From Oz Craftbrewers.
Doc
Brewers
You never miss the water 'til the well runs dry.
I'm sure some of you have wondered about the HBD server. It's off-line, and this not only means that HomeBrew Digest isn't being issued, it also means that you can't get to many club sites, The Brewery, Recipator, BJCP, and so on. It happened because HBD server slave Pat Babcock took it off for maintainence and it's taking longer to get back. The following tells the story (please relay to interested parties):
Pat tipped us off on May 5 in a post to HBD:
> Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 20:04:47 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Pat Babcock
> Subject: Changes afoot...
>
> Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager...
>
> Several changes afoot. First, we're expanding the network,
> requiring a reassignment of IP addresses (ie: I gotta reconfig
> all machines, and rewrite DNS). This will cause about four hours
> of inaccesibility once implemented as they change our IP Address
> block.
>
> But wait, there's more! In order to accomplish this cleanly,
> I've got to resolve the memore segmentation errors being flung
> by the brew server. I think I have a suitable "donor" machine
> for memory; however, all bets are off. This little bit of
> surgery has teh potential to pull the HBD down for longer than
> just a few hours (and I may forego and manually rewrite all of
> the configuration files...)
>
> In any case, if the HBD drops offline for a little while in the
> near future, you will know what's going on.
>
> (For those hoseted on Newbrew and the BabsTech server, this will
> impact you as well - same namespace)
>
> Always seems to be this time of year for this stuff, doesn't it?
Enough people have emailed me to ask if I knew what was going on that I checked with Pat this morning:
> From: Jeff Renner [
> Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 9:00 AM
> To: Babcock, Patrick (P.G.)
> Subject: hate to bother you
>
> Pat
>
> People are wondering what is the story with the HBD server. You
> warned us on 5/5 that it might be down for a while. Is it only that
> changeover? Any estimated time back on line? Hope there are no
> problems.
>
> AABG members are emailing the people they have in their address book
> about the meeting tomorrow, and I've gotten a couple of emails from
> HBDers.
>
> Jeff
> From: Jeff Renner
> Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 9:00 AM
> To: Babcock, Patrick (P.G.)
> Subject: hate to bother you
>
>
> Pat
>
> People are wondering what is the story with the HBD server. You
> warned us on 5/5 that it might be down for a while. Is it only that
> changeover? Any estimated time back on line? Hope there are no
> problems.
>
> AABG members are emailing the people they have in their address book
> about the meeting tomorrow, and I've gotten a couple of emails from
> HBDers.
>
He replied
At 10:10 AM -0400 5/13/04, Babcock, Patrick \(P.G.\) wrote:
> Covad changed the way they delegate DNS, so when they upgraded our IP
> block, DNS became hosed. Working to resolve.
>
> Also, the HBD server itself is in pretty bad shape, and it doesn't look
> like I'll be able to recover the box. (data is safe). I will have to
> rebuild it once the greater problem of getting the network back on the
> internet is resolved.
>
> Have no ETA. Running solo on the HBD with a real life to tend to. Doing
> the best I can...
I have no idea what all this means, except the "real life" Pat refers to involves a wife, five young kids, and perhaps another master's degree (not sure about that one).
I replied:
> From: Jeff Renner
> Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 10:22 AM
> To: Babcock, Patrick (P.G.)
> Subject: RE: hate to bother you
>
>
> Thanks, Pat. The homebrewers of the world are worried but
> appreciative of all you do. May I pass this along to AABG (via
> Spencer), Oz CB down under and UKHB?
>
> I wonder if there is any way to get you help in doing this. Not from
> me - that's all Greek to me! But maybe from others in one of the
> clubs.
>
> How is the server fund? I can pass along a request for this. Of
> course, it would have to wait for the server to be up for PayPal
> payment, although you could send me the snail mail address.
and Pat responded:
At 12:57 PM -0400 5/13/04, Babcock, Patrick \(P.G.\) wrote:
> Yes, you can pass along; however, please expunge my work email address
> from whatever you forward.
>
> I've queried the BJCP (whom I now host) for some of their guys who may
> be "linux-admin-savvy" for help. Slowly trudging through it. Never had
> to deal with "classless IN-ADDR.ARPA addressing schemes before. SO far,
> I've rewritten the zone files for HBD.ORG and a few other zones I
> control, and seem to have a functioning DNS server; however, I'm not
> reaching the world. In any case, I'm still not convinced the problems
> are all on my end of the system...
>
> Per the server fund, we're OK. Have more than enough cash at hand.
> Ordered a new box for HBD.ORG last month and am still awaiting delivery.
>
> Thanks for the look in. When things like this happen, I tend to go all
> "assholes and elbows" to resolve the issues and forget to downstream the
> news (though I have updated rec.crafts.brewing a couple of times).
There you all are.
Jeff