Mailing List Archive

I'll be able to make the trip to San Diego on Friday. The server
should be ready to use (ssh-able for all people with accounts on the
current server) on Saturday.

Should I install Apache? Anything sepcial besides mod-php? Any
special compile-time options for PHP itself?

Jason

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> Motherboard for the server we're going to use as Wikipedia front end.
> I haven't heard from Jason yet as to when he can make the trip to
> install it, but possibly Friday or Monday.
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Sales@Computers4SURE.com -----
>
> From: <Sales@Computers4SURE.com>
> Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2003 11:29:37 -0400
> To: <jwales@bomis.com>
> Subject: We've received your order #C030450733, Jimmy. Thank you.
>
> Thank you for shopping with Computers4SURE.com. We would like to confirm
> that your order has been received.
>
> On 29-Apr-2003, you ordered:
>
> Item Quantity Price
> ----------------------------------------------------------
> SERVERWORKS LE-T DUAL PGA370 1 $485.95
>
>
> -----------------SNIP-----------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr@bomis.com>

> (Jason Richey <jasonr@bomis.com>):
>
> I'll be able to make the trip to San Diego on Friday. The server
> should be ready to use (ssh-able for all people with accounts on the
> current server) on Saturday.
>
> Should I install Apache? Anything sepcial besides mod-php? Any
> special compile-time options for PHP itself?

I left instructions for how I configured and installed everything
on the old server, but it's rather tricky, so you might just want to
let me install this one too (you can check out the process yourself
at /usr/wikidev/docs/INSTALL, skipping the MySQL parts). I've also
updated the procedure a bit based on some testing I've done recently.
As before I'll document everything step-by-step as I go.

We should also figure out a procedure for installing a testing all
the wikis, then scheduling a DNS switchover.

Brion, now's the time to clean up all the ad-hoc changes made to
the live wikis and get them into LocalSettings. I'm sure there are
a few I've missed--can you get me a complete list?

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

> I left instructions for how I configured and installed everything
> on the old server, but it's rather tricky, so you might just want to
> let me install this one too

Be my guest... I'll send you a mail as soon as ssh is working on the
new server.

> (you can check out the process yourself
> at /usr/wikidev/docs/INSTALL, skipping the MySQL parts). I've also
> updated the procedure a bit based on some testing I've done recently.
> As before I'll document everything step-by-step as I go.
> We should also figure out a procedure for installing a testing all
> the wikis, then scheduling a DNS switchover.
>

I am in favor of a quick IP swap instead of a DNS switch.
Register.com's DNS management is clumsy at best, and DNS is slow at
propagating anyway. By swapping IP's, we can avoid the pain of
waiting for DNS to change (and hoping pages are served correctly in
the interim).

So, I think the new server should take the current server's IP (when
we go live), and the current server should get a new IP. This implies
that the mailing list software should either be moved to the new
server, or an MX record should be added to DNS (simple in relation to
changing dozens of subdomains) to point to the new ip of the current
server.

> Brion, now's the time to clean up all the ad-hoc changes made to
> the live wikis and get them into LocalSettings. I'm sure there are
> a few I've missed--can you get me a complete list?
>
> --
> Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
> are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
> for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
> _______________________________________________
> Wikitech-l mailing list
> Wikitech-l@wikipedia.org
> http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

--
"Jason C. Richey" <jasonr@bomis.com>

> (Jason Richey <jasonr@bomis.com>):
>
> So, I think the new server should take the current server's IP (when
> we go live), and the current server should get a new IP.

For testing, then, the current server should get that new IP now,
so that we can install Apache on the new one, configure it to talk
to mysql at that IP, and then switch it over without having to
reconfigure. Can you switch IPs remotely?

> This implies that the mailing list software should either be moved
> to the new server, or an MX record should be added to DNS (simple in
> relation to changing dozens of subdomains) to point to the new ip of
> the current server.

This has been mentioned before, but how about moving the mailings
lists off entirely? That way, users can still communicate when the
server is overloaded.

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lee/>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> This has been mentioned before, but how about moving the mailings
> lists off entirely? That way, users can still communicate when the
> server is overloaded.

I think this is a reasonable idea, and I'll think about what would be
best on this. We're running a variety of mailing lists for a variety
of domains on various machines right now. Possibly it would make sense
to unify everything.

Jason and I will chat about it and get back to the mailing list on
this question.

On Tue, 29 Apr 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:
> Motherboard for the server we're going to use as Wikipedia front end.

Sa-weeeet!

Thanks, Jim! Wikipedia will live to serve another day. :)

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)