From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Jan 18 14:56:38 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from home.offwhite.net (home.offwhite.net [156.46.35.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1CA937B402 for ; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 14:56:17 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (brennan@localhost) by home.offwhite.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f0IMuGY19186; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:56:16 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from brennan@offwhite.net) Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 16:56:16 -0600 (CST) From: Brennan Stehling To: Vlad Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: my server uptime In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I did reboot for the new kernels, but after I had 3.4-STABLE in place I left it for 330 days before the new hardware replaced it. Now I hope to simply let it sit and stay at 4.2-STABLE for some time. In a couple years I may upgrade the old server and put FreeBSD 5.2-STABLE on it. I will like having a threaded kernel. The developers are doing great work. And thanks to having a nicely updated server I will be able to continue re-learning C. So far I have made some basic C binaries which can talk to the mysql database server. I hope to learn enough so I could one day help the developers... or maybe a maintainer for a couple ports. There is still yet much to learn. Brennan Stehling - software developer and system administrator my projects: home.offwhite.net (free personal hosting) www.greasydaemon.com (bsd search) beta.mymilwaukee.com (initial mockup) beta.sncalumni.com (initial mockup) On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Vlad wrote: > how did you manage to upgrade w/o rebooting? you have to re-initialize the > kernel. > > On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Brennan Stehling wrote: > > > I just took down a server yesterday and replaced it with a new one. It > > was a basic server with a PII 350 processor and 96mb or RAM but I used it > > for personal projects and other development work. I hosted many sites on > > it. > > > > I put the server in over 2 years ago at a really nice facility and that > > was back with FreeBSD 3.1. I updated to 3.3, 3.4 and eventually > > 3.4-STABLE where it has been for a very long time. And I am happy to say > > that I had it up for 330 days in a row, no reboots or crashes. That is a > > personal best. And after using rsh to copy all of the data to the new > > server I was back up in the time it took to reboot the new server with the > > IP of the old server. I was very happy with how easy it is. > > > > Now I have a new server in place with a PIII 550 and 256mb of memory and a > > fast SCSI drive with a couple IDE drives for large data storage. This is > > a much anticipated upgrade and it is running FreeBSD 4.2-STABLE, built > > after a cvs sync a couple nights ago. My goal is to now leave the server > > with that version of the kernel for over 330 days and not upgrade until it > > is yet another major hardware upgrade. > > > > I am quite pleased with FreeBSD. After each upgrade, with my old server, > > I could immediately see the performance benefits with the changes to the > > various patches to every part of the system. > > > > But I am a little concerned. For a little over a month, actually since > > the 4.2 RELEASE I have been doing a "make buildworld; make > > installworld" after a cvs sync every couple of weeks and I have > > experienced some instability. Actually, as my brother used X Windows on > > it and found that it was crashing on him, so he may have just done the 3 > > finger salute to reboot it, like most typical users when they think their > > computer is going down. So there is a little unknown with the new > > server. Time will tell. > > > > So the time came for me to install the new server and I simply stripped > > out my sound card and voodoo3 video card and replaced it with an old video > > card, good enough for a console in hopes that any problems may be > > solved. Running XFree86 4.x may have been part of the problem. Any tips > > will be very much welcome. > > > > Ultimately, this new server adds increased performance and that should > > help me with deveoping various applications I hope to release to CPAN and > > the Apache group soon. I can also complete GreasyDaemon.com in hopes of > > increasing it's usefulness and expanding it's search capabilities. > > > > On that note, I am looking for a better search engine than htdig. I am > > currently looking at udmsearch, and that seems like a good > > alternative. It uses mysql and may allow me to do some direct searches on > > my own. Any suggestions will be helpful. Once I have an improved search > > engine I will be well on my way of contributing back to the community > > which has supported me so well lately. > > > > Brennan Stehling - software developer and system administrator > > my projects: > > home.offwhite.net (free personal hosting) > > www.greasydaemon.com (bsd search) > > beta.mymilwaukee.com (initial mockup) > > beta.sncalumni.com (initial mockup) > > > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message