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Yes actually, it's that simple. :-) Let me know what you'd like the section of forums to be titled, and I'll set it up.

There should be a way to delete the old host key. I'm not sure with fugu, but generally, there's a file in your home directory, inside the (hidden) .ssh folder called "known_hosts" You can basically just delete this, then it should treat it as a new server, not one that changed, and ask you to accept the new key the first time you connect.

Going camping up in Washington's Olympic National Park tomorrow. I'll be offline through Friday, so my apologies if there are any troubles or help needed during that time.

It looks like your scripts don't work with python3. You can change the shebang to run them with /usr/bin/python2 (which is 2.7) instead of just /usr/bin/python (which is now python 3.3).

As for the wiki... yeah, you should probably be okay with that. I doubt that even if it is compromised, that it's anything horribly malicious, or I probably would've had complaint about it by now.

As for the server name, heh. I always think of server names like code names, and Intel has a long running history of naming CPUs with "dale" in them. Wolfdale, Kentdale, Grantsdale, etc. Then I thought, the new server is a VM in the "cloud" and I should so something with that. Obviously, once that connection was made it was basically impossible NOT to call it "Cloudsdale." Not that I wouldn't probably have found some other way to wedge a pony reference into it if that one hadn't worked so easily. :-)

Good to know!

I don't have IP6 from my own ISP, so my motivation isn't huge on it right now. That said, I do plan to get it working for the server anyway, but it may be a little bit. Really busy for the next few weeks. Feel free to ping me here to remind me though.

The server does have IPv6 networking now. That said, I haven't had a chance to play around with it and experiment, and so DNS and other systems aren't yet set up for it.

Yes, you will see a new SSH server key (and warning about identification) but your private keys should still work. I considered migrating the old server key, but this is an entirely new system, and it was time to generate one of the fancy new elliptical-curve based ones anyway.

Move is complete... at least as far as I can tell. This was a completely new installation on a new, virtual server, with all data migrated by hand. I apologize for the two hours or so of interruptions overnight, but I think most things are working now. I'm sure I'll have overlooked something though, so please let me know if you run into any problems. Email was especially irksome, so it may be best if you post below, just in case it's still wonky.

With the new server, I noticed a lot of spam was being sent via automated wordpress and other things. Apparently at some point I upgraded something and forgot to lock the email back down as I had in the past. I've done that again now, so if you're having errors with your PHP scripts being unable to send mail, you may not have a properly configured .esmtprc file. See this post for details: http://xepher.net/forum/index.php?topic=626.msg6855#msg6855

Also, you will get warnings about the SSH server key having changed. This is expected as it's a new server. Likewise, the cert for SSL email (imap/smtp) and https has changed as well. This is self signed and will generate warnings. This is expected, but obviously don't trust my server with your credit card info and stuff. :-)

So it's been several years since the last server move. In that time, the current datacenter has been bought out twice. Originally, it was "The Planet" then "Softlayer" and now it belongs to IBM. In all that time, hosting prices have come down and bandwidth has gone up, so in the next few days or so, I'm planning to migrate to a new host. I think I can squeeze us into a Linode VPS that will save me $85/month. On paper it should be faster and better in all respects except disk space. I'm going to poke at it for a bit though, and see how it holds up.

When the migration finally happens, it should be "transparent" to end users. Site owners may find themselves locked out for a few hours while a final file sync is done, and MySQL will likely be put in read-only mode for the final few minutes of transfer. I'll try to do all this in off hours as much as possible of course.

I'll post another announcement when things are done, and then you can all yell at me about the things I screwed up or forgot. :-)

Don't worry too much about it being on the wrong forum. It's close enough.


As for advice, well.. Yeah, basically, don't pay more than about $15/year (american) for a domain alone. With a "raw" domain, you have to have DNS servers to host it, and then those DNS servers need to point at a webserver and email server that will handle web (and email) traffic for it. Most "packages" often come with at least DNS service, but they up the price on you too. If you're planning to use it for a site here on xepher.net, I provide all the services for free though, so you JUST need the raw domain.

As for where to go... personally, I use godaddy. Why? Because they're big enough that they have to know what they're doing, and they can't just disappear/scam you. I'm not saying their service is great... it's actually kind of potluck. A couple of times I dealt with them and got amazingly good service for a complex issue. Other times, it was typical brain-dead customer service fail. For a raw domain though, you should basically NEVER need service... You have to login once a year to renew and confirm your contact details and that's it. The downside to godaddy is navigating/avoiding their pushy sales stuff. I actually spend more time deleting their "renewal reminder" emails (they start sending them like three months in advance, and when you have a lot of domains...) than I do actually interacting with their site each year. And if you don't know what you're doing during checkout, they try like a hundred times to sell you on those extra services like "whois privacy" and crap like that. It's basically like dealing with wal-mart. It's kind of a crummy place to shop, but you generally know you'll get a good price and that they aren't stealing your credit card info. That said, EasyDNS has had a pretty decent reputation too, though they focus on providing the actual DNS services, and I don't know if they even offer a bare domain registration.

I reloaded a few times, all basically other comics being advertised, so no problem there. As long as it's not doing pop-ups, or adult-rated stuff, we're good I think.

OSX has a built-in scp client in the command line. For graphical programs, I've heard a lot of people use Fugu or Cyberduck. I've never really been a mac user though, so I can't vouch much for either one personally.

Alright, I'll give it the greenlight for now. Once you get setup with it, let me know, so I can take a look at things in situ.

I'm happy to consider anything you want to suggest. Can you give me a link to the service and their policies on ad content? First thing is to make sure they don't allow disruptive ads (pop ups/unders, auto-play sounds, etc.) and for me to get a general impression of their service.