Old server is down, maybe dead

It’s been a good computer. It has served many tens of thousands of web pages, working non-stop for years. I feel bad about its death, which is perhaps why I’m taking the time to write this little eulogy.

Well, after a LOT of work, I think I’ve got everything moved over from the old Dual Athlon-MP 1600 server that has been running in my living room for over 2 years. The need to move to a colocated server was pretty obvious, as this computer was showing those unmistakable signs of death.

For the past year the computer had been down only twice, and each time it took a minor miracle to get it to simply turn back on. Last night I pulled everything apart—every card and memory DIMM and cable and drive and even the motherboard—and cleanly and carefully put it all back together, hoping the awful noise that had started up and the restart problems would go away. I still haven’t managed to get it to power up.
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Server migration complete… I hope.

This morning I got up, went to Spanish class where I had my first test. (I did okay. There are only two things I think I got wrong, but there were also 5 bonus point questions, so with luck I’ll eek out an A.) Then I did some housekeeping for the Stonewall Young Democrats (database stuff) and then I did the final push to get everything migrated over to the new Colocated server.

Man O Man am I drained!

This morning I got up, went to Spanish class where I had my first test. (I did okay. There are only two things I think I got wrong, but there were also 5 bonus point questions, so with luck I’ll eek out an A.) Then I did some housekeeping for the Stonewall Young Democrats (database stuff) and then I did the final push to get everything migrated over to the new Colocated server.

And the last 10 hours were spent fighting with Postfix to get the e-mail all set up properly—and securely.

I’ve still got to keep in touch with my various hosting “clients” to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything. There’s always one or two subtle items I can’t remember. But I’ve got to say, I’m looking forward to retiring the “old” server that’s been running in my living room for the past 2 years. One of the fans (or maybe a bearing on a disk drive) was starting to vibrate badly. This machine has had a good life. It’s time to move on.