Scheduled Maintenance 10/24

[DailyDi]

DailyDiapers and our sister sites will be offline for several hours on Monday, October 24 beginning around 6AM Central Time to allow our server tech to update our servers operating system and then complete updates to our server software.

Due to the massive size of our main sites (800gigs) we do not know how long it will take to reload all the data after the OS is updated, but we anticipate 3-4 hours.

[vvp39]

6am eastern?

 

[DailyDi]

3 minutes ago, vvp39 said:

6am eastern?

 

Central

[~Brian~]

@vvp39@DailyDi

that would be 7:00 AM eastern: which is 6:00 AM central:I hope everything goes well in the upgrade, I had to do the same thing, and luckily my databases weren't so big that it took hours to do the update. Basically I had to make updates to PHP my SQL and a couple other things too to make my security better.

Brian

[DailyDi]

11 minutes ago, ~Brian~ said:

@vvp39@DailyDi

 Basically I had to make updates to PHP my SQL and a couple other things too to make my security better.

Same, but the new PHP and SQL isn't compatible with the old-as-dirt operating system we haven't updated since we began on this server in 2013!

[~Brian~]

31 minutes ago, DailyDi said:

Same, but the new PHP and SQL isn't compatible with the old-as-dirt operating system we haven't updated since we began on this server in 2013!

@DailyDi

I get it:part of the reason why I had to make the upgrade was because of PHP and MySQL . There are many security updates and upgrades that won't work right if you're trying to use an older version of PHP or MySQL . I had waited for Debian 11, because I heard there were problems with Debian 9 and 10 . This time I won't have to worry about a major update , until it is time to reinstall. By that time hopefully it won't be that bad!

I wish you the best of luck, I know that it can be a pain in the neck to do upgrades, but hopefully if you do this upgrade, you won't have to do a major upgrade again for awhile. We've already upgraded the chat system, so that is a huge headache off your mind, so hopefully that doesn't cause any more trouble with coding and other nonsense where you have to put it in, coding it every time- hopefully we won't have that issue again, but I do wish you the best of luck with your updates and your upgrade, and I believe you will find that PHP and MySQL will end up being a lot more secure when you do the update. With your databases, it could take awhile, because we have well over a million posts by the looks of it, and that could take a long time to mitigate, so I wish you the best

********HUGS******

@DailyDi

just remembered something that might be helpful to you: depending on what operating system you're upgrading from, make sure that you are installing the right database system:  if using Debian,you might have to install  MYSQL if Maria DB is the default version of the database system for Debian 11 or higher . Hopefully you won't have too much trouble with the upgrade, but I just figured I'd give you a warning, because I'm not sure what operating system you are currently running on the server, and you don't want to have it automatically install the wrong database system, if you're running SQL , you wanna stay there , so just make sure that you're using SQL and not Maria DB , if that is where we want to stay .

good luck Mikey!

Brian

Edited October 21, 2022 by ~Brian~
Removed information that was merged without consent

[2sail2]

Is new forum software coming too?

[DailyDi]

3 minutes ago, 2sail2 said:

Is new forum software coming too?

This is all being done to allow us to continue using the forum software we have now, but keep it updated and secure.

[~Brian~]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:23 PM, DailyDi said:

This is all being done to allow us to continue using the forum software we have now, but keep it updated and secure.

@DailyDi

I just wanted to say that I wish you all the best of luck in the upgrade. You already upgraded the chat system so that we are more secure and it works better, so hopefully with this upgrade you will be able to use what you have now for form software, keep it updated, keep it secure, and then be able to do anything you need to do, without having to do a major upgrade. When you're running an older system or an older OS, the biggest bear in the whole entire cave is the unknown: you know that you need to make the upgrade,  but you're not quite sure when to do the upgrade.  What I did when I did my major conversion was to start two weeks ahead of time. I made sure that everything that I had was backed up at least twice before even doing anything. The reason I did that was because it took me several days to be able to determine what I needed to back up, and then it took me a couple days to back it up. Once I knew I had everything that I needed, I just moved it over to a directory, as a whole bunch of tgz files, which make it a lot smaller than a big tar file, and I hear that bzip 2 can do the same thing, but you have to have those utility to do it, which I think Tar can do, and then I took the dive and installed Debian 11.

