Monthly Archives: September 2021

On Wednesdays we go quizzing and have Chicken Tikka for tea

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So the beginning of the week was somewhat normal. No complaints about that at all, don’t like anything too exciting Monday to Wednesday. Ended up working on some stuff quite late into the night. Ordered lots of chemist stuff for holiday. Was contacted about ordering 64 pills of pain killers, said I was stocking up for a hangover. They sent the pills.

New server working out well, done a couple of additional security fixes. Wednesday we did the quiz and came second. Can’t win every week. Today I had to go to the ‘clinic’ for a blood test. It was done by Jan, so I ended up looking like a stigmata. After two attempts I’d run out of arms to use so she got someone else in to do it. Still that should all come out clean (If it doesn’t I’ve been shagging in my sleep).

Off to Elaine’s now. Food. No walking tonight as it’s pissing down, and I’ve been generally pissed on enough over the last few days. Planning on sitting here again all tomorrow to know up some extra hours, then in the studio most of the weekend I think.

I won’t be defeated by a blind

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Well as I didn’t drink shit tons last night, it meant two things. One, I wasn’t going to sleep well, and didn’t, and two I was going to be awake fairly early with a clear head. So took advantage of that and fixed the server fstab issue. I think that is everything now, but just noticed WordPress is moaning about some missing updates.

Put everything I was using for the server update back into the loft. I now have a clear workbench ready for the next project to begin.

Walked one dog, then went over to my friends to help them install a blind. It was a real bitch to put it blankly. Plasterboard walls so had come back for the right fixings. Got there in the end but took two hours. Went to Iceland, was so hot I could have jumped in a freezer.

Finally did a new version of ‘Snow’ for my nephew, then walked dog number two. Started on Coz’s song at last, got a few ideas for this one. Did that for a couple of hours then did another 12Km on the BMX as I didn’t have my calories and exercise for the day, although I think that blind probably took more out of me than the bike.

Now going to jump in the shower and then have a curry and watch the Grand Prix and maybe strictly…how things have changed.

She’s alive and has shiny new boots

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So after almost two years of procrastinating and a PC on my bench, I’ve finally finished the upgrade. Server has been running Ubuntu 12.04LTS (Long term support) version for almost ten years. I know it’s long term support, but that ran out a few years ago. So started to upgrade it to 16LTS I think, started writing down the entire procedure in a notebook. Some eighteen months later and it hadn’t been touched. Decided it really was time as sooner of later the server was going to die. I’d got as far as getting the web server working and updating all the SQL stuff, so basically this blog was working.

So a couple of weeks ago I decided to take what I did and actually document it in a word document. Three weeks later and it’s done (well very much almost). It’s completely rebuilt from scratch and now running Ubuntu 20.04.3LTS which is apparently good until 2030….I wonder if I’ll upgrade in time. Doubt it. Everything was fairly smooth when I followed all the instructions correctly. The original Shorewall config didn’t work, so that put up fight trying to get something going there. Also I have a fault in fstab somewhere and need to work out what root disc to mount, but that’s quite minor in the grand scheme of things.

Also upgraded the hardware as the old server was struggling with memory. Had a look around and found a ‘mini PC’ on Amazon for £270. It has 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD, plus six USB ports and VGA. So was pretty much perfect. It came with Windows 10 Pro, but soon said goodbye to that.

It’s now all working perfectly except the mount issue, and it’s getting late. But now I have a very secure up to date server running Apache, Postfix, Courier and lots of other goodies. It’s all setup correctly with SSL and a very strict double firewall in my DMZ.

So overall, very pleased.