Server Migration and Clean up

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nick
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Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

Hi folks!

Long time no speak! As usual, I've been hiding away in the background because I don’t own my 406 anymore. I know how popular and well used this place is however so I’m not one to let something just languish.

I normally pop on and make sure everything’s running smoothly and upgrading all relevant software so there’s no security issues etc. The admin and mod team here do a phenomenal job of keeping the place running, and it wouldn’t be what it is without them.

This post is just a quick heads up that as part of my maintenance I’m going to be moving the forum from its current host in the USA to a UK host. The server specs are still the same, there shouldn’t be any other noticeable differences except that it will be cheaper for me to run. I’ve tried various tests over the last few months and performance is the same, if not marginally better with the new host.

I’m currently paying on average of around £9 a month and I don’t have any form of income from the site to pay for it so it’s all out of pocket. These costs should reduce by around 75% when the moves done.

Part of the move however is a large clean up. There’s been literally thousands of images that have been uploaded over the years, and for whatever reason, these images have become “orphaned”. Posts or modifications to the board have been deleted and these images have been left. I’m going to put them all in a separate area and if anyone notices any posts with missing images please give me a shout. I’ll try and marry them up. If there are no issues I’ll delete these orphaned images and attachments after a year.

I’m also going to stop the use of hotlinking - that’s where people upload images to this site but use them elsewhere on the internet. There’s plenty of sites that allow you to do it now free of charge, including imgur. It’s not a big problem for here, but it’s something I want to get under control.

Apart from that, there won’t be any other changes. I’ll see if I can find the logo and at least fix that on the new board (an easy hint to see if you’re on the new server).

At some point over the next week this board will be marked as offline to allow the move to take place. If you’re one of the lucky ones to see this it should take less than 24 Hours to change everything over. There will be a suitable message on the site keeping people up to date.

Any questions, ping them below.

Thanks,

Nick
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
GingerMagic
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by GingerMagic »

Thank you Nick for the advanced warning - and also for everything you do 'behind the scenes' as it were..
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Doggy
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by Doggy »

Couldn't agree more - Thanks Nick.
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2003 HDi 2.2 6-speed Exec Estate (2012-19) (also a gem)
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by frog »

Thanks Nick, for all your work and care. Your contributions are indispensable.
Current "fleet":
2003 406 Estate 2.0HDi 110 - 7 seater - just hit 690.000 kms :cheesy:
2001 Citroen Saxo 1.6i 8v 100

Previously owned:
2000 406 Sedan 2.0 HDi 90
2000 406 Coupé 2.0i 16v 138 - Riviera Blue

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Welly
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by Welly »

Great work Nick and thank you!
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nick
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

Server has been migrated. For the geeks I had last updated the TTL values for the DNS entires so the swap should be almost seamless. The DNS change occurred at 1245Hrs 29/03/20 however it can still take a few hours for the DNS propagation changes to occur.

There may be some artefacts of the move - including incorrect or “Welcome to Ubuntu” pages that may be shown in the first few hours.

Any issues please post here.

Next up will be enabling SSL but I’ll wait another week before I rock that boat.

Thanks.

Nick
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
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nick
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

And that should be it complete. I was having some faults thrown up which meant people were getting white pages with no error messages - but that's now been fixed. Every page I've tested is now working fine and the DNS change has propagated across the slowest ISP to update their DNS settings. Again, any issues let me know but hopefully there's none!

I'll start a fresh topic sometime next week when I start to implement SSL for the site.

For anyone wondering - the site has been moved to another UK Data Centre on similar hardware to before. The costs are substantially cheaper however. Planning for this began in December after I moved the majority of my other sites to a new server. This site is now hosted on its own for reliability and free access to server resources.

The actual server was created in January and testing began. TTL for DNS Entries were all reduced to 1 hour to aid when the switch finally came. The boards software was updated and then all files transferred. The board was put offline, the database backed up, imported into the new server with the files and the DNS Changes switched.

For me, it was pretty seamless. There were one or two small errors that I hadn't anticipated but nothing a quick bit of command line typing didn't fix.

I figured to do it on a Saturday Night - not because I like a challenge, but I figured that with the world being in lockdown people would be enjoying themselves on a Saturday night instead on on here. I hope I was right!

Thanks,

Nick
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by frog »

Working perfectly here in NL.

Thanks for the work done! :D
Current "fleet":
2003 406 Estate 2.0HDi 110 - 7 seater - just hit 690.000 kms :cheesy:
2001 Citroen Saxo 1.6i 8v 100

Previously owned:
2000 406 Sedan 2.0 HDi 90
2000 406 Coupé 2.0i 16v 138 - Riviera Blue

PP2000 user, can help with faults / diagnostics in the Netherlands.
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by teamster1975 »

Nicely done Nick, the work of a sysadmin is never done!
1996 406 1.8LX Got a bad case of hydro lock!
1996 406 Executive 2.0 Turbo XU10J2TE No longer hangin' on in there :(
1997 Honda CB500V
2003 Volvo V40 1.8 GDi SE killed by a nutter in a beemer 5 series
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nick
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

Just a quick update - the server has been upgraded to Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS from 18.04. This means I can finally install the newer versions of the board software. This will be done over the coming weeks, along with the much needed HTTPS upgrade.

Thanks,

Nick
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
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nick
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

And thats the HTTPS upgrade done. Next up - the board software.
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
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nick
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

And thats the board software updated. Last thing is fixing the logo which I'll hopefully figure out tomorrow.

If anyone notices any issues, please give me a shout.

Thanks,

Nick
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
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steve_earwig
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by steve_earwig »

nick wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:49 pm Some interweb majickery.

Thanks,

Nick
Well done young man, keep up the good work! :cheesy:

Hopefully my reply will post this time too...
Unskilled meddling sin©e 2007

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nick
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by nick »

steve_earwig wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 11:53 am
nick wrote: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:49 pm Some interweb majickery.

Thanks,

Nick
Well done young man, keep up the good work! :cheesy:

Hopefully my reply will post this time too...
All received. Was there an issue composing a reply previously?
Thanks,
Nick
DaiRees wrote:I got the "premium" standard fit system in mine, 10 speakers, changer, JBL amp. I'm quite happy with it for listening to the radio / CDs or my "teach yourself Welsh" stuff on the way to work :lol:
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Re: Server Migration and Clean up

Post by steve_earwig »

There was but I suspect it was when you were mid-process, I got some sort of error message instead. Anyway, as you can see, the last message went through fine :wink:

Oooh, Ad Blocker detected, that's the first time I've seen that here - would it help if I disabled it for the 406oc?
Unskilled meddling sin©e 2007

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