Adventures in F,O, X, & 0

I've been thinking about getting a little project underway for some time, and so there's now a b log and a minimal landing page at  - fun stuff! Postfix is fine, but I'm on a learning curve with mailman and the I nned to get some forum software setup - but the Next Big Thing is to get a decent design for the website. Looking at www.designcrowd.com but of course it would also be fun to do-it-myself. Hmmm, not sure how that would work!

Had some fun yesterday setting up a central syslog server, and getting 3 RHEL boxes to send to it. Various third parties will have «root» on those three boxes, and security is a big thing with this install so... It Seemed Appropriate. I've got logwatch on the three, but would like to setup Splunk (free) on this monitoring box. Looks pretty flash, so it might be a bit more to the liking of the suits. As much as possible I'd like to send router, SAN and ESXi logs to it too, so there should be lots of data to mine. I'm woefully ignorant on SNMP, but have set a custom community string on various boxes and pointed them to the monitoring machine. Nothing there is listening tho, so I need to do some more research...

Installed and testing.... Like twitter and facebook, I suspect that doing this from the phone Just Makes Sense...

Very nice post by Stéphane Graber got me started with LXC. Nice, this is going to be fun!

Most people browse the web using the default web browser that came with their machine. However, using this, most people will see websites cluttered with advertisements, many flashing or blinking or in garish colour. Yuk. Many of these advertisements will also be offering to “Scan your machine for viruses”, or even saying “You are infected!!” – and you, or anyone using your machine, clicks on one of these links then you are very likely to end with some type of “malware” (a virus, trojan, rootkit, keylogger or whatever). Bad, bad stuff. So, what is the answer? THE ANSWER = Adblock Plus + Firefox Here’s what you need to do: Download Firefox from http://getfirefox.com/ Install Firefox, and say YES when prompted to “Make Firefox your default browser” Import all your old settings and Favourites via File, Import. Your “favourites” become Firefox “bookmarks” Install Adblock Plus by: Tools, Add-ons, Get Add-ons and search for “Adblock”. Select “Adblock Plus” – the icon is a stop sign with “ABP...

There are a few reasons why these may make most sense for me: Leading edge, so they are interesting and challenging technically For the same reason, user are more likely to be technical, and happy to work with JustOneGuy and email rather than the typical flashy panel interfaces available everywhere Less competition I'll be hosting at a site where the only charges are for power - which should be very low for an ARM My only concern is that the focus for ARM-based servers seems to be on system where (for example) 100 5W processors are jammed in 2U. Nice density, but I don't pay for space, but I do have do come up with the capital for the initial servers, and this would be way out of my price range. Some interesting links: Calxeda Opens The Kimono.. A Sneak Peek At Calxeda’s ARM-Based Servers KVM for ARM

Hmm... fun fun fun. My current feeling is that the KVM/VPS is the way to go - slicing a single box into 10 x 50/mo = 500/mo = 6,000 pa. Needs to be comparatively cheap because there'll be no control panels, web interfaces etc. Many of the alternative ideas rely on volume - but I can see enough problems getting 10 sign-ups, let alone 100+ with some of the other things I've considered. So, having a play with a trial VPS at OpenHosting...

Well, it's been a while, but I'm posting because I have something I'm keen to explore over the next little while - something I'm calling "Project GreenBox" ... So, what is it? Well, it's based on a few facts/trends: A new local co-location site charging for electricity only - ie FREE space and bandwidth New low-power consumption servers, including Atom and ARM-based ones Power-reducing modes on servers and now HDDs when loads are light The Power Of Linux to be customised and tweaked to further reduce power costs Stuff like OpenVZ to allow very efficient sharing The pretty standard LAMP/WordPress etc stack Good open free tools for management I don't want to do Just another Web Hosting Company - its the excitement of using these trends to build something MUCH better and more cost-effective and green. The trick is to: Clarify the concepts Do the numbers ...and to do it soon - I'm giving myself to the end of March. Wish me luck!