I have currently. And it's reassuring that this will be plenty for now. My websites are extremely low traffic at the moment and have no online forum type stuff. Is mod_gzip installed by default in Apache? I need to look into this.

Is this server running FreeBSD?

Of course. :-)

[/cite]

FreeBSD is awesome but I don't know the first thing about it. I'm thinking of moving my linux server to NetBSD 2.0 which I'm really liking from my initial tests of it.

Is mod_gzip installed by default in Apache?

Hmmm, AFAIK it depends on the installation. FreeBSD has this really cool ports system which has built me Apache with tons of modules, but I need to manually enable each module in httpd.conf if I want to use it.
If the extra CPU usage can be tolerated, I absolutely recommend using mod_gzip - even if you have a multi-gigabit connection which doesn't require it, you'll still make low-bandwidth clients happy.

FreeBSD is awesome but I don't know the first thing about it.

Well, first and foremost the choice of an OS is of course a question of religious wars personal preference. :-)
I for one am extremely happy with FreeBSD. I can't praise its firewall or package/ports manager enough. Installation/upgrade and system administration use a central (text-mode) menu-driven utility. There's a man page for everything. It's very secure yet not as paranoid as OpenBSD... and Google has a HOWTO for everything you might ever want to do with your system.
But, as noted above, it's primarily a matter of taste. :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

I for one am extremely happy with FreeBSD.

Which version do you run? I downloaded 5.3 incase I get the itch to install it. Right now I'm trying to learn NetBSD 2.0, the damn firewall software for Unix/Linux is complicated. I spent hours last night trying to tune my linux box. Now I have to spend hours trying to figure out ipf on NetBSD. I really think I have no understanding of firewalls. It's easier to code C++ than it is to configure a firewall.

Maybe we can chat about firewall settings and how to configure it properly. I can't seem to get anything from reading the docs.

Which version do you run?

At present, 4.8-RELEASE (with a custom kernel of course).

Now I have to spend hours trying to figure out ipf on NetBSD.

There's an (IMHO) good tutorial on how to set up a NetBSD box as a router/firewall, including a more or less complete sample ipf.conf. Its only downside is that it's in German... but tell me if you need something translated. :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

There's an (IMHO) good tutorial on how to set up a NetBSD box as a router/firewall, including a more or less complete sample ipf.conf. Its only downside is that it's in German... but tell me if you need something translated. :-)

I appreciate the info. There is alot of info out there from my searches. The only problem is that firewalls on unix are insanely complex and it's hard to know if you are secure or not. At least in my feable attempts at configuring iptables on Linux.

FreeBSD 4.8, sounds nice. Do you only use this box as a server or do you do work on it as well? I'm interested in using either OpenBSD or NetBSD as a desktop/personal server. I'm having issues at the moment with getting Firefox 1.0 to work stable. When it comes to Unix I have very little needs. My only real need is to have a browser that is current and functional (no special plugins but flash would be nice).

The only problem is that firewalls on unix are insanely complex

Heck, yeah. :-P

I've found it quite useful to have nmap available on an external system. Whenever I change my firewall config, I can ssh into a friend's box and run a full-fledged port scan against my machine. (And vice versa, he uses my machine to scan his.)

Do you only use this box as a server or do you do work on it as well?

It's used exclusively as a server. It offers HTTP, FTP, SMB and mail services on my LAN, and HTTP to the whole world. It also hosts my MP3/movie/software collection. My workstation is a (rather old) 1GHz Athlon with Windows 2000/Mandrake 10.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

I just realized this is nulls first thread here (News Comments). Just get the rights?

Anyway, how is BSD different from linux on the kernel level?

I should be ashamed of myself.

This post was edited by Aynjell on Jan 01, 2005.

I just realized this is nulls first thread here (News Comments). Just get the rights?

Nope, only Jaz may post new stuff in the News forum.
Which doesn't mean I can't post in any open forum and then use my magical powers to move that post into a restricted forum. :-P

Anyway, how is BSD different from linux on the kernel level?

It's a wholly different OS. Kernel-wise, they have different architectures and do many things in different ways.
Development-wise, the main difference is probably this: while Linux is being developed by all kinds of people all over the world and one guy decides which changes make it into future versions, the FreeBSD kernel is being maintained and developed by a relatively closed group of experts.
While Linux supports more devices, FreeBSD tries to make the devices that are supported as stable as possible. You won't find as many experimental drivers for FreeBSD as there are for Linux.

FreeBSD is a (surprise) BSD-style system, while most Linux distributions lean more towards System V (e.g. concerning startup scripts).

