Migration to new server

John Raabe · August 16, 2013, 10:09:53 AM

Friday 8/16/13 - Thanks for your patience today. I did something stupid and crashed the site. It took awhile to have the backup copy restored. Sorry about that

The forum database was not involved so there should be no lost posts.

We are now running on a new VPS server with half again the memory, bandwidth and storage capacity of the old one.

Thanks to the sleuthing of hpinson, we were able to determine that the host site memory was being overwhelmed by traffic on the forum. We have since tweaked the forum settings to be more efficient AND we have enlarged the playing field.

We should be good to go.

Thanks to everyone who helped!

bayview · August 17, 2013, 11:28:00 AM

Thanks,

For doing such a great job . . . I really enjoy your site, the forum and the exchange of ideas.

/.

August 23, 2013, 10:52:06 AM

Friday 8/23. We have still been having crashing issues. So, last night I ordered a 2nd upgrade to a higher level. The new VPS host has 4 cores and 4GB of memory. Memory seems to be the limiting factor for us. This transfer is setup for early (after 1am ET) tomorrow morning. Most people will be asleep during this. Downtime will be 20-30 minutes and it will involve getting a new IP address that will take some time to fully implement across the internet.

This new server is a pricey option but should add a great deal of stability to the forum.

You may have problems over the weekend with some of the links to the forum. If you log in to a fresh window, and still can't get a connection, you may have to wait and try again later.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

John Raabe · August 24, 2013, 10:10:15 AM

We seem to have survived the migration intact. There are normal levels of postings today. You can note any issues you find here.

Let's see if this smooths out those hiccups.

rick91351 · August 24, 2013, 10:15:16 AM

Thanks John.....

I hope this thing is not becoming a monster. It is sure a wonderful tool for a lot of people.

Rick91351

August 24, 2013, 12:42:44 PM

As we have grown, the demands of all those members on-line at the same time has put a strain on the hosting service and its ability to keep from swamping the server. With this latest upgrade to a level 6 Virtual Private Server we should now have enough excess capacity that we can continue to grow for some time. But the cost of hosting has gone from about $120/yr (what we have paid for most of the lifetime of the forum) to $2,500/yr. That's more than a 20 fold increase!

I want everyone to know that we will do whatever is needed to keep this forum up and running - and FREE. CountryPlans, my little family business, has and will continue to cover these expenses. And we have members like MtnDon and Hpinson who have provided helpful and knowledgeable forum support at sub-market rates.

So the forum will continue to be Free and Open. No paid membership required. I may, however, sometime in the future, add a donate/support PayPal button in case some of the members feel like helping out. That will be purely voluntary.

So, onward we go... Here's a peek, via the Wayback Machine, of what the forum looked like in early 2001 (you can read, but don't try posting to this long dead forum).

John Raabe · October 31, 2013, 10:11:36 AM

We will be moving the site where the forum data is stored from Chicago to Dallas early in the morning of November 1st. The site will be offline starting around 2AM ET. The downtime is expected to be one to two hours while data and then IP addresses are updated.

John Raabe · November 01, 2013, 11:39:12 AM

Got a notice that the migration was successfully completed. Has anyone had issues?