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Slashdot Prepares for a Server Move 94

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everything-goes-better-with-whiskey dept.
At about 10pm Eastern Time tonight, the overworked and mentally deranged Slashdot crew will make the transition from our current overburdened setup to our brand spanking new hardware over at Exodus. It'll take a few minutes for us to dump the existing data over there, and a second story will announce when this actually occurs, but at that moment, any comments posted here will be lost. We've tested the new metal pretty extensively, but none of us are planning on sleeping much. Bug reports can go to CowboyNeal (who plans to not sleep until friday anyway ;) Don't say we didn't warn ya ;) Update: 05/09 09:48 by CN : You can also post bugs at our SourceForge bugs page so that you can see what's already been filed, and make the transition that much smoother.
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Slashdot Prepares for a Server Move More

Slashdot Prepares for a Server Move

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  • Now if we could just convince Slashdot to get a real database (such as Oracle), we would be stylin'.

    Note to Slashdot: Not to rag on MySQL, but you guys have grown way beyond it. You can afford a high-level database. Please consider using the right tool for the job. If an Open Source alternative comes down the pike that could handle the load, then change it. But in the meantime, please admit to yourselves that you need to switch. The lack of row-level locking is going to continue to bite you guys in the butt.

    Maybe you could even keep older data online and wouldn't have to keep flushing it! [I assume that's done because of the performance limitations of MySQL].


    --

  • They said before on beta.slashdot.org what the boxes, are. They ARE va linux boxes and there are four of them. And they said that it is STILL LINUX! Check your facts.

  • I just went down to the beach with my old twin fin thrasher with a box. It's supposed to give me better controll.oh wait. wrong kind of surfboard. sorry.
  • He works at Andover, so that would put him in Acton, Mass. Then again, the new servers are just outside of Boston, Mass, so he could be there.. Then again, he could be sitting on the couch with the Commander and Hemos. That would put him in Holland, Mi. Take your pick.. I don't know!!

  • Re:Box specs? (Score:5)

    by karmma ( 105156 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @12:19PM (#1082664)
    Here [slashdot.org] is the story containing the specs on the boxes, the network topology, database and slashcode.
    --
  • Is it true Exodus is owned by the Church of Scientology? Apparently this was not a factor in /.'s choice of ISP...
  • Hehe, i was just looking at some windoze shell replacement doobry, came accross this [litestep.net] screen shot (top right, the MP3 player). Wondering if this person is on Metallica`s list?? :)


  • Oh boy, are you guys in for a shock. At work, almost all of our servers have been moved to Exodus in Jersey City. The ping times for our machines have become pretty damn horrible since then. We had this thing set up so that if the machines went down, we got beeped at least 15 minutes into it (15 minutes is the longest one of our servers takes to come back up on its own), but for some reason that never happens anymore. (not sure if it's exodus related, but easy enough to blame it on them.) Alot of tech support guys there can't handle linux, and most of them can't handle computers in general. "ok, i typed reboot, but nothing happened." "Ok, what does it say on the monitor?" "Mon-ee-tohr?"

    The problem is, it took almost a week and a half for the DNS to propagate after we moved, and our sites were unavailable for that period of time. We're really worried about how much downtime we'll have if we try to move again, but we're gonna have to risk it at some point.

    Here's hoping you get better service than we do.
    --
    Peace,
    Lord Omlette
    AOL IM: jeanlucpikachu
  • Nah you are confusing it with Earthlink. Earthlink's founder is Church of Scientology
  • Good luck, guys!


    Also, it'd be interesting after you're done to get your opinions on the experience - hosting centers are a major part of the Internet these days.

  • Hey everyone! Maybe slashdot moving over will help pull my Exodus stock out of it's current slump. Quickly everyone buy shares of EXDS!
  • I read that as "sparc c64". I was wondering when the hell Commodore and Sun had gotten together.

    -shiver- That's a creepy idea.

    BTW - does this mean that all us +1 bonus users can spam without worrying about our Karma? >:-P

    --
    Evan

  • uh-uh (Score:1)

    by rwade ( 131726 )
    CowboyNeal said it's gonna be on 8 red hat and debian servers (red hat for dbasing and debian for everything else).

