30-Nov-2015

Like a charm
Up and running now for some weeks, and though there is still some work to be done like work on the power lines in the computer5 room (so the systems have to be shutdown once more to switch the new extensions) it already proves to be worth the work: temperatures are more stable and less high, and it will be easier to minimize noise leakage keeping temperatures at this nice level.
Even on the performance and software level there is little to tell. PHP does have it’s hick-ups but less than last months, and access isn’t that much less. So yes – it’s fine as well. There are a few updates to be installed but nothing very troublesome. It’s only that the jetpack installation still doesn’t work – to be honest, I didn’t look into that last months – but I don’t seem to need it anyway 🙂 At least, What DO I actually miss? Hardly anything…

On the content front, I’m still way behind schedule but I managed to finish the Corfu images (finally), still have to mark then on the track imaged, and type out the comments I wrote down each day. If all goes according plan, this is done in a short time. But there are still a few to go: Two Dutch long distance footpaths we walked (Westerbork and Willibrord) and our trip from Vienna to Budapest.

Next Wednesday, I’ll get my VMS knowledge update. Perhaps the latest software updates as well..

10-Nov-2015

More new cables
As extension of keyboard- and mouse cables didn’t work, I ordered normal PS/2 cables, expecting them to work. These arrived today and I installed them. however, nor keyboard nor mouse were functioning – probably since DecWindows couldn’t access them on startup, and so these are left unnoticed.
There must be another way of doing it (probably stopping and starting the DecWindows server) but the quick and dirty route (AKA Reboot) actually does the same. Plus that the last changes in the startup-procedure (the ones I forgot last time) could be tested.
So In rebooted.
It went smooth and – in the quick look – seems to have started all that is needed. Plus that the directly connected keyboard and mouse do work.
As expected.

07-Nov-2015

New cables
Since the systems have been moved to another position, the cabling for monitor, keyboard and mouse weren’t long enough to connect to the server, so I ordered extension cables/ For keyboard and mouse, I envisioned that USB extensions would do, and this one came with build-in amplifiers. But nothing happened, so I decided a reboot – which failed: there were user files open on two disks and that meant these could not be dismounted, and the system became overloaded – for no appetent reason. Tried to stop some processes but the system became slower and slower. CTRL_P, and crash (to find out what was going on) was required. After restart it became clear that there was a TCPIP process that took all CPU and caused excessive paging.
But the system started without a hitch – almost: after upgrading WordPress (to a new directory) I forgot to change the logicals for the blogs. Done that by hand so it now all works again.
There is one more short downtime to be expected, when I change power tomorrow.

The USB extensions don’t work so I have ordered the normal PS2 extension cables. the USB extension have found good use by moving the printer and scanner, and now I have some more room on the workplace to add more machines.

03-Nov-2013

Nothing special
The maintenance log shows nothing particular. it has been rather silent.
PMAS statistics for October
Total messages    :   1233 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :    108 =   8.7 o/o (Files:  1)
Relay attempts    :    192 =  15.5 o/o (Files: 30)
Accepted by PMAS  :    933 =  75.6 o/o (Files: 31)
  Handled by explicit rule
         Rejected :    386 =  41.3 o/o (processed),  31.3 o/o (all)
         Accepted :    206 =  22.0 o/o (processed),  16.7 o/o (all)
  Handled by content
        Discarded :    162 =  17.3 o/o (processed),  13.1 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :    154 =  16.5 o/o (processed),  12.4 o/o (all)
        Delivered :     25 =   2.6 o/o (processed),   2.0 o/o (all)

Even the number of relay attempts has been pretty low, the largest amount of attempts (100) were on 30-Oct-2015, sent from 14.222.40.34 (outside address) with a faked sender account (any@grootersnet.com, but that can only be sent from this address :))
Just the number of SYSLOGD log files is larger than usual; there have been a number of days where someone tries to retrieve large amounts of data from the site – like the YAHOO-based access a few days ago – but there isn’t a logfile scanner – yet – so I would have to look into that (one of the pending projects is just about that…).
System load has been stable as well over the last four weeks. Except for the reboot due to moving the system:
1
2
3

So nothing special….