Hi,
One day in January between Saturday 10th and Sunday 18th inclusive I
intend to be taking down all BitFolk servers in turn to perform a
memory upgrade and some other work. It shouldn't take more than
about 30 minutes per server.
This will be followed by an increase of RAM allocated to each plan,
i.e. a free RAM upgrade. I do not know exactly how much yet. [1]
I will clarify the exact date as soon as possible.
Other work that will be taking place:
- Upgrade of hypervisor, since the version in use on kahlua seems to
have fixed a couple of annoying bugs that the others still have [2]
- Switch to high efficiency PSUs where possible
- Accurate power draw measurements for each server
- islay.bitfolk.com will be replaced by newer hardware
Cheers,
Andy
[1] For all paying customers, unless for some reason we have agreed
otherwise. Will likely be in the region of 120 - 240M.
[2] Notably:
- the one where if you reboot sometimes, then the VM comes back
with no networking; and
- the very intermittent one where after transferring ~3.7GiB of
data, a VM will lose all networking and have to be rebooted.
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
Hi,
I was hoping to provide a centralised clamav service -- something
that has been repeatedly asked for -- but I've hit a bit of a road
block.
I can't be having clamav on just one host, and most clamav clients
don't support multiple IPs to round robin, so I'd like to load
balance it.
The problem is that clamav appears to expect the clients to send the
file data by a separate TCP stream, the port for which it tells the
client in response to a command the client gives. This is similar
to FTP.
It means I can't see a way to know which ports to open in the
firewall, and worse still, the daemon only responds with a port not
an IP, which is no good in a load balanced scenario since all the
clients are talking to the load balancer.
The only thing I can think of is configuring each clamav box to use
a different port range and mapping all those ports on the load
balancer to the correct boxes. That's really horrible. Anyone got
any better ideas?
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
I want to start sending text messages from a cron job - does anyone already
do this and do you have any hints or recommendations for technologies or
providers? I'd only want to send a dozen or so a month, so I'm hardly a
bulk user
Cheers
James
Make sure the following is done:
Note: We recommend disabling the InnoDB storage engine in MySQL. If you use InnoDB, recovering from an unexpected system restart will be more difficult. You can disable InnoDB by including a line that says skip-innodb underneath the 'datadir' line in your .my.cnf file.
> From:: Andy Smith <andy(a)bitfolk.com>
> To: users(a)lists.bitfolk.com
> Subject: Re: [bitfolk] Specs & Performance Question
> Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:26:54 +0000
> Hi John,
> On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 04:47:10PM +0100, John Morgan Salomon wrote:
> > I am working on figuring out my Drupal/Apache configuration issues (of
> > which there are several), but while I can probably get the memory
> > usage to somewhat tolerable levels, I would be grateful to hear from
> > people who have similar setups what sort of minimum memory specs you
> > recommend for 5-10 Apache processes? I have no problem figuring out
> > what 'd theoretically need, but it would be very cool if anyone could
> > share their real-life experience on what they'd recommend to be safe.
> Well, first up I have no direct experience of Drupal. However..
> The most important thing is to check you're not swapping. You
> should see how big the typical Apache child process is and then see
> how many of those you can fit in your RAM, setting maxclients
> appropriately.
> As Duane said, if you can use Lighttpd instead of Apache then that
> will help.
> Also do not neglect your MySQL configuration:
> <a target="_blank"
> href='http://drupal.org/node/85768'>http://drupal.org/node/85768</a>
> Cheers
> Andy
> --
> <a target="_blank" href='http://bitfolk.com/'>http://bitfolk.com/</a> --
> No-nonsense VPS hosting
> Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
> </pre><pre>_______________________________________________
> users mailing list
> users(a)lists.bitfolk.com
> https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users
Hi,
Effective immediately, data transfer allowance per month has been
increased by 50%. Also the cost of data transfer overage has been
reduced by 25% to £1.50/10GB/mo.
Happy new year!
Andy
(*) Some customers already got a free 50% extra data transfer quota
a while back for being loyal customers for a year+. I'm afraid
you're not getting anything extra this time; everyone else is
just catching up with you!
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
Also you may find this link useful :http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/544
> From:: Andy Smith <andy(a)bitfolk.com>
> To: users(a)lists.bitfolk.com
> Subject: Re: [bitfolk] Specs & Performance Question
> Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2008 00:26:54 +0000
> Hi John,
> On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 04:47:10PM +0100, John Morgan Salomon wrote:
> > I am working on figuring out my Drupal/Apache configuration issues (of
> > which there are several), but while I can probably get the memory
> > usage to somewhat tolerable levels, I would be grateful to hear from
> > people who have similar setups what sort of minimum memory specs you
> > recommend for 5-10 Apache processes? I have no problem figuring out
> > what 'd theoretically need, but it would be very cool if anyone could
> > share their real-life experience on what they'd recommend to be safe.
> Well, first up I have no direct experience of Drupal. However..
> The most important thing is to check you're not swapping. You
> should see how big the typical Apache child process is and then see
> how many of those you can fit in your RAM, setting maxclients
> appropriately.
