[svlug] new disk is installed - raid

[Alvin Oga]

hi ya rick

for others.. only the last few lines is important ..
	- svlug is going offline for exim/mailman config later tonight ( thur )

> Rick Moen wrote:
> 
> So, if I donate a second hard drive, would you be willing to rebuild it
> as a RAID1 system with the Linux "md" driver?  (Just let me know the
> size and make/model, and I'll buy another.)

the costs of the disk is not necessarily the issue ..

- if one is worried about raid disk crashes:
	- i usually build a 2nd system so that "everything" is redundant
	- i usually buy good disk drives from distributors with a reseller permit

	- raid may or may not help you .. depending on the failure mode
	of the disk .. some motherboard craps out if /dev/hda is missing/dead

	- "proper" testing raid is more time consuming .. just as much as
	building a entire new clone

- but since the current system is already installed ..
	- our choice is:
		- tar up the new system and save to the current operting disk
		- install the new drive
		- re-install with raid setup
		- untar the current new system onto the raid config

	- or build a 2nd whole system ( my preferred choice )
	since it has to be done no matter what  ...

> > 	- does anybody (legitimately) object to the change over ??
> > 	( to testing from woody )
> 
> If you're contemplating Debian-testing instead of Debian-stable for 

i've already installed "testing" :-)
mostly, and stupidly, because it has newer apps and it also should
not be changing its naming convention too often

> There is a potential
> security shortfall in following the Testing track; although at the
> moment the Debian Security team covers Testing,

which is a good thing ... i've offered to help .. but i was talking
to myself which is okay too .. less people to deal with gets more
work doen from their view up to a point

> :r /etc/apt/sources.list 
> 
> deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
> deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
> deb http://security.debian.org/ testing/updates main contrib non-free
> deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free

i've always wondered ... if testing has linux-2.6.16 ...
and if "unstable" has linux-2.6.17.9 .. i'd want the latest to
always be installed  of certain apps ...
	"certain" apps as in kernel, apache, exim, libs, perl,
	and leave the other unimportant apps "out of date" or removed/hold
	since unstable might be in fact "unstable"

	<my silly thoughts>
	i'm always willng to risk broken code in the latest versions
	from the original sources/developers and deal with it acordingly

	i'm not willing to risk broken code or vulnerability in 
	old/previous versions sp it should be upgraded to the latest
	</my silly thoughts>

> :r /etc/apt/preferences
> 
> Package: *
> Pin: release a=unstable
> Pin-Priority: 50
> 
> That sets the pin-priority for "Unstable" packages to sub-normal
> (normal=100), so that they're never fetched by default, but only when
> you say "apt-get -t unstable  install [packagename]"

a good thing ... but i also only want to fetch certain apps.. so that works

it does have some nice ( ez to use ) functions :-)

> 
> Soeaking of what SVLUG has decided, the officers made a quite reasonable 
> decision to use Linode's offer of free virthost hosting.

that is an option, but it's been an ongoing issue ( "to do" ) for about a year ??

in the meantime .. the machine needed a home "now" which is why i 
grabbed the current box to get it back online asap
	- and do the upgrades that we all be nagging the list about

	even if its upgraded to testing, i'm sure there'll be other
	things to "nagg" somebody about :-)

> Here, in the
> name of full disclosure to the membership, is my private mail to you of
> this morning, citing that fact:

yup..

since that showed up here ... i'll add as in the reply to you,
that if could help with the virt server stuff, i'd step up,
except that i'm clueless in how to config xen/vmware/others

	<added now and stated numberous times in the past>
	- and even if it was up, i'd be worried about who would
	be doing the upgrades and backups of the virt servers
	(simple syncing problem) and where to keep that virt server data .. 
	</added now and stated numberous times in the past>

also ... i'll install the new test website stuff too ..

	but i prefer to see it as test.svlug.org so that people
	can play with it as they wish ... and releasing it would
	be trivial as
		mv httpd/html  httpd/html.prev
		mv httpd/html.test httpd/html

	and copying or linking files to static data that doesn't change
	or move based on new html look-n-feel

> Short form of how to setup Exim4:  Install Debian packages
> exim4-daemon-heavy, exim4-config, exim4-base, and sa-exim, answering the
> install-time configuration questions so as to arrive at a roughly
> correct configuration.  Then, download EximConfig from
> http://www.jcdigita.com/eximconfig/ .  Read the instructions, and
> configure, enabling capabilities only one at a time, as you test them.

i'll be getting ready to play the exim/mailman mind boggle later tonight
assuming nobody objects in the list about volunteers and svlug at svlug.org
bweing offline while the new exim/mailman is configured

	- i'm guestimating the generic 1-2 hrs to get it installed/config/tested
	but i'm betting it will take all night :-)

	if it works .. it'd be using the new disks .. and finalize the
	upgrades as we need ( named.conf, moin-moin, blah-wiki-blah, etc, etc )

	if it fails .. we'll still be on the orig/current "woody" system

===
=== these kinds of install/upgrade/testing takes svlug.org offline 
===
	- it is not a disk failure that should be rare ( 1/1000 ) in my world

	- if there was www2.svlug.org ( a whole other system ) ... 
	nobody would notice that svlug.org is offline

c ya
alvin