Uno-Code

So udev-197 has been released as stable and in portage now. This requires a kernel config change, and if this is not in place, your server will be dead in the water. You will need to enable CONFIG_DEVTMPFS. Normally, this isn't a problem, just build a new kernel and go from there, but I have a few server images at Rackspace running Gentoo-10.1. With these older versions, updating the kernel is not that simple. If you're running Gentoo-12.3, you should be good, since Rackspace now offers kernel control with the new virtual images.

So I have Gentoo-10.1 running, which means I have the following kernel running: 2.6.35.4-rscloud. Pretty old, and everyone is pretty much using this with the 10.1 images. I wrote a procedure on how to get a new kernel so udev will be happy in this environment. Basically, it involves pv-grub, change to fstab and obviously a new kernel:

I have a client that needs to do large backups off site. Originally we were managing that with a offsite Linux server and dirvish, but it's apparent that disk and bandwidth is going to be an ongoing issue. I wanted to look at other possibilities.

It is really uncanny that I run across these problems during the holidays. On Dec. 24 one of my boxes was reporting a "read only filesystem" on the /var partition. My alerts didn't notify me since services were up, but mails weren't happening and mysql was reporting crashed tables.

The first time I was able to reboot it, but the second time, I wasn't so lucky. Here is the procedure in case I run across this next Christmas.

I wanted to unmount the partition so I could run fsck on it, but since it was crashed, I needed to force umount it..

I ran reiserfsck and it did report corruption, so I needed to run it with --rebuild-tree

I ran into a few issues restarting this service after upgrading. The first issue was related to the location of dhcpd.conf. For some reason (even though CHROOT is clearly defined), the start up script is still trying to locate dhcpd.conf in /etc/dhcpd.conf. I had to create a symlink from the jail to /etc/dhcpd.conf.

After getting past that error (which I know I'll want to correct down the road), I ran into the next one:

For this problem, I simply commented out this config option. Not sure what the impact is yet. My goal was to get the service up and running.

The final error was a little unusual:

Currently at Dell you can pick up a Dell PowerEdge T110 Server with a 24" ViewSonic Monitor for ONLY $479!! Not bad if you're looking for a file server. I personally love picking up these Dell servers at these prices. They're great for file servers, test or production web servers, etc. They're quiet, powerful and easy to load Gentoo on.

Here are the specs for the server

Dell PowerEdge T110 Server with 24" ViewSonic Widescreen Black LCD Monitor
Intel Xeon X3430 Processor
2GB Memory
250GB Hard Drive
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This is a limited time offer. So, if you're looking for something like this.. you're gonna have to jump on it!

Full details here.