... aaaand breakthrough!

Finally had time and figured a way to build Docker images containing proper Apache2::Cookie and other dependencies and restoring the session handling to use the newer frameworks. Working through site by site based on the container image now; we should be back up and running just fine within the next 48 hours.

3 busy weeks

Well, life has caught up with me and no progress here the last two-three weeks. My apologies. Work resumes after hours this week and hopefully I'll get some good progress.

Upgrade mayhem

Since the OS on the server was getting a little long in the tooth, I finally went for an upgrade this weekend as I was physically close to the server to be able to rescue it should something make it not get through by a remote connection only. The OS upgrade went smoothly with hardly any downtime at all - very impressive and miles and miles above and beyond anything I've seen using Windows so far. But I digress...

The short version (and why you're seeing this blog rather than what you were looking for) is that the quick fix I went with as described in the Dec 20, 2016 post below came back to bite me. And in a worse way from before as it turns out. More on the technical details for that below should you feel interested. In short, the problem is still the same; the framework I use for handling sessions (logging in and so on) is not supported in the newer versions of the web server framework I'm using. Given that the code using this has been largely untouched since I wrote it almost 20 years ago I won't complain too much. I will however finally need to spend some time on learning the new frameworks, picking one and rewriting the old code to use the newer frameworks so we get session handling functional again. In the meantime, I'll get the volleyball sites back up and running - since they're using "secret links" to register participation, they are not as dependent on the session handling. For the other sites though, you may have to wait until I have taken the time to learn the framework and rewrite the code.

Now on to the gory technical details: The session handling code is tied to a version of the framework that came with an ancient version of Apache 1 (well, closer to 20 years ago now). It doesn't work with the newer versions (Apache 2+) and needs to be rewritten. The upgrade of the OS meant also upgrading to a brand new version of Docker, which apparently is incompatible with the previous version. So I had to remove and rebuild the images before they could be run in the new Docker containers again. This then also took out the quickfix of copying OS-level libraries for the old sites. But redoing this quick fix didn't work this time; I suspect this is problem connected to that the debian Docker image I had been using as baseline for the quick fix has been upgraded also since then, introducing hardening Linux that prevents these "rougue binaries" from running.

So the plan now is to run the sites in a normal Apache2 Docker container. I got the sites running after taking out the old frameworks for handling sessions, but that then also took out the ability to sign in. So I'll get the sites back up without the session handling, rewriting the session handling and then we should be back in business. I can't give a timeframe for this yet but I am feeling the pain too and hopefully won't be too long...  Thanks for your patience!

Step by step

Happy New Year! The holidays were busy, and I caught the flu for the last part of it. Thus not as much progress as I would have hoped. However, many sites are back up and running. Some of them are dependent on code not compatible with Apache2 and/or 64-bit OS, so those are running in a compatible mode for now until I get time to rewrite the authentication code and otherwise bring them up to the latest frameworks.

Let me know if there's a site you are missing or if there's code/data/functionality lacking for you, and then I may prioritize further progress accordingly. Thanks for your patience. :)

Some progress

With no luck trying to resurrect the server, I pulled the disks out and put them into an external cabinet with a USB3 interface. Plugged it into my Windows computer, which didn't know what to do with it. Luckily, I had Ubuntu running in a virtual machine on it, and it immediately mounted each partition so I could get to the data.

So, now all the data (and code) is transferred to the new server, and using Docker I will get site by site up again - load the data into a database, and start each site in its own container. Running into some snafu around session handling vs. new code, which makes the libraries on the old server show their age and lack of maintenance. I was able to get some sites running by "faking it" by simply running the old code and their old libraries as well in the Docker container, but that is not terribly future-proof... So some of the sites will require some change in the session handling code to get up to speed with current libraries, others may not. For now I'll likely be too busy until after Christmas Eve before I can get to the next few sites, but hang tight - we'll get there. :)

Mayday, Mayday, server down

There it is - when restarting the server this morning, the status lights just gave small flashes while something in the computer gave out small ticking sounds / no fan or anything else happened. It's been just over 10 years, and now the motherboard on this server has gone toast too. Tearing apart, cleaning it and putting it back together did no good.

I already have a new server in place and have migrated many things over there. However, not the site you we looking for, yet, since it redirects to this blog entry rather than the actual site. Luckily, it's Christmas, so hopefully I'll have some time to get it done. The plan forward is to

1. Pick the disks out of the cabinet
2. Find some hardware I can use to get to the data off of them
3. Spin up MySQL and PostgreSQL to hopefully dig the data off their databases, to be transferred to the new host
4. Transfer code and the rest
5. Set up the remaining sites one by one

To be continued...  Merry Christmas, everybody!

All sites up!

Everything should be back in order now. If not, send me an email and let me know. Enjoy...