I just got an email from my web host that I now have unlimited traffic, which means no worrying about overages and no worrying about extra fees. As a result... I've re-enabled the DVL mirror, DVL 1.5 is available here
You may have noticed that recent comments have disappeared. It appears that IntenseDebate.com is down, so I've disabled the plugin (otherwise my blog won't even load). This isn't the first issue I've had and I'm finally fed up. I don't get email notifications for all my comments, my site won't load when they are down and the site is slower to load because of their plugin. My only hope is that when their site comes back up I'll be able to dump the comments and import them into Wordpress.
The old site layout worked well for the last 2+ years, however I decided I needed something new. Certain lines were being cut off and I wanted to utilize page layout a little more.
Here's the result... using the iNove theme.
From the email:
We have the URLs for the new SBN site. You can access the site at http://www.securitybloggersnetwork.com or http://www.securitybloggers.net. Right now the site is simple, but we will build it up over time. Check it out and make sure your feed is displaying correctly -- but your blog title should be automatically generated by your RSS. Also, please do your best to promote the new site and feed, as traffic to it helps us all!
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I know I've been a little lazy when it comes to posting lately, but I plan on posting more going forward... hopefully anyways.
Howdy All,
My server has hit 2.5 days of uptime (I've had it for almost 2 weeks, and that's the most uptime it's had yet). I finally (after fighting with tech support) was able to get them to swap the hardware and I haven't had a segfault yet, even though they still insist it wasn't a hardware problem.
I was rather unimpresed with the quality of support I received (although it may finally be resolved), as I've always had great support from 1and1. This was my first time dealing with 'Dedicated Server' support and I wonder if it's a different group, because it was quite the different experience.
Anyways... not that it's up, I wanted to share something interesting that I'm seeing. I purchased a couple of extra IPs as some of my domains will use SSL and I've set this up using interface aliases on the server.
eth0 is the primary IP, and eth0:0 and eth0:1 are the secondary IPs. Here's where this gets to be interesting. eth0:0 is always used. If I specify an interface... it doesn't really matter because quite often that will be ignored.
Examples:
bind: listen-on was set to eth0, however my AXFR was occuring with eth0:0, I had to specify a transfer-source to solve the problem.
Wolfenstein Enemy Territory: I've specified the listen port as eth0:1, yet the only IP that you can connect to is the one assigned to eth0:0.
irssi: Regardless of the IP I specify with the -n flag, I still end up using eth0:0.
So... has anyone seen this before? I sure haven't and I can't find anything online. I'm wondering if there's a flag/setting somewhere that sets eth0:0 to be the primary interface... but I can't find it.
I had mentioned that there may be some downtime as I transitioned this site (and a number of my other sites) over to new servers. I'm starting to think that this will never happen. I mentioned the servers that I had ordered last week from 1and1 (a company who's service I've been impressed with for the past 5 years or so). The servers were prepared quicker than expected, one with CentOS 5 and one with Windows Server 2003. I began using CentOS 5, however I realized that I'm much more a fan of the Debian structure, so I requested a server reimaging with Debian 4.0. (1and1 has a reimage on command button with a wide range of images). I got my Debian server up and running and everything was going well.
Sudden, however, I couldn't SSH into it. I checked via console (you also get console access) and found that it was down. I rebooted and all was well. A day later the same thing happened. So now the server has crashed at least once every 24 hours, since I got it. On Friday I'd been going fine for a day and a half or so and suddenly it locked up again. Completely unresponsive. So I sent in a support ticket and received a response with the phone number for their 24 / 7 dedicated server support. I called and after a brief conversation was told that if my server had nothing important, they would have the hardware replaced and the machine reimaged. I'd have to reconfigure it again but that was all, so I said sure. A couple hours later I got an email saying it was ready to go, so I went through and configured it again Saturday morning. Saturday night, it hung yet again, so I decided their may be something wrong with their Debian system and went back to CentOS 5. I configured it (compiling nothing from source, and using only the yum repositories to ensure it wasn't software I installed). Yet this morning the server was down yet again. This time with libc related segfaults on the console during boot.
I called in and was rather unimpressed. I was told that since it wasn't hardware this wasn't the type of issue they deal with. I couldn't believe the response... it's their hardware, their image, their yum repository. I haven't obtained anything that they were not the source of, and they still wouldn't help. At this point, I'm pretty fed up... but at the same time I've received great customer service for so long. It's really disheartening. I recommend 1and1 to everyone I know and now it's blowing up in my face.
I've decided to give the server one more try (this time on Ubuntu -- my favourite Linux distro) and if it still fails then I'm going to walk away and start a letter writing campaign.
Hey All,
I just wanted to let everyone know that this website will be transitioning over the next few weeks (just in case their are any ups and downs along the way).
I was starting to hit the occasional database connection limit exceeded (the sole downside that I've found with my host is that connections are hardcoded at 18 and you can't pay to upgrade that limit). I also have a VPS, but I've found it just doesn't cut it for some of the shell related things that I want to do.
As a result I'm getting rid of the VPS and I picked up two servers, a 'Root Server' and a 'Windows Server'. I'm fairly happy that the costs are reasonable (compared with the other services that I looked at) and I liked the concept of one Windows, one Linux rather than 1 bigger server... Once I have all the software I want installed and everything configured, I plan on transitioning this blog to the 'Root Server'. Once there it will have it's own IP and associated SSL cert. I will also have a few test beds to play with.
Server Specs:
2.2Ghz AMD Athlon 64 3500+
1GB RAM
160GB w/ Software RAID 1
2TB Monthly Transfer (per server)
A few days ago I updated the site, and I must say... WP2.5 is awful... I'm actually disappointed that I had to upgrade. Having used typepad, WP, Greymatter, blogger and Serendipity... I was actually a really big fan of WP and thought it was about as good as they come. Now I'm not too sure about that. The user back end on 2.5 is awful... It's slower than the old UI was, it's not laid out nearly as conveniently (yes they made it less intuitive) and it's ugly... I realize it's an attempt to go more Web 2.0ish, but they failed miserably... In all the time that Wordpress has powered this blog, this is the first time I've been completely disappointed and considered moving to new software.
I use Google Apps. I'm a huge fan and I think it's amazing. The features that are made available free of charge, are really no different than the features any gmail user gets, except that you get to apply your own domain name. At least that's what I used to think. Several people I know have made reference to the addition of group chat to GoogleTalk Online (the GoogleTalk that's found within the Gmail Window)... This addition for some reason has not made it over to the version of GoogleTalk that is used if you are signed up for Google Apps.
So, if anyone at Google or that knows someone at Google, read this... please let me know why this feature hasn't made it over to Google Apps yet and if there are any plans for it to move over in the future.
I just installed the comment plugin from Intense Debate... It seemed to be a fairly painless install... I'm hoping that this post will tell me whether or not it's working. It looks like it's pretty cool, feel free to check it out on the Intense Debate website.