Octopus Overlords

So with some of the other work I've been doing on the server lately, I decided to look up our version of Linux and realized it has just gone "end of life".. that means no more patches and updates, so that's not good.

This means I need to pull a full backup down (I will try and restore that locally on a different system at home and make sure it works) -- then I will need to nuke our entire server from orbit and reinstall on a modern version of Linux and recover the site.

Not difficult just time consuming, and you addicts will lose access to the forum for a day or two until it's all back online.

Anyhow I'm letting you know this is coming, I don't have a date yet but will sticky one once I've had a chance to test the backup (assuming I've got a system at home that will work with it).

TL;DR I need to upgrade Linux and it's lengthy. You will not have access on the days scheduled, which is TBD at the moment.


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Make it so! (at your convenience of course)

Good luck!

What could go wrong?

Shame they don't provide you with a temp server to test the upgrade against.

Back out plan: Change name, move to Mexico.

GreenGoo wrote:Good luck!

What could go wrong?

Shame they don't provide you with a temp server to test the upgrade against.

Back out plan: Change name, move to Mexico.

Definitely not Belize!


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I'm looking forward to seeing how much better everyone's posts become after the upgrade.

Will this include the new phpbb upgrade with the new board styles and such that we looked at a while back?

Blackhawk wrote:Will this include the new phpbb upgrade with the new board styles and such that we looked at a while back?

Yes and no, I think I'd rather do the OS reinstall first, make sure the board comes back as-is and then plan the next step which is board upgrade; but I would imagine they would be fairly close together assuming they go well.

Ok today I installed a minimal CENTOS 7 install on a desktop here, that took about 30 minutes.. Another 30 minutes to update packages and install webmin/virtualmin etc.

From there it's a matter of transferring backup files (did that), restoring the server (that's in progress now, but keep in mind this is an ooooolllddd desktop so it's going to take awhile). Whenever it's done, I will validate the forum came up ok (I don't see any reason why it shouldn't).

Anyhow long story short is that the restore seems to be pretty straightforward, I would anticipate start to finish it would take 6-12 hours to do a full restore max (likely a lot shorter, but you never know -- something odd might happen).

Maybe this weekend? We will see. I'll give you guys at least 10 minutes notice .

Thanks for all the work!! It is really appreciated.

Is this why I'm logged out every time I've visited the forum today?

TiLT wrote:Is this why I'm logged out every time I've visited the forum today?

Huh. Thought it was just me.

FishPants wrote:Ok today I installed a minimal CENTOS 7 install on a desktop here, that took about 30 minutes.. Another 30 minutes to update packages and install webmin/virtualmin etc.

From there it's a matter of transferring backup files (did that), restoring the server (that's in progress now, but keep in mind this is an ooooolllddd desktop so it's going to take awhile). Whenever it's done, I will validate the forum came up ok (I don't see any reason why it shouldn't).

Anyhow long story short is that the restore seems to be pretty straightforward, I would anticipate start to finish it would take 6-12 hours to do a full restore max (likely a lot shorter, but you never know -- something odd might happen).

Maybe this weekend? We will see. I'll give you guys at least 10 minutes notice .

Any reason not to go with a VM on ESXi (free)? Or some other hypervisor (Hyper-V Server 2016 is also free)? Seems like it would make things easier and more manageable...

Good luck. We're all counting on you.

But seriously thanks so much for all the work you do and put into this. Appreciated.

Pyperkub wrote:

FishPants wrote:Ok today I installed a minimal CENTOS 7 install on a desktop here, that took about 30 minutes.. Another 30 minutes to update packages and install webmin/virtualmin etc.

From there it's a matter of transferring backup files (did that), restoring the server (that's in progress now, but keep in mind this is an ooooolllddd desktop so it's going to take awhile). Whenever it's done, I will validate the forum came up ok (I don't see any reason why it shouldn't).

Anyhow long story short is that the restore seems to be pretty straightforward, I would anticipate start to finish it would take 6-12 hours to do a full restore max (likely a lot shorter, but you never know -- something odd might happen).

Maybe this weekend? We will see. I'll give you guys at least 10 minutes notice .

Any reason not to go with a VM on ESXi (free)? Or some other hypervisor (Hyper-V Server 2016 is also free)? Seems like it would make things easier and more manageable...

I could but I don't gain much other than vm overhead? I suppose in that case I could spin up a new VM in parallel and do the upgrades etc. Not a bad idea but I'd rather not spend all weekend on it. I'll see if our hosting provider can install esx on this rebuild as part of the automated process on rebuild.

