FYI Technical Site News (for those interested)

[gerryvz]

Hey Folks,

Wanted to give people a heads-up that I will be bringing the forum off-line tomorrow (Saturday) morning, around 6AM EST, probably for around 1-2 hours total. The reason for this is that I will be upgrading the php language from version 7.3 to the current 7.4.

A couple of weeks ago I did an "in-place" upgrade of php to 7.4, but something mild went wrong with the upgrade process, so I had to revert back to 7.3. I've been trouble-shooting the 7.4 installation off and on for the past couple of weeks, and all of the correct files seem to be installed and in place. So it is some sort of esoteric configuration problem that I can't easily track down.

So what I'm going to do is to bring the forum off-line during this time, and purge ALL of the php versions that are currently on the server (we have versions 5.6, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4), and re-install versions 7.3 and 7.4, and then switch the version to 7.4.



The other benefit of doing this will be that we will eliminate all of those old versions of php, which are unused, unnecessary, and (in the case of php 5.6) I believe aren't even compatible with the current version of the XenForo software.

This process may well go swimmingly and require not even 15 minutes of down-time, or it may have some complications and involve more down-time. It's hard to say until I do it. It should go pretty easily, though.

In any case, just wanted to let folks know.

The actual web server will be working, but when you try to access the forum, you will get a blank, white page. Tomorrow morning if you type "https://www.500eboard.co" you will get a normal "Access Forbidden" error page (the same as you do now). So, the site won't actually be DOWN .... it will just not have the php language enabled, so that the forum software won't have a language upon which to run....so it won't be shown when you try to access it.

In the not-too-distant future, by the way, if you type in the above URL, we will have a "formal" site home ("landing") page -- as I've promised for some time now. This landing page will provide links to several options (OK, I'm giving a bit too much away here, so I'll stop...) including this forum. Of course, the forum will also continue to be available at our normal URL 500Eboard

The 500Eboard.com domain will mirror this functionality and redirect all links to the appropriate pages at 500Eboard.co.

So.....bear with me tomorrow morning, and I'll try to make things as quick as possible. Cross your fingers that the full purge and re-install of the php files goes smoothly......

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

I am happy to report that I was able to achieve the migration to php 7.4 with ZERO system downtime, and do it in just a few minutes this afternoon, with the existing installation I had on the server. All I had to do was tweak a file setting, flip over to php 7.4, and restart Apache to recognize it. Total system downtime: ~0.5 seconds.






No need to take the forum off-line tomorrow morning. Sorry for the false alarm.

 

[gerryvz]

Seeing as the forum is coming up on one year since we migrated to the XenForo software, the annual subscriptions for various items are also coming due for payment.

In the interest of full transparency, here is an overview of the dollar outlay over the coming months (in addition to the $32.50 monthly cost to host and operate the forum):

1. VaultWiki (wiki software) annual renewal -- due 28-Feb: $60
2. XF2Addons annual renewal -- due 28-Feb: $35
3. XenForo annual renewal (includes Forum, Media Gallery and Enhanced Search license extensions) -- due 30-April: $80
4. PixelExit skin renewal (plus I will purchase a different skin) -- due 26-Mar: $50
5. ElasticSearch Essentials -- due 30-Aug: $30

 

[gerryvz]

I did a quick system reboot a few minutes ago, as a new version of the Linux Kernel was released a few days ago. The site was down for around 90 seconds.

The previous reboot was almost 27 days ago, so things have been running continually since then.

 

[gerryvz]

A few maintenance items over the past couple of days:

• In addition to Monday's system reboot, due to a kernel update for the operating system, mentioned above;
• Updated the XenForo software yesterday from version 2.1.7 to 2.1.8. This is a bug-fix release.
• Updated the ElasticSearch enhancements software from 3.2.3 to 3.3.0
• Updated the XenForo Media Gallery and XenForo Enhanced Search software per new releases
• This morning, XenForo released a 2.1.8 Patch Level 1 to fix a couple of small errors that cropped up, so I installed it
• The ElasticSearch enhancement software also has a small version upgrade, from 3.3.0 to 3.3.1

The forum software was installed and updated with around 3-4 minutes of forum unavailability (the server was not taken down). The updates done this morning were done with zero forum of system downtime.

This brings us into compliance with the latest releases on everything, so we should be good for a while.

A major new version of the Ubuntu Linux software will be released in about a month -- this is a "once every two years" major version, Ubuntu 20.04 (we are currently running 18.04.3). I expect that we will upgrade the server to this new version some time around May 1, after it has been out for about a week to determine how things sit. This should not be a significant disruption to the site's availability -- I would expect somewhere around 5-10 minutes of server and forum downtime.

