~Brian's~ Websites: Buddy Hyphen Baker Website Network: [Dot US/Dot Com/Dot/ORG]

[~Brian~]

@Evelyn Dellcerro@Transfusionelle@KittyMerriweather@froggy@Dill_Pickle@AwakenEvil@DailyDi@spoonchicken@Glennie@Elfy

I am Starting this thread in the "Links and Announcements" forum here on DD, because I have had people ask me questions in chat regarding what I do for work, what websites I have, what they offer, and they have expressed interest in exploring my websites.  I have said in Chat that I own FOUR domains.  During further discussions, i have had people who suggested edits or changes to my websites I run.  The posting below this paragraph was posted as a STATUS today, because I wanted to answer some of these questions, and let people know that like @DailyDiand the rest of his crew, I also provide services to the community:  ON DD, ON my websites, and to the public, as an business owner, and as a family man of a pretty awesome group of people.  I am PROUD of the work that Mikey does here, and I am equally PROUD of the work we all do in the community.  I thought it would be appropriate to post this "status" as a post in my own thread, as writing statuses can be buried QUITE easy, and I wanted to make sure that if someone is interested in what I do, where I work, or me and my ramblings, that it was here for people to see.

If you have any suggestions after visiting the site(s), and you wish to make comments, you may feel free to leave them in the thread below, or you can drop me a PM.  Please keep the comments constructive, and remember, to keep them clean! 

Hopefully, you will also see what I have accomplished in over 30 years of service to the local, and Online Communities:  I like to use my skills in technology and my "people skills" as well as my "customer service skills"  to help others.  We all have strengths, and it is my hope that I can continue to use mine for a LONG time to come.  This is just a part of who I am, and I want to share it for those who may be interested in what I do and have done to help others.

Enjoy!

Brian

Buddy Hyphen Baker DOT US - [Blog and Personal Site]  

Buddy Hyphen Baker DOT COM - [Business Site - Home to Trinity Community Thrift Store]

Buddy Hyphen Baker DOT INFO - [Business Site - Technology Ventures]

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WEBSITE STATUS:  BUDDY HYPHEN BAKER WEBSITE NETWORK (AS OF MARCH 15, 2021@16:55 EDT)

For those who are interested in my Website Network (Buddy Hyphen Baker DOT US, DOT COM, DOT ORG, and DOT INFO) I post the following information:  I will UPDATE this thread with information as necessary, and will be happy to answer any questions here, and respond to suggestions/feedback if people want to visit and drop me a note for whatever Reason. 

WEBSITE FEEDBACK: BUSINESS RELATED [DOT COM SITE]

(INCLUDES DOT ORG AND DOT INFO SITES)

Just for those who are interested in how I do things:  Have heard feedback on my websites.  I appreciate ALL feedback, and will be making updates to content and changes when time permits.  Of Late, people have given me many comments on my DOT COM site, and stated that some information on my dot com site needs clarification.  This information **IS** being considered at this time, and I DO plan on making changes to layout as well, but for the most part, all I have to do is edit information, and add more information as necessary.  The DOT COM site houses the Trinity Community Thrift Store Website, which I am the Director of, and we have been closed since March of 2020, and as such, the updates I have made to the site include ones that have to do with Business or Building Operations, Updates for Covid-19 Local Response, Church Response, and keeping the PUBLIC informed of current status.  Major Updates to information will come again when we are able to provide further information on when and how we will be able to REOPEN AGAIN, and THEN we will make changes to this.

However, the Layout is pretty much the way I want it for sites that service the public.  My DOT COM/DOT ORG and DOT INFO sites are made so that information can be found and linked together, so whatever site you choose to visit, you will get where you need to go quite easily. 

DOT US:  MY BLOG AND PERSONAL SITE

My DOT US site, was the first one I made, and I Converted that to Wordpress in 2008. I then posted there from 2008-2012, and decided I wanted to keep some of the older information on the site.  In 2012, I rebuilt BBUS, installing a New Linux OS (Debian 8 ) and then went to work building a new experience from the GROUND UP, loading the older blog as a feature, until the Current Blog was stable, and then the older one was removed due to obsolescence in 2019, after our server blew her main power supply, and had to be replaced.     

This site is my BLOG, and the main site on my network.  Anyone is welcome to read content here, although I don't post there too much, because of time, and because well, I work on other things too, and want to make sure that what I post there is "family friendly" and I want to have a place where people can come and read about me, my life, my feelings and whatnot.  Comments are welcomed, but please be mindful that my readers do NOT know of my need/use of diapers, so please feel free to send me information here for that purpose - THANKS

TWO RULES: FAMILY FRIENDLY AND IN COMPLIANCE WITH DAILYDIAPERS POLICIES

AND SERVERHOST GUIDELINES

I have one rule, however:  That is:  I would NOT post anything to BBUS that I would NOT want my family to access or see.  That said, in addition, I may want to post some things to BBUS and link to our users ON DD, and I also have to make sure that what I post is in line with the rules and regulations of @DailyDiand his website host's guidelines.  When I do this, I may show you an image that I WON'T post to DD, but may show you as a friend, but this is to make sure that I am NOT violating Policies. If I post pictures from BBUS, they are from my photo collection, and may be in locked directories, and as such are NOT intended to violate any rules.  I have not decided how to do this part yet, but most pictures that are "diaper related" are HERE, and any content I post about that is ON DD, and does NOT originate from BBUS, unless there is compelling reason to place content there so it can be moved [or transferred via email or other means, OR]  to DD at  later time.  BBUS will NOT directly mention diaper related content, as most of BBUS' content is technology or family content, and for obvious reasons, I'm NOT going to disclose that to people who do NOT need to know of my reasoning for using/wearing them.

BBUS AND TLS/HTTPS "SECURITY WARNINGS" OR EXPIRED CERTIFICATES

Also, because of costs involved, I am using free TLS Encryption:  This MAY, from time to time, show that any certificates from My Sites are "expired" or throw "security warnings."  These are in need of reset every 60-90 days, and to the best of my ability and belief, anything I share with the community that I am serving from my network are free of viruses and malware or ransomware. It is NOT my intention to EVER send anything that would be considered  harmful to anyone.  Additionally, it is my belief that anything hosted by my network is free of viruses/malware/spyware/etc at the time of upload, and to the best of my knowledge, is safe to view, download from me

Hopefully, this information will be of interest to those who want to understand what my sites are there for, and why I have them.  @DailyDiand HIS crew run this AWESOME place, and I wanted to also take some time to explain some things here, because i have had interested parties exploring my sites as well.

Cheers, and Welcome to my Visitors

Brian

[~Brian~]

UPDATE: [6/9/2921@09:31 EDT]:  Services were interrupted the last couple days:  A power failure occurred and brought the system down, and the way I have it configured, I have to manually turn the server back on, and it reboots.  The way I knew it was down:  The picture in my sig file loads from BBUS, and when that was showing blank, I restarted, and noticed the mount problems.

I had been working on it for 2 days prior, and noticed that for some reason, one of my partitions (/3TB) was NOT mounting, and it was throwing me to emergency mode. 

I took a look at the filesystem, and the "fstab" file, and I had to delete the errant mountpoint and use "fdisk -l" to see the drive that was not mounted, and then, looked up the proper way to add it back - All that, because if there is a drive which is set to mount in the fstab, if that drive is disconnected, powered off, or NOT UNMOUNTED properly from the filesystem, the whole system will hang until the drive is detected and once that happens, the system boots.

Took me 3 tries, but we are back up

Brian

Edited June 9, 2021 by ~Brian~
Added Additional Information

[~Brian~]

[UPDATE:  9/10 &9/11/2021]:  The Following websites have been updated:  Buddy dash Baker DOT US, Buddy Dash Baker DOT COM [/Main and /store sites] and Buddy Dash Baker DOT INFO (Kaiser International Protection, LLC).  Buddy Dash Baker DOT ORG remains unchanged.

