What the hell??!? (blah, blah of a wannabe alien)
Tech Stuff
The $10,000 Space
Sep 26th
If you are a programmer, have you ever had one of those bizarre situations where you know something is not working, but you aren’t getting an error or anything else that would make debugging easy?
A couple days ago I migrated a cluster of web servers to PHP 5.1.x (they were running PHP 4.4.x before). One of the things I run on them is a geo targeting mechanism, and in the case where my screw-up was, a function to block a subnet of IP addresses.
[code=php]echo sprintf("%u", ip2long(' 80.1.2.3'));[/code]
That little bit of code was my fuck up… PHP 4.4.x returns “1342243331” (as expected), but PHP 5.1.x would return “0“. PHP4 was more forgiving of the stray leading space before the IP address, while PHP5 was not. The end result was that every IP address before 81.1.2.3 was blocked, instead of blocking FROM that IP address to an end IP address (that was not very many IPs away).
Awesome… so what happened here? I ended up blocking about 40% of the potential traffic for awhile, which equated out to probably about $10,000 in lost revenue.
The lesson learned? Don’t fuck around with spaces, because they will cost you many hours of debugging/tracing as well as ~$10,000.
Camera That Makes You Look Skinny
Sep 19th
This really is stupid IMO… if you are worried about your weight so much that you need to go out of your way to buy a camera that actually makes you look slimmer than you really are, maybe you should just go to the gym or something. Unless you are a model and that’s your livelihood, I don’t see the point of this…
http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/tours/slimming/index_f.html
Google Gmail API
Sep 15th
I was just thinking… Google needs to build an API for Gmail. Then we could do things like POP our email into an email client, and then run a script from within the email client that is able to go back to Gmail and tag stuff as spam, apply a label, etc.
That would be handy… can someone please make it so? 
Retroencabulator
Sep 13th
I’m not sure if this is supposed to be a joke, or what… but this guy might as well been speaking Chinese and doing backflips. I think I may be able to put one in my new car (maybe)…
Linksys Fixes 2Wire Shortcomings
Sep 11th
Did I tell you how much I hate the 2Wire router/gateway you have to use for fiber Internet connections? You can’t get into the admin (which is web based) remotely, you can’t use DDNS so when your IP address changes weekly, you have no idea what it changed to, the firewall assumes you are an idiot and can’t do basic stuff with it, etc…
So the IP address changed over the weekend, and the only way to get the new IP is to drive out there and look to see what it is. On the way out there, I had an idea… why not buy a Linksys WRT54G broadband router and just route all in-bound traffic to it. Then you can use it’s firewall and DDNS functions. So that’s what I did… and it works *so* much better… remote admin access and everything else. I even tried to get tricky and route traffic to the Linksys and then right back to the 2Wire to see if I could get to it’s web admin remotely, but no such luck… It ends up redirecting it to a different URL (I’m assuming based on the client not being on the local network)… whatever that part isn’t that important anyway now.
Motorola KRZR K1
Sep 11th
I guess I missed it, but Motorola released a new phone (MOTOKRZR) a few months ago that looks pretty tight. Like a new and improved RAZR. The one thing it has that I’d love to have in my RAZR is support for the high-speed EDGE stuff for fast Internet. But it does seem to have some other handy stuff like a GPS, memory slot, etc.
Now if they could somehow fit a QWERTY keyboard on it, we would be all set…
http://www.motorola.com/motoinfo/product/details.jsp?globalObjectId=160
Mac OS X Spaces
Sep 7th
Dude, I want this *really* badly now… I’ve been using fast user switching to create separate environments I can switch between quickly, but Spaces seems to be a much better solution.
Cellular Signal Amplifier
Sep 6th
More than anything, this is just a bookmark for myself. That way when/if I need it at a later date, I remember what it was!
These units are Single Band which means there are 3 separate units to serve the different carriers. Each WorkBase can fill up to 40,000 square feet and lets up to 68 users (per unit) have full reception at all times. WorkBase is optimal for warehouse stores, grocery stores, cruise ships and office buildings.
