469 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
469 lines
22 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
[02] WHAT ARE SDF'S ORIGINS AND HISTORY? (LONG SUMMARY)
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(For related information on SDF and the history behind this public
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access UNIX system, read "The HACKER CRACKDOWN" by Bruce Sterling)
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1987 - SDF was originally an APPLE ][e microcomputer running
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"Magic City Micro-BBS" customized by Ted Uhlemann (iczer). The
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system was run as a Japanese Anime SIG and was known as the SDF-1.
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The SDF-1 at that time was just your typical BBS: One phone line
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plugged into a 1200bps modem, 128 kilo-nibbles of core and two flexible
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disk drives with 280 kilo-nibbles storage capacity each.
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Stephen Jones (smj) helped locate a 5 megabyte mass storage unit for
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the micro. Ted was only able to get about 3 megabytes out of the disk.
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By adding a 2400bps modem and this new mass storage unit, SDF's users
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noticed a substantial performance increase.
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In 1989 Ted and Stephen began running SDF as a CITADEL BBS. It was
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the filesystem like structure of the Bulletin Board that piqued their
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interest. Both the Apple ][e and the IBM PC XT served logins.
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Ted, Stephen and Daniel Finster (df) had been dialing into a system
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run by an AT&T employee named Charlie Boykin. Charlie's system
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was called The UNIX Connection (AKA attctc or killer.dallas.tx.us).
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Charlie's public access UNIX was such a breath of fresh air compared
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to restrictive BBS menus that when killer was abruptly shutdown (20-Feb-90)
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during Operation SunDevil, it was greatly missed. At that point the three
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decided they would form a replacement for killer.
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16-Jun-91 - SDF.ORG
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At this time UNIX had been runable on i386 machines for a couple of
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years. Ted took on the responsbility of setting up the machine and
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contacting UUCP network administrators around town to get UUCP mail
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going. After trying to use an inexpensive UNIX clone (COHERENT)
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which turned out to be a CROCK, Ted decided to go with Kodak's
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Interactive release of UNIX SYSTEM 5 r3.2 1.0. The caseless
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computer ran laid across Ted's desk.
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01-Aug-91 - SDF.ORG
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Interest in the public access UNIX system began to grow and it was
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decided that the system be moved to another location so that more
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phone lines (4) could be installed. Richard Losey (rlosey) contributed
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to the project so that an AST four port board could be purchased to
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support the 4 - 2400 dialups. There was also a sidewalk sale booth
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which was mostly comprised of donated goods and half of Aaron Schmiedel's
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(aaron) garage. From that point, SDF grew.
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Summer-92
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Ted and Daniel talked with David Lippke, a network manager at the
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Unversity of Texas at Dallas (UTD), about an ARPANET connection for
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the SDF. By then SDF had been running as a UNIX system for about a
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year. The idea was considered by David, but eventually turned into
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a proposed commercial venture. By the Fall of 1992 Ted, Daniel and
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three SDF users Steven Parker (sp), Steve Linebarger (srl) and
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Bill Middleton (wjm) had left SDF to form Texas Metronet, Dallas'
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first (if not in Texas) commercial internet service provider. Stephen
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remained behind continuing to administer to the SDF.
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04-Aug-93
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With the help of Charlie Boykin(SMU) and Rich Andrews(SMU), Stephen
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was able to replace the INTEL based PC UNIX with a hardworking and
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reliable WE32100 based minicomputer designed by AT&T (the 3B2). Brian
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Rogers (brogers) helped Stephen install 9 - 14.4kbps telephone lines.
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At this time, SDF's configuration was as follows:
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uname Machine Description
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------------------------------------------------------------------
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sdf 3b2/400 4 Megs Memory, 2(72) Meg disk
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sdf1 3b2/400 4 Megs Memory, 2(72) Meg disk SCSI HA 338 Meg disk
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sdf2 3b2/310 4 Megs Memory, 1(72) Meg disk
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sdf handled dialup access, sdf1 handled UUCP and sdf2 handled USENET
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news processing. The machine used RFS (Remote File Sharing) over a
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STARLAN network to share data.
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Spring-94
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4 3B2/400 machines were purchased from South Carolina State University.
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Two were put in immediate service along with the original 3B2/310 system.