The changelog for XenForo 2.1.8 is located here, if you are interested to see what the new version entails:
XenForo 2.1.8 Patch 1, Media Gallery 2.1.8, Resource Manager 2.1.6 and Enhanced Search 2.1.4 Released

 

[gerryvz]

Yesterday I updated the Wiki software to the newly released Release Candidate #2, Build 1. Over the past few weeks, I contributed something like 20 bugs to the mix, which were fixed in this release.

I also updated the php language from 7.4.3 to php 7.4.4, which was released on March 19th. 7.4.4 is mostly a bug-fix update, with changelog here: PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

No forum downtime was entailed in these updates -- they were both done "on the fly."

 

[gerryvz]

Hey folks, just wanted to give those of you who are interested in more technical-minded things, an early heads-up on a project I'm going to start in the coming couple of weeks.

This project is the creation of A SECOND XenForo forum setup -- specifically for development purposes. This will be a $5.00 per month plan (Linode calls it their "Nanode" plan) and is designed mainly for creating "proofs of concept" for development projects. At the conclusion of the project, the server can either be shut down, or it can be scaled up into a "production" server.

What I'm going to do is the following:

1) Use a new and even more modern software "stack" than this site is using. Specifically, I'm going to stay with the Ubuntu Linux operating system (as I'm now very familiar with it, and Ubuntu feels like a nicely faded and worn-in pair of Levis 501 jeans to me). However, I'm going to use a "LEMP" stack, instead of the "LAMP" stack that this site is using.

2) Create a new, private "development and test" forum and web site with XenForo. This will likely be a project for some months .... an experiment. It won't really be open to the public, at least initially. What I intend to do is experiment with the LEMP stack and use it as a learning tool for some advanced capabilities and technologies. Stuff I wouldn't necessarily do on this site.

3) If things go well, I very well may turn the "experimental" server/forum (or may wipe it and start from scratch) into a new and separate forum. This forum would be a sister forum, with a new URL and design, for owners of the C/W126 models. I would effectively take the 126 section from this site, and turn it into the basis for a new 126-focused forum at the new site. That would restore the purity of this site to the V-8 W124 models -- 70% the 500E/E500, and 30% the 400E/E420.

I would not expect any transition before the late fall or end of this year -- IF IT EVEN HAPPENS. I want to focus for the coming months on discovery, experimentation and trying out new things -- learning more along the way.



If anyone is interested in joining me on this journey of discovery and learning, and perhaps becoming more involved in the genesis/birthing of a new 126 forum down the line -- please contact me off-line. This would involve some base level of commitment on your part, mainly to be a partner. No real financial commitment or anything -- mainly a desire to learn new things if you are interested in expanding your technical horizons and getting in at the ground level on the creation of a new forum. I would consider you a full 50% partner in everything in terms of decisions, administration, processes and so forth.

Cheers,
Gerry

Some background info per the acronyms above:

LAMP = Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
LEMP = Linux, (E)Nginx, MariaDB, PHP

Nginx (pronounced "Engine-X") is an advanced web server that is MUCH more performant and resource efficient than Apache is. It uses a FRACTION of the resources that Apache does, yet it is faster and more responsive. However, Nginx is also different in the setup and configuration than Apache is.

To convert this site from Apache to Nginx, for example, would be a MAJOR MAJOR undertaking, because of the configuration that has been done when I set things up back in February 2019, as well as the redirects from the old site's URLs to this "new" site's URLs for old threads -- all of which depend on and are highly inter-twined with Apache.

Apache is like an old 1970s Ford truck. It is hyper-reliable, it is easy to modify and tweak, it does a great job, it's fun to use and drive (for what it is), it's classic, and it's old-school. Which is good and bad. This site will likely ALWAYS use Apache. Apache is used by more web sites as a web server than any other software, and has for a very long time. However, Nginx (which is a relative newcomer) is gaining traction and market share by the day. It may well be the future.

NGINX vs. Apache: Our View of a Decade-Old Question

Get insight into NGINX, Inc.'s take on the popular "NGINX vs. Apache" question, and learn how they can work together to meet the demands of the modern web.

www.nginx.com

Nginx vs Apache – which is the best web server?

Nginx vs Apache, which is the better web server? We compare them in terms of performance for static versus dynamic content, OS support, security, flexibility, documentation, and general support

www.plesk.com

Likewise, MySQL is the "gold standard" for databases, and it's what this site uses as its database software. It's very actively developed, very reliable, does what it is designed to do extremely well, and is compatible with pretty much any software out there. MySQL is "forked" into many other derivative database products. One of these is called "MariaDB," and it's also a relative newcomer that offers some advantages to MySQL. MariaDB is 100% compatible with MySQL, though.

