Category: Site Related

It seems that logging into a server-password-protected thing (such as file transfer) causes a 500 error. Redoing the passwords from scratch should fix this. Perhaps a file’s missing or there’s some configuration change. I’ll find it when I stop being lazy.

Anyways, I’m posting my crude-but-operational Ventrilio daemon startup script:

#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/vent

# Things here would be carried out every run, but
# we don't have any of those

# Now carry out commands
case "$1" in
	start)
	 echo "Starting ventrilo daemon..."
	 /home/steve/vent/ventrilo_srv -f/home/steve/vent/ventrilo_srv -d
	 ;;
	stop)
	 echo "Stoping ventrilo daemon..."
	 killall ventrilo_srv
	 ;;
	force-reload|restart)
	 sh $0 stop
	 sh $0 start
	 ;;
	*)
	 echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/vent {start|stop|force-reload|restart}"
	 exit 1
	 ;;
esac

exit 0

Stick that in /ect/init.d, make sure it’s chmod’d to 755, and run update-rc.d vent defaults.  It’ll start  a Ventrilo daemon (you’ll probably have to change the paths) which will also turn off upon system shutdown, halt, or reboot.

I’ve been trying to get a TeamSpeak server working well, and maybe it’s a combination of bad codec choices and running off a home DSL connection, but it sounds horrible and lags too. Maybe it would help if I RTFM. This weekend seems like it’ll be chock full of time.

Well, I got fed up with my zombie-of-an-Ubuntu install. It was installed as Xubuntu 6.10, then upgraded to 7.04. Messy. So, I had some free time today and installed Debian GNU/Linux on it! I love Debian! Aside from some weirdness with not being able to install apache2, that was fixed by adding the line

deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian etch main contrib

to my /etc/apt/sources.list

Then it found apache2, and for some reason then wanted the CD to install it from. Weirdness. Oh well, it’s over now. That’s not the best of it – the server now has a startup time (from when I press the power button to when the cursor is blinking for me to login) of a bit under 36 seconds! That’s not to mention the shutdown time of around 5 seconds. For those of you who need help grasping how awesome this is, it means a complete hardware reboot can be accomplished in 40 seconds!

There is no data loss, all MySQL was backed up. The only loss I can think of is the changelog for cs_generic, but I could make it again by looking through all the files and seeing the changes if I wanted to.

I also created a startup script for Ventrilo, meaning everything I need is now started completely automatically. I used somewhat the help file here, and also found some syntax by Googling directly for Ventrilo startup scripts, but ended up writing my own. As much as it’s possible, it’s not all that long. I found it useful to try to do stuff just with sudo /etc/init.d/vent {command,} just for debugging the scripts. My initial (and only?) problem turned out to be that I had an underscore instead of a slash in my file path. It couldn’t find /home/steve/vent_ventrilo_srv so well, but /home/steve/vent/ventrilo_srv was fine. Wonder why. 😛

Anyways, aside from the usual urges to elope with SSH, the server install went flawlessly. Maybe I can publish a guide. That’s a summer-type thing though.

Interesting…

I just bothered to install log-analyzing software, and it appears that the MSN web-crawling bots (for Microsoft’s search engine) is currently accounting for 52% of my site’s traffic! Seems like typical Microsoft: they can’t beat Google with quality, so they’ll just try and have their bots spam the crap out of every site everywhere. I password protected the logs, but I don’t see why I should as they’re information-only, no commands available. I could make the web stats available if people are interested.

Got it! Turned out I needed to add some bizarre X server commands. I checked my /var/mail/steve and it was filled with complaints about the alarm not being able to find the X server. I should check the system mail more often.

There’s been yet another change that you shouldn’t care about at all… I’ve changed the server from my Ubuntu installation that I severely crippled with my incorrect drivers and xorg configuration. I backed up all the stuff to a partition, which I then restored from, and had the server up and running in a matter of hours, the only snag being not having a password for the SQL database, which was easily fixedz0rz. I changed to Xubuntu, which has a less resource-heavy window manager, and I hope that will improve performance. I have negated any possible gains by beginning to have my server crunch some Seti@home workunits just for fun… Well, let me know of any problems. If all goes well I should be awakened by my server blasting “What Would Brian Boitano Do” from the South Park soundtrack at 6:30 AM. Let’s hope I configured cron correctly this time.

Changed the theme to something that will hopefully load a bit faster. But then, that’s apparent so why am I posting this? The world may never know…

I like the sound of pouring rain… relaxing.

Anyways, I’ve managed to break the server in a way that won’t effect you, because the web and Ventrilo servers  remain untouched. I messed up my drivers to the point I am unable to start anything but a text-only interface. Today I might just back everything up and install Debian Etch… No data loss expected, I’ll back up onto a partition.

I said I was going to do it, and I did it.

The forums are now running on SMF, with no loss of data. All passwords, posts, private messages, signatures, etc. are intact. The only problem I’ve noticed is that if you are initially unable to log in, you will need to delete your cookies from this site. On Firefox this would be Tools>Options>Show Cookies. Then in the search box put phpbb2asksteved_data and delete all cookies you see there. Or you could just Tools>Clear Private Data>Cookies. That should fix it.