Another upgrade

This weekend I’m going to attempt another hardware upgrade.

The main mail server for midrange.com (rivendell) is showing it’s age … mind you, it’s still performing fine, but it’s pretty loud and it’s maintenance contract expired last month. A new contract would have costed $300, while a new server only cost $600.

So I got a new Dell PowerEdge SC430 (Pentium D, 3ghz, dual core, 1gb ram, 80gb DASD) to replace the current Dell PowerEdge SC600.

My plan is to backup the drives (mirrored pair) to a USB hard drive and then transplant the drives into the new server.

The only hitch is that the new server primarily runs on SATA, while my current drives are PATA. This I’m solving by getting an add-on ATA/133 card. I’ll set the system to boot off of the drives on the add-on card and use the SATA drive as swap space and a backup drive.

In the past, this kind of hardware upgrade went very smoothly. Mainly because Linux was able to detect the changed hardware and reconfigure itself appropriately. This is why I upgraded rivendell to Fedora Core 4. Redhat 8 would not have been able to deal with the new hardware.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Update 3/25 @ 3pm

Looks like the upgrade was a success!

There were a few minor glitches with the file system table (fstab) … since I put the main drives on the ATA/133 adapter card, they changed from being /dev/hda to /dev/hdc. I had to twiddle with the config to get it to boot properly.

And, in case you’re wondering, I did back it up to the USB drive. That took a bit of doing though, because the USB ports on the old system are ‘full’ speed (10mps). I had to put the USB drive on gondor and do the backup via the network in order to get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

[tags]Linux, Fedora, Dell, Poweredge, Upgrade[/tags]

Greylisting

For a while I’ve been using limited greylisting on my mail server with reasonably good success.

Last weekend I implemented site wide and I have to say the results are dramatic. The amount of spam (even low rated by spamassassin) has dropped off significantly.

Detailed information on greylisting can be found here, but in a nutshell:

Greylisting relies on the fact that spammers don’t use normal mail servers. Basically, the first time a mail server receives a mail delivery request, it responds with a soft failure … with a message indicating that greylisting is in effect and they should retry the delivery in certain amount of time (this is a human readable message, not machine readable). Since normal mail servers will accept this message and requeue the email for delivery, the email will then be delivered normally (probably on the next pass).

Spammers aren’t that persistent, so they just go on to their next target.

A good greylisting implementation retains the list of servers that have successfully delivered in a whitelist, so the next time they try to deliver there is no delay, the delay is only encountered once.

One downside of greylisting that I’ve found is that there is an increased chance of messages arriving out of order when a server tries it’s first message deliver. The reason is this … the first message delivery will be attempted and be rejected due to greylisting, if a different message delivery is attempted AFTER the greylisting delay has expired but BEFORE the first message is delivered, then the second message will be delivered and will be out of context.

I’ve got my mail server configured to greylist servers for only 2 minutes … so the next time the server tries to deliver, it’s almost certain to be successful.

I’m using milter-greylist with sendmail. It was easy to setup and works great.

[tags]spam, sendmail, greylisting, milter[/tags]

Dead TiVo’s Aren’t Much Fun

Well, our TiVo started to die.

For a few months it’s been locking up on us … didn’t seem to mater what it was trying to do. Record, playback, or just sit idle.

While we were on vacation, the Linksys WRT54G wireless router got screwed up … so the Tivo wasn’t able to download any new program info. Thus, it ran out of data.

When I got back and reconfigured the router (not sure why the router got screwed up in the first place), the Tivo tried to download 2 weeks worth of data.

Unforunately, it kept locking up when it was trying to process the downloaded data.

I figured it must be some corrupt data … so I decided to reset the entire thing and have it reload from scratch.

I ran the reset … and it locked up a few times when trying to download the data again.

Even after it was able to download the data, it kept locking up.

I called TiVo and they said it was probably dieing … and offered me an exchange. Exchanges cost $149. Oh well, better than buying a new unit and signing up for a new lifetime subscription (which, btw, is going away soon).

I opted for the advance exchange … where they send me the new unit before I send the old one in. Standard deal … they charge the credit card for the new unit and the cost of the old one … and issue a credit when the old unit arrives.

Got my RMA and waited for the new unit to arrive.

Yesterday, the new unit arrived. Same basic unit, except it doesn’t have the front panel buttons (which I kind of liked).

It took a while to get it configured, because it had a much older version of the OS pre-installed … and I thought my only option was to use the phone. We don’t have a phone line near the TiVo, so I had to use the wireless phone jack. It has a lot of static on the line, so the connection was much slower.