Conventions:  So that I don't have to TYPE all domains every time I post updates, I have come up with the following ABBREVIATIONS:

BBWN - Denotes Buddy Hyphen Baker Website Network, the collection of all my websites

BBUS - is Buddy Dash Baker DOT US

BBDC - Is Buddy Dash Baker DOT COM (with /Main or /store denoting which site I am referencing)

BBDO - is Buddy Dash Baker DOT ORG

BBDI - Is Buddy Dash Baker DOT INFO (Home of Kaiser International Protection, LLC)

Updates were made to update all sites on BBWN.  Wordpress Versions Updated, as well as plugins and themes. 

BBDC (/Main):  Edited contact information and Email to make the information current

BBDC (/store):  Updated several links in the Services Area, so that they all work properly and go somewhere.  Updated any information that was incorrect or missing in the services area.  Edited Top menus to make sure menus all link to what they were supposed to, and are going where they are supposed to go.  Added a Blog Post Page to the Store website for Announcements.  Updated Store Status and Store Staff Page for 2021 and 2022.  Added Mail aliases and removed email addresses that were defunct from the footers.

BBDI:  Added information at the request of the business owner.  Changed contact information at his direction.  Updated "Administrative Info" Page for his domain with updated information for domain contact.  Began migration from old webhost to BBDI domain.  Edited Top Menus to group Services and Classes, and denoted the difference between a service and a class.  Located the source of 839 JUNK Comments on an open blog post, where comments were left on by mistake.  Disabled comments sitewide.  DELETED the comments from the database.  Added a Link to a Blog for Site status and announcements.

System Uptime:  44 Days, 7 Hours 41 Minutes (as of the time of this posting)

That's All for Now, Folks

Brian

Edited September 12, 2021 by ~Brian~
Added Additional Information

[square_duck]

You busy guy!!!!??

[~Brian~]

7 hours ago, square_duck said:

You busy guy!!!!??

@square_duck

I like to keep busy. I have always enjoyed websites, and I also enjoy working with computers. My time with Tallahassee free net Tallahassee Florida, has taught me a lot of things about the way Linux/Unix systems operate.  That is where I learned most of the things that I needed to learn with regard to the system. Now, I use that system almost every day and actually enjoy doing that. When I updated my post last I had a lot of people ask me questions. That is why that post exists.  I do indeed on all four domains. It has been a dream of mine to own my own server and run my own server. I guess when you get a bug in you it never really goes away.   @DailyDi, like others in The field does an awesome job taking care of his websites, he and his team take good care of their user base. This is one thing that I try to do the best on. I try to do the very best website that I can possibly do. Sometimes it is harder than other times, but I enjoy what I do.

like DD, I am proud of my own websites and what they represent. I started my own websites in 2008 and ever since then, have increased the number of domains. I don’t know if I’m going to increase them, increase the number of them that is, but I know that the ones I have I will maintain. It makes me feel good when I’m able to use my skills and make something that is professional, that makes me feel good, that looks good, and actually helps the community.  With over 30 years in the computer industry under my belt, I have learned many things that helped me succeed and be good at what I do. I try to give people who need that help the help they need, because as everyone knows, there are some people that really know the computers and there are some people that do not. There are people that want to know how computers work and how are you do everything, and there are people that just want to be able to turn the machine on press a button and make sure it works. I have served my community for over 35 years, And I am proud of that. They are Ironic thing is there are people that tell me that I probably wouldn’t be able to handle the computers, Because in computer programming someone says you have to know all this logic stuff and you also have to know a lot of math. Math is not one of my good subjects, but I can reason and make things that makes sense. I read a lot of books and have a lot of knowledge and I might not know everything in a book. What I learned was in college: if you know what you’re doing, and you know where to find the answer to a question, it is better to do it this way then it is to try to memorize information. I “aced”  one of my exams And computer applications simply because the teacher said “I don’t expect you to memorize the information, I want you to be able to know the information but I don’t want you to have to memorize it:  to that end, You may bring in any books you need to be able to answer any questions you may have and take notes. How do you use this information is up to you but you only have two hours to complete the test”. With this information under my belt I was able to find information very quickly that I would probably need to know and I had all of my books available and was able to easily Ace the test in less than 45 minutes, while others were trying very hard to remember what they needed I even gave some of the students next to me a couple of my books because they needed the information they knew where to find it, they just didn’t have the books I had. Unfortunately some of them did not pass!

when they tell you you have a “open book test“ take Advantage of it. The idea is not to memorize information. That would be stupid. The idea teacher was trying to teach us was as long as you can find the information and you know where it is you’re fine.

The idea is not to memorize information. That would be stupid. The idea teacher was trying to teach us was as long as you can find the information and you know where it is you’re fine. I have many reference books, and my brother sometimes laughs at me because I have so many of them but when I need something and I’m not sure what to do especially if I’m logged in his root, they can come in handy and help you especially when you’re trying to set up web servers webpages or domains. I have been very fortunate to be aligned with people that know that stuff cold, and it is always been my mission to learn new things try new things out and learn from the people who are teaching me. Do not take this for granted, because it only can happen if you put the effort in. If you put the effort in, you will get the results out and most of the time, you will like what you get.

however there are times when you don’t like what you get out of it and you have to make changes. When I started making websites for example, I had to use the online editor “Piko“ on a Linux machine. I had to manually code everything using HTML tags all over the place. In this condition you had to make sure that every header had an open tag and a closed tag. If you did not do this, Your website would look weird and you’d have to go and find every single instance line by line until you’re able to close the tag that is open. Nowadays you do not have to do this, because WordPress and other design programs do most of the coding for you and all you have to do is set it up the way you want it. However, having the ability to hardcode HTML is an advantage because you can remember your tags and know what version you need to be able to make something work.

And the only thing you had to do or use, was hard code HTML, there were times when you would have an error, and you would have an open tag somewhere. This would make your website not work properly or it will display a tag that is not closed. I don’t know how many hours in my lifetime I have spent in front of a computer screen looking for that close tag, so I could put whatever I need into it to make it work right. Sometimes if you don’t close off a tag Properly, something that you fix will not click and it might not work as a script.

This is why I am glad that HTML technology and web technology has progressed to the point where you do not have to know very much about code or HTML standards.  Still good to know your HTML code and your standards, but you do not have to worry about whether something is depreciate it or not, because WordPress and other blocking software’s have most of what you need already inside it. All you have to do is choose your theme, and all of your plug-ins and then you make sure all your plug-ins match the version of word press and can do whatever it is that you want.

Still good to know your HTML code and your standards, but you do not have to worry about whether something is depreciated or not, because WordPress and other blogging software‘s have most of what you need already inside it. All you have to do is choose your theme, and all of your plug-ins and then you make sure all your plug-ins match the version of word press and can do whatever it is that you want.

I am 49 years old and have been doing this ever since 1998. I remember it because it was the last day of February. And I had been working all night to complete my website on the TFN system. When I got done doing that, I was very proud of what I was able to accomplish simply by being able to code.  10 years later I was able to work with a friend who told me that if I showed him that I could do what I wanted to do and do a good job he would help me get my first server. I had three while working with him, and I am grateful that I was able to do that way back in 2008. My Home website BBUS, it’s a culmination at least 25 years of experience in the web design field, and I am very proud of what I was able to do in that time period.  The times of changed of course, but the drive to do my best has not. When you have it you have it, and I am the type of guy who wants to try to help as many people as I can whether it be in my community I live in, or in an online community such as DD –  We are all a family and we work together to help those who need us. My grandparents and my parents have instilled in me that you always give your best - this means you give 110% but if that is what you give and you can only do that then it is not expected that you do more. I always try to outdo myself each time, but I understand that there are times that I cannot and times that I slip times that I fall, time is that I fail and most of the time, I succeed but if I fail, I don’t worry about it because God knows that I’d give my best shot and that’s all I have to do!

