I suppose I should preface this by saying that the site itself is not totally going away, rather the current purpose and use will no longer hold true. In the past, which has not been the recent past based on activity, this site was intended as the typical community; a place for a group of friends to share links, make fun of each other, etc… With the more recent rise of sites like Facebook, the need for sites like this have severely diminished. The site itself is in need of a severe upgrade to the core software, thus I’ve decided that rather upgrade something that just isn’t used, why not just shut the site down? Course I’ve had the domain for quite a few years now, thus it’s hard to just let it go. Thus, rather then just shut it down and release the domain, I’m going to shut down the site and bring it back as something else.

What will the future holds for the domain, I do not know. I am open to ideas as to how to reuse the domain, but right now I’m at a complete loss. I’m open to ideas as to what this should be reborn as. For now, I’m gonna work on shutting things down in the next few weeks.

It’s been fun, but I believe the time has come for a change.

After some digging and group troubleshooting, I was told that I needed to post something regarding an issue I worked through today.

I just recently upgraded one of our database servers from CentOS 4.6 to CentOS 5.2, going the route of a fresh install over the crapshoot that the upgrade process can be. Once the server was back online, I noticed a considerable decrease in MySQL performance. Considering this may be a tuning issue, or even a version issue, I stepped back down to match what our primary database server was running, copying the exact configuration over to the upgraded server. The result was the same. The OS upgrade was not the only change made to the server, thus I decided to step back through the changes to ensure I wasn’t chasing a false positive. After a series of tests all indications pointed toward the OS upgrade as the culprit. But why would an upgrade cause a performance decrease?

I was fortunate in that I had an identical server available that was on CentOS 4.6, providing a healthy subject to compare results. I went through the steps; iostat, hdparm to validate the drive status, etc… There were definitely some differences in results. The most interesting of all investigation came in a simple check of the cpuinfo.
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 67
model name : Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 1212
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8legacy ts fid vid ttp tm stc
bogomips : 2001.57

processor : 1
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 67
model name : Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 1212
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8legacy ts fid vid ttp tm stc
bogomips : 2001.57

Ok, there is definitely a problem. My processor mhz is showing up as half of what it should. First place to begin looking is in startup services. After going through each service, one stood out as a definite problem child.

cpuspeed

The cpuspeed service is defined as Power management based CPU Speed control. It adjusts the CPU speed dynamically based on the demand for processing power. Seems logical and a service I’m familiar with, from a laptop perspective. But at what point does this seem necessary on a server? Still a question I’ve not found an answer to, but long story short there is an easy solution.

/etc/init.d/cpuspeed stop
chkconfig cpuspeed off

Quick and easy. The result of the change?
cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 67
model name : Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 1212
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 2000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 0
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8legacy ts fid vid ttp tm stc
bogomips : 4003.15

processor : 1
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 15
model : 67
model name : Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 1212
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 2000.000
cache size : 1024 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 2
core id : 1
cpu cores : 2
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp lm 3dnowext 3dnow pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8legacy ts fid vid ttp tm stc
bogomips : 4003.15


Amazingly, after some digging and a simple change, performance was back on par to what we’d experienced before the upgrade. If this helps even one person through a similar situation, it will be worth the time it took to write this up.

As a side note, if your server is equipped with 4GB of memory, or more, ensure that you install the PAE kernel. The non-PAE kernel can only address up to 4GB of memory. A simple uname -a will indicate whether you are running the PAE kernel or not. To install the PAE kernel,
yum install kernel-PAE
Ensure that you update your grub.conf to ensure that your new kernel is loaded on boot.

And I’m spent….

Well I’d say, for all intents and purposes, that this site is pretty much dead. Hasn’t been a new post, other then mine, in quite some time. Its understandable; we change and with that our priorities change as well. Maybe something will spark interest again, maybe not. I’m good with whatever develops. That said, the site is already in place and needs a purpose. I figure it would be a good place to just start writing about whatever strikes my fancy.

It must all start somewhere….

Twitter. Everyone, at some point, has heard of Twitter or perhaps used it. Those in the technology field may even know about the challenges that Twitter has faced regarding stability and the uproar created by comments regarding the scalability of Ruby on Rails. I work in a RoR environment, thus the topic was one of interest to me. Aside from all the general hubbub about Twitter, I find the entire purpose of the “application” a mystery. Whether the application is in RoR, Erlang, of even PHP, why does it exist at all? Just this week there were rumors of an offer, from Facebook, to purchase Twitter for what equated to be $150 million, I believe, at current Facebook valuation. It didn’t happen, mainly because Twitter believes itself to be worth more and the fact that the offer was not for cash, rather it was for equity in Facebook. Nobody, other then the folks at Twitter, quite seem to even understand the business model for Twitter.

But why?

Is there such a need for people to be able to inform everyone what they are doing at that very moment, in 160 characters or less? Do I need to know that you are currently in line to grab a cheeseburger? Blogs are aplenty, this site being Exhibit A, so do we really need the ability to create microblogs? I can post paragraph after paragraph via my regular blog, but more importantly I can summarize in 160 characters and call it a day! I can send an update from my phone to Twitter and Facebook within seconds to ensure that everyone knows that I’m heading to the crapper. Technology, what a blessing. But do we really need this?

The short answer is yes. Why is a harder question to answer, but there is something, almost therapeutic, in the ability to be able to send a “tweet” about your current situation. When I first signed up I often wondered what the hell I was going to use Twitter for, and the jury is still out as to whether its useful, in my mind, but here I am with Twitter still part of my daily life. To hell with logic, I’m in.