  • boxen (Score:1)

    by romco ( 61131 )
    Can I have the old boxes?
  • I just went down to the comca$t office today to trade in my old Motorola Cybrsurfr for a General Instruments SURFboard SB3100 Cable modem. It's SUPPOSED to give me better bandwidh. Anyway - hope your move went as smooth as mine! -Sonicboom
  • Netcraft ( http://www.netcraft.com/whats/ [netcraft.com] ) reports that it's running Linux:
    beta.slashdot.org is running Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) mod_perl/1.22 on Linux
  • Oh! What joy that tomorrow shall bring forth! Surely the "waiting for reply" message shall no more vex my weary eyes!

  • Hmmm; not up to TrollMastah standards, but a good try nevertheless.

    Trollmastah: You are missed.


    --

  • Errm, IIRC it's four quad Xeons and a couple of dedicated DB servers. I can't be sure of any more details though.

  • Hey!! You ruined it! I was going to drive over to the Geek Compound with a trunk full of the finest British exports to help them celebrate a successful server migration!!

    Now that you went and fucked it up, what the hell am I going to do with a pony of Guinness and five sixers of Bass? Not to mention the case of Harp!!!
  • This message will get lost in the transition, right?

    Right?

    ;)
  • Check out the story [slashdot.org] from beta.slashdot.org [slashdot.org]. And while you're there, you may try giving it one last load test before it goes live.

    So, does this move mean that beta.slashdot.org will go away? That was rather interesting at times. It was a bit more liberal than the regular Slashdot. I know, hard to believe. Check it out!

    Bye-bye beta.slashdot.org! We'll miss you!

  • Yup! (Score:1)

    by technos ( 73414 )
    And then take a few days off to recover from the alcohol poisioning!

  • Re:The Trolls are ready (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes, but did they ever get rid of that god awful LAMENESS filter they were trying out? If not, I know of one very unhappy caveman. I honestly don't think it will accomplish too much, except make the spammers (I refuse to call them trolls)change their methods, not their behavior. I mean, you've already taken steps to filter out ascii art (they just put leading ...s to make up for it), disabled file links (prompting the glorious return of goatse.cx) and various other steps. While restricting things such as typing all caps may weed out those less net savvy and such, it really won't do too much in the way of solving the underlying problems people here seem to have. and furthermore I CAN'T OUTLINE MY POINT IN CAPS anymore. It only let like one word with caps through. NExT PeOPlE WiLL JusT HAvE tO Do ANnoYiNg ThINgS lIkE THIs To GeT AtTTenTion. Which is worse, if you ask me.
  • When moving servers to a new host dont be extra careful not to truncate the


    ...................

    ... paka chubaka

  • Ask Natalie Portman (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How come you can get Douglas Adams to answer our questions, but not Natalie Portman?!?!?!
  • surely you jest, O lame one....

    I run an ISP and Qwest is notorious for having a dicked up network. I was getting lots of spam from some node on their network a few months ago and emailed root@qwest.net postmaster@qwest.net and abuse@qwest.net It was about the same time that one of their sales reps was trying to get me to lease a T1 from them...

    Guess what...their mail server sent back "no such mailbox" daemons on all 3 addies...that made up my mind about doing business with them more than some short-skirted marketroid ever could.

    Qwest: "You may ride the light, but the batteries in the flashlight are dead"
  • Where is this moving to? The one in Sana Clara (sp?) California or Oakbrook, IL??? Tips to remember... You cant rip cardboard inside your cage... Those smoke alarms are so sensitive. They also have raised flooring... The water sensors are sensitive enough to see a small cup of water UNDERNEATH the floor... That and the bullet proof glass, bomb safe building (all but the ceiling), and soon they are switching from 1024 bit encryped key access cards to scanning in your hand for authentication... Exodus is making waves... /. I think you will be quite pleased...

  • No, the spammers can't use caps any more, they'll just move onto bold instead. And any alternative is bound to be worse, just because an effort was made to try and thwart them.