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The machines were networked over a 1 megabit local area network (STARLAN)
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and shared resources to give the illusion of one machine. Also purchased
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were several terminals and an AT&T UNIX PC 7300 called 'minmei'.
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04-Aug-95
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The system is made up of one AT&T 3b2/400 and one AT&T 3b2/310.
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The 310 has a SCSI BUS and handles the majority of USENET processing.
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The 310's SCSI BUS has an EMULEX ESDI to SCSI converter which gives
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support to 4 ESDI drives and only takes up one SCSI ID. By using this,
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the SCSI BUS could very easily support 24 hard drives. The 400 handles
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all user sessions. When you dialup into SDF you are connected to
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the 400. The 310 and the 400 are on a STARLAN network. STARLAN is a
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local area network which can be 1mbit or 10mbit in speed. The two
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machines share disks through the Remote File Sharing package. When
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you read USENET news on the 400 (sdf) it is actually reading the
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articles over the network from the 310 (news) machine.
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03-Mar-96 ANONBBS
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Ted and Stephen got together very late one night and decided to start a
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short lived project they called 'ANONBBS'. ANONBBS was just as it sounds,
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it ran on an i386sx25 toshiba laptop with 60mb of storage and 10mb of RAM
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under Digital Research DOS 5.0 .. The entire BBS was written in TELIX SALT
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with an extremely functional, but minimalistic interface that Ted and
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Stephen literally hashed out over tacos and nachos at 3am in a Taco Cabana.
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The asethetic proved extremely useful and the system became busy. Users
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would type up messages on their machines and then upload them to the
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'C:\BBOARD>' directory. Files were stored in 'C:\XFER>' .. some users
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signed their handles on messages while others just remained anonymous.
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It was an experiment to see what people would do in an environment where
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they had completely anonyomity and control.
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01-May-96 SDF
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Lucent Technologies/AT&T Bell Laboratories donated a 3b2/500 with an
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XM (disk) cabinet that replaced the older setup. Special thanks to
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Michael Dolan (Lucent) and John Marinho (AT&T) for their help.
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AT&T 3B2 SYSTEM CONFIGURATION: Memory size: 8 Megabytes
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System Peripherals:
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Device Name Subdevices Extended Subdevices
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SBD
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Floppy Disk
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SCSI
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(S.E. BUS ID0)
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SD01 ID1
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155 Megabyte Disk ID0
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ST01 ID2
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Tape ID0
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SD01 ID5
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155 Megabyte Disk ID0
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155 Megabyte Disk ID1
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155 Megabyte Disk ID2
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NI
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EPORTS
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MAU
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VCACHE
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SBD System Board. This board contains the 3b2's main processor.
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It is possible to have up to 3 processor boards in this machine.
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SCSI Small Computer Systems Interface. This BUS allows the system to
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support up to 24 storage devices.
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NI Network Interface. This feature card is a 10base5 interface which
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support ETHERNET protocol.
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EPORTS Enhanced PORTS. This feature card supports 8 38400bps serial
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connections.
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MAU Mathematics Accelerator UNIT.
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VCACHE This board aides the processor by CACHE'ing commonly used
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3b2/32200 32100 processor instructions.
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30-Mar-97
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Aaron Schmiedel (aaron) donated several large disk drives and a
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higher capacity tape backup system. The system was reconfigured
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to take advantage of the new storage resources.
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24-Nov-97
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Vincent Helliwell (thecave) donated a 2.1 gig SCSI drive which was used
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to replace the old /udd (user directory directory) filesystem and allow
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the last remaining 5.25" full height drive to be decommissioned.
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15-Dec-97
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A new server built almost entirely out of user donated parts was configured
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and installed. The initial plan was for it to run NetBSD (and it just
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may someday) but for the interim it runs a highly modified GNU system
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with a slightly modified Linux kernel. Donated hardware that makes up
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a portion of this machine:
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P166+ CPU and 16megs RAM (aaron)
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1.0 gig HD (cjc) (Traded for old SDF SCSI drives)
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170 meg HD (iczer)
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210 meg HD (wmills)
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case w/ PS, motherboard, cabling, ethernet and video adapters (smj)
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For the moment the machine spools news and serves NNTP connections to
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both SDF hosted users and SLIP/PPP dialup users. It also batches news
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up for UUCP hosts and for outbound local posts. X windows has been
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installed on it along with CMU Common Lisp system for UNIX so that we
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can begin porting tons of SDF specific programs to LISP.