Canon VB-50i PHP Control Class
Aug 30th
I tried to find a PHP class to control the new camera, and I couldn’t find one… so a little packet sniffing later, I was able to figure out how it’s little Java applet communicates with the camera. Anyway, I spent a few minutes to make a PHP class to control the camera, so if you need one, here you go (it hasn’t been extensively tested, so it probably has problems… if it does, leave a comment)…
So here’s a basic PHP script that uses the class to take control of the camera, set the pan/tilt/zoom to a certain position, capture the image and save it to a file… handy for uhm… I dunno… a cron job to take time lapse photography.
[code=php] include ('class_camera.php');
$cam =& new Camera();
$cam->connect('your.camera.ip.address');
$cam->get_control();
$cam->goto( -7463, -548, 4126);
sleep(5); // Wait for movement to finish and lens to focus
$handle = fopen('images/' . time() . '.jpg', 'w');
fwrite ($handle, $cam->image());
fclose ($handle);
$cam->disconnect();
?>[/code]
class_camera.php:[code=php]
// #############################################################################
// Canon Camera Control Class
// http://www.shawnhogan.com/2006/08/canon-vb-50i-php-control-class.html
/**
*
* Class to interface with a Canon VB-C50i or VB-C50iR
*
*/
class Camera
{
/**
* Connects to the specified camera
*
* @param string Hostname or IP address of the camera
*
* @return connection_id
*/
function connect($host)
{
$this->host = $host;
return $this->connection_id = substr(file_get_contents ('http://' . $host . '/-wvhttp-01-/OpenCameraServer?client_version=LiveApplet_4125&image_size=640x480'), 14, 9);
}
/**
* Disconnects from the camera
*
* @return none
*/
function disconnect()
{
file_get_contents ('http://' . $this->host . '/-wvhttp-01-/CloseCameraServer?connection_id=' . $this->connection_id);
}
/**
* Attempts to get control of camera
*
* @return none
*/
function get_control()
{
file_get_contents ('http://' . $this->host . '/-wvhttp-01-/GetCameraControl?connection_id=' . $this->connection_id);
}
/**
* Get camera info
*
* @return array of camera info variables
*/
function get_info()
{
preg_match_all ('#(.*?)=(.*)#', file_get_contents ('http://' . $this->host . '/-wvhttp-01-/GetCameraInfo?connection_id=' . $this->connection_id), $matches);
foreach ($matches[1] as $key => $value) {
$this->camera_info[$value] = $matches[2][$key];
}
return($this->camera_info);
}
/**
* Move camera
*
* @param string Movement type (pan | tilt | zoom)
* @param number Position to move to
*
* @return none
*/
function move($operation, $position = 0)
{
file_get_contents ('http://' . $this->host . '/-wvhttp-01-/OperateCamera?' . $operation . '=' . $position . '&connection_id=' . $this->connection_id);
}
/**
* Set pan/tilt/zoom on camera with one call
*
* @param number pan position
* @param number tilt position
* @param number zoom position
*
* @return none
*/
function goto($pan, $tilt, $zoom)
{
$this->move('pan', $pan);
$this->move('tilt', $tilt);
$this->move('zoom', $zoom);
}
/**
* Set parameter
*
* @param string paramter to set
* @param string value
*
* @return none
*/
function set_value($parameter, $value)
{
$mapping = array (
'back_light' => 'B',
);
$parameter = $mapping[$parameter];
file_get_contents ('http://' . $this->host . '/-wvhttp-01-/OperateCamera?' . $parameter . '=' . $value . '&connection_id=' . $this->connection_id);
}
/**
* Get current image
*
* @return none
*/
function image()
{
return file_get_contents ('http://' . $this->host . '/-wvhttp-01-/GetOneShot?image_size=640x480');
}
}
?>[/code]
Gmail Spam Filtering Isn’t So Hot
Aug 29th
In theory, Gmail’s spam filtering is supposed to get smarter as you “train” it by tagging spam emails that slipped through their spam filters. I’ve been anal about going through every single email and tagging every spam email as such in the hopes that it would get smarter. In reality, I think it might actually be getting dumber though, considering how much spam is making it to my inbox these days (it’s not a new thing BTW, I’ve been getting tons of spam in it for the last year, and it’s only been getting worse).
