by Chris Covert
Backend Mechanic
Purveyor/Curator of Russian news (Russia Desk)
 On August 1st, I will purchase the first six month block for a new server. It will reside with a server provider I have used for more than 20 years. They are absolutely reliable, and this new setup will ensure instances of loss of service will be far less frequent and of less duration.
The new server will be the permanent home of Rantburg.com going forward. It will be hardened and sit atop a network, which helps mitigate DDOS attacks.
Data of the new server:
- 2 x Intel Xeon E5530 Quad-Core CPU
- 32GB RAM-DDR3
- 1x 1000GB SSD HDD 1x 500GB SSD HDD -- Hardware RAID
It will take about three weeks to set it up. I plan for it to be fully working by September 1st.
- By August 8th: Internals installed and tested, including the database
- By August 17th: Firewall installed and tested
- By August 25th: Tests for all the scripts that mods and regulars use to post articles, including setting up database backups completed.
- On August 28: The Rantburg.com name will begin to propagate to the new server. In that time -- using the rantburg.com name -- service will be non existent to spotty. I will have an alternate name set up -- newrantburg.1dogstar.net -- which will ensure continuation of the service until the rantburg.com name is fully propagated.
Fred deserves a lion's share of the credit for keeping Rantburg.com going on his dedicated box with a broadband set up, but as I learned years ago, the quality of service is far less than you should expect on a professionally managed network.
It’s time for a major upgrade, one that, despite its monthly cost, will relieve Fred of the financial burden of maintaining his home service. The new server per month costs a lot less than the current service does.
The server will be a FreeBSD server, a dedicated Unix software suite I have used for many years. The backup server I developed for Rantburg.com - rantburg.1dogstar.net - uses FreeBSD, and the service has been working flawlessly for a year.
 But we do require your help. I will invest the first six months of the new service; thereafter net of my costs for the new server, the money will go to Fred.
This time for this bleg, however, all monies go to Fred.
Fred maintains a Paypal account — link on the right side bar. He also has a Zelle account. If you email him and ask real nice, he will give you an address, if you want to send a check.
| I tried the PayPal button for the first time instead of mailing a check — I don’t want badanov to be out of pocket after he fronted the cost in addition to doing all that work for free. Such things are very exciting for me. ;-) |
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