NetworkUsAll Journal

It’s happened. Well almost.
Supersonic performance.

The race to petaflop supercomputers is heating up, with the latest entry coming from NASA, Intel and SGI. The trio announced plans to build what will be a petaflop-capable supercomputer by next year, and up to 10 petaflops (define) by 2012.

Supercomputers have been in a constant game of oneupsmanship and bragging rights. The definitive list of the fastest supercomputers, called Top500, is released twice a year, and for the last few years, IBM (NYSE: IBM) has dominated with its Blue Gene/L supercomputer at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratories.

With each update to the list, the number of teraflops (define) goes up because no matter how much processing power you give these machines, there’s still more demand for them. These massive systems aren’t just doing one job at a time. They are rented out to other agencies or researchers who have a massive computing task they need done.
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See the whole story at http://www.internetnews.com/hardware/article.php/3745856.

Posted in: Business, Linux & Windows, networking, software by Julian Perry / Tags: Business, networking

2 Comments

So you have your linux server up and running. A lot of time and effort went into this so lets get it backed up. You don’t need to invest in any fancy backup system. A bit of shell script and some use of crontab will do the trick.

Here are the two scripts I use…

Email backup

Create an executable file e.g. mailserver_backup.sh containing the following

cd /
dt=`date +%Y%m%d_%s`
/bin/tar -czf mailserver_$dt.tar.gz etc/postfix etc/dovecot.conf usr/bin/null.sh usr/local/bin/safilter.sh usr/local/bin/backup_mailprogs.sh etc/mail/spamassassin home/mailfilt/.spamassassin var/spool/mail

Web backup

Create an executable file e.g. web_sql_backup.sh containing the following

cd /
dt=`date +%Y%m%d_%s`
rm -f mysqlall.sql
mysqldump -uroot -ppassword --all-databases > /mysqlall.sql
/bin/tar -czf mailserver_web_sql_$dt.tar.gz etc/httpd var/www/html mysqlall.sql usr/local/bin/backup_web_sql.sh

Now use crontab to schedule the running of the scripts…

crontab -e

and enter the following
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15	3	*	*	*	/usr/local/bin/mailserver_backup.sh
45	3	*	*	*	/usr/local/bin/web_sql_backup.sh

This will backup mail server apps at 3:15am and web backup at 3:45am.

I would also suggest you copy the backed up files to other media in case your server completely crumbles.

Posted in: Business, networking, server, software by Julian Perry / Tags: apps, backup, backup mail server, backup system, backup web, Business, databases, executable file, google, httpd, linux, linux server, mail web, networking, scripts, server, server apps, shell script, web backup, web sql

2 Comments

There are a huge range of email server products available.

I won’t beat around the bush, in my honest opinion, most Postfix based systems are by far the most practical and effective. The main reason for this is that Postfix is free and flexible.

A fantastic, sophisticated and clever email server software system is the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) Open Source Edition. When I first attempted to install it, things got sticky. The main issue for me was that it needs a DNS server present which needs to point to itself (internal IP address) for all domains you add to your Zimbra system.

When I eventually figured out how to install and configure BIND on my email server, everything started to flow.

Zimbra does complain here and there but, after your third or fourth install attempt you will find it works with very little extra effort. Go ahead and try it. Once you figure out the requirements, I promise you’ll be impressed.

Posted in: Business, email, networking, server, software by Julian Perry / Tags: bind, Business, dns, dns server, email, email server software, honest opinion, networking, open source edition, server, server products, software, software system, zimbra collaboration suite

7 Comments

My speciality is technical knowhow.

I host all my web sites at home on a pentium 4 based CentOS Linux server.
Built the server from scratch, installed CentOS4 (soon to be upgraded to CentOS5), configured (A)pache, (M)ySQL and (P)HP (Linux AMP or LAMP).
I installed WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Most of my sites use WordPress, I find Joomla too rigid in its structure and Drupal is overly complex. A CMS (Content Management System) should be capable of providing you with a quickly running system – Drupal takes too much planning. If you have a better experience of it then let me know.
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I also run my own postfix/dovecot email server. It’s quick but requires regular technical tweaks to keep the spam at bay but, I love it.
I built a ZIMBRA email server which was fun as it requires you to run your own DNS server. It all worked eventually but, I am short of spare hardware at the moment so will not be making full use of it until I need it. ZIMBRA email server is a full blown corporate email server system and handles spam very well. If you would like to know more then leave me a comment.

Posted in: Linux & Windows, email, server, software by Julian Perry / Tags: dovecot, email, linux, Postfix, server, software

4 Comments