MariaDB vs MySQL in 2019: Compatibility, Performance, and Syntax

MariaDB vs MySQL, these two databases are similar RDBMS. What are the differences? Which one is right for your business? Learn about them here with Panoply.

blog.panoply.io

MariaDB vs MySQL, a Database Technologies Rundown

MariaDB vs MySQL: what's the difference between the two database technologies? Learn all the facts behind their story and how they impact WordPress!

kinsta.com

 

[nocfn]

Pretty exciting stuff. Thank you for being forward-thinking and for keeping this out of the commercial realm. Both sites will be fantastic separately, one the new one will need much more moderation no doubt.

 

[gsxr]

Although I have no clue what the traffic level would be, I think a separate 126 forum would be awesome.

 

[gerryvz]

I think the traffic would be fairly low, to be honest. That's why I think (at least for the foreseeable future) I can get away with a very small server that is only $5.00 a month to operate. I can scale it up easily to a $10 a month server or more, if needed.

I initiated the server yesterday and will start playing around with configurations. Out of the 25 GB of space, just the bare operating system (no database or other software) takes up 9% !!! I'm going to throw the LEMP stack on there today and see how much it takes up. Right now things are just in play-around mode. The next major version of Ubuntu comes out on April 23 (version 20.04, which is a Long-Term Support version released every two years) so I will play around with that once it is released.

I do need to think of a domain name to use for the new 126 forum. I'll probably just move the G-wagen sub-forum over there, as well. That will clean things up on this forum quite a bit. I'm going to have to create redirects for threads from this forum (and the old forum) to point to the new forum. Another challenge.

 

[gerryvz]

If anyone is interested in joining me on this journey of discovery and learning, and perhaps becoming more involved in the genesis/birthing of a new 126 forum down the line -- please contact me off-line. This would involve some base level of commitment on your part, mainly to be a partner. No real financial commitment or anything -- mainly a desire to learn new things if you are interested in expanding your technical horizons and getting in at the ground level on the creation of a new forum. I would consider you a full 50% partner in everything in terms of decisions, administration, processes and so forth.

No one wants to set off on a new forum journey with me, and get in on the ground floor? And perhaps use the opportunity to learn some new technical skills?

 

[gsxr]

@nocfn ? Gotta be some 126-huggers out there!

 

[gerryvz]

I was thinking @liviu165 or @nocfn

But I don't want to offend anyones' longstanding relationships over at Banzworld, if being part of a new 126 forum would cause problems over there. I know how much you guys love Toetone, Ross Boss and Doc Grillz !!!

 

[liviu165]

I just got a notification that I was mentioned over here, so I had a quick look. I confess that I need to read first all this to figure out what this is about. I am working from home, and although it appears sci-fi, I am actually busier now than I was when I worked in the Company (in addition working remotely, I am also working on my two 126s in the garage and tutoring my kids in math and physics). I will definitely have a look and advise.

 

[nocfn]

Well the difference is it can be moderated

 

[nocfn]

I have been a bit busy (like 10x usual volume) over the past 4 weeks.

 

[gerryvz]

The new forum is going to have the domain name 126board.com

 

[liviu165]

I was thinking @liviu165 or @nocfn

Thank you of thinking of me, Gerry. It would be nice to have a forum dedicated to the 126, although to be honest with you, part of the charm of the current C126 forum is you and being with the rest of 500 guys, getting their advice at times, reading their stories, or just ... having them around us. Without them it would be like playing a match with no spectators in the stands. The new forum will get very little traction, if any at all.

I understand your decision of separating the forums and I am assuming is irreversible. I will contact you separately in the next days to find out more.

Thanks again,
Roy

 

[gerryvz]

Had a moderate system update this morning, most notably one of Apache and a minor one of php.

This is only the second update to Apache that we've had since migrating the forum back in March, 2019. New updates to Apache are not released very often.

If you are interested, changelog for each is here:

Apache 2.4.43: Apache Lounge Change Log Apache 2.4

php 7.4.5-1: PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

No system reboot was required -- only a restart of Apache. This took about 0.5 second and the site was not down or inaccessible.

 

[gerryvz]

A quick update on things for the upcoming 126board.com forum.

The technical foundation for the new forum has been set up. In the coming days and weeks, I'll be doing a test setup and migration of this forum's 126 sub-forums over to the new site, and seeing how things go. If it goes well (and I've no reason to expect it won't, given that it is a MUCH easier migration than the one to this forum was), then I'll prepare things for a grand opening of the new forum probably some time in the June or July time frame.

