[rocksmyfaceoff.info]

Sounds like a broken record, I know; thankfully, the nice folks at ConfigServer gave us a 20% discount on the tuning they do for us because we just had it done 10 days ago. [I didn't even ask for it; they just did it. They rock.]

As a result, I expect that the tuning will happen tonight. In conjunction with the changes already made [we're now running Apache2 and PHP5], they’re going to upgrade MySQL to 5.0 from 4.1. There really shouldn’t be any issues with that, but if you use a database-based application and have problems after the upgrade, let me know and I’ll help you work them out. [WordPress, SMF, and phpBB are all abstracted enough that I really doubt it'll matter.]

ConfigServer’s based in the UK, so any downtime would be late Monday evening into early Tuesday morning.

• There won’t be another backup run at 11:30 tonight. Not enough time for it to be completed. #
• Account restorations are underway and are approximately 40% done by account count [not by time spent]. Will update as progress is made. #
• Some, but not all, of the IP’s have been reallocated. I’ll finish the rest ASAP. #

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Everything should be up and running now.

Please let me know if not.

Services may be wonky … report it and I’ll look after it.

Going to nap now.

I’ve nearly completed the command line work for restoring all accounts. Because I’m at work, I haven’t completed the IP re-allocation work. I’m going to try to sneak home here at lunch and do that, but it may be later this afternoon before I can perform this. Your data appears to have survived; I just have to get it all back up and online.

Thank you for your continued patience.

Update 1505: All the accounts have been unpacked. Most of the IPs have been re-allocated, but not all. I’ll finish that this evening, and then we ought to be back up and running. I’m going home to see my folks in the morning, rather than tonight, so … I should be able to finish everything.

Well, I got the system to where I could restore an account, and I chose GFMorris.net only because it has all my notes about the last setup of this server. It came up just fine! Huzzah.

I’m getting the backups moved to the appropriate directory so I can try to restore them via the command line. The issue is going to be the IP allocation, because all accounts start off on the main server IP, and only rocksmyfaceoff.net lives there given how I configured the server this time. Reconfiguring the IP requires WHM access, which, as stated, I don’t have at the office.

But things are looking up …

Update, 0958 CST: I dialed in to my TC from my office [rather than the conference room] and have been able to restore around half of the accounts. However, IP configurations will have to wait until I have some offsite access, but I may try to sneak home at lunch and do that if possible. I’d try it with the iPhone, but WHM uses frames, and … ugh, frames on the iPhone stink on ice.

After some hiccups with the datacenter—which I’ll be addressing with them this morning—the operating system is installed on the new primary hard drive and cPanel/WHM is configured. I’m configuring WHM before heading to the office, and I’ve had /backup remounted to the machine, and all the data appears to be intact. I’m very happy about that, obviously.

Given the hiccups with the datacenter, I’m not sure how quickly I’ll be able to bring the server online, because I don’t have access to the ports for WHM from work. [I'm firewalled.] Also, today’s a busy day on my calendar, so I won’t have a lot of time to issue commands with one eye from time to time. I don’t expect much, if anything, to be back up and running today, given how things have shaken out.

Thank you for your continued patience.

• Update posted. #
• Dear datacenter: Thanks for a 160GB HD to replace the 120GB that was dying. But couldn’t you have dumped the other user’s data first? #

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I’ve started the backup process on the server. It should finish in an hour or two. I’ll move those backups over to a second directory and do another backup around 11:30 p.m. this evening [depending on how long this one takes, it may start earlier] so that I have every last bit of data saved up.

Again, you’re still encouraged to do your own backups. Doing your own means not having to be mad when your site goes down in flames.

Meanwhile, I’m off to the pub…

Update, 2215 CST: The backups are just about to finish, so there’s NO way they’ll finish a second time. We’ll just have to go with what we’ve got here from the 1800 backup. I will make a couple selected backups on top of these, and … that’ll have to be it.

Mom told me to stay here tomorrow night if I needed to do so to get the restorations done. We’ll see.

Well, the primary hard drive is currently scheduled to be replaced at 0200 CST tonight. I’ll have another round of backups done to preserve state this evening, in addition to Tuesday night’s backups which have been loaded to the new secondary drive today.

Again, all hostees are strongly encouraged to make their own backups in cPanel. You can accomplish this by going into cPanel, selecting Backups, and generating a full backup. Enter your email address, and you’ll get an email when the backup’s generation has been completed. Once that’s complete, you’ll want to log in via FTP and download the backup directly; you’ll be given the option to save it over the Web, but most of these are so large that you’ll need to use FTP to ensure that you get a full download. My attempts to do Web-based downloads last night timed out.

Please contact me at 256-527-8152 or gfmorris@gfmorris.net if you have any questions.

As our main hard drive is throwing ever more errors, I’m suspending the forums on andrewosenga.net, donmillerfans.net, and rocksmyfaceoff.net effective immediately to limit the amount of input/output on the hard drive.

Thanks for your continued patience.