  • I was wondering the same thing too. I've actually seen the slashdot box in DN's data center, and now that fuzzy feeling of seeing the box in action, and not anymore, is well... Depressing. WOOHOOO [dn.net]

  • Hmm so is there any support for any ethernet cards in Xenix? For instance the 3c501? I figure one braindead ethernet card for one braindead OS. Read the 3c501.c file in the linux kernel if you don't believe me.
  • i will take a few days off to chat with my natalie portman poster!
  • Good question. There are a couple of issues. First, some of our boxes cannot be in a pool; not all of our boxes are web boxes. :-) Second, we will have a whole bunch of just general purpose web boxes waiting to be used by various sites, not just Slashdot. So we may have six web boxes in the Slashdot pool, and 10 sitting there twiddling their thumbs, and if two go down for Slashdot, we bring in two more; if two go down for some other site, we can use those, etc.

  • <pants>Hot Grits</pants>

    The sublimely concise expression of the hot grits post! Now can you do an open source/stone/portman?

    ======
    "Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

  • Actually, we announced our use of Source Forge when we first announced the beta servers a couple of weeks ago. :-)
  • boy, that brings back some memories.

    I know of a place that still has an Altos 586 in working condition. They don't use it anymore, of course.

    I think it was in active use up until 1990 or so.
  • Reading between the lines and among the slashes and dots, I can see it's painfully obvious. Trollmastah just outed himself.

  • w00t (Score:1)

    by ChrisUK ( 92178 )
    Brilliant. Slashdot's been really lagged today, so things should be better on this ol' 56K modem. Is WAP going to get sorted now? :)
  • Good luck (you'll need it 8-)
  • YaaaYYYYY Now my posts can be deleted faster than ever..!!!!

  • Box specs? (Score:3)

    by doog ( 5889 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @11:37AM (#1082700) Homepage
    So what are the specs on the box? I assume its from VA... How many processors? How much Ram? Raid? What kernel version??

  • So... (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @11:38AM (#1082701)
    Finally switching to Win2000, IIS, and Active Server Pages, huh?
  • Does this mean I can't be a karma whore for a whole hour or so?! Shit!

  • Knowing this message will be lost at server change, I offer myself a brief moment of sanity...

    FIRST POST!!!!

    Aaaahhhhhh......

  • Exodus is a good hosting company. Congrats. Does /. have a cage?
  • So does this mean that slashdot.org is not going to point to 209.207.224.40-42 anymore? If so, how about a pointer until all the dns tables get updated?
  • What are the exact stats on the new server (or did I miss that posted someplace?)

  • The Trolls are ready (Score:4)

    by Livn4Golf ( 83604 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @11:39AM (#1082707) Homepage
    Every troll and their brother is going to be ready at 10 hoping to the the first 'first post' on the new boxen. I can't wait.

  • I can see it now... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A frantic scramble of the hordes of the Easily Amused all trying to get the real 'Last Post' just before or at 10:00PM ET. But.. how will they know?

    Poetic, that non-answer is.

  • Re:Epiphany (Score:3)

    by Yebyen ( 59663 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @11:40AM (#1082709) Homepage
    First of all, no 6th post, and second of all: to clarify. Messages now are ok, messages posted at the moment they change the server will be dumped.

    --
  • Good idea! thanks! ;)
  • Bah... Does it all really matter?

    The new code and HDD's won't know me... I'll have to offer them new pearls, get to know them...

    Ciao, old server. New box, beware!

    Good night...

  • This is more like a speculation on what might happen than a poll, but hey, it could work as a poll too. (Don't blame me, I'm the Poll Mastah, I express myself using polls. :-)

    What will happen when Slashdot moves to a new server?

