In case you wondered why the forum and ETS seem to be a little zippier this morning, Rick has got ETS up and running on the new server. WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

There may be a few hiccups as we sort out a few odds and ends to get everything working right, but overall you should find ETS quicker to load overall and able to take heavy downloading without the slows we have been experiencing at times. Much better hopefully.

Thanks much to Dave and Rick for helping make this new server possible!

Trying again...

Thanks. Seems to be working now. <shrug>

Perhaps the electrons took a wrong turn somewhere... <~>

Next we'll be looking at a board software upgrade - expect good things soon.

Probably on behalf of many frequent forum users, THANK YOU for the upgrades past, present, and future.

Verry nice. What's the current hardware were ets runs on ?

I think we should welcome a new sysadmin for Equipped!

Welcome htmlspinnr! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I wouldn't call myself new as I've been silently helping out off and on for over 2 years now when timed permitted. I've just have a bit more time recently to lend Doug and Dave. It's a purely volunteer effort at any rate so we give when and where we can.

I can say it's more than twice as good as it used to be, but it's definitely not "new" hardware. It was, however, the best that was available to assign to ETS when the need became apparent last Nov/Dec.

Previously, ETS and all of Doug's other sites were running off of a 1998-2000 era desktop machine w/ a P2-350, 384MB of RAM, a 10GB drive that was always near full (you guys generate a LOT of logs), and Win2k. That machine would die at 10mbit/sec of traffic on the site. Also worth noting, that machine was an "upgrade" over a year ago from something even slower.

Now you're on an IBM Netfinity 4500R server with dual P3/866 CPU's, 73GB RAID-5, 2.5GB of RAM, and Win2K3. Nothing new or fancy, but it's certainly more equipped to handle the site. This server should be able to take a bit more traffic than before, and have quite a bit more fault tolerance than the previous machine. The previous boxes had experienced at least one drive failure since I started working for Dave over 2 years ago.

They'll probably have it upgraded again eventually when Dave/Doug work something out for something faster. And maybe then I'll get to move them over to Linux - tee hee Just couldn't happen this time around <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Yeah that may qualify as a bit more than a 'slight' improvement. Glad to hear it's running on a real rig now. It never even dawned on me that it might be running on a somewhat antiquated rig. I guess that's a testament to good control of what equipment was already in place.

What type of *nix would you want to use? I'm a *nix geek (been working with them professionally off and on for about 5 years now) .. and am curious to see what you'd go to. Can't say I blame the logic though. I've seen systems with 700+ day uptimes (on a 286 box running xenix no less!)

Thanks for help keeping our addiction on tap <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think you should talk them into a daul woodcrest 5160 w/4gb ram 73GB 15k RPM RAID 5, and a 100mbit port <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I recently got one for work and let me tell you the new woodcrest procesors are INSANE <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Oh, and I think a change to CentOS is in order to <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-TOdd

This setup is indeed much better than the old hardware. Thanks for the info.

CentOS 4.x would be my choice for now, as it's my mainstay OS (where RHEL's cost isn't justified) on just about everything else I manage, save some Xen setups (including KnifeRights.org) that require something newer. If it wasn't for the small smattering of ASP used on other portions of the site, I'd have them ported over already as part of the new server. In fact, the first iteration of the "new" server was CentOS 4.4 until I discovered the reliance on ASP code w/o any real path to porting it to something LAMP friendly (or spending $$$ on ChiliSoft ASP).

Hope this helps, and sorry for geeking out the Survival forum <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

He already has 100mbit all the way out to the ISP's routers. The infrastructure itself is Gigabit, but the server doesn't support it. The bandwidth limit, however has generally been the server in the past.

As for the other hardware - I'm sure Doug would gladly accept donations for a brand new box, and I'd donate my time into setting it up (if only to keep my pager quieter at night or those weekends when I'd rather be flying). Even a 1U pizza box w/ a single Core2 Duo or AthlonX2/Opteron w 2-4GB of RAM and 2x500GB SATA RAID-1 drives would be better, and wouldn't cost more than $1000 or so if you know where to shop. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Thanks <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I was just curious. I guess I should have taken that to PM though to avoid looks of confusion from others :P

". . . or those weekends when I'd rather be flying"

If you're are out in SoCal sometime, let me know. I'm a CFI and can you put you in the front seat of one -- T-34, L-19 and Pitts S2A.

It would be nice to say thanks for your help. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

It's a pretty good server if its just for us. Don't worry, we'll try to overload it. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Drool... I bet that Pitts is a lot of fun!

You're in luck - only Doug's sites run on it. The forums take a bulk of the traffic and CPU power.

The ETS site and forums have moved homes again - this time to a different network (but same ISP). Long, political story, but the short version is that the site couldn't stay on the old server or network much longer, so the bandwidth/server sponsor has provided a new home on a new box in a new rack.

Let me know if things aren't as they should be.

The blip was due to DNS propagation. Looks like most of you didn't suffer too long. ;-)

-Rick