Well, after almost 18 months of smooth sailing our web server fell ill yesterday. We had some corruption issues with the filesystem and RPM databases after routine upgrades and found deeper issues upon investigating those. We’ve been working around the clock (literally) to get the problems solved and so far the only service that has been down at all is email, which was down for a short time yesterday.
We have the server back up and running but to be sure there are not any hardware problems that could have caused the issues (that could resurface again) we have a new server online that we are configuring and will be transferring everything over during the weekend. Yes, Christmas weekend. In one way it’s aweful that this had to happen so close to Christmas, but then there won’t be as many people online so it may be a blessing in disguise.
Our new server features an Intel Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz processor, 2 80 GB hard drives, 1 GB RAM and more data transfer and bandwidth that we could ever utilize at our current loads. It should be all we need for at least the next 18 months.
Hopefully, the transition will go smoothly. I have several technicians working today and will have one on call through the holidays. I will also be doing much of the configuration and setup myself, and transferring accounts over to the new server one at a time, testing each to ensure smooth transition.