I doubt there’s an “easy” way to fix it (otherwise it would have been done), but I really wish Gmail would let us define our own custom spam rules. For example, if an email isn’t in English, it’s spam (for me anyway) considering I don’t read Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Hebrew, etc.
Check out the most recent emails in my inbox this morning (only 1 of them [the white line] is not spam).
DynDNS for 2Wire Products?
Aug 27th
Anyone know of some super awesome secret way to make a 2Wire Internet gateway also act as a dynamic DNS client? Since it’s a FTTP (fiber to the premises) gateway and not a “normal” DSL modem, I’m pretty sure I can’t just swap it out with something else that supports DynDNS.
The little I poked around the web interface, it seems pretty decent, other than no DDNS support. 
In case anyone can help, the one I have is a HomePortal 300 series residential gateway.
AT&T U-Verse Is Going To Be Rad
Aug 24th
I was talking to the SBC/AT&T guys that installed the Internet connectivity at the job site today and having fiber to the door is going to have some really cool advantages early next year (right now they just run phone and 6Mbps Internet across it). At that point the “standard” Internet connectivity on it should be 20Mbps down/3Mbps up. But they were also talking about the U-Verse television service which more or less streams television on demand. They were saying you could be watching a football game for example and you could control which camera angle you want to watch the game from.
That’s going to be pretty dope!
Moving HTML With JavaScript
Aug 21st
Someone asked me why I hide the sidebar on this blog by default, then show it in a different part of the HTML, so here’s the explanation…
Most blog themes float the main body to the left, and make the sidebar on the right “static”. I did the opposite when creating my custom WordPress theme… My sidebar is a DIV that is floated to the right. The reason for this then the content below the bottom of the sidebar wrap around it, which I just think looks better. So here’s the problem… Google weighs content at the beginning of a page higher than content at the bottom, so Google was seeing 99% of my pages as “similar content” because my sidebar needed to be at the top of the HTML source.
So to solve that problem, I just put the sidebar at the bottom of the page in a hidden (with CSS) DIV, then call a simple script to set the contents of an empty DIV (<div id=”sidebar”></div>) at the top of the page, where the sidebar needs to be, to the contents of whatever is in the hidden DIV at the bottom…
<script language="javascript">
document.getElementById('sidebar').innerHTML = document.getElementById('sidebar_content').innerHTML
</script>
document.getElementById('sidebar').innerHTML = document.getElementById('sidebar_content').innerHTML
</script>
For web browsers, the sidebar renders at the beginning of the HTML source, but Google sees the sidebar at the end of the HTML and pages no longer are seen as 99% similar.
How To Crack 128-bit Wireless Networks In 60 Seconds
Aug 6th
Just for fun (since I’m a dork), I was looking for a wireless stumbler for Macintosh that supported a GPS unit because I thought it would be interesting to map how many wireless networks there are in my neighborhood (I usually can see 15-30 unique wireless networks from any given point). In my search, I ran across one called kismac that does exactly what I wanted (it even generates the maps for you, so I didn’t need to code something to plot the GPS coordinates on a map):
click image for larger view)
I download it and start playing around with it. It turns out it also has security testing functions within it (although I would guess that most of the people using the cracking functions are just trying to gain access to “secured” networks… which is beside the point I suppose).
Anyway, so I start monkeying around with those functions to see if I could learn something about WEP encryption on my own 2 wireless networks (I have a Linksys WRT54G and an Apple Airport Express which I use for beaming iTunes music to the living room stereo), both are currently secured with 128-bit wireless security and I did not change anything in them for the purpose of this video. My “word list” is just the standard dictionary word list that comes with most any UNIX distribution (like Mac OS X) and resides in /usr/share/dict/.
So here’s the scary part, from the time it started scanning for wireless networks to the time I was able to crack both wireless network keys (which is all you need to gain access to the wireless network), it took right around 60 seconds. Check out this video…
Okay, so what just happened here? I just cracked my two 128-bit wireless networks in roughly 60 seconds from start to finish.
