Scheduled Upgrade
Notice of Scheduled hardward and software upgrades for HVCN -
Scheduled for Jan 24, 2008.
STATUS
The migration is complete and HVCN services have been restored. We are now running on the upgraded
software described below. Maintainers of web sites on HVCN may resume normal activity. Remember that sftp, ssh
and scp users will now see a new host key on the upgraded machine, and will have to accept it before connection can be established.
Thank you for your patience.
Background
HVCN's server has not had a software update in two year (Feb 2, 2006) and the hardware has not been upgraded
in six years (Jan 2, 2002). The hardware was becoming a limited resource, especially the main memory, and at the same
time the disk storage was showing signs of wear, as the companion server's disk failure made clear.
It was therefore way overdue for this upgrade and update.
Problems
The upgrade took less than two hours, but we did encounter a problem with mailing list processing once we came up on the
new server. The result of this problem is that the person posting to the mailing list may have gotten their attempt to
post rejected if the mail was sent between 9AM and 1PM today. The problem was corrected at that time.
Hardware Upgrade
- Processor - 900 MHz Celeron upgraded to a 1.8 GHz Pentium.
- Memory - 128 MB upgraded to 1GB
- Storage - 20 GB upgraded to 80 GB.
Software Upgraded
- OpenBSD 3.8 upgraded to 4.2 (all current security patches have been applied)
- OpenSSH 4.2 upgraded to 4.7 (used for sftp, scp and shell accounts)
- BIND 9.3.1 upgraded to 9.3.4 (used to provide name service for domains. Required reconfiguration.)
- PERL 5.8.6 upgraded to 5.8.8 (scripting language used by majordomo, spamassassin, FormMail and others)
- MySQL 4.0.24 upgraded to 5.0.45 (database)
- Spam Assassin 3.0.4 was upgraded to 3.2.2 (for optional spam filtering)
- perl5 DBI was upgraded from 1.45p1 to 1.53
- perl5 DBD drivers for mysql were upgraded from 3.0002 to 3.0008
Although it has been extensively tested, this upgrade was a complex one,
and problems have occurred. However, the problems we know of have been fixed.
Nevertheless, others may appear unexpectedly. Further testing continues. If you
encounter a problem, please send all of the details to
webmaster@hvcn.org.
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This page was last modified on Januaary 24, 2008.
Please send comments to
webmaster@hvcn.org.