Yes sir! @square_duck, I am a busy guy. I take pride in everything that I try to do. And I am also glad that I am able to do that. There are so many of us who may not know how to do some of them very technical things or understand them. What are you trying to do is to make something that is very technical to someone who does not understand it Dash something that they can understand I take the very technical and try to make it very simple. Unfortunately some people think I go way overboard, but I guess When you’re a techie like me, you like your technology -  to @DailyDi, DD And all of his other websites, are his “ babies“. To me, BBUS And all of my other network website or my “babies”. We are proud of them and we always try to keep them updated, and make them the best that we can always be. If I didn’t have my websites, or my technology, being disabled, I probably would go crazy. Because of DD, I believe my life has come full circle, this means that I have excepted who and what I actually am, and I feel comfortable with that decision. And I am glad that I have the friends I do, because without them well it’s not the same!

people may think I’m crazy because I love my websites, but they are an extension of me, and allow me to use my artistic and technical prowess and skill to make the best presentation that I can in an online environment. I didn’t know way back in 1998 but I would still be feeling the way I did back then, but my dream of owning my own websites and my own server came about because I never give up and I push to the extreme when necessary. I never give up – that is the way of things.

Brian

Edited September 18, 2021 by ~Brian~
Editor malfunction

[DailyDi]

I've scaled back the number of domains I manage, as they have gotten more expensive over the years, but I always have a placeholder available should I come up with an idea or a need to fill.

[~Brian~]

The Following Websites were updated this week:

BBDI:  Added Site Blog for the Site Owner to post info to, and for me to communicate changes I have made to that domain.  Updated all Top Menus, and "Landing Pages" so that each of them go somewhere, and the Mobile site has the same information as that you see on the Dropdown menus.  Investigating Contact forms for the site.

BBWN: From Shell Level, began to check into archives on the system that have been here for a few years.  Moved the backups to another filesystem, so I can clean up the www directory.  This morning (9/19) commanded a TAR backup:  All domains will be archived today.  I will then decide what backups I want to keep from the older ones, and delete what I don't need.  Moved current archives to a directory so that they are all together, in case I have to reload a site that is working, but is giving me problems.  I will also archive information using the wordpress admin pages, and back up the databases.

That's All for Now

Brian

[~Brian~]

UPDATES:  October 9, 2021 1853 PM EDT:  DATABASE CRASH DURING UPGRADE:  All sites on the BBWN network are down until further notice. Tonight when trying to upgrade my version of MySQL, to the updated version recommended by WordPress, apparently there was a problem with The configuration file: it now want me to end up re-doing the entire form. In order to stop this from being a problem, I have reinstalled PHP 5.6, and then I have powered the machine down. I have all of the back ups for the entire net work, and all of the back ups with the exception of BBDl’s database. It is believe that I will be able to restore that particular site and it’s database, once I am able to get into each Installation of word press and then log in on the consult and then re-establish all of the databases. System is down because no one can connect to my website because they need to be able to connect to the WordPress databases that are in the system.

I believe that I can restore these files in the morning to bring the server back up to operational readiness. In the interest of security, I’ve powered the server down until I am able to be at Console and able to restore The websites and databases. Once I am able to restore these I am pretty sure that I can easily restore everything back to last week. Thank God a back up things on a regular basis, and this will teach me that I need to do both the databases and the WordPress documents and folders and files. I should’ve known better in the first place: the last time something like this happened it took me hours to be able to restore some thing that took about five minutes to figure out once I got them back online.

The websites and databases. Once I am able to restore these I am pretty sure that I can easily restore everything back to last week. Thank God a back up things on a regular basis, and this will teach me that I need to do both the databases and the WordPress documents and folders and files. I should’ve known better in the first place: the last time something like this happened it took me hours to be able to restore something that took about five minutes to figure out once I got them back online.

I will update again when Data bases are restored, and we are able to get back online.

Brian

[~Brian~]

Today I will try again Lets hope I can restore my databases.  Let’s hope that we can get this done without too much problem. I will use the Synaptic Package Manager, and the console, as well as a terminal connection to make the fixes.

Wish Me Luck ?

Brian

Edited October 10, 2021 by ~Brian~
Edited as needed

[~Brian~]

On 10/10/2021 at 8:53 AM, ~Brian~ said:

Today I will try again Lets hope I can restore my databases.  Let’s hope that we can get this done without too much problem. I will use the Synaptic Package Manager, and the console, as well as a terminal connection to make the fixes.

Wish Me Luck ?

Brian

This morning, I decided that I was going to do an “audit” of what exactly is going on with web based services and support programs. I believe my PHP version is correct, at 7.3, but I might have to upgrade it to 7.4, and that would bring my sight into compliance with PHP. The database server MySQL, should be at at least 5.7, for my version of Debian.  I have learned a few lessons from this situation:

1.  Always keep a running back up of your data bases, so that you do not end up in a situation where you don’t have a usable back up to be able to restore it using my SQL dump, or an appropriate version of a program that will take care of your database back ups.

Always keep a running back up of your databases, so that you do not end up in a situation where you don’t have a usable back up to be able to restore using my SQL dump, or an appropriate version of a program that will take care of your database backups.

2.  Make sure that you have an adequate, And use of a back up script that will take all of your back ups, and then move them to the appropriate directories there off of your main file system, so that you do not lose your current MySQL files. This time I did not have many of the back ups necessary to use PHPMyAdmin, to command the back ups or the restores, or to maintain my databases properly. My main problem was that I did not do a back up, so I don’t have anything to restore if there is a problem, and so next time there will be such a back up. Thank God that it’s only a couple of sites that I have to be able to restore information from that I did not back up all the way.

3.  Read all instructions carefully, and then when you are done, reread them again and reread them again and again until you are comfortable with being able to install or do any upgrades. WordPress was telling me that I needed to update certain files on my server in order to be in compliance with certain standards. When I go to site health it’ll tell me exactly what it needs, so that is what I was trying to do, not only because I wanted to be up-to-date, but because security is such an issue, I want to make sure that I am as close to current as I can be.

4.  Make sure that you have all dependencies. If you need to install certain programs, you need other programs to be able to go with them. Uninstalling them the wrong way or not installing them the right way can lead to problems because that can cause your services not to function.  
 

5.  Don’t sweat the small stuff: this is one thing that I have learned more than anything else in at least 10 or 12 years of running Linux machine. If worse comes to worse, I will simply restore PHP, mySQL, PHP my admin, we run my conflicts, And then restore older databases that are intact. This might take a little bit of time and I might have lost data because of the databases, but I can assure you the next time that I do a back up of a database, I will have a legitimate database as well as a place to back it up to that I can actually move to an removable drive, or off-line device.

so, today I downloaded all of what I believe I need in order to fix the database server, MySQL and PHP. Tomorrow, I will attempt to upgrade these systems so that they are up to date, and then I will attempt to restore data bases from a back up of the MySQL directories.  Once this is completed, I will put updates on the server so that I am up-to-date WordPress wise and then I will check the damage to see how much I have lost.

Wish me luck, I can guarantee you that the next time I do a back up, I will take the time to update my database is and bring them down along with it. It only takes a few moments to do a complete back up of the entire system, and I should be ready to do that at any time if it’s necessary. I’m just lucky that I have most of what I have already saved on my work machine in my home machine so that I can re-create what may have been lost.

wish me luck, I can guarantee you that the next time I do a back up, I will take the time to update my databases and bring them down along with it. It only takes a few moments to do a complete back up of the entire system, and I should be ready to do that at any time if it’s necessary. I’m just lucky that I have most of what I have already saved on my work machine in my home machine so that I can re-create what may have been lost. 
 

you might have also noticed, that when my server is down, you do not see the photos in my signature file. This is because they are pulled from my websites directories. Since I had problems with the services, and I had to work with MySQL and PHP, I disabled the web service so that I can keep the server up without having somebody trying to get into my database, or possibly to my directories for my websites.  We shall see what happens tomorrow, but I wish that I had done what I should’ve done almost 2 weeks ago: this will not happen again. 
 

