Hi everyone,
I have decided to venture down what I hope is a well trodden path by now;
upgrading my VPS from Debian Lenny to Squeeze.
I have scoured the list archives and tried to make the most of
http://www.debian.org/releases/squeeze/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.h…
however I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm no expert in this regard and
very much still learning so would appreciate a critique of my plan of
action:
- Ask Support kindly to perform a temporary disk snapshot
- Login via Xen console
- Verify no pending actions required for currently installed packages:
aptitude (Then hit 'g' once in 'visual mode')
- Verify that all packages are in an upgradable state:
dpkg --audit
- Show currently installed kernel(s):
dpkg -l | grep linux-image
Mine currently shows:
ii linux-image-2.6-xen-686 2.6.26+17+lenny1 Linux 2.6 image on
i686, oldstyle Xen suppor
ii linux-image-2.6.26-1-xen-686 2.6.26-13lenny2 Linux 2.6.26
image on i686, oldstyle Xen sup
ii linux-image-2.6.26-2-xen-686 2.6.26-26lenny2 Linux 2.6.26
image on i686, oldstyle Xen sup
- Confirm non-usage of grub2:
dpkg -l | grep grub
Mine currently shows:
ii grub 0.97-47lenny2 GRand Unified Bootloader (Legacy version)
ii grub-common 1.96+20080724-16 GRand Unified Bootloader, version
2 (common
- Updates apt sources lists from lenny to squeeze:
sed -i s/lenny/squeeze/g /etc/apt/sources.list
- Manually edit /etc/apt/source.list to confirm success of the above step
and comment out any other repositories (non-Debian, backports etc) ?
- Upgrade the kernel: (*** Am I aiming for the right one here? ***)
aptitude install linux-image-2.6-686-bigmem
- Update grub configuration:
update-grub
- Remove clocksource=jiffies from kopt directive in /boot/grub/menu.lst
and confirm correct kernel will be loaded (i.e. default # matches new
kernel position)
- Upgrade udev (to minimise the risk of running the old udev with the new
kernel):
apt-get install udev
- Reboot
- Record a transcript of the upgrade session:
script -t 2>~/upgrade-squeeze.time -a ~/upgrade-squeeze.script
(This can be reviewed at a later date with scriptreplay
~/upgrade-squeeze.time ~/upgrade-squeeze.script)
- Update the package list:
apt-get update
- Perform a minimal upgrade (i.e. upgrade those packages that don't
require installation/removal of any other package(s)):
apt-get upgrade
- Complete the rest of the upgrade:
apt-get dist-upgrade
- Remove old/obsolete packages no longer required:
apt-get autoremove
- (Hopefully:) After the dust settles, advise Support that the snapshot of
the old system can be removed
Hope does that all look? Please don't hold back...
Regards,
Mathew
I know there is a lot of discussion on this topic going around at the
moment. I was just wondering if the site-blocking will be enforced on our
VPS's, is Bitfolk the kind of ISP they are going for? Do bitfolk have to now
monitor our connection packets? I'm aware that they say they are going for
compyright-infringing sites...but it seems like a slippery slope down to me
(where does it stop, YouTube has plenty of fan videos) and I'm sure a lot of
you are with me on the issue of freedom of speech, i'm fairly sure before
long we will have the "Great Firewall Of Britain"
Thank you,
Daniel
Hello,
There was a request to provide an additional non-standard port for
SSH which would have relaxed Fail2Ban settings:
https://tools.bitfolk.com/redmine/issues/75
This is now done, and the additional port is 922. You won't be
blocked by Fail2Ban on that port no matter how many times you fail
your password.
I would also like to remind you that SSH key upload is also
supported, which you may prefer to password auth:
https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/security/
Cheers,
Andy
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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Hello,
As you may be aware, CentOS 6 was released recently. We've also had
requests to investigate another RHEL clone, Scientific Linux.
Here's the feature request for CentOS 6:
https://tools.bitfolk.com/redmine/issues/77
If you read that, you'll see there's a bit of a problem with not
being able to specify partitioning details in the text mode
installer any longer.
I'm not sure of the best way to proceed with this, so it would be
really helpful if any customers with a stake (i.e., if you're likely
to want to run CentOS / SL 6 at some point in the future) could log
in at the above URL and update the feature request with your
thoughts.
