Server Move

[Simon Dog]

I have joined the IHD team as a REMF, which means I will do tech work for Kitkatz but will not be joining the moderation team.   As the result of the generosity of a corporate supporter, we have been given free server space for IHD.

I'll post more details later, but we are taking appropriate steps to assure that the long term viability of the site is protected, and not dependent on me remaining alive or coherent.

[cassandra]

Wow Simon Dog, welcome and thanx. And the corporate supporter thanx too. I'm looking forward reading the details.

Love, Cas

[kristina]

Many thanks Simon and Kitkatz for your kind assistance and many thanks to the corporate supporter for their generous support, it is very much appreciated.
Kristina.

[Charlie B53]

I propose we show our new benefactor, the server owners, some long standing token of appreciation for their continued support.

If nothing else some display of advertising for their services.

[Michael Murphy]

After 40 years of running systems I am rarely amazed the move to this system was lawless, I only knew it moved from the message.  The people who did this should  be thanked and congratulated for the dedication, planning and work they accomplished in completing this task.  I for one thank you all and admire your work.

[willowtreewren]

Fabulous. Thank you!

 

Aleta

[Simon Dog]

After 40 years of running systems I am rarely amazed the move to this system was lawless

I hope you meant flawless 

I did a practice move a week ago so make sure I fully understood the procedure.  It was very straightforward and helped me while away the time while dialyzing.

Every once in a while a blind squirrel finds an acorn.

[Simon Dog]

If nothing else some display of advertising for their services.

Negative on the advertising.    The sponsor sells a controversial item and I don't think it would be appropriate to advertise the its wares here as some members may find the product offensive.   I suspect those on this forum who are in the market for $4000-$8000 handguns probably already know about them.    If you want to browse, visit www.sviguns.com.

Kitkatz was concerned about "protecting" the site from me if I went rogue.   Fair enough.   The procedure we came up with is she and Trina will continue to be the keeper of the DNS password (I only needed it temporarily to switch the site over), and she will take an offsite backup of the server just in case.   I have also given her the contact info for another tech weenie who does work for sviguns.com who can help if I become indisposed.

There will be one evening's downtime in about a week to upgrade the forum software (Simple Machines Forum) version.  The dry run went very smoothly, but the database schema update script took several hours to run, and the forum will be in "maintenance mode" during the  upgrade.  I am waiting to do the upgrade to give any problems with the move a chance to show themselves.

For those curious about the technical details - we are on a virtual machine hosted at www.totalserversolutions.com.   Since it is a VM, the machine can be scaled if we need more processing power.   We generally do a server move once every 3-5 years to get on the latest revision of Linux (I will not change the OS on a mission critical system because of the chance of screwing it up).  I selected this vendor for hosting at sviguns.com because of the exceptional technical support provided by their staff.

I propose we show our new benefactor, the server owners, some long standing token of appreciation for their continued support.

Please do not email the sponsor to thank them for the support.    Our support comes from their president, and it will only confuse others in the food chain if they start getting thank you emails.

[Michael Murphy]

Drop a f from a message and you look like a idiot. For the record I did mean flawless, I am now embarrassed but still amazed and grateful.

[iolaire]

Good job. It's one of the most seamless moves I've seen.

[Jean]

How wonderful that this is being done for us. Thank you Simon Dog for your involvement.   

[kickingandscreaming]

Thank you, Simon Dog.  I have transferred many a website, but never an active forum.  I know that presents some additional challenges. Thanks.

[Blake nighsonger]

Thank you SimonDog and i know you will be aLive , coherent, and a little twisted for while. lol.. you personally helped me tons . love you bro.

[Xplantdad]

Great job SimonDog!!

[MooseMom]

Wait a minute.  Are y'all telling us that a firearms dealer is now sponsoring IHD?

Can you tell us why the president of this company would be interested in sponsoring this site?

SimonDog, thanks for your efforts and all, but this does make me uneasy.  However, I very much appreciate your thoughtfulness in understanding that some on IHD might not appreciate advertising by our new sponsor.

I would like a little more background info on this sponsorship, if you don't mind. 

Thank you.

[Simon Dog]

I have done work for this company for the past 15+ years, and am have automated much of their production flow.  Part of my responsibility is maintaining their server, and in the interest of quality of service, I go for "overkill".   The cost of a somewhat bigger server is nothing compared to the cost of downtime or slow response for their customers or manufacturing staff.    The spillover from this is that IHD also gets the benefit of this "overkill".