Brian

[~Brian~]

Good morning all:
 

This morning, I will try again to correct some of the deficiencies in my website. The unfortunate thing is, that in my quest to try to upgrade my site to 7.3 PHP, I have done something else to other support programs in the hierarchy. For four or five days straight I have tried every day to try to correct each of the deficiencies. Yesterday I tried to go to  linuxquestions, I try to see if they might be able to give me a little assistance: this was a fools errand, because they basically told me I was “fooling around with things and just installing things because I could install them.”  Not only that, but to add insult to injury, I was told that maybe I should “piss on my website“ to see if that would fix the problem. I now have to go to Debian’s forms to see if they can help me to get my website back in the operational condition so that I can then install what I need to be able to get back up online. Yesterday I was unable to connect.  For some reason I had done a lot of removals of other things that were required to be removed however it removed several of the dependencies that I needed for that to work right.

yesterday, I was able to get a response from Linuxquestions, and I was able to hopefully restore most of the dependencies and most of the programs I was missing in order to be able to connect to my server. However, I am still having problems connecting, and I’m wondering if I’m missing some more programs. I will not give up on my question make sure this is correct, for when I am done I will make sure that I am able to upgrade this site to be in compliance with THP version 7.4, so that I don’t have anymore problems. I resist the temptation to wipe out the entire website and then restore because I am not sure that that would correct the problem. I believe the problem lies in the patchy configuration file somewhere: if I can find that problem, I may be able to correct it but unfortunately I have reinstalled all of these particular packages so many times I am not sure if something has been changed within the configurations.

There are times, that it makes it hard for myself because there are people who believe that I am just some hack that doesn’t know what the hell I am doing. I have been doing website design since 2008, and because of changes in allowable version of PHP and other support programs, I am constantly in a battle to keep my machine current and up-to-date. The next thing that I probably will have to do in the next few months is to upgrade my entire server to Debian Version 11. This is because some of the necessary files that are required for updates may not be available in any of the repositories I have access to, because I am running Debian 8.  Chief among these is PHP: the maintainer of this particular program does not wish to maintain versions anything lower than the current version of PHP for the most current version of Dublin. This causes problems for those who do not wish to for whatever legitimate reason, update to Debian 11.  Based on all the documentation I have read, updating to DEB 11 Requires several changes that you make to your server in order for it to be able to run certain applications. The chief one of these would be that several of the programs used in Debbie an eight and supported, are no longer supported with Debian  11.  The reason I upset with this is because, prior to trying to upgrade PHP to the most current version 7.4, my server was running perfectly, and my databases were responding perfectly, and my website was operating the way it was intended. I now have to go in and possibly reinstall a lot more programs and configure my server back to the way it was, and my PHP and all of the rest of the running programs are working The way they are supposed to, but I cannot access the website it says it can’t connect, so this is where I am at: very soon I will make a decision on whether I will update to Debian 11, but if I can keep my PHP the way it is and get my website running, I will figure out a way to make sure that all of my websites are updated prior to trying to do this upgrade.

while I understand that every computer system needs an upgrade from time to time, I do not understand why the maintainers of several of the most core system files on many downloadable sites that host Debbie and related content, will sometimes decide that they will no longer support nor will they even maintain older versions of software that are needed by guys like me who are running older versions of a very stable software in a configuration that works for me. I will try very hard to make sure that my website is back up to snuff at least I won’t have to redo the entire server yet. I hope that the Debian forms do not think I am an idiot, and tell me to “piss on my server“ or I might tell them to “put a diaper on their’s“ ha ha Ha: I am not down yet and I will not give up this is something that I must deal with and I must figure a way to make sure that I do not lose thousands of hours of work on my crowning achievements on my net work.

I will keep you advised please continue to keep me in your prayers, as I not only have this situation to deal with but I also have other things that are of importance to me that I must complete hopefully by the end of the year or the beginning of 2022.

that is all from here ?????????

Brian

[~Brian~]

@DailyDi@Evelyn Dellcerro@Transfusionelle

UPDATES:  October 19, 2021 21:10 PM EDT:  DATABASE CRASH DURING UPGRADE: (This is the MOST up to date information available at this time ~brian~)

Good Evening All:

Today and tonight, I was able to correct and reconfigure sites on the BBWN:  As of now, I have corrected dependencies on apache2 mods necessary to run on all sites.  I decided to downgrade php and mysql so that there are NO errors with tables, users, permissions and such.  With the "front end" client for managing databases installed and working properly, I now need to take a backup of what I had for databases, and then restore them. I will do this tomorrow, as I have restored connections via https://. 

I have, for the time being, commanded a "service STOP" on the webserver, as there is nothing for anyone to see at this time, and there is no reason to leave the webserver accessible when there is NO connections possible at this time, and there will NOT be any until I restore the databases from a backup of the /var/lib/mysql/ directory, which has the files I need to restore.  Once I do that, then everything SHOULD be beck to "normal" if I do NOT make any config mistakes.

The solution to the "dependencies" I had was corrected by downloading modules I might have missed, and then, enabling the configs for each site:  One for http, and one for https.  To Correct the problem with the webserver, I realized that since I REINSTALLED Apache2, that I needed to make sure that i was able to have the right mods, which were available once I enabled SSL

I realized that there was a config file for the default site, and this was throwing errors saying I could NOT connect:  Reason:  I needed to enable the ssl configs.  To fix the problem with php, I REMOVED any mention of php repos from sources.list.d and sources.list, updated the system again, and installed mysql-server, and BOOM, I had the version I wanted!

The LESSON HERE:  I NEED to backup and archive posts, databases, and files on a REGULAR basis when doing a website directory backup.  The backups do me NO GOOD if the data and posts are NOT exported and databases backed up.  I also realize that I should be looking for DEBIAN SPECIFIC information when installing things, as UBUNTU configs can mess you up, because the repos are different, and the commands used may and often DO DIFFER.  I had to remove and purge any Ubuntu stuff on the system and do it with Debian instructions:  I also deleted my borked sources.list, and went to a site that helps you reconstruct it based on my version.

Eventually, I will have to update to DEB 11, but I won't do that for a while, at least until I am sure that I won't lose anything I need:  There are THOUSANDS of hours of WORK I did to create each site, and I would hate to lose it.

PHEW:  Got everything running again   Now, I CAN relax I don't give UP easily, and I am glad I stuck with it, taking breaks as needed

Will update again Tomorrow

Brian

 

[~Brian~]

UPDATES: SYSTEM CRASH: 10/22/2021 19:16 EDT:   Yesterday, I was working on the maintenance of files on the system, and everything was AWESOME, until I commanded "rm -r" from the /var/lib/ directory.  This effectively KILLED BBUS, and this is because you need files in /var/lib, because if you don't have tools you need to do the functions you need,you cant restore these unless there is a backup of them:   In my case, this removed data directories and package commands.  You Cannot "recover" the system to run right, so due to my "mistake", I needed to wipe the system and reinstall all of my files:  There are 2 issues however:  I need to take a BACKUP of files on the current install of the filesystems, and I need to get things running again on BBDC, which was down due to me not having the mysql database for that site.  I FOUND an older copy of that SQL file from summer 2019,  so I hope that as long as my files are there, and I can get the .XML files reloaded, I will be OK:  Lesson learned:  as has happened to @DailyDi file loss or database corruption can be a KILLER:  (Fortunately for me, I don't have as BIG of a database list or lists as he does, so that damage is MINIMAL, but I WILL be instituting changes on the system, so I back UP what I need at LEAST every two weeks:  I am also going to install  programs that will help me to do that, like Bacula, and I will SCRIPT out the procedure(s) I need, so I can take backups of the filesystems without a BAD "hang" - I had a TON of *.tar files in there, and they were being backed UP TWICE because I was not "--exclud(ing)"  them from the tar backups - this can make them things HUGE hhehehehe :))

