Tag Archives: Servers

Welcome to the new server

By Dougal | Published: December 4, 2009

After much flailing about and gnashing of teeth, you should now be seeing this site served up by my new webhost. My original plan to use FastCGI + PHP CGI didn’t pan out (for some reason). But with other improvements to my configuration, I think that the new setup should work pretty well.

After it’s had some time to burn in, and I have the chance to twiddle some more knobs, I’ll try to post a few tidbits of what we changed. [...]

Posted in Announcements | Also tagged Apache, configuration, fastcgi, Performance | Leave a comment

Server Reconfig Redux

By Dougal | Published: December 4, 2009

After a couple of failed attempts at switching to the new server setup, it seems I’m going to have to fall back and punt (at least on a portion of it). With the help of Frederick Townes, I have what should be a really screaming-fast web server setup. But for some reason, it seems that the Apache Worker MPM + FastCGI (mod_fcgid) + PHP CGI combination is not stable. At least, it’s not for me. [...]

Posted in Announcements | Also tagged Apache, fastcgi, mod_fcgid, mod_php, Performance, PHP | Leave a comment

New Server

By Dougal | Published: November 18, 2009

I’ve completed my migration to the new server, as mentioned in my previous post. I’m going to give it a little time for any problems to shake out before I do any heavy testing, but please let me know if you notice anything that doesn’t work correctly.

Update, Dec 2: I’m trying again, after some server configuration help from Frederick Townes (W3 Total Cache author). So far, testing with ApacheBench has looked good.

Posted in Announcements | Also tagged Apache, configuration, Hardware, hosting | 2 Comments

Whither Spam?

By Dougal | Published: June 14, 2008

When I switched to my new Slicehost server, I spent a while trying to decide what I wanted to do about email for my domains. I contemplated using Google’s domain email service, or some other third-party email hosting. But I just hated giving up that much control of my email setup. [...]

Posted in Hardware, Linux, Servers, Services, Software, Spam, Tech | Also tagged antivirus, clamav, Email, email spam, fighting spam, Linux, mail, mailscanner, mailwatch, slicehost, smtp, Spam, spamassassin, spamsnake, Ubuntu | 4 Comments

Now on Slicehost: Me!

By Dougal | Published: April 21, 2008

If you are seeing this post, then you are getting pages served from my new server at Slicehost. I still have to migrate my other web sites, and figure out how I’m going to mange email, but this was a big hurdle, and I’m glad to say that it went pretty smoothly. There are still some old files that I haven’t put back in place yet, so if anything seems awry, don’t be too surprised. I know of a couple of things I need to take care of, but I’m sure there are others that haven’t crossed my mind yet. [...]

Posted in Announcements, General, Servers, Services | Also tagged hosting, self, slicehost, webhosting | 11 Comments

Roadwork Next 15 Miles

By Dougal | Published: March 13, 2008

I am preparing to move all of my web and email hosting to a new server. I’ve been fortunate to have an in-trade hosting arrangement for many years now (thanks to Jeff at Iguanasoft!). But my host’s owner is winding down some of his equipment, and I had outgrown the server I was on. I’ve secured a new server at Slicehost (a 1024slice running Ubuntu), and I’ll be transitioning my data over the next couple of weeks, as time allows.

I mainly mention this as warning that if my site appears to be down, email bounces, or any other strangeness occurs, it might be because I’m in the middle of moving things around. [...]

Posted in Announcements, Blogs, Personal, Servers, Tech, WordPress | Also tagged 1024slice, app, hosting, Linux, moving, Services, slice, slicehost, Ubuntu, WordPress, wordpressmu, wpmu | 22 Comments

glTail: Realtime Logfile Visualization

By Dougal | Published: October 11, 2007

This screenshot shows how glTail visualizes a comment spam attack in my configuration.

A few days ago, in my usual daily link browsing, I ran across a link to something called “glTail“, which was described as “realtime logfile visualization”. I’m often keeping an eye on my server logs to catch unusual activity, so I thought I’d give it it a look. [...]