Even as a relatively knowledgeable tech guy, this seems like utter insanity to me. Okay, obviously I didn’t have some crazy, ultra-secure password for my networks, but I would guess 90% of all the wireless network passwords out there are based on simple (easy to remember) word(s). After doing some reading, an “ultra-secure” password/MD5 seed would be relatively useless anyway… all it would do is force the attacker to spend 10 minutes on it instead of 10 seconds (see this FAQ and this FAQ), all of which is easily done from the kismac Network menu. It doesn’t even matter if you setup your wireless network to be public or not, because kismac can see it even if the base station isn’t showing the SSID publicly.
I’m going to poke around and see how secure RADIUS authentication is for a wireless network, but even if RADIUS is more secure, what normal person is going to have the technical knowledge and an extra few thousand dollars to setup and run a RADIUS server for their wireless network? I’m not even sure if I want to run a wireless network anymore to be honest… or maybe shut them down except for the times I’m actually using them (talk about annoying though).
MySQL 5.0.23?
Aug 2nd
MySQL is working on version 5.0.25 already. 5.0.23 was never released, and 5.0.24 was released on July 27, 2006.
So if 5.0.24 was released, where the hell is it? (it’s not on the download page)
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/news-5-0-x.html
5.0.23 has a couple key bug fixes in it that I’ve been itching to get my hands on.
…so please join with me, and let’s pray to the MySQL God’s for a swift delivery of *some* version higher than 5.0.22…
Digg Swarm
Jul 27th
It’s been out for a couple days now in Digg labs, but I have to finally say that Digg’s Swarm is pretty pimp… It will be fun when they release their API and we can start building our own stuff.
Digg Swarm draws a circle for stories as they’re dugg. Diggers swarm around stories, and make them grow. Brightly colored stories have more diggs.
Check it out for yourself:
Cartoon Barry
Jul 21st
A buddy of mine has a new blog where he has a cartoon of himself reading his blog entries to you. That’s pretty cool if you ask me… I think we need a cartoon Shawn!
(I think it’s done with SitePal’s technology)
Videolarm Camera Dome
Jul 17th
I bought an exterior dome for the camera I got (to be installed at the construction site), and the damn thing was missing the two electrical transformers it was supposed to come with. No biggie though, Videolarm shipping them out today, so should have them soon.
I guess it’s not terribly important right now since there’s no electricity at the site anyway…
I’m Alive
Jul 6th
Okay… I was able to recover everything from my corrupt FileVault volume and convert my home directory back to not using FileVault. The only issue right now is I’m running on 1 hard drive, not 2… but at least my computer is alive (with all my junk).
FileVault Sucks
Jul 5th
It sounds like a good idea in theory, but Apple’s FileVault sucks, and here’s why…
I installed the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update today (from 10.4.6) and it didn’t go so well (it’s not like I have some old/bunk Mac either, I have the newest quad processor PowerMac)… A reboot would give the system a kernel panic. Gee, cool… so I put the machine into firewire target disk mode and mount it as a volume from my laptop so I can pull some suspect extensions out of there. Okay, so far so good… ended up being some dependency issue with the USB driver, so I just yanked the kernel extension for the USB driver out of there for now.
Well guess what I found out? If you use your computer in firewire target disk mode and you go into your home directory, your FileVault image becomes corrupted. Hmmm… interesting… that means I just lost everything important (everything in my home directory). Would have been nice if someone tells you this (or better yet, just not let you do it). So now I have no home directory. Rad.
Thankfully, I just realized that the RAID mirror on my computer broke about a month ago and never rebuilt itself… so worst case scenario is I have to go back a month. Right now I’m disabling FileVault on the month-old volume (only another 1 1/2 hours to go). When that’s done, my home directory is going to be backed up to something (iPods are handy for more than just music). Then I can see about figuring out a way to “uncorrupt” my up to date FileVault image.
Just for the record, if anyone is using FileVault, disable it. If your single FileVault disk image gets corrupt (by whatever means), you just lost all your files.
I’m going to be one pissed off bitch if I end up having to go back a month…
USB Puppet
Jul 5th
If you are *really* dorky you can now get a USB puppet that stands up when your friend comes online via IM and “dies” when they go offline.
