Category: Hardware

Maintenance job has usual outcome
Last night’s maintenance run didn’t show anything weird. Although there is a huge amount of spam, numbers aren’t alarming:

PMAS%nbsp;statistics%nbsp;for%nbsp;July
Total%nbsp;messages%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;3162%nbsp;=%nbsp;100.0%nbsp;o/o
DNS%nbsp;Blacklisted%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;0%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;.0%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(Files:%nbsp;%nbsp;0)
Relay%nbsp;attempts%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;75%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;2.3%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(Files:%nbsp;31)
Accepted%nbsp;by%nbsp;PMAS%nbsp;%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;3087%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;97.6%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(Files:%nbsp;31)
%nbsp;%nbsp;Handled%nbsp;by%nbsp;explicit%nbsp;rule
%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;Rejected%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;2012%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;65.1%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(processed),%nbsp;%nbsp;63.6%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(all)
%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;Accepted%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;107%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;3.4%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(processed),%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;3.3%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(all)
%nbsp;%nbsp;Handled%nbsp;by%nbsp;content
%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;Discarded%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;310%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;10.0%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(processed),%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;9.8%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(all)
%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;Quarantained%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;542%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;17.5%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(processed),%nbsp;%nbsp;17.1%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(all)
%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;Delivered%nbsp;:%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;116%nbsp;=%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;3.7%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(processed),%nbsp;%nbsp;%nbsp;3.6%nbsp;o/o%nbsp;(all)

No large amount of relay attempts either. probably just a few on some days, none of the files exceed 4 blocks (2 Kb) in size. Fine.

New case and components for workstation
Since I found UnReal 5 engine is freely available, I started creating virtual worlds. I started with my workstation consisting of an ASUS TUF X299 Mark1 motherboard, an Intel Core I9 processor with 10 cores, 32 GB memory and a NVidia GTX1080 video card in a Sharkoon enclosure. That card is the bare minimum to run the Unreal Editor, but it does the trick. However, it pushes the system to it’s max so the fans were very busy.
To improve performance, I changed my video card for an ASUS RTX3080, 10Gb memory. It does make a difference, but I quickly found out that all fans should run at their max, to keep GPU and CPU on healthy temperatures: GPU ran up to 80 degrees and CPU 60. When the fans ran at high speed, these were lowered to about 45, with a lot of noise. So I decided I should choose a more airy enclosure, that could hold more fans. I found a good case: Lian-Li O11 Dynamic EVO, and I added 8 fans to cool it all down. And now I’m busy: For some projects you need more memory so I added another 32 Mb. Moving from one case into another was one day, not all completed yet but now I don’t have to worry anymore about temperatures: even when fans are at low or moderate speed and high load using UnReal, GPU temp won’t exceed 55 degrees, and the CPU is kept on a healthy 40.
Still need to finish a few things, but I’m happy with it. The only downside: There is no facility to hold the 2 5.25 inch DVD/BR drives, but I’ll find a solution for that.

Switch to Diana didn’t go as expected
I have run my server on Dione now for over 6 months so I decided it is time to switch to Diana. Yesterday I prepared for a switch: Copy whatever I had done on Dione to Diana (Willibrordpad images, MySQL database and CMS files) and had the system running completely except for a few services that would cause conflicts if running. Tonight, I retrieved the log data shown above, to be added on Diana, after Dione was switched off. A few minor problems activating these services, but all was running in the end, so I could shutdown Dione.
Wrong. Not enough. I should have copied the certificate files now on Dione to Diana as well, but I could indeed access the web. Except for the blogs; for some reason, index.php could not be found. HomeDesk did work and showed that indeed, sysblog:[000000]index.php could not be found. I tried using DCL but $ dir sysblog:[000000]index.php failed to find the file. It is probably a matter of logicals, but this needs to be investigated. . So I restarted Dione and keep it running until this is solved.

CMS program
I picked it up again but had a problem uploading the files to Dahpne (the PWS). I now know what caused it and the solution has been implemented, so as soon as I get started again, I can upload the new files and compile – and create a test program to see if it works

New disk in workstation
One of the larger disks in the workstation – 300Gb on SATA3 – is knows to have some problems in some areas, that are not noted until accessed for read – no problem writing there, but read fails. Due to it’s size, I used this disk mainly for storing disk images for VirtualBox VMs. Pretty nasty it one of these files gets into such an area….
So I purchased a 1Gb disk to replace it = could /should have taken an even larger one but that was not available nearby, and 1Gb is large enough to hold the few VMs that I keep at hand.
Installing it wasn’t as easy as I thought: since I couldn’t remove both side panels of the machine, it happened quite some times that either power or data connection flipped off the disk. Second, I found that UEFI seems to locate the first disk it can encounter to be the system disk, if there is a change in configuration, so this needed to be done as well: take all disks off the machine, even the ones connected via USB, except the real system disk, and start it up. Once that is found, it will fix that disk as the boot disk…
Second thing I noted, though the 6GB SATA connectors are most left, these are not slots 0 and 1, but 2 and 3. And I moved the SSD holding the operating system from the 3GB slots to one of the 6Gb slots – the new disk is set on that one too. But now the partition table is written to another disk….

Anyway, all was working again after a few hours. System boots faster since the SSD is now on a 6GB slot – which also has SSD cache. And after I moved one of the VM disk containers to that disk the VMS started significantly faster – for that reason, and because the file is now likely to be contiguous.

New porting project ahead
I found another site that may be a pox to Internet abusers. It offers free registration, and that allows you to register the IP address (and domain info, but it might be forged) of systems that are sending spam, try to connect to the system via FTP, SSH, YELNET ….Whatever. For this, you can use an API that is embedded in application Fail2ban, that intercepts login failures, messages signalled as spam etcetera. OpenSource – and running (of course) on Linux. But since it seems to be Python based, it should be able to get it running on VMS. Not to intercept the way as on Linux but afterwards. Otherwise, you can simply use curl (also available on VMS) to pass the data to this site.