This did not go without problems however, because I ended up installing the wrong thing a couple times, and I had to make sure that I had exactly what was required. Because I already had the zip files, all I had to do was worry about getting the base operating system working. In your case, your files for your websites, and your databases and your SQL and your PHP will be the most important pieces. Then you want to run your updates for security, make sure that you're locked down as far as that goes, and then restore your databases once you have everything in position.Your tech will know exactly how to take care of that, but I'm telling you this because once I was able to get everything working the way it should be as a base system , then I was able to go in and I was able to Add all of the PHP modules that needed to be added : I believe that it was a PHP -M that you run to see what you're running for modules. You may have to fiddle around with that for awhile, but once you get that you should be all set as far as I remember. Don't quote me on this, but I think once you get all of the base system installed and everything with your modules correct , then you should be able to install your Apache, which should be easy, and then you just install what you need and make sure that you have everything you need for the most current version . You may have to play with the Apache server a little bit, but once you do that you should be OK . So far, running the most current version of Apache that I can run , along with all of the things I did, have made my system very stable . I don't get a lot of warnings about having to upgrade things because they're out of date, and very rarely , do I have to have any issues with an update . Doing the upgrade that I did save me a lot of time and a lot of headache. Once I got everything installed and working correctly, it was very very easy. You may have to also do things a little bit differently with your MySQL server at command level, but with good text like you have Mikey it should be no problem . Like you have done in the past, and learned from your experience, you always need to back up your websites as well as your databases, because as I have learned from experience you have your website, but without your database you're screwed , which is partially why you probably had such a bad experience when you lost a lot of content , and I hope and pray that this time you don't have that headache .

so I'm just giving you some positive vibes here: I have faith that you will be able to make the upgrade, with your server techs, and that this will be as painless as possible. I don't normally upgrade to newer versions of an operating system right away, because like you, upgrading just because of the sake of upgrading is not necessarily a good practice to have as an administrator of a website or websites. Like you, you have to make sure that what you're upgrading to is necessary, provides stability, and provides security for yourself as well as your user base.

So at  6:00 AM central tomorrow morning, rest assured, that I believe that this shall go pretty smoothly, and all you need to do is enjoy your morning cup of coffee: as they say when you're doing an install, you should probably go and get a cup of coffee while this is being done! This has been written into several of the install scripts for the long installs for Debian based and other Linux software. So far I'm liking the Debian 11, because it is a lot simpler and a lot more stable than anything before it, and I've run everything from Debian 5, to Debian 7, Debian 8, and then I became stubborn and wouldn't move until during the pandemic I was required to because of my PHP version, and I believe that WordPress was giving me warnings about the version of MySQL, but most of the things that I needed we're already there after I installed following instructions after I found out that I was missing plugins I needed. 

Good luck my friend! And congratulations on renewing your domain for another year! This site is one of the best that I have found, and I will never forget the support an understanding that people have given me over the years that I have been here! It is a credit to your staff as well, because each one of them that you have decided are admins, are very well versed in what they do, and they do a great job in my opinion.

I also believe that you will be better off with the newest version of Apache- I don't think I've run into as many problems with Apache, but you also have to make sure that you have all of your modules as well.

Once you do that Mikey, hopefully you will be able to sit back take a huge sigh of relief and say: "phew, now we should be a lot better off", and hopefully after this upgrade, you will have less headaches to deal with than you do now. Once you make the upgrade, I don't think you will have to worry as much!

Thank You!

Brian

Edited October 24, 2022 by ~Brian~
Word Edits added additional information as well