    1. Everything will be fine, and everybody will be happier with better bandwidth, better response time, and of course, faster hot grits ;-)
    2. Slashdot will cease being Slashdotted.
    3. Unexpected problems will arise and Slashdot will once again Slashdot itself.
    4. The trolls will be happier because now they have more bandwidth to burn.
    5. The karma whores will be happier because now they can collect karma points faster
    6. The Obsessive, Compulsive Slashdot reloaders will be happier now that they can hit a reload rate of 10 reloads/second.
    7. There will be a mad rush to first-post on the new server. (Mark my words, you better bet this is coming!!)
    8. Those wonderful long JonKatz stories with the typical 500+ comments attached will finally take less than 20 minutes to load!
    9. Many Anonymous Cowards will complain and threaten to _____ (sue, flame, murder, you-fill-in-the-blank) CmdrTaco, Hemos, JonKatz, their relatives, their friends, etc., etc., because a certain 1-line post was inadvertantly lost during the data transfer.
  • as such a visible website in the opensource world, you missed an opportunity to execute this in a "don't miss a heartbeat" way. Yes, it would have cost more and cost more planning, but the benefits would have been broad and deep. This way looks as lame as any IIS server reboot.

    no, I'm not flaming, and no, I'm not trolling. This is serious stuff.

  • 2.2.12 and newer stacks get misinterpreted by fingerprinting proggies written before they were released.. Conversly, some of them written after the fact report AIX as Linux 2.2.x...
  • No.

    They wanted a more time-proven server platform.

    They've opted for Microsoft Xenix (not that 'sold out commercial SCO Xenix crap- that came much later!).

    The hardware will be twelve Altos 586 boxes daisy-chained together (The Altos 586 is an 8086-based system- the '5' stands for five users. Notably, the existence of the Altos 586 is the chief reason Intel chose the name "Pentium" for their fifth generation x86 processor) Each Altos box, in addition to the Intel 8086 processor (two of the machines have been "overclocked" by the substitution of a NEC V-30 chip!), 512K of RAM, and six serial ports (one for the console, five to connect dumb terminals or modems, as each box supports five users.) Since only one of the Altos boxes has the built-in Ethernet, the other eleven boxes will be connected through a daisy-chain scheme to use UUCP for 'networking'.

    The power of all this hardware is harnessed through the use of Microsoft's Xenix Operating System. Unlike the rather anaemic SCO releases that followed it, Microsoft Xenix is a powerhouse of an Operating System. Linux wasn't an option, because it took the coding skill of Microsoft to get a Unix system that supports 5 users concurrently to run on an 8086 processor with 512K of RAM. The Linux kernel alone has a vastly larger memory footprint than that, and needless to say it doesn't scale well to the 8086 processor. (These stats on Microsoft Xenix are the truth, by the way, and Microsoft did it in 1982.)

    There won't be a web server running on the new platform. Users will dial directly into a modem pool linked to serial ports on the Altos boxes. A modified version of the WWIV bulletin board software (version 3.21d was the starting point for the adapted 'port') will provide a home for the new enhanced Slashdot.

    You'll know the upgrade has been made when you see the login prompt, and the friendly ASCII splash screen welcoming you to The New Slashdot
  • Why are you guys moving from DN to Exodus? I've heard lots of good things about DN and was considering colo'ing a server with them...is this just some consolidation between Andover and VA, or is the reason for moving a performance issue?

    Any Editors' feedback welcome, as well as any ./'ers who've hosted over at DN.

    Cheers

  • Exodus has pretty much taken over from UUNet the distinction of being the most notorious spamhaus ISP. Unless you count Telstra and Sprint.

  • I woner where CN [http] posts from? It's only 3:05 pm here in California. ;)
  • Did you say *spanking hardware*?

    Ouch!

    E.

  • Hey, if /. is moving to Exodus, Waltham, they'll be next to my boxes!

    Just think, when I get that dedicated T1 between our office and Exodus, I can route directly to /. without having to go through the cloud! I'll be, like, four hops away, or something similarly stupid.

    This way, when slash is slow, I'll know it's a hardware problem, and not my connection. ;-)

    I could give tours of the boxes to my friends!("And on your left we see Lycos...and on your right, Slashdot..."). Kewl!