 Today, I created a "LIVE USB Stick" of Debian 11.  For those who do NOT know what that is, it is a version of DEBian that you can boot up that resides on the media you created (whether CD or USB Stick.")  This type of install does NOT affect your system at all, because it is NOT installed, and not "persistent", and as such, you can do a reboot, with this USB Stick REMOVED, and it'll boot whatever the native OS is:  This is because the LIVE install only runs as long as the media is in the drive, and you choose to boot from it.  This allows you to "test" it, and see if you like it, much like you would take a spoon and taste your own cooking:  If you LIKE it, you can install the Debian version from the LIVE image, and after that, you WILL change things to RUN Debian from your native HDD filesystem -If you DON'T like the Debian version, you can shut it down, and your machine is back as it was, because there are NO changes made when running a LIVE environment.  You can also use a LIVE image to look at the mounted filesystems, and work with the drives, if you are like ME, and "borked it up" and you need to copy files or back them UP if you don't have such a backup.

This stick will allow me to boot into a DEB environment, so I can work with the drives:  They were NOT damaged, so I just need to take files OFF the root of the current filesystem, and move them to my 8 Terra removable drive. For safety, I disconnected the 3 Terra device, as this is the drive that houses the visitor (users) home files (in /home2, /home3)  It also serves as my backup drive, so a LOT of the files I need are already there, but I needed to take backups of /etc/, /home/, /var/www/ , and /root/ which reside in the main partition:  Once I have these, I  can then restore critical files, and then work to get the webserver running again. 

Right Now, I am doing a backup of the /home directory to the 8 Terra Drive, and earlier I had backed up /etc and /var/www/   I will also get the /var/log directory as well. 

TOMORROW: I will create the media iso file that will allow me to reinstall DEB 8, and then will make final checks to make sure I have NOT forgotten anything.   Once this is DONE, I will fire up the install iso for the DEB 8 install, and allow it to format the 2.0 Terra drive that is native to Cardinal, and I will allow that to install, telling the installer where it should install, and then make sure I DON'T format any other drives than that.  When that completes, I will login and begin making sure that needed programs are installed, and then I will work to restore the system and bring the BBWN's sites back up so that they work right.  I may need to install other programs and such, so this process could take a few days, but the process is sometimes TEDIOUS, but I will NOT give UP my baby:  BBUS is MY dream, and I am living it

I will update again tomorrow, as I need to get some FOOD and some Sleep:  I WISH I could get some "Home Cookin" but I don't know if I will get any until the holidays:  I will have to eat whatever I got, and hope I can get some GOOD food from home:  being a bachelor sometimes stinks worse then 10 poopy diapers ;(

God Bless You all, That's all from here for now   Time for me to relax

Brian

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by ~Brian~
Added Additional Information

[~Brian~]

Good morning all:

Yesterday morning, I attempted to install Debian 8: This resulted in a big mess: I was able to get the installer for DEB 8, and be able to burn it: The only problem was that I had to change the the location of the files to the DEB 8 Archives. Everything looked OK for the first 5 to 10 to maybe 15 minutes of install: and then what happened was it couldn’t find a halfway decent mirror to get the files from. I had to go in and manually add the download directly to get the files, and then I was unable to complete the install after trying six times.

So, after much soul-searching and having problems trying to install something that should be very simple, I have come to the  realization  that I have to install DEB 11 (Codename:  “Bullseye”) I will use this code name to refer to any installation of the current DEBIAN installation. I installed Bullseye yesterday morning, and by 8 o’clock I was fully installed for the base system and several of the other systems that are needed. So far, I light bull’s-eye, because I can actually see things better, and there is more color involved in some operations. There is been a major upgrade to several programs, such as SQL and PHP.

Now,  I will have to install all of my websites from the back up directories. This should be pretty easy because I have most of the files that I need in order to return my system to an operational state that was unable to be done for like five days. I may have to run other versions of older software in order to bring all of my websites online to be able to do an audit to be able to see which of the plug-ins that I have on my site do not work, or any themes that do not work with the current install of PHP7 or PHP8.  I am told that I will be able to run these programs in separate installs in separate instances, running each on its own port with its own config files, but this sounds a little bit hairy for me, as I want to make sure that I am not screwing around with what the current versions of all the software are. I cannot afford to end up losing several thousand hours of work because of a simple installation, or because an upgrade to a particular Linux version occurs. If I can put a full version of my website online with my current setup, I will then be able to go through my plug-ins on all websites and be able to remove those that are not compatible with PHP7 and then I will be able to upgrade the site and find appropriate programs and plug-ins for that version, because WordPress will be able to show me compatible programs for my version of PHP.  I may be lucky enough however, to upgrade to PHP8, but we will see what happens.

This indeed has been a journey, full of twists and turns and learning experiences. When I am finished I will have a better understanding of how to make sure that the next time we have to do this if we do, I will have everything backed up including all of the data bases so it will not be a shock to the system. I will have to see if WordPress will be able to upgrade my version of all of my data bases to the current version of PHP without any problems. If that occurs, then I will just disable all of my plug-ins and then search for ones that are PHP7 or PHP8 compatible dash if this happens then I will have no problems at all, because then I will be running on the current version of any software including SQL, which is important because I need SQL to be able to function with all of my databases. They say online that this is possible to run multiple instances of both programs, but I will be trading Whiteley here because I don’t want to blow up my installation because I make mistakes. If I can run multiple instances, multiple ports, and run properly, then I will be able to restore data bases and be able to bring them back up, then I will see how much “damage“ has been done to the sites, because if you don’t have a valid database you lose your data, but I don’t know how much data I will “lose“.

As many of you know, I will not give up my dream nor will I give up because of some block in the road: I will continue to work hard to try to bring my site back up, and make BBUS what it was, And all that will take is a little bit of ingenuity so I can run the older versions of the software so I can take a look at my site and fix them, then upgrade them, so that I am completely compliant with all programs and systems.

Today is Saturday, and now it is 11:45 AM Eastern Daylight  Time:  I will work for a few hours and see what happens: then I will stop: I have been working for days trying to get this to function, and I’m real close to making that happen. Because I want to make sure that I do not overdo it, this is why I will only do so much today. I will update all of you when I am able to give you further information about my sites

Thank You  for all the support, and God bless you all!: Have a great weekend, enjoy whatever we have left of the nice weather, because very soon we will have winter after we have a fall, but I think we already are experiencing fall temperatures now. Because of COVID-19 we may not have as much to worry about this winter, but I’m hoping and I’m hopeful that we will be able to be more mobile and more able to do what we need to do, but for the most part I will probably be spending most of the winter in “vacation mode“ As they work on things at the church, chief among these is an upgraded ventilation system, which will illuminate the need to run box fans, and dehumidifiers in areas where we have them running now. Once we are able to do this, we should be able to return to full operations at the thrift store. This downtime has given me the time I need to be able to concentrate on things I need to do to make myself better, and I will continue to do that through the winter months, Because I need to do this for my health.

Brian

[~Brian~]

UPDATE ON RESTORATION OPERATIONS: (10/25/21 @0150 AM EDT):  I know its early in the morning, but I wanted to let everyone know that I was thinking of  a way to install the correct version of DEBian, so that my websites and support files work right.  As I write this, I am copying the web directory tar file to the web directory, so that I can restore my websites.  I have databases for them all, as well as *.xml file backups, but I am told that if I restore the databases, all my content comes back on its own, and you just have to have your databases, and config files.  Assuming I am OK, and I have all that in that big OL Tarfile, I should be OK.

