No sooner after I had started packing away the 360, Blu-Ray player, PS2 etc., Mike, a member of Pompey Music forum brought round the Nintendo Wii that Hannah wanted to buy. So unfortunately, the entire afternoon which was meant to be spent packing up for the new house was in fact spent playing on the Wii. We’ve set up our Mii’s, and have been playing a little Wii Sports and Mario Party 8. She’s still playing, but someone has to cook the dinner, so while the oven is warming up I thought I’d mention what we’re up to.
Things are getting pretty hectic around here now. Packing the house up for moving to Whiteley, as well as preparing for the imminent Hellfest (yay!). We managed to get down town today for a bit and pick up some bits (baby wipes, Euros and the like) ready for that. We’re on a really tight budget this year, and it’s made even tighter by the fact we have to save a shed load of money for the wedding, and more importantly, Hannah’s engagement ring! The new house’s rent is £170 more a month between us as well, so that’s another kick in the budget’s teeth.
Another headache I’ve been trying to figure out is what I’m going to do with the servers during the move. I can’t get internet at the new place until the BT line is activated which is on the day we move in (and not a minute sooner!). This means that I probably won’t have internet at all from 1st July for about 10-15 days, providing the new ISP doesn’t mess anything up. I spoke to Kelvin briefly, and understandably, he said no to letting me put the servers in the work’s server cabinet (security risks and all that), so ideally I need to find a home for them at a friend’s house. I’ll try and chat up a few friends who I know have good internet connections, but if any of you are my clients reading this, I will try and keep downtime to a minimum, but there will be a bit of disruption, so be warned!
Anyway, off to cook dinner, ta ta for now!
I’m done, I’m knackered. But Oblivion is in there (Tampa to the side still). More details tomorrow…
Today my very shiny new server cases arrived, which of course, means tonight will be spent setting them up, much to the delight of Hannah. They’re missing the sliding rails, but I’ve sent them an e-mail about that. Anyway, the cases have lots of funky looking features, such as a locking front panel, nice handles on the front. Only problem is it’s slightly longer than I expected, so I may have to remove the handles and move the front supports to the very front. Oh joy, more reconfiguring of the cabinet! Anyway, these should be fun to set up tonight and I expect lots of annoyances and hinderances on the way, as normal when it comes to computers!
I’ve slightly changed my plan now. Quite majorly really, because I took back the basic cases which didn’t have screwholes, or any kind of cut-out back-plate to enable me to install the servers straight in. One was slightly damaged from transit anyway, so I’m not too bothered.
As replacements, I have ordered two specially designed 4U server cases from XCase which are designed to take ATX mainboards. Should be a few days before they arrive (early next week anyway), so in the mean time I re-arranged the cabinet.
I’ve now moved the hub up to the top-but-one unit slot (keeping the top free for the eventual patch panel I’ll have when I have my own house. Below that I have placed the NAS, the UPS, the router and the wireless transmitter. You’ll see at the bottom I’ve temporarily shoved Oblivion, now back up and running, into the bottom (it JUST fit, by bending the power cable alot…) to see what the noise level would be like. Results are pleasing me so far. I have dinner to eat now and relaxing evening ahead…
As part of my big upgrade and overhaul of my servers I have purchased a nice shiny new 12U 19″ rack cabinet and 2x 4U template server cases.
This is quite a mammoth project and will take me some time to do properly. As you can see from the picture, I have completed step one, and although slightly blurred, you can make out the network switch, my trusty D-Link router and the UPS powering everything. To the left in the battered Novatech case is Tampa, humming away quietly serving up my blog and several other websites.
Also in the cabinet are the two new 4U server cases, although it may be hard to see as they are black, and the cab is black also… but they are there, and very blank - i.e. boxes that fit on a 19″ with a few ventilation holes… so I have a bit of manual cutting/drilling/DIY bits to do to make holes to mount the ATX motherboards, Power supplies, Hotswap bays etc.
Over the next couple of weeks I shall be building up the new server system, and my rough plan goes like this:
- Move UPS-connected equipment (router, switch, UPS) into cabinet with Tampa linked up from outside the cab
- Hand modify the template cases: drill holes for LEDs and power switch, cut out sections for power supply and fans etc.
- Install Oblivion into first new server case
- Get Oblivion running
- Complete software processing - get existing websites fully source-controlled and working on Oblivion
- Power down Tampa for the first time in months (!), disassemble and re-assemble in second new server case.
- Format Tampa, install Ubuntu server, complete software
- Add tape backup facility