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24-May-99
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The domain "freeshell.org" was registered as an alias for sdf.org
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as a marketing strategy to help sdf grow. Since the "arpa" vote that
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occured early in this year, SDF's amount sponsorship as grown. We are
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hoping by making this general marketing step that sdf can continue to
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grow and make a more obvious name for itself.
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23-Aug-99
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A secondary server 'sdf-2' is now acting as the main http server. It is
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a PII/450MHz with 256mb of RAM and about 18 gigs of hard drive space.
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it has a 13 gig file system which it sdf mounts so that shell users can
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setup their homepages without having to login to the other machine.
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01-Jan-00
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System Configuration:
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'sdf' P233, 94mb of RAM, 20gig mixed mass storage (EIDE/SCSI)
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linux 2.0.37 kernel (modified), GNU software and 'linux' utilities
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role: shell server, primary dns, secondary http server, mail server,
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pop3 server, ftp server.
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'sdf-2' PII/450MHz, 256mb of RAM, 18gigs mass storage (EIDE)
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linux 2.2.14 kernel (modified), GNU software and 'linux' utilities
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role: http server, secondary dns (others will migrate)
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Network connectivity: DSL 1.4mb/768kb, 10mbit ethernet, 2b+d ISDN
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11-May-00
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'sdf' as a P233 has been decomissioned along with support hardware.
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'sdf' AMD Athlon 750MHz, 384mb of RAM 36gig mixed mass storage (UDMA/SCSI)
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linux 2.0.36 kernel (modified), GNU software and 'linux' utilities
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same roles.
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31-Oct-00
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'sdf-2' now has two 30 gigabyte disks and has taken over as the primary
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mail server for 'sdf.org'. It handles incoming and outgoing
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SMTP/POP3 requests as well as primary webservice and minor functions.
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'sdf-1' role is to primary that of a shell server. Mail can be sent
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outgoing from it and ~login webpages will still be served. This sort
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of modification should help greatly with uptime and load balancing.
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15-May-01
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Major hardware failure (sdf-2, now called 'otaku') basically overheated
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and fried its motherboard when its powersupply fan died. On top of
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that, SDF's root disk (main drive) decided to give up and die. This is
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the third disk we've lost this year. Crappy consumer hardware.
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09-Aug-01
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, ,
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/( )`
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\ \___ / |
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BYE BYE LEENOX! /- _ `-/ '
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BYE BYE x86! (/\/ \ \ /\
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/ / | ` \
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| ) / |
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`-^--'`< '
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? (_.) ) /
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_o) `.__ ` /
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/\\ __ `-----' /
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(O_ _\/V / \---. __ / __ \
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(o< //\ \\/---|====O)))==) \) /====
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//\ V|/_ (._ (o_/\ >-)---' `--' `.__,' \
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V_/_ | /\\<--)-> , | |
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(:_ (~< //\ \_/_\/ \ /
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/ /\ //\ V_/_ (._ ` ______( (_ / \_____
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\/_/_ (o_ V\/_ (/) , ,' ,-----' | \
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(\) (o_ (-< . `--{__________) (smj) \/
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(O_ >O) //\ (~< //\.- (fl)
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/ (\) V_/_ _|_ V\/_ .
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//\ //L\\
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Oo.V|/_ V\_/V
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- -
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10-Aug-01 - The minicomputers return!
