ARLIER THIS month the server running Techrights got migrated and upgraded (from Linux techrights.org 2.6.18-308.el5xen #1 SMP Tue Feb 21 20:47:10 EST 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux with 2 cores on CentOS release 5.9 (Final) to Linux techrights.org 2.6.32-358.el6.x86_64 #1 SMP Fri Feb 22 00:31:26 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux with 4 cores on CentOS release 6.4 (Final)). Thanks go to Copilotco for providing hosting space and kind support. Here is a look at some of the work involved in this whole process. It can be subdivided into a bunch of tasks as follows:

• Setting up the backup cron job, among other jobs. For the standard user/s this involves just nightly backups of all databases overnight, at around 8 PM East Coast time (the physical server is based in California). For root, the story is a little different. Monitoring is run with E-mail alerts (in addition to third-party services which poll over HTTP and dispatch warnings in Web/E-mail form). Someone wrote a script for automatically restarting Apache and sending some diagnostics around multiple maintainers if the service seems to be malfunctioning. I wonder, however, if we need this to run on the new server by default, considering the fact we might have uptime/continuity of service for months as we did years ago. This used to be run as a cron job, in a line which contains */5 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/web-watch. We will be saving it in the home directory before we decommission the old server and lose data. The scripts associated with the jobs have been copied and given the same permissions as before, so they should be usable. HTTPD restart script (in cron job with correct permissions in associated files) requires some cold testing, with additional cron jobs-related tests (requires lots of testing to prevent major catastrophe, e.g. .htaccess should not be (mis-)configured to permit access to privileged parts of the site (none except system files)).
• Needing to compare DB sizes to assure all data was migrated successfully (about 1.8 GB of text in the databases). This is tricky for a tool like diff to address. Given that the import yielded no warings and the database dump sizes are roughly right (with the newer, active database being slightly larger), this seems to be passing the sanity check. Readers were encouraged to report problems with the site, as well.
• Blocking wiki edits which are anonymous, i.e. from the new address of Varnish. There are Wiki spamming attempts ongoing, and as soon as new registrations and edits by them are allowed, the Wiki gets littered with spam. None of that has stopped.
• Merging of domains is work in progress. In Google, site:http://boycottnovell.com might start showing duplicates (w.r.t. Techrights.org) because access to the former domain does not result in the URL being overwritten/rewritten as Techrights.org. To prevent the search engines’ indexes from filling up for two separate domains, the old behaviour is preferred and should be restored. In short: Needing to check that all domains, two .com domains and the default .org domain, are all merged properly to give one single URL for each page, with no plurality (canonical form). Testing a lot of pages on different kinds of sites/domains, redirections included, e.g. boycottnovell.com/SOME-POST-PATH, helps provide reassurance here (for link integrity, i.e. no 404s, not just SEO-driven).
• Finding the master template for /etc/sudoers, wherever it resides. We need to add a line to sudoers to allow for faster restarting of the IRC bot/s.
• The statistics package we use (needed for security with 4-week retention, but locally-accessible only, for privacy reasons), a simple program called Visitors, has been recompiled for the new server and data passed to /root where scripts reside whose function is retained, having replicated Apache configurations and other settings that relate to them. Some testing is still required for some bots’ function, e.g. access via HTTP to localhost. The Varnish proxy complicates debugging.
• Checking of cache directories and plugins, ensuring that they work and aid performance. Pages should generally be loaded more quickly, owing in part to hardware improvements.
• IRC logs and access to them should be verified (5 years’ worth), along with access to directories through contents listing (blocked by default in some Apache configurations). Seeing errors through logs can help diagnose such issues.
• MIME types for filetypes such as Ogg should be checked, with different file extensions and in-page embedding being tested. A test of oggs seems mostly fine, at least for TechBytes episodes. On the old server (under /etc/mime.types), “video/ogg ogg ogv ogm” was used to capture variations of file extensions. The new server needed OGM added (cat /etc/mime.types | grep ogm showed it to be conspiciously missing).
• Mailing technical details to another privileged user, perhaps getting another public key on the server.
• Magpie RSS in the Wiki for fetching latest stories from WordPress. Currently, this does not work and it did prove problematic in the past, too.
• There are 4 directories of Patent Troll Tracker posts which need to be made inaccessible (chmod 000 for instance) as the author asked them to be made invisible (he got sued over it) before we made the mirror. This is needed for offline preservation (information about notorious patent trolls).
• Needing to recheck root directories for similarities, ensuring nothing valuable is left behind on the decommissioned server. This can be achieved most simply using a count of files in several locations, checking space used in areas of importance.
• Directory listings, e.g. listing of court exhibits, should be enabled despite the default paranoid setting in Apache. Alternative domain names will inherit those same rules if properly set up.
• Resorting a regular remote backup routine, e.g. through the gateway or from server directly to desktop (in the UK), in addition to backups near the rack.

