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Speaking Server

There is a language out there that is continously adapting. Some would say this is the language of computers, I\’d argue.. computers only speak binary. I would however like to think that the software on those computers like to change languages on a daily basis. There\’s no common way of telling people, \"hey, this is what went wrong\" or anything like that.

So all that said, I try to be a master at speaking server. I watch my radar\’s as best I can. Things like top, ps, df, du all give me insight into what the computer is doing and why (if you don\’t know what those are, your not a linux freak). My log files rarely get deleted, so as to give me even more information about stuff I might miss. I even have things outside my server (such as MRTG) that are monitoring what is going on outside the machine.

So you might think I\’m crazy, trying to watch all this stuff.

I might be.

But in the last 2 weeks, a group has decided that JR is a target for attack. I don\’t know if they dont like us. I don\’t know if they want us offline. I don\’t know if they are just trying to relay junk email. I don\’t know why in the world after 2 years of being online, they have decided to come after our primary server.

What I do know, is they have managed to make my life a little harder the last two weeks.

Right as the Daytona 500 was starting, I get a phone call regarding the email server. It appears that the software is running, but not delivering any mail. That\’s exactly what we don\’t want to hear. I look into it, and sure enough, something has jammed the server hard. It\’s still running but in a Zombie state.

For those of you who don\’t know what a Zombie is, it\’s reffered to as an immortal process. It\’s what happens to a program when you tell it to close, and it says \"Ok\" and then doesn\’t close. Telling it to close again does nothing because it\’s already agreed to do that. Their is only 2 things you can do when a Zombie occurs (and actually they are the same thing): Kill it\’s parent, or kill the server.

That ment to get rid of it and restart postfix I was going to have to reboot unless I could find the parent and take it out.

Luckily I did.

I\’m not sure how \"they\" got the mail server to go zombie. I\’m not entirely sure what caused it. All I know is I\’m now taking some more advanced prevent measures to insure that they don\’t get to do this again…

So now that I\’m done talking servers for the moment:

Our first wedding went \"great\". Only a few minor problems, I hope to document more here as the process continues. The Daytona was also pretty good, with the exception of Tony Stewart.

Let\’s recap Tony:

Tony at one point in Nascar history, had the reputation of being a jerk. No one liked him, he was all about himself. Last year, something felt diffent about him, he was racing happier, he was racing more as a team, than about himself. I personally think thats what lead him to victory last year. Today however, it was Tony being Tony again. He had to be involved in at least 3 crashes today, and I believe he played a role in just about every penalty that was assessed. This was after a week of him complaining that everyone else was driving to aggressive.

Tony: Grow up.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • John February 19, 2006, 7:07 pm

    This is Justin upset, when Tony screwed his chances of winning. But I do agree, Tony was a major jerk. That is specifically why I did not pick him. I know he is an incredible driver, but the way he goes about things are inconsiderate. I don't like inconsiderate people. I feel ya Justin, next week should be better. I just hope you aren't racing NINJOR!

  • John February 23, 2006, 6:08 am

    I have to admit, when I read your post title on your RSS feed, I envisioned you making computer noises (like beeps and stuff). Then I imagined you moving around like a robot. I don't know why, but it was funny. I was excited to see my dreams come true but when I got here, I was disappointed. Oh well 🙂

  • Nikki February 23, 2006, 6:59 am

    Justin is much more than a robot….unless he's just really good at fooling us.

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