[svlug] Reminder: SVLUG mailing list server failure risk, gap in backups

[Steve Litt]

On Tue, 30 Dec 2014 10:29:03 -0800
Rick Moen <rick at svlug.org> wrote:

> For quite a few years, I've been warning SVLUG's core volunteers (on
> the Volunteers mailing list) that lists.svlug.org, the machine that
> runs this mailing list among others, is in decrepit state and in
> danger of sudden failure.  What most needs to occur over the long
> term is migration of Mailman, Exim4, Mailman's CGIs, spamd, sa-exim,
> a few related odds and ends, and our 17 years of mailing list
> archives (plus subscription rosters, etc.) to the www.svlug.org
> Linode virthost that runs our Web site.  Unlike when we first got the
> Linode virthost, the latter now has enough RAM and disk space to
> house _all_ our services - as it's been upgraded since 2008.
> 
> There are many details of the situation I'm omitting here, else it
> would be a long tale.  (Available offlist to any interested.)
> 
> The point of this posting is two-fold:  
> 
> 1.  Risk of failure of lists.svlug.org continues to grow.  Any day,
> the 80GB PATA hard drive that houses the enitre mailing list server
> may (and some day certainly will) fail, if nothing else.  I believe
> it has now been running 24x7 for about 14 years.
> 
> 2.  I'm (again) raising an urgent red flag about backups.   Nobody's
> pitched in to help me keep those current since... um.. actually,
> ever.  Nobody's ever stepped forward.  My server being currently down
> means the latest backups of the mailing list cumulative mbox files -
> the 17 years of posting history - is the months-old set on my server
> backups.
> 
> My most recent red flag on Volunteers was on October 26th, here:  
> http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers/2014q4/004480.html
> 
> Quoting:
>   
>   For the record, another [task being ignored] is backups.  Hey,
> guess what, kiddies?  Remember that I was making backups of mailing
> list rosters and cumulative mbox files from lists.svlug.org, and of
> the Web pages on www.svlug.org?  Guess what's not happening with my
> server down?  I'm pretty confident in guessing that nobody's bothered
> to step up to the plate.
> 
>   [...]
>   Backups?  Nobody's doing them.
> 
>   There are other things nobody's bothering to do.  All of them have
> been covered over and over and over in this mailing list's archives.
> 
> Nobody on that mailing list replied or commented AT ALL.  So, I'm
> raising the red flag here so that, if the machine suddenly blows up
> and we lose a great deal, nobody can say I didn't warn you.
> 
> 
> How to back things up:
> 
> The big thing is the mbox files.  They can be retrieved by anyone via
> HTTP fetch, like this:
> 
> wget http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug.mbox/svlug.mbox 
> wget http://lists.svlug.org/archives/volunteers.mbox/volunteers.mbox
> wget
> http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug-announce.mbox/svlug-announce.mbox
> wget http://lists.svlug.org/archives/web-team.mbox/web-team.mbox wget
> http://lists.svlug.org/archives/jobs.mbox/jobs.mbox wget
> http://lists.svlug.org/archives/smaug.mbox/smaug.mbox
> 
> Those with shell on lists.svlug.org can instead use rsync, which is of
> course much better for scripting because you can update prior
> backups , fetching only the delta:
> 
> 
> rsync -avz --rsh=ssh
> rick at lists.svlug.org:/var/local/mailman/archives/private/svlug.mbox/svlug.mbox .
> rsync -avz --rsh=ssh
> rick at lists.svlug.org:/var/local/mailman/archives/private/volunteers.mbox/volunteers.mbox .
> rsync -avz --rsh=ssh
> rick at lists.svlug.org:/var/local/mailman/archives/private/svlug-announce.mbox/svlug-announce.mbox .
> rsync -avz --rsh=ssh
> rick at lists.svlug.org:/var/local/mailman/archives/private/svlug/web-team.mbox/web-team.mbox .
> rsync -avz --rsh=ssh
> rick at lists.svlug.org:/var/local/mailman/archives/private/svlug/jobs.mbox/jobs.mbox .
> rsync -avz --rsh=ssh
> rick at lists.svlug.org:/var/local/mailman/archives/private/svlug/smaug.mbox/smaug.mbox .
> 
> There.  Two different ways to help out with backups of the mailing
> list crown jewels that cannot be replace if lost.  
> 
> The migration of service off the rickety old machine is important, but
> backups are of paramount importance.
> 
> Don Marti and I do receive on every Sunday a dump from Mailman of the
> subscriber rosters of those six mailing lists, the _other_ truly
> essential data on the machine that cannot be replaced if list.
> 
> FYI, I am doing manual rsyncs of the six mbox files to my laptop, as
> I write this (extremely slow, as my home bandwidth is pretty
> impaired, and of course the delta the first time is the entire file).

Is there some way to have the subscriber rosters and the mailman
archives available via torrents? That might be a way to have backups
spread around, at least for data without privacy issues.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance