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Site Maintenance and Downtime

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Site News

The site was down in the early part of this morning due to maintenance/system software upgrades. It will go down again tonight at approximately the same time and for about the same length of time as I attempt to upgrade the cms.

The system software upgrades required the complete removal of mysql and all databases and then reimporting them, so I was left with no choice but to put tuxmachines offline. Being run on gentoo, this upgrade took some time to compile and install. So naturally, also due to being run on gentoo, required the rebuilding of many apps that depend on mysql. Sorry for the downtime.

The upgrade of mysql went well except now I can't seem to leave "cache" on. Cache was a drupal option that allowed the pages to be saved into and rendered from a cache that allowed for faster rendering of the site. Now if it is enabled, it seems my front page appears complete blank. I'm not sure if an upgrade of the cms will cure that.

With the release of drupal 4.7, I feel that the site cms should be brought more up to date. I've tried several times in the past to upgrade drupal from one major version to the next, but it always fails. I don't really hold out too much hope for success tonight.

I had a friend who liked the look and functionality of my site and asked if he should move his site to drupal. I told him, who might be considered still a bit of a newcomer, that I couldn't recommend it mainly for the disastrous upgrading process. It's a nightmare.

All in all, if I had it to do over again, I'm not sure I'd pick drupal or even gentoo on which to run a production server.

Anyway, wish me luck and if I'm down when you visit later, please check back.

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Re: Plan ahead but always try to change one variable at a time ?

atang1 wrote:

Like all Linux experts working for distros, one should never change or upgrade more than one software(program) at a time. Believe me, we learn that at MIT, when we do thermal dynamics problem solving.

If drupal is to be changed, keep Gentoo and mysql the same old versions.

If mysql is changed; keep drupal and Gentoo the same old versions.

If you change all three you need an extra server, just to import the data stored on repository(USB hdd) in another computer.

Well, I may wait til next weekend. I have my grandbaby over here tonight as it turns out, and I'm a little bit tired from being up too late working on mysql last night.

atang1 wrote:

Good luck. If you trust others too much, you maybe really disapointed; let time past and them earning your trust first.

Well, I'm almost locked into drupal. I'm thinking of converting all my original content into html and saving them as static html pages and maybe switching to xoops or something. But I had a good friend with a real popular site and they changed their cms and it seemed to cost them their "mojo." They never did get quite the same level of popularity back. I don't know. I like drupal and all, but I've been frustrated at their upgrades. Even minor versions break stuff from time to time. I wish I had known.

Re: You said something very important ?

atang1 wrote:

The format you have now, your users are familiar and can get what they want right away. Keep it up. We can build more readership by switching to another link(or server) for any new format. Or switch to a new link(format) on the new drupal 4.7 or even a ftp: for downloads.

I actually have ftp setup, and offer a few things from it. But I don't advertise it due to limits in bandwidth. But once in a while you might find a link in one of my stories to something on it. There are a coupla projects that I wish I could mirror or help out. Even if I changed to an offsite host, there's the problem of space and most don't offer anonymous ftp.

atang1 wrote:

Sometimes old software that had been locked down makes life easier.

But experimentation is fun, and more links to separate servers will make life interesting.

Be happy with what you already have, then we can explore more opportunities? Don't change simplicity, but add-on or plug-in. Do you need another server, that can also distribute your load a little bit?

I'm actually satisfied with the current version of drupal. There isn't any of the new features I crave too much. I'm just afraid they'll stop offering security updates for my current version.

had a backup/slave server for a while for slave dns and sendmail, but I had problems perfecting the automated site mirroring. However, it was moot. I realize that the combination of apache, php, and mysql does tend to eat up a systems resources under heavy load, that too was a secondary consideration as I always ran out of bandwidth first anyway when being /.'d, digg'd, or osnews'd.

atang1 wrote:

Footnote:
Small website here can grow but please don't lose any features.

I have found modules for the newer version for all the features I currently have, so I believe we wouldn't lose any functionality.

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