ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

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Uncle Jesse
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ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

Hiya,

I am going to move HD to a different ISP soon. I'm preparing the new site now and will give a day's notice before we move.

What this means is that the site will go down for a few hours at a minimum, probably a few days for some of you while the DNS records change and propagate around the internet.

The current ISP has been great for years but lately I've had to start HD every morning by hand because something is very broken on their end.

The new ISP will give us the following advantages:

* Faster disk access time
* 2x more RAM
* More than twice the hard drive space
* 8x more allowed monthly bandwidth
* Cheaper hosting costs!

I'm grateful to all of you who donate but it doesn't quite keep up. This reduced cost will help a lot while performance should actually increase.

I will post a day before the switchover to alert at many people as possible.

As I always say - don't worry when we go down. We will always be back!

- UJ
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
hpby98
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by hpby98 »

Good to hear!

Does that mean bigger attachments will be allowed?
Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

hpby98 wrote:Good to hear!

Does that mean bigger attachments will be allowed?
Perhaps, I'll look into that after the move.
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

Thanks to the folks who donated tonight! Can't find a username for either of you, so let me know who you are and I'll add you to the donor group.
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
hpby98
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by hpby98 »

Uncle Jesse wrote:Thanks to the folks who donated tonight! Can't find a username for either of you, so let me know who you are and I'll add you to the donor group.
Already there :)
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Expat
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Expat »

Much appreciated for all the hard work!
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butterpants
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by butterpants »

TY
DSM Loki
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by DSM Loki »

Thanks for the tireless work you and the staff do behind the scenes to keep this beautiful patient run asylum on track.
Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

OK I'm going to try this cutover Friday night.

The server will go down while I copy over databases and such.

Then the DNS records will be changed. It takes a while for this to happen because the internet needs to learn the new IP address.

I will then start debugging the inevitable problems involved in such a big change.
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
RedwoodHillBilly

Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by RedwoodHillBilly »

Uncle Jesse wrote: Then the DNS records will be changed. It takes a while for this to happen because the internet needs to learn the new IP address.
This is probably a bit late, but what is the current TTL in your DNS records? Perhaps, you could change the current A records TTL to something small now. That way it will propagate faster. Just a thought. Good luck on the server cutover. It can be a real pain.
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

Happening soon!
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
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acfixer69
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by acfixer69 »

Good luck Jesse all goes well :thumbup:
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MichiganCornhusker
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by MichiganCornhusker »

God’s speed, UJ!
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cob
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by cob »

well we will just have to see what the other end of the worm hole looks like. thanks UJ.
be water my friend
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Bushman
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Bushman »

At our condo when she goes down I've got other projects I can work on.
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

It's not perfect yet, but the move is done.

If you are reading this, it's working for you.

Please report any problems/quirks and so on while I try to work things out!
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
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cede
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by cede »

DNS is propagating https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/homedistiller.org
Homepage is showing some PHP garbage warnings

Code: Select all

Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are *required* to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected the timezone 'UTC' for now, but please set date.timezone to select your timezone. in /usr/local/www/apache24/data/hdps_caching.php on line 41

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /usr/local/www/apache24/data/hdps_caching.php:41) in /usr/local/www/apache24/data/hdps_caching.php on line 41
Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

Thanks, I'll take a look.

I already think the site is faster though.
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

Fixed it, thanks. Didn't have a php.ini in place :oops:
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HDNB
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by HDNB »

it's WAYYYY faster
I finally quit drinking for good.

now i drink for evil.
Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

HDNB wrote:it's WAYYYY faster
Seems that way from where I sit
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fizzix
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by fizzix »

Uncle Jesse you hardly had the site down long at all! No more spinning "buffer" icon either when searching or going to the Parent Site.
I appreciate your hard work to make Home Distiller the best site on the internet.
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

I added a rewrite rule to force https connections.

It slows things down a bit. My understanding is that rewrite rules aren't the best way to accomplish "https only" configurations.

Not sure I'll keep this. But I'll definitely look at other ways to force https only, for the sake of security.
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Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

I backed it out. Slowed things down too much. There must be a better way to force all connections into https.
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Expat
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Expat »

Same from my end, huge boost in response time!

Shame that the https mod didn't work out.

Thanks again for all your work.
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The Baker
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by The Baker »

It's odd. And relatively new.

Sometimes when I submit a post, or maybe even go to another post, I get a page that says, 'Sorry, can't get this website' . Or something like that.
So I click on the little left arrow at the left of the page at the top.
And the page I wanted appears!

Odd.

Geoff

P. S. It happened just now. "This page is not working". Left arrow click and it is fine. G.
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Uncle Jesse
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by Uncle Jesse »

The Baker wrote:It's odd. And relatively new.

Sometimes when I submit a post, or maybe even go to another post, I get a page that says, 'Sorry, can't get this website' . Or something like that.
So I click on the little left arrow at the left of the page at the top.
And the page I wanted appears!

Odd.

Geoff

P. S. It happened just now. "This page is not working". Left arrow click and it is fine. G.
Very odd!
If only the best birds sang, the woods would be silent.
North State Shine
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by North State Shine »

I don't post much but I do read and read and read, well, you get the point. I encourage all to donate something to help with the cost associated with this wonderful site. The resources found on this site are amazing. Thanks to Uncle Jessie and all who keep this going.
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raketemensch
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Re: ATTENTION: Extended downtime coming up soon

Post by raketemensch »

How do we donate again? I don't see it in the FAQ, nor in this thread, nor another donation thread I dug up, but I would like to send some dollars again.
Edit: Ha, I'm a genius, there's a big yellow DONATE button at the bottom of the page.
Last edited by raketemensch on Sun Jan 28, 2018 6:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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