Delorean is back to full operation!
Well, I am glad to announce that I have managed to bring back all of Eagleworld's services and get the server back to full operation! Not only are we running on fresh, new hard drives, but I have recovered ALL of the data I previously lost on the solid-state drive, plus we are now upgraded to Debian 8 "Jessie," which is the current stable build.
I figured I would document here what had to be done for posterity, as it was a rather interesting experience which had me biting my teeth at some parts, but was just plain satisfying in others. However, after all is said and done, I successfully survived losing two hard drives, the fan in my backup RAID tower, AND the backup battery the server runs on, and came out back to full capacity!
First off, to fully appreciate everything that happened, you need to know the layout of all of the hard drives in my system. The system, as I outlined in the past, is nothing more than a plain old Dell Inspiron 530 I bought quite a few years ago. With capacity for only two internal hard drives, I had to get rather crafty to get this machine up to a spec that it could keep running for any perceivable period of time. In addition to having it run on an APC UPS (uninterruptable power supply), I added extra hard drives in it using a SATA RAID enclosure that connects to it via eSATA (external SATA). Here are the hard drives I had in it, and what they stored:
- Sata Drive A (/dev/sda) - "Flux" - 500GB Internal Disk Drive
- The drive that came with the computer. It had the following paritions:
- / (root) - The main parition of the operating system
- /boot, /var, /usr, and /tmp - Additional OS partitions
- /srv - A custom parition I created, which holds most of my important data (webserver data, etc.)
- Sata Drive B (/dev/sdb) - "Fusion" - 750GB Internal Disk Drive
- A drive I added in the spare slot. Used for the following:
- /srv/smb - My Samba Fileshare. Holds all of my personal data that I back up regularly and can share among all the computers in my house.
- Sata Drive C (/dev/sdc) - "Plutonium" - 60GB Internal Solid-State Drive
- Added in the spare 5 1/4" Slot. Used for the following:
- /srv/minecraft - Holds all Minecraft server data
- /srv/mysql - Holds my databases (for Minecraft, the Minecraft website, and both of my forums).
- Sata Drive D (/dev/sdd) - 1.5TB External Disk Drive
- Sata Drive E (/dev/sde) - 1.5TB External Disk Drive
- Mirrored together into a RAID-1 Array (so they are copies of one another)
- /srv/backup - Holds all my backup data
Delorean loses ANOTHER hard drive...
I KNOW I am going to lose my system drive soon in this thing if I do not act quickly. So, I need to take action. Instead of plopping any random drive in to replace my data drive, I will be buying two new 2GB drives and creating a new RAID array. I'll migrate the system drive data over to the RAID array, and recreate a samba partition and recover my data. This will give me redundancy for the future, but it's going to be a difficult move.
Not only do I have to do all of this without losing data, but I have to do it without REBOOTING THE MACHINE. Why? I'm convinced that this damn system drive WILL die if I reboot. So, this will be an adventure for sure.
So, stay tuned. I'll be recovering my data soon. I also have to see if I cannot recover my Minecraft Wordpress database from the failed SSD. When (and if) this works, I will post a full workup on how I did it.
Delorean loses a hard drive...
Hey, everyone.
Well, it was bound to happen. Delorean had a hard drive crap out on me at the end of last month, which of course means there's going to be some cleanup to do. The bad news is I lost my solid-state drive, which was the home of my minecraft and mysql partitions. So, Delorean lost the home to all of my databases, as well as the home to all of the minecraft files.
Of course, I do run backups, so it's not the biggest deal in the world, but now what gave Delorean extra speed in running minecraft is gone, as my quick solid-state drive is no longer usable. I am currently in the process of restoring my forum databases from backup, which will take some time.
The minecraft data is still intact without issue. I just have not recovered it yet.
The really bad news is that when I set up backups on this server, I missed a critical component: the wordpress database for the minecraft website. So, all of the data for minecraft.eagleworld.net is lost at the moment. I still have a chance of recovering the database, but it will involve me screwing around with the solid-state drive in hopes I can keep it alive long enough to run a sqldump on it. So, we'll see how it goes.