You may have heard that FreeBSD is much stabler, faster and has way better SMP (multiprocessing) that Linux. For all I know this used to be true a few years ago, but in the meantime Linux has gained much ground, or so I've heard. I don't know how they compare to each other in their most recent versions (it probably depends on who does the testing). What I personally like about FreeBSD is that it's a very mature and thought-out system, designed from the ground up to be clean and consistent (there's exactly one version of FreeBSD, you don't have to worry about different distros or package managers). It offers some unique features (kern.securelevel, jail, dummynet) I just haven't seen in other systems.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

Nope, only Jaz may post new stuff in the News forum.
Which doesn't mean I can't post in any open forum and then use my magical powers to move that post into a restricted forum. :-P

Dude, why didn't you tell me. I didn't even know that :) You can post now.

'Yeah, That's what Jesus would do. Jesus would bomb Afghanistan. Yeah.' - snowlion

Dude, why didn't you tell me.
You can post now.

I never needed it... but thanks :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

mod_gzip achieves compression rates of about 66%,

Is there a way to test my configuration to see the compression ratio? I'm using Apache 2.x and mod_deflate. I'm not sure how much different if any this will be to mod_gzip with Apache 1.x. I read the mod_deflate docs on apache.org but still don't know if I have it configured correctly as that page only gives you suggestions. Which really seems like more and more docs I keep reading, they can't give you real advice, just suggestions.

Is there a way to test my configuration to see the compression ratio?

Well, I'm using Apache 1.3.x with mod_gzip, and I have it configured as follows (all in httpd.conf):

Load module

LoadModule  gzip_module  /usr/local/libexec/apache/mod_gzip.so

Module configuration

<IfModule mod_gzip.c>
    mod_gzip_on                 Yes
    mod_gzip_dechunk            Yes
    mod_gzip_temp_dir           /var/mod_gzip
    mod_gzip_minimum_file_size  300
    mod_gzip_maximum_file_size  0
    mod_gzip_maximum_inmem_size 100000
    mod_gzip_keep_workfiles     No
    mod_gzip_item_include       file    .cgi
    mod_gzip_item_include       file    .pl
    mod_gzip_item_include       file    .php
    mod_gzip_item_include       mime    application/x-httpd-php
    mod_gzip_item_include       mime    application/x-httpd-php-source
    mod_gzip_item_include       mime    text/*
    mod_gzip_item_exclude       mime    image/*
    mod_gzip_item_exclude       file    .js
    mod_gzip_item_exclude       file    .css
    mod_gzip_min_http           1001
</IfModule>

Define logfile format (default format + "mod_gzip: xxpct.")

LogFormat  "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" mod_gzip:
%{mod_gzip_compression_ratio}npct." combined_gzip

(All in one line)

Set my logfile format as active

CustomLog /usr/local/apache/logs/access_log combined_gzip

Each entry in the logfile then includes the compression ratio (if any).

I can't tell you anything about Apache 2.x with mod_deflate.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

oil resources worth mentioning in my apartment.

[sarcasm]Ah yes, but think of the profit Halliburton could make off of selling your ethernet at inflated prices?[sarcasm] :P

Man, I can't wait until Fall 2k5 when I go off to Texas A&M (for the Viz Lab as a masters after I get my bachelors in CS) where they give you gigabit ethernet in your dorm room/apartment if (a) You've got a gigabit card and (b) you write them a letter telling them why you need it.

Also, what's cool, our local cable service (the behemoth COX, so not so local, eh?) upgraded their southern networks, so now we can upgrade our cable service to 'bout 4mbps download, and 'bout 1mb upload I think.

Pistol Grip Pump In My Lap At All Times

Ah yes, but think of the profit Halliburton could make off of selling your ethernet at inflated prices?

I really don't think it would be worth the hassle. :-)

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

Leave it to you techno-geeks to totally complicate the discussion of anything related to computers into code.

You all get your factor raised another 20 points.

I'm a bit geek myself, but I just have to say I hope the site runs better, whereever it may physically be.

I'll bet that just took 5 years off my life--but GODDAMM if it wasn't worth every second

Leave it to you techno-geeks to totally complicate the discussion of anything related to computers into code.

Well normally I wouldn't have thought twice about it. However what is happening here is quite similar to my situation at home. I've got a static IP, fast DSL connection and I have Linux on my server at the moment (with 3 low traffic websites). I'm kinda bored with Linux at the moment so I wanted to change things a bit. Since Null is also a techy I wanted to ask him what he was using. I know absolutely no tech unix geeks in real life. Hell, all the people I know don't even know what unix is. They are clueless Windows appliance users. I don't say that as an insult, just as an observation of what Microsoft has done to the casual computer user. They've turned them into an internet appliance user (not a geek and not security concious), But I digress....