Much of this depends on the E500 Top End Rebuild project going on out in my garage, as this is currently the highest priority. I do think I am going to take a couple of days off later this month (I had originally planned a holiday to Florida at the end of this month) and will use that time to focus on both the new site setup, and pushing madly ahead on the E500 work.

By the way, we will have links here to the 126board forum, and I am expecting that we will probably have a home ("landing") page common to the two sites that will allow folks to opt as to which site they want to go to.

 

[gerryvz]

This morning I did a complete Linux operating system upgrade on the new "126board.com" server, which has been quietly running for the past couple of weeks. There is no forum software or anything major running on the server -- it has basically been a "test case" as a base for the new 126-specific forum that will be started in the coming weeks.

As mentioned, the major differences between this site and the new forum will be a different (and more efficient) web server system called "nginx" (pronounced "Engine-X"), and a different database called "MariaDB". This site uses the old, venerable and reliable Apache as the web server, and MySQL as the database. MySQL and MariaDB are 100% compatible with each other, meaning that this forum's 126-related data will import just fine into a new MariaDB database.

I am interested to see how well the nginx web server performs, and how easy it is to deal with. I have sort of gotten used to Apache. It's not as flashy as nginx, not as fast, not as efficient, not as new. But it is like a cockroach -- Apache is hard to kill, and it has been around for a very long time, and it will be around for a very long time.

Anyway, Ubuntu Linux just released a MAJOR new version version 20.04, code-named "Focal Fossa," on Thursday. This is a version that is only released once every two years, and is called an "LTS" version -- which stands for "Long-Term Support." LTS versions are supported for 5+ years into the future. This site is currently running on version 18.04, code-named "Bionic Beaver." Bionic Beaver is the previous LTS version of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu does release new versions every six months (so there are 18.10, 19.04, and 19.10 versions - the first number is the year, second number is the month released), but these are interim versions and are only supported for nine (9) months. That means that 18.10 and 19.04 are no longer supported, and 19.10 will be coming to the end of its support this summer. Whereas 18.04 Bionic Beaver will be supported until 2023, and the new Focal Fossa 20.04 release will be supported until 2025 !!!

In any case, I had installed Ubuntu 19.10 on the "new" 126board.com server just for giggles. The upgrade to 20.04 Focal Fossa took about 15 minutes, and actually went quite well. I did this as a test case, because I will probably update this server's operating system in the next week or two. I want to make sure there are no major bugs or show-stoppers that crop up before I do the update.

The good thing is that I got the process down, and it was not difficult and very automated, thankfully. The 126board.com server booted right back up and came alive, and all is working well.

I'll give plenty of warning when it comes time to update this site's operating system, and I will probably have the site down for around 30 minutes just to give myself a solid margin of safety to do the upgrade. Of course a full back up of both the site and the database will be made immediately prior to the upgrade. I will likely do the upgrade on a Sunday morning, Eastern time, so as to minimise disruption to folks accessing the site.

If you're interested to know about the new Focal Fossa version of Ubuntu, you can read more here, or here.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Interesting to see, here on the last day of the month, but our bandwidth usage for March is up around 20-25% from previous months. I have also noticed that our daily site visitor number is up around 30-40 people from what it usually is.

In the attached you can see the bandwidth usage (we are nowhere NEAR what our monthly allotment is).

You can also see this forum's server, as well as the small 126board.com server, listed. Both are running out of Newark, NJ data centers.

 

[gerryvz]

Yesterday (Sunday) the site was down for about 9 hours, and I apologize for that. This was supposed to be a fairly routine operating system update, and it turned into a real nightmare for me.

In short, what happened, was that in the course of doing the operating system upgrade, the new Ubuntu software uses version 8.0 of MySQL (our forum's database) as a "standard" version. This forum is running MySQL version 5.7.29, which is the previous major version of MySQL.

The actual upgrade of the site and all of the software went just fine, and I could tell that everything was in place and working fine after the update and then reboot.

Where it went wrong was that I was not anticpating that the software update would "force" an on-the-fly upgrade to MySQL version 8. I was not expecting this, nor was I prepared for it!

I worked until almost 11 AM trying to either force a "downgrade" back to version 5.7.29, and then trying to perhaps just convert the existing database over to version 8, but I couldn't get either process to work properly, and the system kept telling me that it was unable to connect to the database.

Finally, I just threw in the towel at about 11 AM ET, and decided just to delete the entire server and restore from the backup that I'd taken just before starting the system update. Wasn't quite anticipating that the system restore would take six hours for the system to write the 60 GB of files to the newly erased server, but nonetheless it worked, and that is the reason we take a manual backup before doing anything else at the beginning of the process. Note that the system had already taken its "automatic" daily backup at around 4:00 AM yesteday morning -- about three hours before I started the system upgrade -- so I actually had a couple of very recent backups available in case anything had gone wrong.