Eventually it finished the setup and we were off and running.

Now we just have to setup all our Season Passes and favorites again.

Luckily we had the snapstream so at least we could time shift our viewing.

[tags]Tivo, TV, Television[/tags]

Washing Lip Balm

I just washed a pair of pants with some lip balm in the pocket … the washing didn’t cause any problems, but drying caused the lip balm to melt … and stain just about everything that was light in color in the load.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get the stuff out … or if it’s even possible. Maybe “Shout” will get it out (I made a rhyme, just in time).

Chicken & Egg

I have come to a realization … in the morning, it’s much easier (and safer) to drink your coffee with your eyes open … however, coffee is a great aid in getting your eyes open. So how do you accomplish one without first doing the other?

It’s a chicken & egg thing, I suspect.

Who says I’m not a philosopher?

[tags]Coffee, Chicken, Egg, Morning[/tags]

Timezone

We’re still getting used to the timezone. Woke up very early (at least I did).

Asked about the internet access at the front desk … was told it’s still not working. Oh well, I kinda like this ‘not working’.

Snorkeled on the beach park down the way from the Condo. Not great, but not terrible. Got some pictures, but nothing that knocked my socks off. Still getting used to the camera The shutter release has a delay and I really can’t use the viewfinder at all. The display works, but it’s hard to see underwater.

On the drive back, we stopped at MacGreggor point to see if there were whales to see. Saw some big whales AND a Coast Guard air/sea rescue practice. They had a big plane dropping markers near some flares in the water. Very exciting.

Dinner at Maui Fish & Game / Maui Brewing Company. “Beach blond Pale Ale was good.

More fun with the car: To add insult to injury, we found on the headlights on the car were poorly aimed. Mostly down and to the left. Strike three. We are definitely going to get the car swapped.

Just another day

Got the Maui News at the front desk … asked about internet access. Was told it was still not working. Darn, I’ll have to download my mail via my phone. Oh well. I can cope. I hope Ginny can too.

Drove around the island a bit … saw a blow hole and surf. Nothing to exciting, but enjoyable,.

Since we were out and about, I decided to take the cell phone charger so we would be sure to have a good charge. I plugged the charger in and got no power. I know the charger works, so it had to be the power outlet in the car. I tried the other power outlet and got nothing. Another strike against the car. Ginny and I decided to see if Avis had anything available, because she knows they had Ford Escapes.

Stopped for a smoothie. Return trip was on a one lane rode that was ‘exciting’. Ended up following a big 4×4 pickup that would win in any argument 🙂

Since we were not quite adjusted to the time zone change, we decided to eat in. We stopped at the Star Market and picked up some light food. Various poke’s, rice, a bottle of pino, soda, cereal, bread, coffee etc.

When we got back to the condo, I decided to see if the internet access is working yet. I plugged my portable wireless router into the ethernet on the cable modem and it worked! I had to agree to their AUP, but after that it seemed to work. Ok, I figure it must be working. I’ll sign up tomorrow. I figure one day charge won’t be too bad.

Paradise

We have arrived. Another trip to Maui.

Picked up luggage with no problems.

Got car with lots of problems.

When checking in, we inquired about upgrading to a SUV with 4wd … we’re planning on driving out to Hana later in the trip and taking the back road for the return. Driving with more ground clearance and 4wd would make the trip much nicer. They had a Chevy Envoy. We rented that, but when we looked at it I decided it was too big for my comfort. I went back in and asked for the original midsize we had reserved.
Went to get into that car and received an olfactory assault as soon as I opened the door. It smelled like it had been driven for weeks without every getting cleaned out (or the driver taking a shower). It was also very dirty and beat up.

Told the rental agent and got a different car. This it was a Silver Chevy “Classic … went to the parking spot they said it would be in, but found a tan car. Asked one of the parking lot workers where the car was and, after about 5 minutes of looking, found it.

This car wasn’t much cleaner, but it didn’t stink. It had a LOT of scratches & dings, both inside and out.

Not wanting to deal with another trip into the rental office, we took it… but took extra time to document all the damage.
It didn’t drive well either, but it did drive.

Traffic to Napili was horrible. Took us about 2 hours to get from the airport to the condo.

We checked into the condo … very nice unit. Bed is comfortable and clean. Nice appliances. Internet access is available, but not working at the moment. We were told to check in later to find out when it’s fixed.

We’re obviously still on Chicago time, so we went to bed early.