Replying to this email instead is OK too, though it'd be nicer to
keep it all in the feature tracker.
Thanks!
Andy
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http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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Hi,
I was hoping to only mention this much closer to the time when it
could actually happen, but a few people have been asking about this
so I thought it was only fair to give an update.
TL;DR version:
We're planning to soon double the amount of RAM offered for the
current price. You'll be contacted individually when this can
happen; hopefully it just happens, but if you're unlucky then you
might need to be migrated or keep the same amount of RAM for a lower
price instead. Do not panic. You can stop reading now. :)
Longer version:
For a while now it has been clear to us that BitFolk has fallen
behind its competitors in how much RAM we offer for a given price
point, and I wanted to reassure you that I have been taking steps to
remedy this. These have included:
- 56GiB of RAM installed across several machines at the recent
maintenance at the end of February.
- Ongoing migration of all customers off of dunkel.bitfolk.com so
that some non-urgent hardware maintenance and a RAM upgrade can be
done.
- New server with 48GiB RAM being prepared for colo now.
We are hoping to double the RAM allocation for the same price, i.e.
the smallest VPS will come with 480MiB RAM and additional RAM may be
purchased 240MiB at a time.
We could of course just offer this right now to new customers, but I
really dislike it when existing customers are not offered the same
deal as new, even if it does make some business sense to chase the
new. So, I'm holding back from doing that until I know it will be
possible to apply the upgrade to the majority of existing customers.
I can't give any firm timescale for this right now; it's going to
happen as soon as possible.
For many customers this is all going to be very simple; you'll
receive an email that says "congrats, shut down and boot again to
enjoy twice as much RAM". That's it. Unfortunately for some of you
it's not going to be possible to "just do it".
Some of you will be on hosts that cannot be economically upgraded.
8GiB DDR2 DIMMs are stupidly expensive; it's cheaper to buy new
machines with 8GiB DDR3. Here's how it's going to work:
Customers with 240 or 360MiB RAM will be upgraded first. That's
because 240 and 360MiB plans won't be available to new customers
afterwards. If we can't upgrade you because the host is out of
RAM then you will be offered migration[1] to a host that does have
enough RAM. If there's no host available with enough RAM then you
will remain with the same amount of RAM and your future renewals
will be cheaper, however we will upgrade you to at least 480MiB RAM
as soon as we can and you will have no choice in this.[2]
Next, customers with 480MiB or more RAM will be upgraded. If we
can't upgrade you then you'll stay with the RAM you have, at the
lower cost.[3]
As soon as we start upgrading people, the new plans will be
available to new customers, although we may run out of capacity
quickly due to upgrading existing customers. Once this happens,
please don't try to cancel your monthly contract and sign up again
to get the extra RAM quicker; I would hope to have upgraded everyone
that I can within a couple of days of starting. :)
As usual if anyone wants to downgrade then they will be free to do
so from their next contract renewal.
However, if:
- you currently have 480MiB or more of RAM *and*;
- you know you don't need twice as much as you have now *and*;
- you're definitely going to ask to be downgraded back towards what
you started with;
then it would be helpful if you could email support(a)bitfolk.com with
your VPS account name and the amount of RAM you'd like to end up
with. We *may* be able to both downgrade you (and give you some
service credit back) and use that RAM to give to someone else. No
promises though; you may have to wait until your next renewal as
normal.
If you have any questions about all this then please just hit reply
to direct them to the users list, or send an email to
support(a)bitfolk.com if you'd rather discuss off-list.
Cheers,
Andy
[1] Migrating your VPS between hosts will require us to shut it down
and then boot it up again, with something like 5-10 minutes of
downtime in between. If a migration is necessary then we'll
contact you individually to co-ordinate the work.
[2] While you may be satisfied that 240 or 360MiB RAM is adequate
for you, I don't want to keep lots of custom plans going and I
don't want to bill below £8.99/mo if possible.
[3] e.g. If you're on 480MiB RAM, 10GiB disk, 100GB/mo data transfer
then that currently costs £13.99/mo. If we couldn't upgrade you
to 960MiB RAM then you will remain on 480MiB but the plan will
only cost you £8.99/mo from your next renewal.
--
http://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
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