I also had separate backups of the forum's database that I'd also just taken at the start of the process (after turning off the forum), and I did a "sync" of all of the forum images over the internet to my local hard drive....so I had backups of both of the super important forum data sources.

In any case, the lesson learned is that I'll attempt the system upgrade again, but taking one of two strategies:

1) Figuring out how to do it WITHOUT migrating the database from MySQL 5.7 to 8; probably possible but a bit of a PITA; or

2) Updating the forum database to MySQL 8 BEFORE I start a new system upgrade.

Number 2 is the more realistic way to do it. I have actually come close to updating the database a couple of times before, but decided to hold off because it is a pretty major operation, and can be disruptive if things don't go well (as shown yesterday). So, I'll do more research and do a database migration, and then will do the Ubuntu upgrade.

None of this will likely happen in the next few days, so no worries.

 

[gerryvz]

Today I did a quick update to the Elasticsearch system from version 7.6 to 7.7.0. This was a new feature and bug-fix release. Release notes located here: Elasticsearch version 7.7.0 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.x] | Elastic

I also yesterday updated the Wiki software to the third release candidate. I have come across a couple of errors, and will be telling the developer about these today.

 

[TerryA]

Gerry,

What’s with “Opps you have reached the limit of HOW MANY TIMES you can REACT in a day”?

I like what I like

 

[xfadmin]

Gerry,

What’s with “Opps you have reached the limit of HOW MANY TIMES you can REACT in a day”?

I like what I like

This is not a @gerryvz issue, it's a forum management issue.

We have enabled a forum capability that limits the number of reactions of any type given, to a reasonable number in a 24-hour period. This is to alleviate the artificial inflation (and potential manipulation) of various members' reputation scores, and to reserve reactions for situations where they are warranted and appropriate given the value of the information in any specific post.

Thank you,
500Eboard Management

P.S. The newly resurrected @The Emperor will be utilized, if required, for any required discipline and/or enforcement.

 

[gerryvz]

Today, a new version of php was released, version 7.4.6. This was updated and Apache was restarted to pick up the new php files. Zero forum downtime.

This is primarily a bug-fix release. Changelog is here.

 

[gerryvz]

This is not a @gerryvz issue, it's a forum management issue.

We have enabled a forum capability that limits the number of reactions of any type given, to a reasonable number in a 24-hour period. This is to alleviate the artificial inflation (and potential manipulation) of various members' reputation scores, and to reserve reactions for situations where they are warranted and appropriate given the value of the information in any specific post.

Thank you,
500Eboard Management

P.S. The newly resurrected @The Emperor will be utilized, if required, for any required discipline and/or enforcement.

View attachment 103322

What a party pooper.

 

[TerryA]

What a party pooper.

OK, THEN WHAT'S THE "REASONABLE NUMBER OF REACTIONS in a 24 HOUR PERIOD"?


I AM STILL SHUT OFF TO REACTIONS. WHEN DO I GET OUT OF JAIL?

 

[gsxr]

FREE TERRY!!!

 

[TerryA]

FREE TERRY!!!

MAYBE I'M FREE?

 

[TerryA]

OK, THEN WHAT'S THE "REASONABLE NUMBER OF REACTIONS in a 24 HOUR PERIOD"?


I AM STILL SHUT OFF TO REACTIONS. WHEN DO I GET OUT OF JAIL?

AM I ON SOME KIND OF SHIT LIST?

I'M STILL GETTING BLOCKED ON REACTIONS.

I'M GETTING BLOCKED AFTER ABOUT 4 or 5 REACTIONS.

AGAIN, WHAT'S THE LIMIT?

IS ANYBODY ELSE HAVING THIS PROBLEM?

 

[gerryvz]

Yesterday (Sunday) the site was down for about 9 hours, and I apologize for that. This was supposed to be a fairly routine operating system update, and it turned into a real nightmare for me.

In short, what happened, was that in the course of doing the operating system upgrade, the new Ubuntu software uses version 8.0 of MySQL (our forum's database) as a "standard" version. This forum is running MySQL version 5.7.29, which is the previous major version of MySQL.

The actual upgrade of the site and all of the software went just fine, and I could tell that everything was in place and working fine after the update and then reboot.

Where it went wrong was that I was not anticpating that the software update would "force" an on-the-fly upgrade to MySQL version 8. I was not expecting this, nor was I prepared for it!

I worked until almost 11 AM trying to either force a "downgrade" back to version 5.7.29, and then trying to perhaps just convert the existing database over to version 8, but I couldn't get either process to work properly, and the system kept telling me that it was unable to connect to the database.