You can follow me at http://twitter.com/mtnichol. But don’t prepare yourself to be stimulated.

The site relocation was successful, to a point. Soon as I put this site on the new server it started running like chit. Since there are actually paying customers on the shared server that didn’t really bode too well. SO, needless to say, I upgraded the memory on the server (for a fee, of course) and we seem to be running far more smoothly now. Not to bash Wordpress and PhpBB, but damn they can put a hurting on your resources. My homegrown sites have worked without issue, within a reasonable memory allocation limit for PHP. For this site I had to increase the memory allocation just to post in the forums. They do make things so easy but there may be a bit of bloat hanging around, particularly for PhpBB.

Oh well, still great tools…just costing me more out of pocket. So damn you people, get to posting.

Ok, so the site move has been completed, but at the current time I am experiencing some issues with the forums. Somehow, somewhere, there is a conflict with security which is prohibitting the posts from happening correctly. You can post, but you get a white page instead of a confirmation page, thus you don’t even know if the post went through or not. Everything I’ve seen points toward there being a conflict, but luckily, for me, it won’t allow me to perform any updates in the admin console. Good times.

I’m trying to juggle fixing this with actually working, so please be patient (for the one person that may actually read this before I get it fixed). Looks like I’ll be manually going through the DB to figure out what’s the issue. Have no fear, I’ll get it fixed…in time.

On a positive note, we are on the new server, so let’s see how the performance is compared to the old one. Even if all things are equal, I’m much happier being on my own servers and off the old one. Better things ahead, trust me.

[EDIT]
An update to the issue, which is now fixed. There were multiple issues going on here, mainly because I moved the site. As a reference to anyone that runs into issues moving a phpbb, and wp-united site, typically it has to do with cache and security. Due to the nature of how I have my server configured, for multiple sites, I wasn’t seeing the error in the log, mainly because I was looking at the wrong error log.

ANYWAY, key was to

• 1) make sure you clear out everything in your cache file, other then the index.htm and .htaccess file.
• 2) set permissions on the cache directory to allow writing (depends on which user you have Apache configured to run as). I just set my cache to 777, as its just cache at this point.
• 3) ensure you have enough memory allocated to php. This is really the kicker as it seems it requires more and more memory lately. I bumped mine up to 32MB and the issue was resolved.

If you find the right error log (g’dur on my part), it should be somewhat obvious as to what your issue(s) is.

For those that have been around a while, this seems like an annual event for the site. To be honest, I’ve only moved it twice, but I have redone the site multiple times. Anyway, after many years of fighting shared hosting and reselling, I’ve decided to go the route of dedicated hosting. This will prevent much of the functionality breaking because of the host locking stuff down without letting me know, since I’m now the host and the admin. The other bonus is that I’ve seen a lot better response time from the sites I’ve already moved to my new boxes. I’d expect to continue to see the improvement with this site.

The move is scheduled for the evening of 6/25, which is tonight for those paying attention. Aside from DNS resolution, which can take some time, the move itself should be pretty quick. While the move is taking place, I will disable the forum to prevent any updates. Keep trying back until you see the forums active, which means you are on the new host.

In the meantime, I make it a personal challenge to recruit some people willing to post. This site has become absolutely stagnant, thus we need to either get the old people back and posting, or find some fresh blood to increase activity. This place used to be fun, and at least good for a laugh. Let’s bring that back.

Eventually all things must change. We’ve had our share of changes, on this site, over the years, so most are used to relearning the site. I try to keep things pretty static over time, but eventually things become so outdated that a change is mandated. Hopefully this will add a little spark to the site.

So what has changed, other then a new look?

Well for starters, I think the new look was reason enough to make a change. The old site was so dull and dated, but the underlying system didn’t lend itself well to making changes, thus it stayed that same dull and dated look. Keep in mind that the redesign is still a work in progress, something that I’ll continue to tweak and tune. Additionally I know there are a few issues with Internet Explorer that do not exist with Firefox or Opera. I’m still working on trying to resolve those issues, but frankly IE is a pain in the ass when it comes to formatting, thus its not real high on my priority list. My advice is to use a browser other then IE, such as Firefox or Opera.

That brings me to the next big change, which is the underlying system. Previously we were running within a portal system, but honestly we never really used much more then the forums. The system itself was a pain in the arse to create templates for, thus point number one. Rather then a dated Nuke based system, we are now on a combination of straight PhpBB and Wordpress. PhpBB gives us the forums and Wordpress gives us the blogging ability. All posts from the previous site were successfully converted to the new site, although there is an issue with how the avatars were stored thus you’ll need to reupload your avatar. Small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.

People are familiar with the forums, but I do recommend that you consider a blog. Currently the blogs are going to be restricted to specific groups, to reduce the spammers starting blogs. I will set up a default group of the regular users, who will immediately have the ability to create a blog, but for those that are not regular users, but plan on become an active member of the community, you’ll have to reach out to me to discuss the ability to create your own blog.

There are still several functions, from the old site, that I’m currently working on porting over but haven’t found the time to complete. I’ll continue to update everyone as functions become available.

For now, try out the new site and let me know if you run into any issues, errors, or things you’d to see changed. Additionally I’d like to hear feedback in regards to the new site. I’m open for ideas and will take each feedback into consideration. Shoot me a message, through the forums, or just post something in the forums for others to discuss. Help me make this place better.

So where do you go from here? Well as always, there is the forums. Everything can be found using the menu (psst, its the thing with the pictures on it) at the top of the page.

– Maja