ALLERY (see Wikipedia for background) was first installed in this Web site about 8 years ago. That was version 1. I installed version 2 a few years later (for security reasons and general exploration), but did not delve deep into it. It is still installed, but I chmoded it to 700. Recently, shortly after our wedding, I started experimenting with version 3, which is also known as Gallery3 (because the name “Gallery” is very generic, non-unique). Despite is being barebones by default, with additional modules it is highly extensible/configurable and I have added many modules that can be seen in the live site. For me, Gallery3 seems to be the best FOSS Web-based photo album software bar none. It is far better than Facebook’s proprietary ‘cloud’-based option, which I installed Gallery3 to replace (the wife was quitting Facebook for image hosting). I did experiment with some other options, but these were less well-suited. For those who may be curious (or those wanting to replicate some functionality), the latest Gallery3 album uses a slightly modified (by me) Clean Canvas Theme. along with the following modules (configured appropriately):

• AddThis
• Akismet
• Album Carousel
• Album Tree
• Carousel
• DownloadAlbum
• Exif Data
• Gallery Stats
• Image Block
• Local print
• Notification
• Search
• Slideshow
• Social Share
• Tags

A few more modules are installed by default and additional languages got installed manually.

People should increasingly self-host their photos. The opposite trend is worrisome as there is no guarantee of albums preservation; it’s hinged on somebody else’s business model. Go to the Gallery Web site and learn how to reclaim your photos. It is a long-term investment of time and effort.

he following show covers many of the key issues people must be aware of if they ever wish to know what caused the fiscal crisis, which is actually a passage of wealth from the poor and the middle class to those who cheat the system, and are typically already highly affluent. This audiocast is not a time waster.

Here is some background on William K. Black.

fter months explaining my case to Virgin Trains [1, 2] because they made a booking mistake they finally compensated me for their error and also issued compensation in the form of a coupon for all the trouble. It does not make up for all the time wasted, but it does at least prove that I was right all along and justice was served as a matter of principle.

s we have seen here before, when BT messes things up, it messes up royally [1, 2, 3]. Yesterday was another reminder of this. At 9AM, without any warning or notification, the connection went down, apparently affecting entire large areas in Manchester and perhaps Bolton. The helpline which is only ‘manned’ by a recorded message preferred to draw attention to some Yahoo! (E-mail access) problem and there was no estimated time for return of service (for those who may resort to contingencies). The less advertised number through which one can speak to an actual person later contradicted the automated messages, which preferred to pretend the connection problems were over long before these were over (the connection was said to have been resorted at 3PM). The actual person whom I eventually spoke to (based on India) was very kind, but he used the same strategy of emphasising that the phone line is fine (while knowing perfectly well that the problem is the Internet connection, not the landline). It was very hard to actually ‘squeeze out’ information and empty reassurances from the rep I spoke to. Why not be honest and forthcoming? BT was seemingly reluctant to even acknowledge that this was a large-scale failure at its end. Does reputation or the customer come first?

Eventually, 14 hours after the disruption had occurred, the connectivity was suddenly restored, no sooner than 11PM. So en entire day from morning to night was essentially without Internet and with very unreliable estimates of recovery time (if any estimates at all).