  • Excellent point! I wish I still had my points to mod you up.
  • From the info about the beta servers [slashdot.org], I noticed this line:

    Second, we're also developing some in-house software (code named "Oddessey") that will keep each Slashdot boxed sychronized with a hot-spare box, so in case a box suddenly dies it will automatically be replaced with a hot-spare box -- kind of a RAID-for-servers solution

    Why not include these in the load balancing or round-robin hunt pool? Overall performance should then be higher, and if one machine dies, the performance would be the same as it is currently.
  • still, there isn't a 6 hour time spread between the Weat and East coast of the US. perhaps he is in the middle of the Atlantic? In the secret underwater slashdot compound!
  • It would be cooler if it was a beowulf cluster.

  • DAmn (Score:1)

    by Mr804 ( 12397 )
    About time you guys upgraded from that C64.

  • Hmm, First Post Race! K0oL!

    <pants>Hot Grits</pants>

    Imagine that society is a bra, and Natalie Portman is a pair or breasts. Can you imagine a society without breasts?

    I guess I'm doubly redundant :)
  • ObBeowulf reference as well.

    its 3:59:59 here in jolly ol' england

    the AC
    KarmaWhoring for the hell of it, gotta get some sleep.
  • I work at MS, and we also contract to Exodus sometimes.

    Damn, my code might be running in the same building as Slashdot! The ironies of existence never cease to amaze me.


    -konstant
    Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
  • Yup, they're one row over and one row down from my cage at Exodus Boston 2. I have to admit I've already done the '...aaaaand, this is /.!' tour. Their cage looks waaaay kewl...lotsa pretty blue LEDs. To those who care, the new servers look like a stack of Quad-Xeons and a whole *wall* of 2U VAlinux boxen which, from (some of)their hotswap bays, are RAID boxes and webservers. Looks awesome. Okay, technically, it's Andover.Net's cage, but hey...anything else eaten by the facility NDA. Oh, and I *do* have a T1 to my cage, so heehee, I"ll be able to get to them in just two or three hops. Happy happy joy joy.
  • I just would like to kick in props to Exodus. I'm in Exodus Boston, and have never been in Exodus Jersey City (JRCY), so ymmv. However, the staff at Exodus Boston has always been extremely professional, and when they haven't been able to do a task they've always told me so right up front to let me make a choice re: what to do next. However, I've never had problems with any of them 'remote keying' my machines for me; they've all been patient, smart and responsive. Also, the Exodus colo service has been *incredibly* reliable. The only complaint I would have is that apparently Exodus has some older peering agreements from when they were 'coming up', which have crappy terms...I know this because I know there are certain peerings which they are contractually forbidden to weight metrics on, even if the peering in question is sucking ass (cough BBNplanet cough). This gets REALLY irritating; however, I'm not sure who to blame this on. :-)

    In general, though, I've had nothing but good experiences at Exodus. Well, maybe the time one of their staff backed into my newly-painted Triumph TR6 in the parking lot (Hi T!) but they were honest and promptly came in to tell me and swap insurance, so no foul at all.

    -Sierran
    ...I have no connection w/Exodus save as a customer. I don't even own their stock, dammit all.

  • This way looks as lame as any IIS server reboot.

    Yeah, except slashdot doesn't get.. uh.. 'moved'.. every couple days.
  • Not too much drink until the thing is actually _working_. Don't want to scare everyone by accidently plugging that spare c64 into the internet...

    *shudder*
  • Gosh, I am _so_ incredibly tired of lynx staying on HTTP request sent; waiting for response. and then going to cook a 4 course meal and then come back and having it say HTTP 1.0 200 OK.
  • That sucks! I was going to say some witty, brilliant, insightful stuff! Now I'll have to wait until 10 to do it.
  • I'm sure they thought of that, they did that for the last server move. Important tho.

    --

  • Troll pie! (Score:5)

    by TACO TROLL ( 183262 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @11:44AM (#1082737)
    A long long time ago I can still remember
    how those trollers used to make me smile
    And I knew that if I had my chance
    I could make Slashdot:ers dance
    And maybe they'd be happy for a while.