Stay tuned, however, as the two databases will be coming back online later today. They won't be as speed as they were before, but for the forums, you'll hardly notice a difference. The only reason I had my databases on solid-state in the first place was because of minecraft.
Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused!
Eagleworld is now on Port 80!
Hey, everyone!
Well, I know it's not the most exciting news out there, but I am happy to announce that the website is now running on the default port (80). Why the big deal? Well, now there is no more need for messy redirects nor using port 8000, which means when you type www.eagleworld.net, you are actually going to go there, and not to http://web.eagleworld.net:8000/.
Additionally, the two major sub-sites of Eagleworld.net have been moved to their own Virtual Host and their own subdomain. From now on, you can get to the Minecraft server at minecraft.eagleworld.net, and you can get to the EGB Forums at egb.eagleworld.net.
The only side effect is that some of the links will no longer work, but I have put up redirect pages in place to stave off this problem. So, if you accidentally go to www.eagleworld.net/minecraft, it will automatically bring you to the proper place after letting you know the URL has changed.
I hope this change makes the site easier to use and gives a much more refined and cleaner experience. Enjoy!
Hurricane Sandy Update
Hey, everyone!
Just a quick update to let everyone know I'm alive here. Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey pretty bad, so I lost power on Monday night. Power just came back on here in NJ around 6PM EST. I am currently working on fixing Delorean and restoring services. I will provide more detailed posts later.
In the meantime, Delorean will be running with limited services as I fix things along the way. Keep posted!
Delorean takes a fall...
Well, Delorean's reign of long uptime has finally come to an end. While I was on vacation in South Carolina, there was a power outage on July 31st that drained all of the power on my UPS (which is only set up to run for about 15 minutes or so), so Delorean was shut down automatically (so it could be done gracefully, and not by a hard cutoff of power).
Thankfully, I had no hardware failure in Delorean. After almost 700 days of uptime, the server had a nice cake of dust on the heatsink. I clean the system even if it is running, but I had a chance to remove a good amount of the hardware and give it an in-depth cleaning. I also finally installed the SSD used for Minecraft and my mysql partitions inside the case itself.
The system came up with little issues. It is running on the latest kernel for Debian stable and is fully upgraded. The backup disk array, however, came up degraded and I need to resync the mirror. As result, I am keeping the services I run on Delorean (such as TF2, minecraft, etc.) to a minimum until the server is fully ready on the software side.
I apologize for the extended downtime of Delorean. Had I been home, I would have been able to resuccitate the server much more quickly. Either way, I'll ensure my services are back up and running as quickly as possible!
Delorean gets an SSD!
Just a quick note: I am going to be performing some data migration on the server tonight. I need to do this for the Minecraft server and for the server's databases. You can get more info in the Minecraft Blog, but all services that use the database server (including Minecraft and the EGB Forums) will be down for 30 minutes. I'll put an addendum to this post when all services are back up.
NOTE: - The server is now back online. All systems are go!
Minecraft News
Hey everyone. Unforutunately, thanks to Beta 1.2 getting released, the Minecraft server is going to be temporarily down. However, I AM creating a blog specifically for the Minecraft server that has a nice link on the right hand side of this page, as well as below:
I will keep everyone abreast about the server there as to when it can be expected to be up, as well as any server updates. Thanks!
Minecraft is now on Delorean!
Well, leave it to me to get addicted to yet another game. It seems to be a permanent fixture in my life, that I will incessantly jump from game to game in the everlasting quest for digital happiness. This time, I have found myself squarely addicted to a game that hasn't even been released yet, a nice game called Minecraft.
If you are unfamiliar with Minecraft, you can head over to minecraft.net to get a look at what the game is all about. Simply said, it is a sandbox-style game with old-school graphics in a 3D world. The game requires you to survive the nightly onslaught of zombies, giant spiders, and other evil creatures by creating shelter for yourself and lighting up the area to stave away evil. You also have the challenge of taking a completely virgin world full of resources ready for the taking and crafting your own personal universe to your liking.
