Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum
General => Wiki and forum discussion => Topic started by: K.H on February 17, 2011, 08:21:22 PM
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I see it says maintenence/moving server,seems strange that there was no warning?
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how dare they, im trying to run a business ;D
film time and a beer me thinks laters gators...
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What you tryintg to flog now?
I cant remember the site Lew started when the site was down last time?
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I too think it's strange no warning from Paddy, so I'll get straight onto him now.
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prolly paddy doesnt know as his site is hosted by someone else, its the main hosting site doing maintenace, which means its crashed :(
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that was what I thought too Paul, if it were routine maintenance there usually is some warning, if hosts server has crashed I hope Paddy has a recent backup.
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What you tryintg to flog now?
I cant remember the site Lew started when the site was down last time?
It's a face book (hate face book!) page here http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=111192015601997&v=wall but there doesn't seem to be any new posts.
Least this forum is working!
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Looks like the host are swapping the site to a new machine - presumably having informed paddy first?
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Least this forum is working!
Here's where it's hosted:
(http://i.imagefra.me/7e5i0q1i.jpg)
Can keep an eye on it in the corner of the living room ;D
This machine has been on 24/7 since 2006 (bar a couple of days moving house). Every year I take the case off and vacuum it and that's the maintainance done.
Gave up on trusting other people to host a long time ago...
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I cant remember the site Lew started when the site was down last time?
It's a face book (hate face book!)
Your not the only one,and i cant stand that twitter thing either!
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So how do you set up your own web server? Is it some sort of special connection direct to the internet? ... in Noddy speak please!
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I'm not a technophobe by any means, but Facebook, twatter (not even looked at that!) and mobile phones seem to be platforms for hours of pointless drivel. Although, wait ........ isn't that what we do on the forum?
I do have a mobile phone though (30 quid second hand), but it gets used more as a satnav than a phone!
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Hmmm ive got an i phone,which ive put sat nav on and is mainly used for browsing the internet at lunchtime-in otherwords i look at the veg site and check bids in flea bay!
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It all came about because I got involved in the software development of the freeware game Alien Arena (a 3D first person shooter based on the quake source code) and we needed a secondary master server geographically distant from the primary master in the US - so this machine go set up to do this.
Since it was up and running it made sense to also use it as a web and mailserver. We turned it into a tracker for games servers worldwide (which have to register with the master servers to work), and they can be seen at http://www.chaingun.org/browser/
Setting up a web server isn't that complicated - most people these days have an ADSL router of some sort, and it's just a case of configuring the router to direct server traffic at the right computer (which called port forwarding).
The other thing that's needed is a static IP address - IE if you turn the router on and off, it doesn't get assigned a new IP address by the ISP.
Then for any given domain name there are "records" associated with it, for example "www" which is configured with this IP address.
So a web browser looking at www.biopowered.co.uk will look at the www record, and be directed to 87.194.132.220. Because it's a web page request will open port 80 (http) on the router there to ask for it. The router transparently sends this on to my little server which generates the page and returns it to the router - to the outside world it appears as though the router served the webpage directly.
Then you can have multiple domains pointing at the same IP address - another example is www.chaingun.org - this also points at 87.194.132.220, but the server can distinguish between requests and serve the right pages for the right site (which is called "virtual hosting" since there isn't one machine per site). There are quite a few that lurk on the server - another being www.wastevegetableoilsouthampton.co.uk. It makes setting up new sites no more expensive than registering and configuring a new domain name.
Slightly trickier is setting it up as a mailserver, as most ISPs block user side mail ports, so you have to get special dispensation to do this from the ISP, as well as register this thing called a "reverse DNS entry" - this effectively identifies the IP address as belonging to a particular domain name, and is required to deliver mail to some of the big mail sites like hotmail.com.
There are a few other tweeks to the ADSL link itself to reduce latency (mostly for the gaming side), and it helps to have a fast uplink rather than a fast downlink, but that's all there is to it really.
The real fun and games come with security - the machine gets scanned at least three times daily, each time followed by scripted attacks when the scan reveals the presence of a server - linux servers are especially valuable to those that administer botnets. But I'm happy to say these have been fended off for years, as I've got it very tightly locked down - and the router runs special software to spot and block a lot of attacks before they even get as far as the hosting machine.
Running the server was a hobby I was obsessed with before I got into bio. ;)
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The ensuing tumbleweed suggests I should get out more ;D
(http://blog.vidyagamez.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/tumbleweed.jpg)
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Amazingly I partly understood most of that. However, I had the impression that by having your own webserver you didn't need an ISP and had your own connection to .. is it called a trunk or some thing. Obviously not the case from what you say. So it's only really the webspace that your machine provides and not the actual hook up with the internet, that's still done in the conventional manner?
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It's all about bandwidth - hosting via your ISP is the simplest and cheapest option by far - but it's only viable for limited traffic. My uplink is 1.3mbps, so it won't handle much traffic (though I can pay to increase this to 2.3mbps for a few quid a month extra).
If you need more then you get into the more expensive territory of leasing dedicated lines, linking you directly to a datacentre closer to the backbone (often in London). Or, just hire a machine in said datacentres and administer remotely.
If you've got really big money then you set up your own datacentre wherever you like (often near a source of ready power, which is why google keeps eyeing up hydroelectric dams) and dig up miles of roads and fields to put in fibre optic links to core bits of internet infrastructure.
One of my friends has the job of organising this kind of thing for linking the big banks, and often ends up digging up long stretchs alongside the M3 or M4 for cabling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRwPSFpLX8I
Interesting stuff :)
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This morning vegoildiesel is reporting Bandwidth Limit Exceeded... what's going on?
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Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
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I hope you understood all that folks!!
Anyway back to the chase, I just spoke to Patrick and he's doing all he can to sort it but it's in the hosting Co's hands and will hopefully be sorted soon.
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3 o clock:
just had text from Paddy, he's upgraded bandwith and waiting for site host to make the changes.
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If anyone can post on paddy's forum please pass a message on from me that I cannot post or send u2u's.
I managed to post once after several attempts but now cannot post anything anywhere and it happened all yesterday, and it's the same today, I'm getting really pissed orf and can post on other forums etc no problem, I know it's not just me, as others have said they are having problems since the server/hosting error the other day
I'm giving up now as gotta go out and meet KH soon.
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I can't get on the forum at all now just get the following error message ...
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Database connection error!
A connection to the Database could not be established.
Please check your username, password, database name and host.
Also make sure config.php is rightly configured!
The system has failed to process your request. If you're an administrator, please set the DEBUG flag to true in config.php.
===========================================
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yeah same here Julian, I've sent a text to Patrick and he said he'll look at it later.
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Oh, it's just sprung back to life ... defiantly something screwy going on!
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Can't access the site at all at the moment :(