Finally, I just threw in the towel at about 11 AM ET, and decided just to delete the entire server and restore from the backup that I'd taken just before starting the system update. Wasn't quite anticipating that the system restore would take six hours for the system to write the 60 GB of files to the newly erased server, but nonetheless it worked, and that is the reason we take a manual backup before doing anything else at the beginning of the process. Note that the system had already taken its "automatic" daily backup at around 4:00 AM yesteday morning -- about three hours before I started the system upgrade -- so I actually had a couple of very recent backups available in case anything had gone wrong.

I also had separate backups of the forum's database that I'd also just taken at the start of the process (after turning off the forum), and I did a "sync" of all of the forum images over the internet to my local hard drive....so I had backups of both of the super important forum data sources.

In any case, the lesson learned is that I'll attempt the system upgrade again, but taking one of two strategies:

1) Figuring out how to do it WITHOUT migrating the database from MySQL 5.7 to 8; probably possible but a bit of a PITA; or

2) Updating the forum database to MySQL 8 BEFORE I start a new system upgrade.

Number 2 is the more realistic way to do it. I have actually come close to updating the database a couple of times before, but decided to hold off because it is a pretty major operation, and can be disruptive if things don't go well (as shown yesterday). So, I'll do more research and do a database migration, and then will do the Ubuntu upgrade.

None of this will likely happen in the next few days, so no worries.

As mentioned in the other "general" site update thread, I will be pursuing another system upgrade on Monday, May 25, starting about 6:00 AM EDT. I expect the site will be down for around 2 hours (perhaps less, perhaps more) while all this is happening.

If for some reason things get complicated again, and I have to restore again from a system backup, it will probably take another 5-6 hours to bring the site back up.

During this two hours window of downtime, I will be creating full backups of all site databases and data; migrating the database from MySQL 5.7 to 8.0, and then performing the operating system update.

I will make information available via a web page on 126board.com as to what is happening, and will keep it updated as things progress.

I'll give another, more detailed, heads up on things as we get closer to Monday.

Thanks,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Small update this morning of the Elasticsearch engine from 7.7.0 to 7.7.1. This is a minor update with a few bug fixes. Changelog is here: Elasticsearch version 7.7.1 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.7] | Elastic

Reset the search engine, but no forum downtime. Everything should be working A-ok.

 

[gerryvz]

This was just published by some colleagues at my employer.

The top 25 greatest Java apps ever written

From space exploration to genomics, from reverse compilers to robotic controllers, Java is at the heart of today’s world. Here are a few of the countless Java apps that stand out from the crowd.

blogs.oracle.com

Interestingly, our "Elasticsearch" engine made #6. This site runs Java in the back-end just to power that search engine, which is super powerful.

 

[gerryvz]

I did a Linux kernel update today. No big deal, but required a reboot of the system to take effect, about 8:00 AM EDT this morning. Forum was offline for around 90 seconds.

 

[gerryvz]

As mentioned in the other "general" site update thread, I will be pursuing another system upgrade on Monday, May 25, starting about 6:00 AM EDT. I expect the site will be down for around 2 hours (perhaps less, perhaps more) while all this is happening.

If for some reason things get complicated again, and I have to restore again from a system backup, it will probably take another 5-6 hours to bring the site back up.

During this two hours window of downtime, I will be creating full backups of all site databases and data; migrating the database from MySQL 5.7 to 8.0, and then performing the operating system update.

I will make information available via a web page on 126board.com as to what is happening, and will keep it updated as things progress.

I'll give another, more detailed, heads up on things as we get closer to Monday.

Thanks,
Gerry

I have not gotten to this operating system upgrade yet, but will let folks know when I do.

 

[gerryvz]

Small update to php 7.4.7 today, from 7.4.6 that was released about a month ago. This was a bug-fix release.

Restarted apache to let it take effect; zero forum downtime.

Changelog for php 7.4.7: PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

 

[gerryvz]

Yesterday (Thursday) I updated the Elasticsearch engine from version 7.7.1 to 7.8.0, per their newest release. Shouldn't affect things at all in terms of the forum -- rebooted the search engine server, ( service elasticsearch restart ) but zero forum downtime.

The XenForo folks have begun posting some new previews of the major features and capabilities that they'll be adding to the next version (2.2) of the forum software, which will be released (I'm guesstimating) around September or October of this year.

Some of this stuff is really cool -- including a mobile-type app for you folks who loved Tapatalk.

Every few days, they release a new thread describing some of the new features. If you are interested to see what is coming, take a look at these threads, per your interest:

XF 2.2 - User profile banners, Username changes, Security locking accounts and more!