WHAT I DID TO FIX THIS:  I WAS able to get an ISO image for Debian 8 that was actually DVD #1:  When you do a net install using the Net Install ISO file, it will go and install MINIMAL software, and then ask what MIRROR I wanted to use.  Since DEB 8 is "End of Life"(EOL), I searched the archives site for the DVD ISO for DEB 8:  Since this is the FIRST disc of THREE DVD ISO''S, it contains the base system files, and all that you need to get yourself going, then you have to edit /etc/apt/sources.list, so it looks like this:

	deb [arch=amd64] http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
deb-src [arch=amd64] http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
	deb [arch=amd64] http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src [arch=amd64] http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib non-free
	deb [arch=amd64] http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src [arch=amd64] http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
	

What was happening was, the Net Install Iso pulls files from debian.org, based on the version that you are running, and because i have an EOL Version of DEBian, I have to use other sites to get the updates: When I did this with the net installer, she FAILED miserably, and I decided to use a Virtualbox, and I used the DVD #1 iso, and she installed a VM that WORKS, because ALL the files I need are ON that DVD, and that insures that I have a working base system!

Using this logic,  (I could NOT Sleep)I ZAPPED the Debian 11 image, downloaded all the DEB 8 DVD's (There were 3) and used the DVD #1 iso to install, and BYPASSED the mirror request, and she INSTALLED all the way - I backed UP all files, so I mounted my /8TB drive with the backups at /8TB/new_backup/, and now I can RESTORE backup files in that directory. as well as files from /etc, and all the users on /home, and home2 and /home3.  to do that, I need the paswd and group files, and I just move them, then move the files where they belong, and then all users and groups will be there, and then I can configure the ssh daemon, the fail2ban daemon, and php and phpmyadmin.

Our friends "across the pond" in the UK, came through with a WORKING sources list,  (THANKS for that) and because I am RUNNING DEBian 8, when I pull the PHP, MYSQL, and PHPMYADMIN, it installs flawlessly, and I just had to configure all the databases for the installer.  If all goes well, I will decompress the file later today, and check configs, and then ENABLE all of the configs we need for access to ports 80 and 443.

Later Today, I will restore things more, and we WILL be back UP fully in a few more (3 or less) days, if I am lucky.  I am posting these, so I have a written RECORD of the things I had to do, so I remember how to fix the system if we "bork it up" again, or DELETE using root commands without paying ATTENTION to the prompt (either ~$ for users, and ~# for root) With Luck, I WILL restore databases, and be all set for Wordpress Restore, and we will be back where we were about 2 weeks ago!

I can  NOW heave a HUGE sigh of RELIEF:  This NIGHTMARE is ALMOST Over:  Thank GOD:  @DailyDi - i SALUTE you, because NOW I know what kind of HELL you go through to manage databases:  I had to run a LIVE image, back EVERYTHING to another drive, disconnect them, run an install, and NOW, I have to bring back services:  If you have everything RUNNING right, everything should be OK, but if you did a rm-r from /var/lib, that DESTROYS things, and you have to reinstall:  if you have everything installed right, you DON'T have to WIPE out the system, but I had to solve this problem, and I DID IT!  I think @Evelyn Dellcerrowould be PROUD of me:  I DID NOT give UP, and I kept at it and I WIN - @Transfusionelle would also be impressed:  I GOT back what I LOST, and learned valuable LESSONS

Enough for Tonight Folks:  will update again later

Brian **HUGS and KISSES

 

[~Brian~]

UPDATE ON RESTORATION OPERATIONS: (10/25/21 @10:28 PM EDT):  Last night and this morning, I "burned the midnight oil" and felt like I had "flipped my schedule down" Like when we were all on lockdown, and I had nowhere to go.  I started working at 2PM EDT, took 4 breaks, but did NOT get finished with the install till 5AM this morning.  I just could NOT sleep, and I wanted my server back, and I wanted to make sure it was as quickly as possible:  Now I know how @Evelyn Dellcerro and @Transfusionelle feel when they have to get UP early  - I did NOT give UP, and NOW anyone can access the Sites on my network.

CARDINAL SYSTEM STATUS (10/27/21 AS OF 23:01 EDT)

BBUS NETWORK: STATUS:  GREEN (UP)

SERVER STATUS: GREEN (OPERATIONAL)

BBUS SERVICE STATUSES

GRAPHICAL INTERFACE (GUI): GREEN

WEB SERVICES

APACHE2:  ENABLED: GREEN AND RESPONDING ON ALL DOMINS

SSL/TLS: ENABELED:  GREEN AND RESPONDING ON ALL DOMAINS

BBWN SITE STATUS

BBUS:  GREEN  (OPERATIONAL - ALL UPDATES COMPLETED)

BBDC: ORANGE:  UPDATES COMMENCING/CONTINUING - (SITE STILL ACCESSIBLE)

BBDI:  GREEN: (OPERATIONAL) (REQUESTED UPDATES COMPLETE AS OF 10/12/2021)

BBDO:  GREEN (OPERATIONAL)  (REQUESTED UPDATES COMPLETE AS OF 10/12/2021

DATABASE SERVER: GREEN: ONLINE: (ALL DATABASES BACKED UP AND ONLINE)

SHELL SERVICES: GREEN:  (Responding  from internal and external addresses)

Today, I completed the Following Tasks:

1.  Restored SSH/FTP:  This is the one service that I needed to do my work on my mac or my pc.  I had to restore files, and set permissions for directories as I moved forward, and SSH and SFTP are needed for this:  Service Status: GREEN (Operational)

2.  Restored files in /home/brian, /home/bsbaker, (TFN Achive Account) and /restore/etc to the /etc and /etc/ssh directory, so that the ssh server daemon worked right. 

3.  Restored /var/www/html and all support directory components for BBDC, BBDO, BBDI and BBUS:  This is where I just Xtracted the tar files for these.  Each site has a home for all its files, and i also restored /etc/apache2 and /etc/phpmyadmin, and with that all of the letsencrypt stuff. Each has to be right in order for the site to work the way its supposed to:  Service Status: ORANGE (Maintenance being performed to better the system and finish cleaning up))

4. Restored /home for my 2 user accounts, and set permissions for them so they are brian:brian, and set all permissions as necessary.  I will restore root files (/root/) tomorrpw.

So, @DailyDi How'd I do?? *grin*

Brian

Edited November 5, 2021 by ~Brian~
added information: post was posted before edits completed

[~Brian~]

Last night, I ended up going through my configurations and making sure that everything was the way it supposed to be. I was experiencing problems again because of some sort of problem with the SQL server and the back up script that I had put into my current job that would back up those databases every fifth minute of every hour. Apparently something went haywire and then I lost connection to my SQL database, and then it wouldn’t allow me to connect. I’ve had to reinstall those particular pieces at least four times and I’m not sure why a Cron job would cause that to occur but I fix that problem.

next I had to deal with the Apache2 server. I was constantly getting errors in the start of telling me that something was already bound to port 80. When I did a scan of all of the things that were running on my system I found something called lighttpd running instead of Apache. When I found out that this was going on, I found what program was running and uninstalled it. Once I did this I restart Apache, and then added a couple of pearl modules and disabled a module that is not needed for my site, and then I was able to get it to run the way it was supposed to be.

A little after midnight, I was able to complete for the most part changes to my SSH Damon, and fix a couple of things that were causing issues, and then I install the fail2ban intrusion detector, Which lets me know when someone is trying to access my server.  This was an easy install since I still had all of the configuration files I just packed them up then I ended up placing all of them in the appropriate directories and restarting the service.