> As Duane said, if you can use Lighttpd instead of Apache then that
> will help.
> Also do not neglect your MySQL configuration:
> <a target="_blank"
> href='http://drupal.org/node/85768'>http://drupal.org/node/85768</a>
> Cheers
> Andy
> --
> <a target="_blank" href='http://bitfolk.com/'>http://bitfolk.com/</a> --
> No-nonsense VPS hosting
> Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
> </pre><pre>_______________________________________________
> users mailing list
> users(a)lists.bitfolk.com
> https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/users
Hi there,
I'm in the process of setting up a fairly basic Apache2/mod-ssl/mysql5/
Drupal ecommerce site, and am seeing fairly horrid RAM performance on
my VPS.
I am working on figuring out my Drupal/Apache configuration issues (of
which there are several), but while I can probably get the memory
usage to somewhat tolerable levels, I would be grateful to hear from
people who have similar setups what sort of minimum memory specs you
recommend for 5-10 Apache processes? I have no problem figuring out
what 'd theoretically need, but it would be very cool if anyone could
share their real-life experience on what they'd recommend to be safe.
Thanks,
-John
Hi,
I'm having problems accessing Bitfolk's online banking at the moment
due to the complete incompetence of Abbey Business Banking.
Apparently it all has to be sorted out by postal mail so is going to
take days.
Therefore, if you have paid by standing order/BACS it may be a while
before I can process it, and you may start receiving automated
reminders. Don't worry, I will not be cutting anyone off until I
have access to the online banking again.
It's also highly likely that Bitfolk's bank details will change
soon, but if that happens the accounts will be run in parallel for a
time.
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
Hi,
BitFolk's IP assignment has grown from 212.13.194.0/24 (i.e.
212.13.194.0 -> 212.13.194.255) to 212.13.194.0/23 (i.e.
212.13.194.0 -> 212.13.195.255). This means that almost all
customers in the UK need to change their netmask.
This is largely harmless since all it means is that you cannot
communicate with IPs in 212.13.195.x, and for some time to come that
will only be other customers. However, eventually I will need to
start putting infrastructure into there too.
Here are some instructions on how to change the settings. You
should be able to do this without losing any network connectivity.
These instructions are for Debian/Ubuntu, so Centos and Gentoo folks
you are on your own unfortunately, but this isn't complicated -- I
believe the only Debian-specific bit is step 4.
1. Make sure you have access to your Xen shell console in case
anything goes wrong.
2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR XEN CONSOLE IN CASE ANYTHING
GOES WRONG. REALLY. LOG IN AND CHECK.
3. Check that you actually need to do this. An example of a VPS
that needs to make a change:
$ /sbin/ip ro
212.13.194.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 212.13.194.75
default via 212.13.194.1 dev eth0
Note the /24 -- it should be /23.
4. Fix your config file, /etc/network/interfaces. Here's an example
of the content before it is fixed:
----[ /etc/network/interfaces ]--------------------------------------
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 212.13.194.75
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 212.13.194.1
----[ /etc/network/interfaces ]--------------------------------------
Here's an example after fixing:
----[ /etc/network/interfaces ]--------------------------------------
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 212.13.194.75
netmask 255.255.254.0
gateway 212.13.194.1
----[ /etc/network/interfaces ]--------------------------------------
The only line changed is the netmask.
You should change this config file ready for the next boot, but
it won't alter your current settings.
5. Find your current IP address:
$ /sbin/ip -4 addr
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
inet 212.13.194.75/24 scope global eth0
In this example my IP address is 212.13.194.75.
6. Add it with the correct settings:
$ /sbin/ip addr add 212.13.194.75/23 dev eth0
That should complete without error.
7. Remove the old one:
$ /sbin/ip addr del 212.13.194.75/24 dev eth0
That should complete without error.
8. Check that your routing table is now correct:
$ /sbin/ip ro
212.13.194.0/23 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 212.13.194.75
default via 212.13.194.1 dev eth0
That's it. You should not lose connectivity at any point during this
procedure.
If you're already using the /23 setup (anyone set up probably in the
last 2 weeks, but do check) then you don't need to do anything.
If you have your own net block routed to you then you don't need to
do anything.
If you have multiple IPs then your interfaces file might look a bit
like this:
----[ /etc/network/interfaces ]--------------------------------------
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 212.13.194.75
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 212.13.194.1
auto eth0:1
iface eth0:1 inet static
address 212.13.194.116
netmask 255.255.255.255
----[ /etc/network/interfaces ]--------------------------------------
The netmask of aliased IPs (eth0:1, eth0:2, ...) does not need to
change. IP aliases on the same network as another interface are
supposed to be 255.255.255.255 netmask. So in this case you would
only need to be fixing the netmask for the eth0 entry, and
adding/deleting 212.13.194.75.
If you have any questions please feel free to mail me on or offlist
about it before you do anything.
If Centos/Gentoo folks could contribute a HOWTO for this then that
would be great.
Cheers,
Andy
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Encrypted mail welcome - keyid 0x604DE5DB
