Server EOL
Posted: Sat Aug 10, 2024 4:15 pm
We have been hosted on a CentOS based server that I have run since 2006, and I believe I took over the hosting of these forums somewhere around there (it may have been as late as 2009, but I do believe it was 06/07 ish without looking to check). CentOS has been deprecated by RedHat in favor of commercial solutions. Though the open source community does offer a fork, my hosting currently does not have a simple migration path (read: pay hourly rather than built in cost).
As a result, I am going to take this opportunity to change several things about the way I have structured this side of my working life for many years. I could move us to a cheap hosted slot somewhere in cloud hosting, but you would notice it would take a while to spin up when nobody has visited for a while, it would be sluggish overall, I would have to jettison the older hosted files (most aren't linked anyway, but many were restored in various efforts over the years) as the hosted files are currently about 5GB for what still works, but 20GB overall once you included music and the legacy phpbb 2.x file database.
The biggest issue which is transparent to most of you is that the bandwidth used by random https hits, bots and spammers exceeds any of the cheap affordable slots. Combine that with the size of the hosted files and music and it's still worth it to keep this on my larger server--which is moving.
If you notice downtime (even if it last weeks or longer, as I'm assessing several longterm plans) rest assured PlanetZ will not be gone, simply in the process of a migration to a new server for us all to inhabit.
As a result, I am going to take this opportunity to change several things about the way I have structured this side of my working life for many years. I could move us to a cheap hosted slot somewhere in cloud hosting, but you would notice it would take a while to spin up when nobody has visited for a while, it would be sluggish overall, I would have to jettison the older hosted files (most aren't linked anyway, but many were restored in various efforts over the years) as the hosted files are currently about 5GB for what still works, but 20GB overall once you included music and the legacy phpbb 2.x file database.
The biggest issue which is transparent to most of you is that the bandwidth used by random https hits, bots and spammers exceeds any of the cheap affordable slots. Combine that with the size of the hosted files and music and it's still worth it to keep this on my larger server--which is moving.
If you notice downtime (even if it last weeks or longer, as I'm assessing several longterm plans) rest assured PlanetZ will not be gone, simply in the process of a migration to a new server for us all to inhabit.