As of now all Services are online, accepting connections and functioning normally.  All domains are responding on SSL and the database server is functioning normally as well as the configuration server. Now all I have to do is to try to restore the older database for the thrift store because it does have data that I lost because I did not back up that database. Barring that, I will try to re-design that particular section of information so that we are fully operational/updated by mid 2022. It has been a struggle in some cases because I forgot to do some things that I’m usually very good about doing.  Although I have been told that it is possible to restore the database that I have lost and I only have the FRM files, it sounds more time-consuming and labor-intensive than I want to get into at this time, and it will teach me that I need to back up things more often.

I want to thank everyone who has kept abreast of my situation. Sometimes I think all I’ve done for the last 5 to 10 weeks is messed with the server 24 seven, and that means exactly what it says: 24 hours a day, on and off for at least 10 days. Last night was the first actual night that I was able to get a pretty good sleep, and then I was able to say to myself “I did it I fixed it and now, I can relax“

sometime next week I’ll probably have a meeting with the gentleman who I am hosting. He wants to have me make changes to the website as it is now, as he wants to make changes to the way his business operates and what is being hosted on the site. Changing information is not too hard, you just have to have an idea of what you want to change, and how you change it, and then you actually just spend the time physically doing the work.  In the last week or so I have been up at least tonight from about noon till about five in the morning with about four breaks in between. I don’t like to do this very often, because then my body gets used to a total reversal of what is normal for my sleep cycle. Every once in a while, it is good to be able to stay up late, because if you’re trying to do something that is important, time consuming, or you just have a lot of energy, you can burn it off by doing things like this. Now that my websites are back online, I can now focus on other things that I need to take care of, and once that is taken care of I should have more time to myself. Most times I am here on DD anyway, because this is the place where I can “let my hair down“ and just be myself. Although I must admit as I did last night, that all I wanted to do for the last three nights is just sleep for like three days straight in a nice warm blanket in my recliner. I don’t know if this is because of the fact that we have colder temperatures in the last few nights the nighttime temperature has been in the low 20s, and the daytime temperature has been 35°, but I am pretty sure that it is because of the colder weather that has been visiting us as of late. Pretty Soon, we won’t be able to go outside as often as we like, nor will we be able to enjoy the nice weather: winter is coming, and I must prepare for it like everyone else does.

As I sit here, I cannot believe that we are almost in 2022. I remember when I joined this organization in 2019 – it was because I had problems with incontinence and other issues, and I needed some help. Since that day, I have become an individual who has been better educated and come to realize that there is nothing wrong with what I am doing or what I have done in the past. What I try to do for others is to help them understand what they are going through as well. Each of us has their own journey that they start and they continue: some of us started go for a while, questioned it, and then may stop, but we always seem to have the one thing that never leaves us: the urges and the things that make us do think say and believe what we always Have done. I am glad that I have DD and my friends here, because sometimes it gets really lonely in here, and I miss other people, my family members, my friends, and other people who I am close to.

I must also tell you that even though we are almost in 2022, it feels like we are starting the pandemic all over again here at my building. The Housing Authority has decided to close our community room to use: the reason being that there are people who still do not believe that we should be using masks to protect others in the building - by others I mean people who are elderly, and who may end up having compromised immune systems: we’ve had a few people in our building this year come down with COVID-19. For a while, we didn’t have to worry about wearing masks in the building anymore. Come last month, the Housing Authority reinstated all of the mask mandates, and told us that we would be able to use our community rooms so long as we are able to continue to follow those rules with the mask mandates and all of the COVID-19 protocols including the distancing.  Come last week however, I was informed that there were a few people that were in our building who decide to “tell Housing off” by thumbing their nose at the rules, and we were warned that if we did not follow the rules as requested that we may lose the privilege of having our community room.

Thursday of last week, it happened. When they said they closed our community room they meant it: they took every piece of furniture and I mean every piece that you could sit on, and removed it from the lobby. We are lucky if we have something to be able to look at in the lobby, because they took all of our furniture away – because a select few people in here choose not to follow the SIMPLE RULES.  The Housing Authority where I live has decided that they wish to Have everyone wear masks when we’re in the building.  The only exception to this is when we are outside the building, or within our own apartments. Because of people not doing this, we have lost our lobby which means all it is is several thousand square feet of empty floor space. Some days it really irks me: the Housing Authority does not ask us to follow rules like this without a darn good reason, and we’ve had people with COVID-19 living in the building who are and have had Covid, so we have to follow those protocols. We are not in a state of emergency, but we must always be vigilant. This is because we still have young children ages 5 to 11 who are not vaccinated as of yet, and probably won’t be fully vaccinated until sometime in early 22. As far as I’m concerned, we still have to follow the rules, and although we may have a lower incidence of Covid in the state of Vermont, we still should be vigilant and make sure that we’re keeping each other safe, because if someone catches Covid, they will regret it, as several people from this organization have told us in chat.

oh here we are in the first part of November, and I’m not even sure what we will do for the holiday season. My stepdad called me yesterday and asked me for my dad‘s phone number: I don’t know why, and I don’t think there is a problem here but that is kind of strange. I just want to be able to be safe and enjoy my holiday without feeling like something that is broken down and useless. As of now I still a quick the devil and I wish I could stop hurting: I wish for once in my life that something would go my way and make things happen in the best way possible: I know that you have to work hard to get to the end of the road, but it seems like my road is loaded with roadblocks or things that I have to keep moving out of the way in order to function normally.  At least I have solved one problem and that is my incontinence: I don’t have to worry about that anymore, nor do I have to worry that I won’t have any supplies or the right supplies to be able to deal with whatever comes my way: but I still wonder if I will be able to do what I need to do if I am constantly in pain with my shoulders or my arms. I won’t even be able to be seen to find out what the deal is with the nerve study that they want to do until Christmas Eve are pretty darn close to it, and I won’t be able to see the doctor at the ortho center until 3 January 2022 – Why does it seem that all the bad things happened to me – I just wish that I could go through my holiday enjoy it, and now I feel like I’m a failure because I can’t do what I want to do and get stronger because I hurt all over.

At least this job is done for now: remember as I said, the BBWN was my dream, and I will continue to make that dream a reality making changes and making things better as I learn, for without making mistakes you cannot learn any lessons. Chief among these is to make sure you have back ups of everything that you take when you need them, and make sure that you understand how when and why do you install something or change something. Now I am running on DEBIAN 8, and at this point the reason I am doing that is because I am not really ready to upgrade several support programs to the newest version because in order to do that I have to make sure they are compatible and that my website work. I will work on this in the next few months there is no hurry here as long as there is a working website people can come to look at.

all systems are green all systems are functional BBWN sites, and BBUS Are online and responding: thank God I fight hard and don’t give up! That is a mark of a person who does not give up easily, and when I want something I go after it!

Brian

[~Brian~]

Tonight, I restarted the server, and had to deal with a black screen - this is due to the malfunctions encountered when you restart and you cant get your GUI interface to launch, and you are looking at a black screen,  The fix to this was a quick:

dpkg --reconfigure gdm3

A couple reboots later, she was coming up OK, but I think when I did the reinstall, I forgot to pick gdm3, and it was trying to load, and could not find that, so it was just black screening on me, which was a problem, because sometimes, I do maintenance from the GUI from the console  - ALL fixed, along with a problem a couple nights ago, when the webserver was complaining on start that "something was already running on ::80" and I found that lighttpd was running on 80 instead of apache, so I stopped that, removed it, and made sure apache had priority, and she works well now

All Set Now

Brian

 

[~Brian~]

BBWN Site Updates - Friday November 19, 2021 @17:57 EST

 

DOMAINS:  ALL Domains on the Network [BBUS/BBDC/BBDO/BBDI and email services] have been renewed for another 2 years, so that means that the BBWN will be all set until 12/25/2023 or so.  Cost: $225 USD for all domains and my email box.  I chose the 2yr plan, because the church will pay for the domains I established, and I have been using 2 for the business end of things.  They told me that if they were used, and are currently used, and I was able to justify the cost, they would cover it.  Unlike @DailyDi I pay for the domains, and then host them on my server to save some money, BUT - Even THEN, it is kinda pricey.  I basically said:  "Don't kill my website to save the church money, because I set them up, maintain them, have plans and dreams, and WANT my websites, and when i want to post something or add to the site, I don't have to go to the pastor, who can put stuff on, because he is busy, and I have the time to do that........."  They agreed to this, although it is getting stricter to be able to spend my budget without additional "controls" being implemented since this summer, where before, all I would have to do is ask our treasurer, and as long as he agreed, I was golden - I don't OBJECT to that, but MY websites are as important to ME as this place is to Mikey, and NO ONE is gonna mess with it, because I provide services to the public at large.