The company is not a "firearms dealer" but a manufacturer - huge building with exotic CNC machines, lathes, screw machines, heat treating furnace, and about 6 or 8 dogs that wander about the place.  These are lick you face type of dogs, not attack canines.   It is not a typical gun company, but a niche player that caters to the competitive target shooting market with each item built to order.

These people have heart.  There was a baby English bulldog puppy that was scheduled to be put down by the breeder since he was "defective" (cleft lip and pallette).  The owner's son (and shop manager) adopted the little guy (as in "can you give him to me instead of kill him") and paid a 4 digit price tag to have the corrective surgery done.    He is all grown up now and is one ugly, but loveable, doggie.

"Sponsoring" may be too strong a word.   It's more like "allowing IDH to freeload"    As to why he has interest - it's simple.  Because I asked.   Nothing more is required.  It's not like I asked him  for a kidney.   This is a small company where the president makes all the key decisions.    It's no added direct expense to him and, even if it was, it's nothing compared to what I have done for that company in terms of productivity.    When I am in TX, I stay at the factory (they have an on-site guest suite for me) and borrow one of the pickup trucks every other day to get to treatment - so the president is very familiar with the rigors involved in the dialysis lifestyle.   Besides doing me a favor, he also thought it was a worthwhile thing to do.

Other than my disclosure on this thread, there is no connection between the IHD site and the corporate site except that they are hosted on the same server.   They don't even share the same IP address.   None of the sponsoring company's staff (other than me) will have anything to do with this site, except perhaps to fix a server problem.  I do not believe in hiding anything regarding my work on this server except, of course, the administrative passwords.     There will be no political spillover from the corporate site, and I can assure everyone that no matter what your political views on this, or any other subject, you will all get the best support I am capable of rendering.

I will make sure that the political aspects of the donating firm, as well as my personal political leanings, do not spill over into how I take care of the IHD hosting.

Also note that I explicitly did NOT volunteer to be a moderator.   I am an "admin" on the site only so that I can do things like upgrade to the latest revision of Simple Machines Forum from time to time, but will not be doing  any of the tasks traditionally done by moderators.

[Xplantdad]

Thank you and the custom made to order gun dealer, you for all of your hard work.. and the gun dealer for allocating space on their server to host this site. It's very much appreciated!

[Simon Dog]

An update on the site protection plan:

- Kitkatz has changed the DNS password since I no longer need it, and distributed it to the long standing caretakers of the IHD flame.
- She has also taken an off-site backup on a system that I do not have access to, and will continue to do so on a semi-regular basis.

So, IHD is now properly protected from me, which is how it should be.    I do not trust people who say "trust me", so I try to avoid saying that to other people.   Sort of a trust but verify approach.

[MooseMom]

Thanks very much for the clarification, SimonDog.  I appreciate it.

[Simon Dog]

Thanks very much for the clarification, SimonDog.  I appreciate it.

Anyone wants more details, I'll provide any info except the password 

[PrimeTimer]

Speaking of having heart....Simon Dog, what you did for the site is very very cool.  Thank you!

[kitkatz]

Thank you SimonDog for your excellent transition of the IHD site to the new servers.  There are going to continue to be some changes to the site as we move some things around on the boards and archive a few things. 
We will try to keep down time to a minimum.   

Also a great big thank you to my sister Christy who helped SimonDog and I with computer technical geek stuff that I could not do.  Between the two of them I was just the "Yes Woman"  and they did all of the work behind the scenes.
Also Christy is making sure the backups are done regularly.

We have taken the expenses of running the IHD.com site from over 100 dollars a month, 1200 dollars per year plus, down to 80 dollars per year.  I know this will give our owner Trina some breathing room in her home budget.

Due to the lowering of costs, IHD.com is only accepting donations at this time, and is not offering premium membership any longer.  The premium membership area will be archived for historical purposes.  All donations are to be made through the Paypal link.

kitkatz,Admin

[Simon Dog]

down to 80 dollars per year

As a matter of clarification, the hosting is free.  The $80 per year is for a separate service used to store backups independent of the server.

I will be coordinating a few hours of downtime with Kitkatz in a few days to upgrade the forum software to the latest version.    This is essential since this is open source software, and hackers continuously peruse the source code looking for vulnerabilities, SQL injection weaknesses, etc.

[cassandra]

Wow Kitkatz thank you for arranging all this, and thank you to Christy too of course.
And what a savings that is.
And thank Trina, and Simon Dog again too please.


Lots of love, luck and strength, Cas

[Rerun]

Thank you Simon and Kitkatz!

I love guns!  I want a new GUN Smiley!!! 

Rerun, Still Admin   (I think??)