I kind of want one of these actually.
Google Using Borg Technology
Jul 2nd
This is something interesting that someone from my forum ran across while using Google (an error page that Google spewed back at them)…
pacemaker-alarm-delay-in-ms-overall-sum 2341989
pacemaker-alarm-delay-in-ms-total-count 7776761
cpu-utilization 1.28
cpu-speed 2800000000
timedout-queries_total 14227
num-docinfo_total 10680907
avg-latency-ms_total 3545152552
num-docinfo_total 10680907
num-docinfo-disk_total 2200918
queries_total 1229799558
e_supplemental=150000 --pagerank_cutoff_decrease_per_round=100 --pagerank_cutoff_increase_per_round=500 --parents=12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23 --pass_country_to_leaves --phil_max_doc_activation=0.5 --port_base=32311 --production --rewrite_noncompositional_compounds --rpc_resolve_unreachable_servers --scale_prvec4_to_prvec --sections_to_retrieve=body+url+compactanchors --servlets=ascorer --supplemental_tier_section=body+url+compactanchors --threaded_logging --nouse_compressed_urls --use_domain_match --nouse_experimental_indyrank --use_experimental_spamscore --use_gwd --use_query_classifier --use_spamscore --using_borg
pacemaker-alarm-delay-in-ms-total-count 7776761
cpu-utilization 1.28
cpu-speed 2800000000
timedout-queries_total 14227
num-docinfo_total 10680907
avg-latency-ms_total 3545152552
num-docinfo_total 10680907
num-docinfo-disk_total 2200918
queries_total 1229799558
e_supplemental=150000 --pagerank_cutoff_decrease_per_round=100 --pagerank_cutoff_increase_per_round=500 --parents=12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23 --pass_country_to_leaves --phil_max_doc_activation=0.5 --port_base=32311 --production --rewrite_noncompositional_compounds --rpc_resolve_unreachable_servers --scale_prvec4_to_prvec --sections_to_retrieve=body+url+compactanchors --servlets=ascorer --supplemental_tier_section=body+url+compactanchors --threaded_logging --nouse_compressed_urls --use_domain_match --nouse_experimental_indyrank --use_experimental_spamscore --use_gwd --use_query_classifier --use_spamscore --using_borg
I knew Google was using some sort of Borg technology, I just didn’t have any solid proof until now. “–using_borg”
Some dorky/interesting stuff in there… it looks like they may be using 2.8Ghz Xeon processors (same as my blade servers). But the more interesting stuff is the parameters they are using (pagerank and supplemental cutoffs for example).
Mac OS X 10.5 Tracks Stuff With GPS
Jul 1st
I have no clue if this is true, but it sure would be a fun toy if it turns out to be true.
According to informants inside the Cupertino-based computer giant, the next version of Apple’s operating system will let you track belongings through clever GPS and integrated mapping.
Either way, it’s a little late, I could have already used it for something useful.
http://www.t3.co.uk/…next_apple_os_to_track_stolen_ipods
(via digg)
Epson AcuLaser CX11N
Jun 30th
My 10 year old laser printer finally died on me earlier this week (it’s needed to be replaced/updated for a LONG time, so it’s kind of a good thing).
The replacement I ended up ordering was an Epson CX11N. I remember when color laser printers first came out, they were close to $10,000. Not only that, but this one also scans and copies (and does it well, unlike most other multi-function machines). You can also get it to send/receive faxes for an extra $100 (which I didn’t need, so I passed on that option).
But check this out… it’s normally $699.99 (which seems pretty cheap for everything it does and compared to stuff from other manufacturers), but Epson is offering free shipping (which normally is $150 or so because of how heavy it is), AND a $150 instant rebate. So that brings the cost down to $549.99 plus tax (that includes shipping).
$550 is a pretty f’ing good deal for this sucker… great printer (color laser, 25ppm B/W and 5ppm color) and an excellent copier/scanner. The fax version also has a 25 page auto-feeder for scanning/faxing/copying, but whatever… I don’t do that much, so. Either way, if anyone is thinking of getting a new printer any time soon, I would check this one out (especially before the instant rebate and free shipping expires).