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System Configuration:
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'sdf' Dec ALPHA 5305, 1024mb of RAM, 55gig SCA SCSI-2 UW
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NetBSD 1.5.1 performance tuned and hacks
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role: 'users' shell server, primary dns, secondary http server,
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anonymous ftp server
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'otaku' Dec ALPHA 5305, 1024mb of RAM, 60gig SCA SCSI-2 UW
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NetBSD 1.5.1 performance tuned and hacks
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role: 'arpa' shell server, secondary dns, primary http server
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00-SEP-01 THE FATE OF THE OLD 3B2/500 THAT WAS SDF
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I just learned what happened to the 3B2/500 I lent to user '*****' who had
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hopes to buy it when he got money. It came into his possession in late
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1997 or 1998 when I decided to try to run SDF on x86 with linux (the
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biggest mistake I've made, and I apologise). I gave '*****' the complete
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3B2/500 setup, a full set of manuals, software and a 4425 AT&T Death Star
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terminal. When he moved out of his mother's house in 1999 he put it in
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the trunk of his car. It stayed there for 6 months!! through the Texas
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heat. He once went to '**'s house to pick up his friend and they decided
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they needed some trunk space, so they took the 3B2 out and brought it up
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to the house. '**' really hates UNIX and refused to allow the machine in
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the house, so they left it on his porch. It sat there for 3 months,
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through the rain and elements. '**' finally put into 'storage' with
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some other computers, but I seriously doubt it will ever run again.
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'*****' never paid a cent to sdf and will not respond to my emails from
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is new email address (he no longer uses sdf).
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10-OCT-01 SDF Public Access UNIX System, INC.
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On this day, the entity SDF Public Access UNIX System was formed
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as a NOT-FOR-PROFIT corporation in the state of Delaware.
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22-DEC-01 - 27-DEC-01 MULTIHOMED DS3 CONNECTION
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The 'sdf' along with 'otaku', 'sverige', 'neguse' and 'norge' were moved
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to a new datacentre location in Bellevue Washington. Besides the luxury
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of having a cooled machine room, high availability UPS and monitored site
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security, we also gained a multi-homed 155mbit connection to the net.
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Although only 'sdf' and 'sverige' were production machines at the time,
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the others were installed in preparation for 'SHIT DAY 01-JAN-02'
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Total 'sdf' downtime was exceptionally minimal during the move (1 hour).
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25-JAN-02 - ALL MACHINES ONLINE - bj<62>rk runs NetBSD-current SMP today!
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All machines are now online at the datacentre .. configuration info:
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uname platform version storage memory function
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---------------------------------------------------------------------
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sdf dual alpha 5305 1.5.3 64gigs 1024mb Primary shell/UUCP
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otaku dual alpha 5305 1.5.3 118gigs 1024mb SMTP & ARPA member
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droog dual alpha 5305 1.5.3 118gigs 1024mb freeshell.org.uk
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bjork dual alpha 5305 1.5ZA SMP 9gigs 512mb Experimental test
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norge dual sparc ss20 1.5.3 18gigs 512mb ROBOT (irc 'bot')
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sverige dual sparc ss20 1.5.3 18gigs 512mb MUD server
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21-Sep-02 - DISK REPLACEMENT
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SDF purchased roughly 30 36.4GB SCA SCSI disks to replace the old
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4.3GB and 9.1GB as necessary.
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20-Nov-02 - ICELAND ONLINE
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SDF purchased four API CS20 machines to replace the old ss20s and act
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primarily as shell servers. This will help to keep resources free on
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'sdf' and 'otaku' so they can fileserve to the API machines.
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iceland.freeshell.org a dual 833MHz CS20 w/ 1024mb of RAM went online.
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10-Jan-03 - VINLAND ONLINE
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The second of the CS20s went into service. It has the exact same
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configuration as iceland.
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27-Jan-03 - MOVE TO THE GIGAPOP
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Today NWLINK had its Bellevue co-location customers move to the SIX
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(Seattled Internet Exchange) AKA the Gigapop. The move took about
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3 hours.
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30-Jan-03 - NWLINK TERMINATES SDF CONTRACT
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NWLink.com has decided to terminate sdf.org's
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co-location contract because of a DDoS attack which apparently was
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directed at sdf. The termination notice was not written and was
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carried out immediately (approximately 10:30am today).
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We attempted to quickly get another co-location contract with two other
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prominent providers, but were turned down because of what happened at
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NWLINK. Fortunately, we were able to bring services back up late in the
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evening of February 4th, with DNS updating by the afternoon of the 5th.
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This was made possible by a free hosting offer with SiteSpecific.NET
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Many SDF members have expressed the need for recourse as we all
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are a victim in this. If you feel inclined to do so, you
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may file a personal complaint against NWLINK online via
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the NW Better Business Bureau. If you choose to do this,
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please be sure to give concise, mature and correct information.