Now good, BT, not good…Many people’s job these days depend on the Internet. If you cannot provide an Internet connection for an entire day, then please at least provide reasonable status messages and estimates for restoration of service. If one expects the connection to be down for so long, a dongle or another PC (elsewhere) can be approached and used.

arlier on in the day, Wikileaks’ official account echoed my tweet to over a million followers, which is rare (I have posted over 50,000 tweets and never was I mentioned by Wikileaks). For whatever reason, people still associate Wikileaks with crime, even though its only connection to crime is that it helps expose crime. In this world and in this strange age of oppression, exposing crime is criminal if the criminals are very rich. If they are poor people who commit petty crimes, nobody seems to care — neither about them nor those who expose them.

Whether people realise it or not, there is a coordinated campaign to slander Wikileaks and put down those who support it. Evidence was leaked that millions of dollar were going to be invested in the defamation of Wikileaks simply because ad hominem attacks are the last resort for those whom Wikileaks exposes, e.g. Bank of America.

To a certain degree, Wikileaks has been de-funded and driven ‘underground’. Its founder is treated like a criminal even though he is not and the organisation is being deprived of donations. Is this justice?

Some people would hastily state that leaking is a crime, but actually, most crimes are exposed and the criminals caught after a sort of leak — either by the police or a member of the public (civilian). The difference is, Wikileaks exposes some bigwigs who can afford PR operations that falsely characterise Wikileaks as the problem. It’s a deflection tactic. They actually do use those tactics a lot (look up “HBGary”).

In some sense, Wikileaks suffers a similar reputation problem to that of the British public, whose gripes are collectively referred to as “vandalism” and “looting” as it helps trivialisse real grievances. At Wikileaks, praises and awards are received when they expose criminality in rogue African nations, but when the same type of scrutiny is applied to people in the West, suddenly Wikileaks is an “evil plot” that must be shut down. In the UK, when millionaires that include MPs steal from the public, it’s alright, but when misguided individuals steal smaller amounts of money/assets, then it’s a punishable crime that warrants expanding the police’s scale and powers. In both cases, the allegation that the police serves rich people (oppresses the poor and protects the rich) is only further validated. To an extent, the same applies to the court systems, which are themselves run and managed by rich people. See what Julian Assange is being subjected to.

Wikileaks — unlike looters — can be defended without risk of being associated with criminality. The only ‘crime’ of Wikileaks is that it exposes criminals. By doing so, it removes uncivilised people from society. Some leave in disgrace.

Speaking for myself, as someone who wrote about corporate crime over at Techrights, I sure empathise with Wikileaks. It is common for those who expose criminals to be portrayed as criminals and in some cases “poisonous” (a projection from the accused).

hat happens when the network does not function or functions very poorly? What happens when the Internet is altogether down or goes on and off almost indefinitely/infinitely? The problem need not apply to the Internet connection as a whole; it might for example be a DNS server, a particular Web site which is necessary to access, a server at work, or even a message/call which is anticipated. When there is no estimated time for service restoration one can just assume that normality will resume shortly. Only in retrospect can one decide that it would have been better to just walk away and do something else (even offline) until the problems are resolved for good.

Before going any further, it is worth naming the motivation for this post. Yes, it’s BT again. All morning so far their service has been awful; sometimes the connection goes down altogether, requiring reconnection to SSH servers (which takes a lot of time). It also leads to gaps in IRC logging, makes Web surfing a real nightmare, and so on. Connection persistence is crucial here. The rest of the time there seems to be a capacity issue, so any bandwidth-heavy process is out of the question. To be fair to BT, for the past couple of months their service has been perfect, after a rather rocky first month (weekly unscheduled hangups) and many problems with setup (explained in length in this blog).

In any event, the point worth making is that in many circumstances in life there arises a dilemma where one must decide whether to walk away from the temporary problems early on (when they first occur) or wait patiently for a while and if so, how long for. The correct thing to do — if there is at all such a thing as “correct” in this context — very much depends on the knowns and unknowns; it may also rely on communication with people who are more familiar with the problems encountered (e.g. those in the back rooms). The network of people can better assess whether to plan for a contingency offline or just carry on waiting. This is why it’s a sort of network uncertainty problem. There is never a solid solution to it and the hours lost due to downtime can only ever be minimised by becoming better informed and also preparing alternative activities to pass time (I escaped the bad connection to write this post from the City Centre).