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---++ DBG/400 Latest News

There have been a few changes since the last update which didn't make it here until now. The virtual machine this runs on was updated to Debian Squeeze earlier in the year.  [[http://www.virtualbox.org/][VirtualBox]] was upgraded to version 4 (currently 4.0.10) which is now much easier, as the OSE versions are now available as prebuilt binaries, including as .debs from their own repository. [[http://www.foswiki.org][Foswiki]] is now at version 1.1.3. 

The primary hard drive in my desktop machine failed a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately the only unrecoverable partition was /home, which was fully backed up thanks to [[http://backintime.le-web.org/][Back In Time]].

-- Main.MartinRowe - 12 Jul 2011

My ISP [[http://www.virginmedia.com][Virgin Media]] have finally delivered the increase in upload speed

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1074986294.png

-- Main.MartinRowe - 17 Dec 2010

Patched to the latest [[http://www.foswiki.org][Foswiki]] 1.1.2

-- Main.MartinRowe - 23 Nov 2010

[[http://www.foswiki.org][Foswiki]] has been patched to 1.1.1 and [[http://www.virtualbox.org/][VirtualBox]] is now at version 3.2.10.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 29 Oct 2010

Updated [[http://www.foswiki.org][Foswiki]] to 1.1.0. As this is a minor release, rather than just a patch upgrade, it requires a reinstall (easy) and then copy across the old content (also easy) followed by all the customisations (a bit more time consuming). For the time being I'll run this in parallel with the old site (at http://dbg400.homeip.net) so if you spot an odd behaviour please try it at the old site, and let me know if it is just broken here ;)

Finally got the replacement RAM (the delay was down to me rather than Crucial) and that seems to be working fine.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 07 Oct 2010

[[http://www.virtualbox.org/][VirtualBox]] updated to 3.2.4

-- Main.MartinRowe - 12 July 2010

Things were fine for a few days then started to get random freezes & crashes on the host server. Same happened with a Debian Live CD so the upgrade to Lucid didn't seem to be the issue. Tested the RAM again and the replacement modules I got two months back kicked out loads of errors. They (Crucial Ballistix) were in different slots to the first set, and the original Kingston RAM is still error free (as far as memtest86+ can determine) after extensive use in both pairs of slots. I can't see that the system could cause the failure so I'm left to assume I've either been very unlucky or that Crucial/Micron don't have particularly good QC checks :( Currently waiting for an RMA# to try again...

-- Main.MartinRowe - 10 May 2010

Host upgraded to [[http://www.ubuntu.com][Ubuntu 10.04 LTS]]. Took just over an hour including the downloads. Boot up time has certainly improved.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 01 May 2010

<nop>VirtualBox now at version 3.1.6.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 17 Apr 2010

The server has been running fine with no more problems - which is nice.

We did have a four hour or so internet outage this afternoon which just came back a few minutes ago.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 20 Mar 2010

The RAM was replaced under warranty and I gave that a three hour memory test to be on the safe side. No problems reported so the server is back up with its full complement of RAM.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 05 Mar 2010

After 16 hours of Memtest86+ the original RAM showed no errors, so the server is back up and running with just that. <nop>VirtualBox is back at 3.1.4 as the issues on the server & guest VM look to have been down to the faulty RAM. I still want to move the host server to Debian, but hopefully the server will be stable enough for the time being and I can do the upgrade at a more suitable time.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 21 Feb 2010

The server was becoming increasingly erratic, even failing when run from a CD. I took out the original RAM and ran Memtest86+ over the new RAM I bought last month. No errors after an hour but when checking again after five hours there were hundreds reported, clustered around a couple of locations. I'm now retesting the original RAM for longer to double-check that's good. I'm going to install Debian Lenny on the server, as I'd prefer that to be as solid & stable as possible. Just not [[http://www.bostonspabeerfestival.co.uk/][tomorrow]] :)

-- Main.MartinRowe - 19 Feb 2010

Well, it had been running smoothly for a fortnight so of course I decided to upgrade <nop>VirtualBox to 3.1.4 which came out at the weekend. Not good. The virtual machine has dropped out three times and taken the server with it twice :( Back on 3.1.2 for the time being.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 15 Feb 2010

RAM upgrade on the host server, bringing the host up to 8GB and this vm to 3.6GB. As the vm is still a 32bit Debian Lenny install it's not able to use memory beyond that. No recurrence of the page allocation failures since moving to the Realtek NIC so far. Before switching NICs the error cropped up within a day on 2.6.31, so I'm hopeful it's sorted.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 26 Jan 2010

Still more struggles with the server. It managed a week without the allocation errors, running on a 2.6.28 kernel, until I had a large amount of files to move from my desktop to the server over the gigabit link. The error happened again at the start of the transfer. After a reboot into the latest kernel I can trigger the error most times I do transfers, but it happens at other times too. I've now put in a Realtek gigabit card and will see how it goes with that. The errors don't seem to do much beyond expanding the log files, but that doesn't make them any less annoying.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 23 Jan 2010

[[http://foswiki.org/Download/WebHome][Foswiki 1.0.9]] is now available. This server has been running the release candidate (1.0.9rc2) for the last week and it's worked well.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 18 Jan 2010

I've updated the firmware on my router to the latest version of [[http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato][Jonathan Zarate's Tomato]] firmware plus [[http://touristinparadise.blogspot.com/2008/04/linksys-wrt54gl-routers-improving.html][Rodney Chua's SpeedMod]] patches. That seems to squeeze out the best performance from my Linksys <nop>WRT54GL:

<img alt="" src="http://www.speedtest.net/result/682571339.png" />

<nop>VirtualBox is at 3.1.2 but I just cannot get a stable host system with the 2.6.31* Karmic kernels. I also think setting the network adapter to use the virtual Intel PRO/1000 device causes instability too. There are no problems with a 2.6.31 kernel and <nop>VirtualBox on my backup server. That may be down to it being a 32bit host install - this is on a 64bit Athlon II machine - but I still can't pin down a cause.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 14 Jan 2010

Still getting the occasional page allocation error even with the old kernel from Jaunty. Updated [[http://www.virtualbox.org/][VirtualBox]] to 3.1.0 without any improvement, so trying again with 3.1.2.

-- Main.MartinRowe - 2 Jan 2010

---++ Previous years' news

[[NewsPage2009][2009 News]] [[NewsPage2008][2008 News]] [[NewsPage2007][2007 News]] [[NewsPage2006][2006 News]] [[NewsPage2005][2005 News]] Older news can be accessed from [[http://www.dbg400.net/oldnews.html][www.dbg400.net/oldnews.html]]
Topic revision: r84 - 12 Jul 2011 - 18:18:01 - MartinRowe
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