The game requires you as the player to learn how to craft tools, work with raw materials, and make many different items or finished materials that will allow you to build what you want. Also, the game is completely open-ended, as there is no objective in the game (other than to survive-of course).
Depending on the type of person you are, you might decide you wish to mine as much as possible and make a Moria-like underground world, or you might want to foster your inner-architect and craft your own castle, or maybe even your own city!
Basically, those of us that loved to play with Legos as a kid are the kind of person that will really get a kick out of Minecraft. However, instead of having to have your minifigs live in your grandiose creations, you can do so yourself!
And, of course, the best part about this is that Minecraft has a multiplayer version! So, you can get together with your friends and build an even bigger world than before. The only caveat is the game is still in development, and isn't quite finished. However, that didn't stop me from jumping into the fray and setting up my own Minecraft server.
The server can be accessed by going to delorean.eagleworld.net over the default port (25565). Anyone who has purchased Minecraft can play on my server. However, I have to check you out first before I will allow you to build. Here's some info on my server:
- Runs Minecraft Alpha, the latest version
- Installed Hey0 Mod for adminstration and plugins
- ChestProtect installed for personal, locked chests
- BedRock Gap Insurance allows for a flat bottom of the Earth
- GriefAlert alerts me of any griefing attempts for fast action
- iStick allows me to undo griefer actions quickly
- CreeperNerf subdues those annoying Creepers, and limits TNT abilities
- Hourly map backups are taken to have rollback abilities in case of griefing
- Cartograph Maps are taken daily to show regular server progress
- TownyMod allows people to found towns and nations, as well as protect their towns from outsiders
I am still adding services (I plan on adding iConomy soon, for example), but feel free to join now to get in on the fun. You can also look at the server maps at www.eagleworld.net/minecraft to see an overview of the world so far (North is top left of the map).
So, feel free to join and get building! Eagleworld awaits!
[Ch0De] moves to TF2
Well, it's been a little while that I've updated, but that hasn't stopped me from continuing my improvements to Delorean and making it the best server I can. My focus as of late has been on gaming on the server, and I think some big steps have been made towards making Delorean better equipped for serving the gamer's needs. :-)
First off, I am still running the [Ch0De] Clan Server, but I have made the decision to switch the server from Counter-Strike: Source to Team Fortress 2. The decision was made due to my newfound love for TF2, but also this is where most [Ch0De] players are spending the bulk of their time at this stage. With CS:S taking a back-burner, I will leave the CS:S server down until further notice.
Additionally, there was a major update in how srcds games are configured, which left the CS:S server basically unusable. Due to this, if I want to run CS:S again, I will have to reconfigure it from scratch. While this is not a big deal, it will give me an opportunity to improve the server if we decide as a clan to frequent CS again.
Anyway, the TF2 server is running nicely, and I have made the following configurations to it:
- Created server at 66 tickrate for good performance
- Server will be 24/7 koth_harvest_final map configuration
- Server has RTV ability to switch maps at user request
- Alltalk turned on by default
- TF Overtime Nag enabled (for the lulz)
- Added MetaMod:Source to allow for plugins
- Added SourceMod for administration roles and additional plugin abilities
- Added SourceMod Radio for in-game music (accessible by !radio in chat)
- Added HLStatsX for in-game and web-based statistics
Note that PsychoStats has been removed from the server since HLStatsX can provide inter-game statistics. In the event that a CS:S server is brought back to Delorean, I will configure it to use HLX instead of PsychoStats.
As always, you can connect to the srcds server by connecting to chode.eagleworld.net on the default port, 27015. The server is set to accept 24 players, which is the default maximum in TF2. If the demand for slots increases on the server (and Delorean can handle it), I can increase this number in the future.
Anyway, enjoy the new TF2 server and have fun!