Well, NAO has been running on the new server for nine days now. So far people can still log in, and I haven't heard of any problems. Do you notice any differences in performance or availability, or are there any problems I haven't heard of yet? If you're having troubles reaching or using NAO, please let me know so I can take care of it or forward it to Jaz.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

NOO!! I was in the middle of writing something! and then my computer decided to screw up!!! But that's not NAO's fault. I just thought you might like to know :P

"I'm free to say whatever I, whatever I like if it's wrong or right, it's alright."

I was in the middle of writing something! and then my computer decided to screw up!

Ooh, I'm sorry to hear that! I hope you've saved it or can at least reconstruct it?

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

If you're having troubles reaching or using NAO, please let me know so I can take care of it or forward it to Jaz.

Aynjell and I have seem sporadic delays and time outs from our end. This hasn't happened for about 2 days now but I figured I'd report it. I cannot be sure it was happening on your end. There are alot of factors that have to be met for a webpage to be served up across 3000 miles of ocean and probably 1000 miles of land (shortest distance).

Just thought I'd let you know. Throw that possibility into the water. Anyone seen any random time outs or denials of service?

Aynjell and I have seem sporadic delays and time outs from our end. This hasn't happened for about 2 days now but I figured I'd report it.

Noted, thanks. :-)
I had to reset the modem this weekend because it seemed to be dropping packets. This may have been the cause of your problem. Fortunately this doesn't happen very often, and I'm in the process of developing a watchdog so the server can automatically power-cycle the modem if the connection dies, and I can check/reset everything with my cellphone.

Please let me know if you experience any longer major outages and I'll take care of the problem ASAP.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

I think the move was pretty good, and I don't see any problems at all except that the images take an extra second to load now.

I am mainly talking about the top NAO banner. On the previous site, it used to come up in a flash, but now it takes an extra second, and I see blank space for that time, every time I visit NAO. And, I have noticed this behaviour on almost all the computers I have used to access NAO, all having various connections speeds. Not sure if anyone else is having this issue.

Love is blind, but marriage is a real eye opener.

and I don't see any problems at all

Thank you, that's exactly the stuff I want to hear. :-)

As a matter of fact, the situation you describe is exactly what I've expected. The old server was located in Pennsylvania (i.e. relatively close to most of you overseas people) and had a 100Mbit 'net connection, which means you could download anything at full speed.
The new server is located in Switzerland and has a waay slower connection but plenty of CPU power needed for future versions of NAO. Basically we traded connectivity for processing power with this move. You may well feel the effects of the slower connection on the images. The actual pages shouldn't be significantly delayed tho.

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

Hm ... would it be possible to create, let's say ... something of a fall-back or so, only for the US folks? kind of a mirror or bridge?

btw: would the NAO API that good to be able to write a post in an external app and insert it in here? this possibly would help to avoid stuff that has happened to eg. rosyxxx (as mentioned in some other place).

cu, w0lf.

Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign for a diseased mind!

would it be possible to create, let's say ... something of a fall-back or so, only for the US folks?

You see, the last server was located in the USA and had excellent connections all over the country, so the US NAOees were pretty spoiled. :-) It's only natural that they'd notice some decrease in speed. (In exchange, the page now loads much faster from where I work, which is the most important thing, right? :-P )
The problems some people describe shouldn't occur tho. I'm currently investigating the matter. The first outage I attribute to a misbehaving bot (the network returned to normal soon after blocking the msnbot IP range), but the others are more difficult, considering they don't seem to affect everybody (which would clearly hint at network problems at my place).

"*sigh* Some men are really hard to manipulate!" - Orchid

You may well feel the effects of the slower connection on the images

The whole thing is definitly loading slower for me. Not too badly before, but tonight, very, very bad. :p I don't feel like switching to the damned text only version. I guess there probably isn't much you can do about it though. :|

But I haven't lost any posts. Except for one instance a few days ago where it wouldn't load for a period of time, everything has worked ok.

Edit: Ok, it's working normal speed now. And I noticed the damnest thing: when waiting for it to load when it was going slowly, I realized it went faster if I ran the cursor over links without clicking on them. (???)

But I can't find no place or nothin', where thrills are cheap, and love is divine

This post was edited by Bunk on Jan 08, 2005.

As for my kitty, well, xenomorphs take what they can get. A kitty-alien wouldn't be too bad. There was a dog alien in Alien 3!

Anyway, I'm curious as to why that is as well. It seems weird. Maybe it's cannuck dial-up thing?

I should be ashamed of myself.

There was a dog alien in Alien 3!

That's ridiculous... is that movie any good? I've heard it sucks compared to the first two (Aliens was excellent IMO).

Anyway, I'm curious as to why that is as well. It seems weird. Maybe it's cannuck dial-up thing?

I have no idea why, but I doubt it's something so general. It might be related to my browser settings (which I am far too lazy to investigate ;p).

But I can't find no place or nothin', where thrills are cheap, and love is divine