...turned into a nightmare.
Here's the breakdown:
On Saturday late night / Sunday early morning, I configured the new server with the IPs of the old server, in prep for the move. Then I moved all the sites over, using the "Express" option to forward from the old server to the new server.
Problem 1: I was advised that the IPs could no longer be moved after hours / on weekends. This is something I will follow up on, as it's exactly how we did it before. ARGH.
Problem 2: So at that point, I could either allow everything to be down until Monday (today) or try to make everything work on the server's IPs. Problem number two was that the IPs I was given were NOT the actual IPs I was supposed to be. That caused all sorts of problems.
Problem 3: In addition to having the wrong IPs, there were wild goose chases on server configuration for the various IP addresses. Once I realized the IPs were wrong; there were still problems with not being able to find where to manually change the nameserver IPs (because WHM was not properly updating them).
Problems 2 and 3 interacted with each other such that it took this long to finally catch what all was going on.
As of the time of this post - everything is working properly on the new server, and Timothy (in charge of simutrans.com DNS) did an amazingly quick job on updating IP addresses... so as soon as everyone's ISP sees the changes, they will see the forum here.
I'm exhausted and deeply frustrated by what should have been a simple server move. I made this work previously! But there were major problems this time, and for that I apologize.
The only little bit of good news is that the new server does appear to be loading pages more quickly. It is a faster server with more RAM...
Thank you for all your work in fixing this! Did the server move cause some posts made shortly before it went down to be lost? I notice that one message that I posted (and possibly a reply to it that I never saw) seem to have gone missing.
The move should have suspended the accounts right before moving them; theoretically, nothing *should* have been lost; but I suppose if the process doesn't quite work how they say, it might suspend *after* the move, in which case posts during the move time would be lost.
It is possible, also, that during troubleshooting, I managed to break the suspend, which would mean that the posts might still reside on the old server, to which you might have been able to connect. In which case it'd be my fault, not cPanel's.
My apologies for the error, either way.
Good job Isaac. Thank you very much. At the moment, I think we can all live with a one day interruption if it's worth. :)
very good work, congrats ! Have a nice rest after this nightmare ;)
Isaac, please, no need to apologize. We all know you're a warrior who fights for the community's good. All this trouble was totally unexpected.
Thank you. :)
Thanks for all the effort that you put into this, Isaac. And don't worry, forum is up again, so things are good :)
Good job Isaac, and stop apologizing! People are not allowed to complain when it is free :)
DNS is taking a long time to update, I had to resort to adding an entry to my hosts file.
Quote from: IgorEliezer on August 30, 2010, 09:06:31 PM
Isaac, please, no need to apologize. We all know you're a warrior who fights for the community's good. All this trouble was totally unexpected.
Thank you. :)
Quote for truth. Nothing more needs to be said. :)
Receive also my support, Isaac.
I have got access by looking up the IP Address in a web DNS server and writing it in /etc/hosts.
So, for the first time in months I felt like visiting this site and playing simutrans, and it is updated.Glad to see things A-OK.
*lurker*
Thanks for all the effort Issac.
I wondered what had happend when I tried to log on I was greeted with the message that the server was no longer available. I only found out by going to the 'Blog'.
You're right too, it is much faster.
PS: The spell checker seems to be missing.
I was finally able to get the forums to load just today.
No big deal, I think you handled the unexpected problems much better than some college and university registration sites :)
Quote from: Colin on August 31, 2010, 07:15:59 AM
PS: The spell checker seems to be missing.
D'oh. Lemme rebuild apache. Should be working next time you see this, or if you're really quick, in 15-20 minutes or so :)
Quote from: Isaac.Eiland-Hall on August 31, 2010, 01:32:23 PM
D'oh. Lemme rebuild apache. Should be working next time you see this, or if you're really quick, in 15-20 minutes or so :)
What a chubby faced little genius you must have been. Glad it spilled over into adultness.
Good onya mate!