Welcome to the first of our "Have you seen...?" (HYS) series for XenForo 2.2! To ensure you're kept up to date with future threads, we strongly recommend clicking the "Watch forum" link here and enabling email notifications if you haven't done so already 🙂 Over the course of the next few weeks...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Search forums, SEO improvements and dev team news

A new way to surface content Forums are usually devoted to a single subject matter and the threads they contain relate to that subject matter, unless it's all gone wrong and your users are wandering off topic. Threads belong to their parent forums, so if your board separates posts about kittens...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Writing before registering

Participation. It's the life blood of a forum, and once you have a group of dedicated members creating and discussing content, your forum will flourish. But there's a barrier to entry when it comes to participation. When a new visitor stumbles upon your forum from a search engine, they may read...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Progressive web app

Mobile first. We hear it again and again, and with over half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, it's more important than ever to provide your mobile visitors with a great experience. Of course, XenForo 2 is built on a fully responsive design that gracefully adapts to any display...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Activity summary email

So you've got people to register on your forum and they've made their initial contribution, but once they've done that, how do you keep those members engaged and coming back to your forum? It's an age-old problem. A user registers, they may participate for a while if you're lucky, and then it's...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Style archive import/export, Style asset locations and Asset uploads

Everyday administrative housekeeping often requires direct interaction with your server's file system. Installing or upgrading a style, switching out logo graphics and other images on your forum you will invariably require a dust-off for your rusty old FTP client and an exciting adventure into...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Text editor and attachment manager improvements

Central to the experience of interacting with forum software is the interface through which visitors will create their content. This is usually done through the text editor and attachment manager, so keeping these systems fresh and inspiring is very important to us. From the outset, XenForo has...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Forum and thread types

Forums contain threads and threads contain posts. It's been the essential framework of forums on the Internet since the public migrated from usenet to the web. The structure is well known and well understood - though the origins of some of the terminology are lost in the mists of time. Who ever...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - What's new for developers in XF 2.2?

The previous "have you seen" threads for 2.2 have generally been focused on what the changes mean to admins and end users. While we have made reference to some of the internal technical elements and what add-ons can do with these features, today we want to do a deeper dive into some of these...

xenforo.com

 

[gerryvz]

New version of the Linux kernel was released (version 5.3.0-61) last Friday, so I did a reboot to implement the update from the previous version 5.3.0-59. Forum was down for around 90 seconds during the reboot.

Changelog here: 5.3.0-61.55 : linux package : Ubuntu

 

[gerryvz]

A new version of php was released last Thursday, php 7.4.8. Updated from 7.4.7 to 7.4.8 with a near-instant re-start of the Apache web server to utilise the new files. Zero forum downtime.

php 7.4.8 changelog: PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

Old version, before upgrade:



New version, after upgrade:

 

[gerryvz]

Wednesday morning July 22, I will be doing a Linux kernel update at approximately 6:30 AM EDT. The forum will be off-line for around 90 seconds during this time.

 

[gerryvz]

Yesterday (Thursday) I updated the Elasticsearch engine from version 7.7.1 to 7.8.0, per their newest release. Shouldn't affect things at all in terms of the forum -- rebooted the search engine server, ( service elasticsearch restart ) but zero forum downtime.

The XenForo folks have begun posting some new previews of the major features and capabilities that they'll be adding to the next version (2.2) of the forum software, which will be released (I'm guesstimating) around September or October of this year.

Some of this stuff is really cool -- including a mobile-type app for you folks who loved Tapatalk.

Every few days, they release a new thread describing some of the new features. If you are interested to see what is coming, take a look at these threads, per your interest:

XF 2.2 - User profile banners, Username changes, Security locking accounts and more!

Welcome to the first of our "Have you seen...?" (HYS) series for XenForo 2.2! To ensure you're kept up to date with future threads, we strongly recommend clicking the "Watch forum" link here and enabling email notifications if you haven't done so already 🙂 Over the course of the next few weeks...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Search forums, SEO improvements and dev team news

A new way to surface content Forums are usually devoted to a single subject matter and the threads they contain relate to that subject matter, unless it's all gone wrong and your users are wandering off topic. Threads belong to their parent forums, so if your board separates posts about kittens...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Writing before registering

Participation. It's the life blood of a forum, and once you have a group of dedicated members creating and discussing content, your forum will flourish. But there's a barrier to entry when it comes to participation. When a new visitor stumbles upon your forum from a search engine, they may read...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Progressive web app

Mobile first. We hear it again and again, and with over half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, it's more important than ever to provide your mobile visitors with a great experience. Of course, XenForo 2 is built on a fully responsive design that gracefully adapts to any display...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Activity summary email

