This weekend we will have intermittent site downtime as I attempt to add two new servers and set up MySQL Replication off of our primary database server.

This new hardware is the by-product of most generous user contributions! I offer many thanks to you'se who have stuffed the donation box, and those who have made hardware donations. Hopefully, if things go according to plan these gestures will result in a faster, more featureful site.

---boring technical info---

  • We currently run on two machines, a database and webserver, both VA Linux 2200 Dual Pentium III/733s
  • I will be adding one more 2200 as a webserver which will be testing a new kernel and doubling the number of connections we can serve.
  • I will also be adding a screamingly fast Dual AthlonMP 1600 to replace our current database server. I hope to set up our old DB server as a slave database, which can be used for searching, backups (no more Word Galaxy?!?), and allow us to do more complex data aggregations.
  • I also might be playing around with mod_gzip if our webservers look like they can spare the cycles.
  • It's very possible we may go up and down several times over the weekend, especially if I have to do any failing back. Please don't send me nasty emails if you can't get at the site. Also, I strongly recommend that you save local copies of anything you post during the turbulence in the case of a database migration failure and/or corrupted/lost data -- if this is the case, we may restore off a backup from the beginning of the day tomorrow.
  • Finally, I'm on Pacific time, so this will very probably continue into Sunday according to server time.

    Thank you. Hope for the best...

    --nate