Dependency Addict :: The KN Admin Blog

New blog.

Nadim — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 15:27:20 +0000

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted here in a while.Â There were a couple of snags with the Krimson News server lately, but those have been due to outages on the HSP’s site that I couldn’t help with.Â But it’s also less fun to write about what’s going on with the server all the time.

That’s why I’ve decided to resurrect my habit of diarizing in public.Â You can find my new blog at http://nadim.slicedsuitcase.com.

I’ll still post here for any KN admin-related issues, but to stalk me and the goings-on of my life, feel free to read the new blog.

We fooled many shrewd men.

Nadim — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 14:44:07 +0000

The server’s been working well.Â Nothing out of the ordinary, except for one instance in which the SSH daemon crashed.Â But daemons are evil, no?Â

What will be the next surprise?Â What will break next?Â Will something break, in fact?Â I hope not, but I’m sure that the probability of nothing breaking over a two-month period is lower than Tom Cruise leaving Scientology.

We wait and we wonder.

The deception of the thrush.

Nadim — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 23:22:18 +0000

Using stock packages from your operating system vendor sounds so sweet.Â And yet, you fall prey to the most horrid of software misconfigurations.

Item.Â Apache 2.0.52 is installed on the Krimson News server from nowhere else but the CentOS 4 package mirror–the standard repository for CentOS 4.2-compatible software.Â As soon as I installed that package, the problems started: unresponsive system, long page load times and extremely high-latency pings.Â What I finally found out was that the CentOS 4 version of the current Apache RPM comes with configurations to run Apache on an iPod … which would support only one user at a time…

Now, things seem better, but the system still breaks down as soon as someone streams an MP3.Â Argh!

Faster.

Nadim — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 06:43:13 +0000

After hours of trying out different settings with Apache (the web server Krimson News runs on), I finally found out that mod_status is the culprit that caused the horribly unacceptable system loads over the last few days.Â Why exactly this should be, I don’t know–mod_status worked well for ages on the old server and the first incarnation of this server.Â Oh, well…Â It’s off now, and we’re getting pretty decent system response times now.

Slow music.

Nadim — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 18:17:12 +0000

Well, Krimson News seems to have some speed problems.Â Not that the site is too fast, but that it gets bogged down at random times.Â Huge log files were a problem yesterday (over the course of a week, we racked up about 40 MB of log data for www.krimson-news.com alone), but that’s fixed now.Â My guess is that the server has to handle too many concurrent podcast streams at a time when the server gets slow.Â Hopefully, once the Trey Gunn podcast has been heard by enough people, less podcast traffic will get out there.

Are you being served?

Nadim — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 16:51:05 +0000

I swore I’d never blog again.Â That was–when?–late July 2006.Â Oh, well, there go my mid-year resolutions: out the window, onto the street and driven over by a gasoline-chugging Hummer.

This blog has one single purpose: to keep you up-to-date with all things tech peculiar to Krimson News.Â If something’s down, you’ll read about it here (provided you’ll decide to keep reading this particular corner of the KN Blogs); if something’s not running the way I’d like it to run, I’ll most likely gripe about it here (provided you’ll decide to keep reading this particular corner of the KN Blogs); if I’m tackling some exotic and esoteric software project that’ll help Krimson News advance, you’ll find out about it here (provided you’ll–you know the drill).

Over the course of last night and several repetitions of Yello’s Essential, many cans of Coke Cherry as well asÂ too many break-neck software compiles later, we are now happily stuck with an e-mail server setup that not only allows us much better control of users without muddying up our Linux user table, but also runs much (MUCH!) faster than the old Sendmail setup.Â The new system also filters out spam andÂ all of those nasty, virus-laden attachments that are roaming around the ‘net these years.Â A CentOS-specific tutorial for Postfix and Courier e-mail services using MySQL, SASL and Amavis seems in order.Â But not here–that’ll be part of my Sliced Suitcase infotainment project.

And why the stupid name for this blog?Â Well, over the course of the last three years that I’ve been working on Linux projects, I’ve finally come to the point where I’m more interested in modifying source code rather than stupidly and morosely installing pre-compiled packages.Â I like the freedom of source installs, but hate dependencies.Â Nevertheless, since I love creating custom packages to keep, cherish and occasionally ask out on a dinner-and-a-movie date, the blog title seems appropriate.Â Plus, it’s a nice word play, but I don’t have to tell you that.Â

Cheers, then!Â I hope some of you might be interested in reading about what it takes to keep this server up and running and alive and kicking.Â It’ll be a fun project to ensure the server doesn’t puke all over the exquisitely upholstered furniture again.

Nadim