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NWLINK has released a letter via the BBB which quotes a director of
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SDF even though it was explicitly stated in a telephone conversation
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that any joint statement would have to be approved by the SDF board.
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04-FEB-03 - SITESPECIFIC.NET PROVIDES FREE CO-LO FOR SDF
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Sitespecific has graciously given SDF a free lease while we arrange
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our own site (we've decided to move back to Dallas). The Dallas
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site is to be composed of brand new machines with two circuits that we
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will own to prevent any ISP from doing what NWLINK did to us.
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15-MAR-03 - MIGRATION TO OUR NEW HOME
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droog (sdf-eu.org) was the first to migrate and was basically done
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over the internet in less than a day.
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ol was created to do fileservice and was setup so that only the DEC
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SBBs (disks) would have to be shipped from Seattle to Dallas, saving
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us quite a bit. ol currently has 14 disk drives in two StorageWorks
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SCSI arrays.
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sdf, otaku and norge were all recreated as client machines which slave
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off of ol. The whole migration took less than a week, with users being
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able to access either site at anytime making the migration extremely
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smooth and transparent to most. The disks drives, which held old mail,
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web and home directories were plugged in with 16 hours of them leaving
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Seattle for Dallas next day air.
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31-MAR-03 - AS1200 DECOMMISSION PARTY
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50 members were in attendence in 'com' as we decommissioned the DEC
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AS1200 computer which served as SDF. The four AS1200 systems were
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then auctioned off to the users.
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Summer and Fall 2003
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A number of new hosts (DS10Ls and CS20s) were brought online. As well,
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all of the 4.3GB and 9.1GB drives were replaced with 36GB 10K SCA
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SCSI drives. A third t1 was installed to aide with peering and dialup
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was expanded to include 16323 numbers in the USA and Canada. A mirror
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for 'otaku' was brought online called 'ukato'. ARPA member websites
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were split between these two hosts. 'mx' became the primary pop3/imap
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server with its mirror 'xm' balancing out requests.
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Spring 2004
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'sverige' is now soley for MetaARPA member use. 'screen' is now allowed
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on this machine with limited usage background processes.
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10-Jun-2005
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After patience and extensive testing all machines were updated from
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NetBSD 1.6.2 to 2.0.2. The upgrade event was mostly automated and was
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performed in about 2.5 hours which included updates to the fileserver
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and mail server as well as all 6 NFS client systems. Apart from
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external problems (such as power and UPS related datacentre issues)
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the NFS performance problems we saw with 1.6.2 have seem to have been
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minimised.
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15-Jun-2005 SDF-EU.ORG TEMPORARILY OFFLINE
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Due to inconsistencies in the power at the datacentre we seem to have
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lost the DS10L that was 'sdf-eu.org' .. The DEC StorageWorks disk array
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is fine, and all incoming sdf-eu.org mail is queuing via UUCP. However
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we had to wait about 5 days for the datacentre technician to get to
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the machine to replace it with a spare. This was due to a back injury
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he suffered (please note, the site technician is NOT smj ;-)
|
||
|
||
20-Jun-2005 NEW DOMAINS
|
||
|
||
Victor Bragga (vothr) has donated the 'shellacct' domains to SDF.
|
||
These domains will soon be available to ARPA members for website
|
||
vanity domains as well as virtual email addresses to VPM and MetaARPA
|
||
members.
|
||
|
||
22-Jun-2005 THXMOO
|
||
|
||
A MOO (virtual world) is currently being designed and implemented on
|
||
SDF. It is based on the post world war III THX-1138 world where humans
|
||
live underground and are dependent on pills, television and prayers to
|
||
keep their mental states in subservient check. The beta THXMOO should
|
||
be available this fall. Further updates will be posted on thxmoo.org
|
||
|
||
August - September 2006 DISK MAINTENANCE AND UPGRADES
|
||
|
||
All of the 36.4GB disks in the three arrays were slated to be replaced.
|
||
This was mainly for preventative maintenance, though one or two drives
|
||
had gone bad of their 3 years or so of service. 28 73.8GB SCA2 15KRPM
|
||
drives were installed during this time and a subsequent ARPA vote
|
||
increased the base disk quota to 600MB. MetaARPA members were given
|
||
an 800MB quota with an increase of files to 15000 per filesystem.
|
||
|