So you've got people to register on your forum and they've made their initial contribution, but once they've done that, how do you keep those members engaged and coming back to your forum? It's an age-old problem. A user registers, they may participate for a while if you're lucky, and then it's...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Style archive import/export, Style asset locations and Asset uploads

Everyday administrative housekeeping often requires direct interaction with your server's file system. Installing or upgrading a style, switching out logo graphics and other images on your forum you will invariably require a dust-off for your rusty old FTP client and an exciting adventure into...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Text editor and attachment manager improvements

Central to the experience of interacting with forum software is the interface through which visitors will create their content. This is usually done through the text editor and attachment manager, so keeping these systems fresh and inspiring is very important to us. From the outset, XenForo has...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - Forum and thread types

Forums contain threads and threads contain posts. It's been the essential framework of forums on the Internet since the public migrated from usenet to the web. The structure is well known and well understood - though the origins of some of the terminology are lost in the mists of time. Who ever...

xenforo.com

XF 2.2 - What's new for developers in XF 2.2?

The previous "have you seen" threads for 2.2 have generally been focused on what the changes mean to admins and end users. While we have made reference to some of the internal technical elements and what add-ons can do with these features, today we want to do a deeper dive into some of these...

xenforo.com

Last Thursday, XenForo released the "first" beta release of the XF 2.2 forum software. I will not install it until it is in a general release (and I expect it to go through at least two or three beta versions before it goes to general release). I am happy to see some big improvements that many of you will also see immediately when we migrate to it, including the "lightbox" that displays images attached to posts.

I don't expect the final 2.2 release to come until the October time frame or so. In any case we will have to wait until many of the add-ons that we have installed that add functionality to the forum, have been updated or certified to work with the new forum software. Even with the new beta software, several of our key add-ons are already compliant, which is nice to see.

 

[gerryvz]

Every Sunday morning, I do a "sync" of the forum's entire attachments (all photos and documents attached to all of the forum's posts) to my computer's hard drive. This is then backed up as part of my computer's ongoing backup, so that if the forum's images were ever lost online, I would have a complete catalog of all images and attachments, and be able to restore it very quickly.

Every week, the forum adds about 1/3 of a gigabyte (300-400MB) of images to its image catalog. This is pretty consistent from week to week. We are already at over 80% of the capacity of the additional 75GB volume that I have for all forum images and attachments, so it won't be too many more months before I'll need to expand it. I can expand it to any amount that I want, but will probably go to 100 or 125 GB to provide plenty of extra capacity for the future.

You can see below, we're at 82% !!!

 

[gerryvz]

Quick MySQL database upgrade today, 5.7.30 to 5.7.31. Zero forum downtime.

Changelog: MySQL :: MySQL 5.7 Release Notes :: Changes in MySQL 5.7.31 (2020-07-13, General Availability)

One good thing, as part of the upgrade, the system did an integrity check against all database tables, and everything checked out A-OK.

Still need to do a major MySQL upgrade from 5.7 to 8.0, so I can update to the latest version of Ubuntu Linux.

 

[gerryvz]

Updated php from 7.4.8 to 7.4.9 (officially released yesterday) just a couple of minutes ago. Restarted apache. Zero forum downtime.

Changelog: PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

Announcement: PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor

Before:



After:

 

[gerryvz]

The Wiki software was updated to the "stable" release 4.1.0 yesterday. I will be updating the current "release candidate 3" version, which was last updated on June 11, to this current 4.1.0 stable version.

Expect the Wiki to be down for around 5-10 minutes about 3:00 PM EDT / noon PDT today.

The rest of the forum shouldn't be affected at all.




Wiki software upgrade has been completed, with no issues.

 

[gerryvz]

I did a small update to the Elasticsearch engine, from 7.9.0 to 7.9.1. Restarted the search engine via service elasticsearch restart in the command line, and it updated itself. I did an Apache restart, just because I hadn't done that for a while.

Release notes for elasticsearch 7.9.1: Elasticsearch version 7.9.1 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.9] | Elastic

 

[gerryvz]

Quick update of php from 7.4.9-1 to 7.4.10-1. Mainly a bug-fix update. Changelog here: PHP: PHP 7 ChangeLog

Restarted the Apache web server to implement the changes. Zero server or forum downtime.

 

[gerryvz]

I did a small update to the Elasticsearch engine, from 7.9.1 to 7.9.2. Restarted the search engine via service elasticsearch restart in the command line, and it updated itself. I did an Apache restart, just because I hadn't done that for a while.

Release notes for elasticsearch 7.9.2: Elasticsearch version 7.9.2 | Elasticsearch Reference [7.9] | Elastic