Apologies if you’ve tried to visit this site over the past week or two and have encountered an error of sorts. The servers that slickhouse is hosted on have been down several times, due to human errors, for once!

The first time, I had setup a new virtual server (2003), equipped with Active Directory and DNS. After testing AD locally on my workstation, I decided to roll it out by connecting each server in turn to the domain. Unfortunately, I forgot about Windows Update, which proceeded to install updates on each server in turn - which was the first stage of the downtime. Once the main host server had restarted, it then performed a chkdisk that I had scheduled some months ago (to begin on the next restart). This took the whole night!

As the host server is a single core affair, the start-up of each virtual server takes a good 30 minutes, to ensure everything is back up and running as before. So that added more downtime, to the already growing 12+ hours.

The second set of downtime was last night - I had moved the anti virus (Symantec AV) from the host server itself, to one of the virtuals. Bad mistake. When the scheduled scan kicked in at 3am, it brought the whole platform down, 4 virtuals and the host. So that was another 18+ hours!

I’ve since switched the anti virus back to the host server and have opted for Clamwin, a great Open Source program, that works on Windows workstation and server operating systems. If all goes to plan, it will do its stuff tonight without a blip of performance loss.

So, the moral of the story? There are several in this instance:

1. Regularly install updates on servers, so that when it comes to a shutdown/restart they won’t interfere with things
2. Plan downtime a good few hours before you go to bed, in case anything goes wrong in the process
3. Use chkdisk startup scans with caution - and remember when you’ve scheduled them
4. Don’t break something if it already works, such as moving anti virus duties from a host server to a virtual, when the host was scanning them fine for the past 2 years without a hiccup
5. Don’t port forward RDP to a virtual server, so that when the platform goes down, you cannot connect externally to restart it all

The last point [5] is particularly important - ensure that you can still access the main host server (Server 2003 w/Microsoft Virtual Server in this instance) if all virtual servers are down.

Be patient if you experience downtime in the near future - at least now you know it’s most likely due to a human error on my behalf!

For the past 5 or so years, slickhouse.com has been hosted on a shared Linux server, provided by UKHost4U.

While the hosting has been good, I’ve grown out of using a shared web server and all of the limitations that go with it. So, over the past year I’ve developed my own dedicated web server, with a twist - a) it’s Windows and b) it’s hosted at slickhouse itself.

For those of you interested in running your own web server, it’s actually a fairly straightforward, albeit time-consuming thing to do. And it proved successful - as you are reading this served up by the new server!

The hardware:

• AMD Athlon 3000XP (Barton core)
• 2 x 1GB PC3200 DDR
• MSI K7N2 consumer motherboard
• 4 x 250GB data drives, 1 x 120GB O/S drive
• Yeong Yang cube case

The software:

• Microsoft Server 2003 R2 w/SP2 (both host and virtual O/S)
• Virtual Server 2005 (1GB allocated RAM, 100% allocated CPU)
• PHP
• MySQL
• MySQL Administrator for a GUI w/MySQL
• ASP (and .NET)
• Filezilla Server for FTP
• Merak Mail Server
• AWStats for statistics
• Active Perl for AWStats
• IIS 6.0 for web

Alongside the web server itself I used the following:

• GoDaddy for domain registration
• ZoneEdit.com for DNS (dynamic)
• DynDNS for DNS (dynamic)
• Google Mail to collate all of the email
• Smoothwall for router/firewall O/S

As slickhouse.com uses WordPress, I found Keyboard Face very useful to ensure the permalinks worked correctly within IIS. The script itself is very simple and works well with most of the posts/pages on the site. The only issue I’ve encountered so far is with inTouch, which I use for the AJAX contact form, hence it now being reference via its Page ID. The article Installation Issues on Microsoft IIS is also a good read for those wanting to get WordPress up and running on Windows. DSL/Cable Webserver is another good resource, which documents the whole process to run your own web server from home.

I chose to use Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005, as it allows me to run several operating systems on the same machine. Currently the server only has the host and virtual operating systems, but I’ll be expanding it with a development server soon. Another advantage to going virtual, is that I can easily copy the whole server from one physical hardware platform to the next. So if a catastrophic failure occurs, I can quickly transfer the image of the server to another hard-drive, or Virtual Server.

This configuration has so far proved to be a lot more beneficial to my previous shared hosting solution with UKHost4U. For a start, I’m in complete control of the whole solution - from domain registration, to configuration of the server itself. Also, it means I’m not limited by the assigned disk space and bandwidth provided with my shared hosting package. My ISP at home is Virgin Media, who over the last week has upgraded me from 4MB/400KB Cable broadband, to 10MB/500KB - they still have an unlimited bandwidth policy too!

So what’s required then? I’ll start in order of what you see as a visitor:

1. Domain registration - to get yourself a name on the ‘net
2. DNS - to point your domain to an IP address
3. Dynamic DNS - to update your DNS with your dynamic IP address
4. Firewall/Router - to block and route traffic around your LAN
5. Web server (IIS 6.0) - to serve web pages
6. Mail server (POP3/SMTP) - to send and receive email
7. PHP/ASP - to server dynamic web pages
8. MySQL - to provide database(s)

The following domains are currently hosted on the web server:

• slickhouse.com
• lazlow.net
• babysfirstblog.com
• mrgradient.com
• slickhouse.homeip.net

With more to follow. Slickhouse.homeip.net is provided by DynDNS and the remaining domains have their DNS controlled by ZoneEdit.com

Let me know if you encounter any issues with the new hosting, as I’ve moved ~500MB from the Linux server across to the Windows server and have most likely missed something from my testing! If anyone is interested in having a site hosted on the new server, then get in touch - as a ZoneEdit account, along with a Domain of your choice is all you’ll need. Uptime is currently 39 days and counting…