Oh yeah, and it’s network capable, so you just need to plug it into your network switch/hub.
Forum Spy
Jun 27th
I decided I didn’t have enough to do (that’s a joke BTW), so this morning I made a “spy” system for my forum (the general idea of course was borrowed from Digg). It’s “extra” slick in Firefox because of the fades and opacity ability Firefox has, but it still works in IE, Safari, etc…
It more or less lets you see what’s going on in the forum in realtime.
Check it out: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/spy.php
Unfortunately it also means that I’m still up right now and haven’t gone to bed yet. Goodnight!
Servers Have A Home – I Get Surgery
Jun 21st
The new servers and equipment were installed into the data center yesterday (I also had to move the existing servers/equipment to a new rack), so everything is physically at the data center now (it’s not actually in USE yet, but at least it’s at a place where I can start moving stuff over to them).
Kind of funny to see a load of servers that’s worth 100x as much as the car they are in.
A long time ago (when I was 17) I ruptured my spleen and they had to cut through my stomach muscles for the surgery. Well, apparently I had a weak spot just under my belly button from when my stomach muscles were sewn back together where I got a little hernia from lifting the servers earlier (I didn’t even notice it until about 10 hours later). I noticed a little bulge and knew I probably had a hernia of some sort from lifting that crap. Anyway… I just got back from Urgent Care (it’s a 24/7 place you can go in case you don’t know). 5 hours, 1 CAT scan and 3,827 games of Bejeweled on my cell phone later, I found out that I have a little piece of fat that popped through that weak (remember the spleen thing?) point.
Not that big of a deal… they are going to call me when they can take care of it with a quick little surgery.
More importantly, the new servers are in (oh yeah, I said that).
 A bit of a blurry picture, before the cables were tied up. Image stolen from Julien, who helped me move and install servers today. |
MySQL Failover Via Hardware Load Balancer
Jun 19th
So I was thinking about maybe doing MySQL fault tolerance and load balancing through hardware load balancers by setting up a virtual cluster for database reads and another for database writes. We could setup 2 master servers in a circular replication, making sure you only actually write to one at a time (define one as a hot spare in the load balancer’s “DB write cluster”, then the backup master takes over writes only if the primary master is down). That part is no problem… I don’ t have any questions there.
Now, let’s say we have three MySQL slave DB servers that read from the master through the load balancer’s “DB write” connection (again, they would only be reading from one at a time). But what I want to know is what would happen to the slave servers if you fail over the master -> slave connection to a different physical master server. Is this going to cause problems with the MASTER_LOG_POS position on the slaves if they fail over to a different master server?
Does anyone know much about the inner workings of MySQL’s master/slave setup and what happens in the event of a MASTER_LOG_POS conflict? I’m just thinking it would be nice to have a truly redundant database setup that was handled 100% through hardware (load balancers).
If no one knows, I guess that will be something I’ll be testing later this week.
Servers Are Close
Jun 18th
The new servers will be going into the data center this week (Monday if I can coordinate it), so we are close (finally!).
Just got some stuff fine-tuned with them today… wrote a cluster-copy and cluster-exec app for copying stuff across all blades and executing something on all blades. Made an init.d script that alters the routing table at boot (for this) and also chooses which services to run based on an environment variable. So now I can change the “job” of a blade just by setting the environment variable.
Networks Are My Little Bitches
Jun 17th
So I’ve been fighting this networking crap for about a week now, and finally everything is working like it should. Just took a little editing of the underlying network routing tables.
I win.
I Hate Networks
Jun 17th
“Hate” is a strong word, but in this case I think it’s appropriate…
I’m so f’ing sick of trying to screw around with network/routing problems with the new servers that I’m thinking about selling all my computers and going into construction.
Trying to fix arp routing issues is more than I ever wanted to know about networking… For example:
Jun 17 10:31:38 lb1 /kernel: arp: 192.168.1.20 is on em1 but got reply from 00:07:e9:xx:xx:xx on em0
Jun 17 10:32:13 lb1 last message repeated 63 times
Jun 17 10:34:13 lb1 last message repeated 157 times
Jun 17 10:32:13 lb1 last message repeated 63 times
Jun 17 10:34:13 lb1 last message repeated 157 times
Well that’s just super awesome… how about you just stop replying to the wrong network you little bitch of a server???!!?
