Scheduled downtime
By Joe Gardiner Monday, 13th September 2010
In response to the database failure we experienced 2 weeks ago, we have planned scheduled down time to improve our infrastructure’s redundancy.
From 10pm Monday 13th September the database servers we use to host the majority of our clients will be taken offline. This will affect you if you are a vCluster customer, and/or you use xserve1.dc.fubra.net for your database hosting.
Of course we will endeavour to restore database hosting to it’s normal levels of service as quickly as possible, and estimate this will take no longer than 3 hours.
Let me apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused, but ensure you that this vital work will greatly improve your experience as a Fubra and CatN client.
Posted in Service Announcements | No Comments »
Common .htaccess Rules
By Joe Gardiner Tuesday, 7th September 2010
In Apache web server, the .htaccess file is a configuration file that enables local management of the web server.
The .htaccess file in a shared environment allows a user to change specific configuration settings local to their web directory, and override the central Apache configuration settings. There is a .htaccess guide specifically for vCluster available: Introduction to .htaccess and .craccess.
Why would you want to do that?
Every time a web request is made on a users share of a web server the .htaccess file is read, allowing instant configuration changes, unlike the main Apache configuration that requires a restart for any changes to take effect. Allowing a user to configure their local Apache settings is often desirable when compared to giving a user access to main Apache settings, unthinkable in a shared environment!
Posted in Advanced Configuration, Guides | No Comments »
Vhosting: an alternative to WordPress multi-site
By Joe Gardiner Wednesday, 1st September 2010
With the release of WordPress 3.0, multi-site functionality allows a network of sites to be managed by a single WordPress dashboard. Unfortunately some of our clients are having difficulties setting up a multi-site network, and WordPress.org codex is not always beginner friendly.
Vhosting offers an alternative by allowing multiple sites to be hosted on your single vCluster IP address. You can then use independent WordPress installs on each of these sites, decentralising a network and allowing you to manage each site manually.
We already have a guide for “vhosting” and “multiple domains on your vCluster“, but you can follow the instructions here as well to setup multiple WordPress installs on vhosts. read more…
Posted in Guides, vHosting | No Comments »
CatN unscheduled downtime
By Joe Gardiner Wednesday, 1st September 2010
CatN experienced unscheduled downtime for the majority of yesterday due to a major hardware failure.
Yesterday we suffered a major RAID card failure on a database server, unfortunately we didn’t have the spares in place, resulting in a fix taking much more time than it should have and prolonged downtime. The server has been rebuilding the majority of the evening and is concluding now. The time it takes to repair an array of the size we host is measured in 24hour periods, not single hours, so waiting for this rebuild is not a viable restoration method.
If we experience RAID failures we need to have a plan for immediate recovery, but unfortunately our current graceful failure plan was not successful due to the catastrophic failure of the RAID controller, which left the entire RAID in an inconsistent state.
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