The last time I hosted a website was almost six years ago. I had a couple of servers tucked away in a closet running SuperMicro dual pentium 3’s and a whole 512 megs of RAM each. I had Qwest DSL at the time and they allowed me to have the servers configured as nameservers for the site so I had my own DNS servers running. What I remember was that is wasn’t that hard to set up. The only significant security issue that I had was when the cisco router got hit with the Code Red virus because it was running an IE configuration interface. I used Lotus Domino SMTP server.
I’m pretty sure it’s a control issue that makes me want to keep all these kinds of things under my complete control. I guess care-giving is another expression of some kind of control issue that I’m working on.
Anyway, it was all in house and I remember really liking the ability to tryout new software and being able to reconfigure things very quickly without calling anyone. I also remember how knowledgeable and helpful the Qwest Business Services staff was whenever I had a problem.
So fast forward 6 years and I’m back online here and now working through Comcast Business Class which has some kind of nice features like being able to use MS Exchange for e-mail, contacts and calender. It is also much faster than Qwest. On the other hand, their support is pretty sketchy and the move to their DNS servers lacked support on their website for their new security requirements they’ve put in place. They also weren’t much help when I tried to log in with my new Palm Pre to sync my contacts.
But anyway, I had some issues of my own to deal with that I had hoped to do in a weekend. Well, it’s been almost two weeks since I posted anything here, and you may guess that’s about how long it took me to upgrade my servers. I had a new MB to install and new boxes for both machines that include lots of cooling, top and back. I upgraded the ram and Hard Drives as well and did one fresh OS install on the new MB.
Setting up firewalls and making sure that communication was open where it needed to be had me pulling my hair out for several days but I’m thinking it’s all working. The systems are running much cooler. The Opteron 180 in the replaced MB was running way too hot (around 55 C on idle) and is now idling at a chilly 32 c.
I was staying up til 2 or 3 am most nights and Dad was getting me up between 7:30 and 8:30 so most of the last two weeks was a blur. Ron, the backup daytime caretaker who comes in 3-5 afternoons a week, came in early enough to take care of Dad in the morning one day so I could sleep in. That was a truly lovely thing!
I’ve been used to working late into the night working on computers, but that is really hard when Dad’s up early in the morning. It’s a struggle for me to try and maintain my own habits and pace, and follow my own interests while still making sure that Dad gets the help and attention he needs.
Fortunately, most of my struggles the past couple of weeks, were with the computers and not Dad.
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