The problem is that server A needs to talk to server B, but only THROUGH a local “gateway” (the gateway is a hardware load balancer). So fine… Server A goes through the gateway no problem. The gateway talks to server B no problem, but then server B tries to respond to server A directly (since it’s local) instead of going back through the gateway, and then server A doesn’t know where in the hell this incoming traffic is from because it never talked to server B (directly) to start with.
Computers are gay sometimes.
MySQL Clustering
Jun 14th
Okay… MySQL Cluster (the storage engine) kind of sucks IMO. It’s terribly annoying that you can’t alter the DB schema of anything running it (even more annoying is that you can’t alter the schema of a database that’s NOT using ndbcluster, but just exists in the same mysqld process). So I think I’m done with it (at least until they fix that and some other annoying thing).
So now I’m back to designing a MySQL Cluster using traditional storage engines (MyISAM and InnoDB). So let’s start with 4 DB servers and circular replication. (A -> B -> C -> D -> A). Okay… no problem there, especially now that MySQL has the following two variables (since 5.0.2) to prevent AUTO_INCREMENT collisions:
auto_increment_increment
auto_increment_offset
auto_increment_offset
Okay, cool… just pipe MySQL client connections through the load balancers, and let it handle the failover/load balancing if needed.
But here’s the problem… if one of the servers fail, the replication chain is broken. For example if server B fails, C and D would never see anything that happened on server A. Not good.
So what about sending the replication network traffic through the load balancers as well? Then you could setup something like so: C replicates from B normally, but if B fails, then C replicates from A (automatically happening by routing replication traffic through load balancer).
Now I’m curious is if the load balancer network routing is fast enough to handle the interconnectivity of all the DB servers. I guess I’ll know soon enough (hopefully all the new equipment will be installed tomorrow or Friday).
iPods More Popular Than Beer
Jun 9th
This is kind of funny.
Move over Bud. College life isn’t just about drinking beer. In a rare instance, Apple Computer Inc.’s iconic iPod music player surpassed beer drinking as the most “in” thing among undergraduate college students, according to the latest biannual market research study by Ridgewood, N.J.-based Student Monitor.
Server Status
Jun 9th
Just a FYI so people stop asking/emailing me about the status of the new equipment…
Just waiting for the 220V circuit to be wired in the data center (which hopefully will be in the next few days).
This Is What Blade Servers Look Like
Jun 6th
I’ve had a few people email me asking for a picture of the new blade servers that are going to be taking over as web/database servers for digitalpoint.com soon…
So uhm… here is what they look like right now sitting on the floor in my spare bedroom.
From top to bottom, we have a 48 port gigabit switch (there is also a rack-mounted redundant power supply for the switch that I haven’t unpacked yet), 2 load balancers (one is a hot spare), then the good stuff… a blade chassis with 10 loaded blades. Total weight… more than a quarter ton.
I made all those stupid Ethernet cables by hand which was a pain! (okay, that’s a lie… I think Scott made one or two for me)
So what is in the blade chassis? 20 dual-core 2.8Ghz Xeon processors (112Ghz total), 120GB RAM, 20 x 146GB 15,000 rpm drives (2.9TB total). All 10 blades are running SuSE Linux Enterprise. This should be enough power to run my blog for awhile (hehe… kidding).
First Blade Is Good To Go
Jun 5th
Okay, I think I’m relatively happy with how the first blade is configured for the new servers. So I split the RAID mirror today, and put one of the drives into the second blade and am letting them rebuild their RAID mirrors onto 2 new drives. So soon I’ll have 4 hard drives with the configuration/install, at which point I’ll have 8 blades build new mirrors. And just repeat that process until all 10 blade servers are up and running with the configuration (and then mirrored to each blade’s secondary drive for redundancy).
Either way, that means we are getting close to the blade servers being ready to go into the data center.