This version of CENTOS won't be EOL for 4-5 years, and by then we won't need the forum anymore because we will all be in our skycars travelling to the OO meetup on mars.


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Pyperkub wrote:

FishPants wrote:Ok today I installed a minimal CENTOS 7 install on a desktop here, that took about 30 minutes.. Another 30 minutes to update packages and install webmin/virtualmin etc.

From there it's a matter of transferring backup files (did that), restoring the server (that's in progress now, but keep in mind this is an ooooolllddd desktop so it's going to take awhile). Whenever it's done, I will validate the forum came up ok (I don't see any reason why it shouldn't).

Anyhow long story short is that the restore seems to be pretty straightforward, I would anticipate start to finish it would take 6-12 hours to do a full restore max (likely a lot shorter, but you never know -- something odd might happen).

Maybe this weekend? We will see. I'll give you guys at least 10 minutes notice .

Any reason not to go with a VM on ESXi (free)? Or some other hypervisor (Hyper-V Server 2016 is also free)? Seems like it would make things easier and more manageable...

The more I think about this (while shirking my day job), I think I'm going to try this.. I will install esx at home, standalone convert to home and test it/time it. Then on conversion day I can do it again, reinstall with esx and upload the vm and bring it back online on the oldd software, then rebuild in parallel on another vm... thanks for the idea!


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FishPants wrote: I could but I don't gain much other than vm overhead? I suppose in that case I could spin up a new VM in parallel and do the upgrades etc. Not a bad idea but I'd rather not spend all weekend on it.

For what it's worth, we use virtualbox here, and once the software is installed on the system hosting the vm, a P2V takes about 30 minutes (depending on the system size). Once the V is created, it's like 5 minutes to get it running.

This is in no way meant to pressure you, do whatever you prefer. I'm just saying that after the VM software is configured, going from physical to virtual is amazingly fast these days.

edit: I see you're going for it. There can be some hiccups, but nothing an old hand like you can't handle. And once it's running smoothly, it will make all future maintenance pretty easy.

GreenGoo wrote:

FishPants wrote: I could but I don't gain much other than vm overhead? I suppose in that case I could spin up a new VM in parallel and do the upgrades etc. Not a bad idea but I'd rather not spend all weekend on it.

For what it's worth, we use virtualbox here, and once the software is installed on the system hosting the vm, a P2V takes about 30 minutes (depending on the system size). Once the V is created, it's like 5 minutes to get it running.

This is in no way meant to pressure you, do whatever you prefer. I'm just saying that after the VM software is configured, going from physical to virtual is amazingly fast these days.

edit: I see you're going for it. There can be some hiccups, but nothing an old hand like you can't handle. And once it's running smoothly, it will make all future maintenance pretty easy.

And yeah, VMWare's p2v is a lot better than MS's for Hyper-V.

GreenGoo wrote:

FishPants wrote: I could but I don't gain much other than vm overhead? I suppose in that case I could spin up a new VM in parallel and do the upgrades etc. Not a bad idea but I'd rather not spend all weekend on it.

For what it's worth, we use virtualbox here, and once the software is installed on the system hosting the vm, a P2V takes about 30 minutes (depending on the system size). Once the V is created, it's like 5 minutes to get it running.

This is in no way meant to pressure you, do whatever you prefer. I'm just saying that after the VM software is configured, going from physical to virtual is amazingly fast these days.

edit: I see you're going for it. There can be some hiccups, but nothing an old hand like you can't handle. And once it's running smoothly, it will make all future maintenance pretty easy.

You underestimate how big of a database you post whores have made! The problem is I need to P2V it to my house (I have a 70mbit connection downstream but only 10 upstream), because I have to wipe out this server to install ESX on it, and then move the VM back up to the hypervisor. I don't think it will take too long, but it's not 30 minutes I don't believe.

The good news is the restore here locally on bare metal worked great, kind of weird to have a local copy of the forum I can post into (you should totally see the pr0n I'm posting everywhere). Anyways I'm going to shut that system down now, install ESX and start a P2V, see how that goes.

Well this is frustrating.. Any intel hardware I have currently doesn't have the VT-D instruction set (I use a macbook at home for primary use, the windows stuff is old and I use it when I need to test a few things.. guess the age is showing).

So there's really not a way I can think of to P2V this SOB unless maybe I install it on my media PC (laptop -- but it might be new enough for VT-D instruction set). If not, I'll have to evaluate other options. Maybe rent a secondary server for a week to do the migration.