    Did you write the stuff that matters
    And do you have faith in CmdrTaco
    If the /. tells you so
    Now do you believe in rock 'n troll
    And can moderation save their mortal soul
    And can you teach me how to troll real low

    Well I know that you're in love with her
    'Cause I saw you posting in the forum
    Pouring hot grits down her pants
    Man, I dig those flamebait rants

    I was a lonely teenage broncin' h4x3r
    With a pink iMac and a Beowulf cluster
    But I knew that I was out of my mind
    The day The Slashdot died

    I started singin'

    Bye-bye, Miss Petrified
    Surfed my IE to the forum but the forum was dry.
    And good old trollers (were) drinkin' whiskey and rye
    Singin' this'll be the day that I die
    This'll be the day that I die

    I met a geekgirl who sang the blues
    And I asked her for some nerdy news
    She stole my coke and turned away
    Well I surfed down to the sacred forum
    Where I'd saw the posts years before
    But the 404 said the posts woudn't come

    Well now on the street the trollers screamed
    The l33t3rs cried, and the h4x0rs dreamed
    But not a word was posted
    The Taco Bells all were broken (OT?)
    And the free man I admire the most
    OOG with the Holy Post
    He sent the last post to the host
    The day The Slashdot died

    We started singin'

    ||: Bye-bye, Miss Petrified
    Surfed my browser to the forum but the forum was dry.
    And good old trollers (were) drinkin' whiskey and rye
    Singin' this'll be the day that I die
    This'll be the day that I die :||
    (repeat plz)

    (TTL 4) We started Pingin'
    ____________________________________________
     By: TACO TROLL of the Troll Liberation Lobby

  • Are you going the x86 route or something bigger? Personally I think you should use a few UltraSparcs, 3 linux boxes can't handle the load.
  • s3/90 with 5 nine gaurantee uptime. Running 1000 instances of Linux!
    or not.
  • from our current overburned setup

    Well, if its not just burned, but OVERBURNED.. Well, that I can see being a problem.

    (I had thought the problem was that they were overburdened) :)

    Addison

  • Judging from the 'test servers' a week or so ago, it's just a bigger cluster with badder hardware.. No major changes to the SW, except for the new SlashCode finally makes it into production on it's home site..

  • The whole Trollmastah thing was the result of a bet to see whether or not someone posting nothing but nonsense could end up with positive Karma after a period of moderation. And he won as well - his Karma was 33 at the end despite his -1 (and even -2 for a while) default! But he does have a "regular" /. account, although I won't say who it is :)

  • Drink it?
  • I think its funny that slashdot has posted a link [slashdot.org] to an article criticizing Sourceforge, and then announces its use on the same day :)

    I don't think sourceforge is all that bad, personally. Guess slashdot doesn't either!

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) -GAIM: MicroBerto

  • Hey Rob and Co,
    I remember at one point you decided to use a xBSD server for images. You said it was an experiment to see how you liked the performance. How did it go and it it still in use?


    _damnit_
  • I'll take it!

  • And I thought Karma Whores were a problem

    Now it looks like there is a Karma Rapist

  • But he does have a "regular" /. account, although I won't say who it is :)

    Thank you for not spilling the beans, That would be like finding out that Darth Vader wasn't really James Earl Jones.

  • Guess we'll all have to check out http://www.chimpnet.com/ while /. is down! Chuck Bucket ---- If I had more time, I'd throw more nukes.
  • Has anyone else noticed that beta.slashdot.org when quesoed reports itself as IBM AIX? Anyone else think this is a little hypocritical or is queso just fucked up?

    BTW a big enough round robin should be able to handle just about anything so what is the deal.
  • ....you're going to need it. The second the new box is up, it'll get pounded by all the lamers trying for a first post...
  • If they reset the timeouts properly on the DNS tables they should be only off the air a few minutes for IP# change over. Basically if you know you are going to be changing a name to IP# mapping and you want good continuity you can reset the timeout values for the name low. This means your DNS server will get hammered harder, but when you finally change from one number to the other it will take effect much faster. Depending on site the normal timeouts for name caching are on the order of hours to days. You can change them down to minutes if you wish for a domain or name. It's just your DNS server gets to work harder if you do.
  • Stand to the ready, gents! It may be years before you get another f1r57 p057 opportunity like this one!

    --

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