I later found out that the Finance Director ONLY wanted me to explain what I do with my domains, so as LONG as I use them as I described, she was OK with spending the money - which I understand fully.  She also got some info about rationale RE: File backups, as the Financial Secretary has LOST important files, like we did with some work files, and some web files.  Once she got that info, telling us to save work files for MORE than 7 years, and my explanation, she was cool about it.

I am a lucky guy:  2 of the ladies I work with are NUMBER CRUNCHING Wizards - One works for National Life, an the other works for Norwich University - and they BOTH deal with numbers longer than my arm - They are really nice, and it helps that I have a business background, so I can understand things if I question it, or ask them to explain things to me:  It makes me feel good to be part of a team of talented individuals

Site Maintenance:  Tonight, I have been going through directories, and for each of them, finding the tarballs (.tar, ,tgz) and ANY other archive file:  I have then MOVED them from the directories, so that what I have is a list of the archive files in ONE place, and then I went into my directories, and removed them all, so the next time we command a tar -zcvpf file-date-year.tgz * what we get is ONE tarball, and not ALL of the tarballs from 3-5 months, or 2 years ago backing up and being added to the backups where we want them to be current.  Since cardinal hosts BBUS, BBDC, BBDO, and BBDI, EACH directory has a home, and EACH has files and logs specific to it, so we don't NEED to backup tarballs IN the working directory, as I have now MOVED these to my /8TB external, and I will be able to maintain them a LOT better.

Databases:  For about 2 weeks, I have been backing up the databases with mysqldump --user <user> --password --all-databases >all-databases-date-year.sql  This way, I have a directory for each month left in 2021, and a directory for EACH day of the month of the year.  Yesterday, I manually commanded backups of all my databases, then manually commanded individual backups of each site database.  Every so often, I will MOVE database files, so I have backups, ESPECIALLY after doing work on the site I am working with, so I DON'T LOSE data when making edits or changes.  THIS is what killed me before:  Backed UP all databases EXCEPT one, and didnt do it when I had the chance to recover:  I WON'T do that again ;(

Will continue to work on this tomorrow

Brian

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by ~Brian~
Added Additional Information

[~Brian~]

UPDATES 11/20/21: 19:01 EST

DD PROFILE:  It was time to show some "LOVE" to my "About Me Page", so I edited links for each of my sites, adding PIPES between them, so someone would be able to click on either BBUS, BBDC, or BBDO.  I also added a LINK to the BBDC's Trinity Community Thrift Store Page as well.  These links were broken a few months ago when I made my last updates to it, and I wanted to add some color, and used BBCODE, and I don't think it worked too well, so I just re-linked all of this, and then colored each of the sites so they look better.  I also added links to my facebook pages for both BBUS and TCTS, so that people can also visit the pages when they search for the @bbusvt or @trinitythriftstorevt handles from the facebook platform.

I've also cleaned up some of the text. and added some color to it, so it is easy on the eyes, while remaining readable.

FILE MAINTENENCE:  The /home, /etc, and /root directories have been archived and we will continue to archive files, and remove older ones we do not need anymore, so we can easily find and use them, should we have any issues.  I have also backed up all of our /var/www/ directory, and all of the directories that have webdata in them.

That's all from here for now

Brian

 

[~Brian~]

BBUS is DOWN:  The /var directory took a walk, so I had to reinstall:  I will restore files as necessary to get everything up ASAP - Thing is, I was BACKING UP the /var diretcory, and she deleted herself:  Backup has been taken of it after the reinstall of the system, and I will work with it to get it back UP:  all files EXCEPT /var were backed up, so it should NOT be hard

Brian

[~Brian~]

On 11/21/2021 at 4:46 PM, ~Brian~ said:

BBUS is DOWN:  The /var directory took a walk, so I had to reinstall:  I will restore files as necessary to get everything up ASAP - Thing is, I was BACKING UP the /var diretcory, and she deleted herself:  Backup has been taken of it after the reinstall of the system, and I will work with it to get it back UP:  all files EXCEPT /var were backed up, so it should NOT be hard

Brian

I am in the process of restoring /var/www/ so I have my sites back home where they belong:  Next, I will install PHP5 and mysql and work the sources list so i have what i need

 

Brian

[~Brian~]

2 hours ago, ~Brian~ said:

I am in the process of restoring /var/www/ so I have my sites back home where they belong:  Next, I will install PHP5 and mysql and work the sources list so i have what i need

 

Brian

Websites Restored:  I have also installed php5/mysql and SSL support, and the letsencrypt directory, which had my certs for all domains. 

Fail2ban is also responding, as is all ssl connections, which means that I can now configure phpmyadmin database services, and bring us all the way up

Next, we will have to restore databases from the backups, so that people visiting do NOT get a "error establishing a database connection when they visit me.

Once that is completed, we will configure the ssh server with our banners, and command a restart of the ssh service.

BTW, this time, I took a backup of the /var directory, so if she "takes a dump in her diaper" I will not have to rebuild the whole thing again

I will keep everyone advised

Brian

 

[~Brian~]

CARDINAL SYSTEM STATUS (11/24/21 AS OF 21:20 EDT)

BBUS NETWORK: STATUS:  GREEN (UP)

SERVER STATUS: GREEN (OPERATIONAL)

BBUS SERVICE STATUSES

GRAPHICAL INTERFACE (GUI): GREEN

WEB SERVICES

APACHE2:  ENABLED: GREEN AND RESPONDING ON ALL DOMINS

SSL/TLS: ENABELED:  GREEN AND RESPONDING ON ALL DOMAINS

BBWN SITE STATUS

BBUS:  GREEN  (OPERATIONAL - ALL UPDATES COMPLETED)

BBDC: ORANGE:  UPDATES COMMENCING/CONTINUING - (SITE STILL ACCESSIBLE)

BBDI:  GREEN: (OPERATIONAL) (REQUESTED UPDATES COMPLETE AS OF 10/12/2021)

BBDO:  GREEN (OPERATIONAL)  (REQUESTED UPDATES COMPLETE AS OF 10/12/2021

DATABASE SERVER: GREEN: ONLINE: (ALL DATABASES BACKED UP AND ONLINE)

SHELL SERVICES: GREEN:  (Responding  from internal and external addresses)

ALL SERVICES are UP and responding as of the time of this posting.  I have restored Cardinal to operational status after having some hair-brained ERROR that I had never heard of before, and because of the fact that I could NOT get an answer on how to fix the problem.  Prior to that, i had an error with display manager gdm3, so I had to restart the gdm3 service, and got it back OK.  I have spent the day restoring files that we have to have to serve my userbase, and also to serve the websites on my network.  I am lucky however, because I wrote this thread, and when I did something I needed to remember, I posted, and NOW have a record of how I did some things.  That saved my BUTT on several occasions!

This time, only took 24 hours to restore

Brian

[~Brian~]

The Next thing we need to do, is to choose a replacement for certbot-auto, which has been replaced with a newer version of certbot, which uses snaps/snapd, which is basically another package manager, which I am told is a "resource hog".  This will have to be done in the next 60 to 90 days.

Brian