Server Update - New OS coming soon

[Blue]

Mon Oct 14, 2024 6:16 pm
The Operating System (OS) on which all of PPT runs is going to be end of life very soon.

I plan on upgrading it from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8 in the coming weeks. There may be some downtime during this process.

Of course, The PPT Forum site will be the primary focus to get working first

ETA: There is a LTS version that we have been able to use to continue as-is since the above original post.

However, it is becoming increasingly evident that we need to upgrade "everything". Ideally minimal downtime, but I have homework to do on this... Stay tuned.

December 2025...
Thanks to Extended Support, I have not needed to upgrade the server (yet).

2025 Dec 04: I am happy to say that I found multiple services that were not working properly on the server and fixed all of them yesterday, and also completely nuked the swap file that was causing serious memory and performance issues. I am expecting these changes and corrections to stop the increasing downtime of the site. So far, it does seem to be a little faster and a little more reliable. Fingers crossed!

ETA:
2025 Dec 8. No joy. Still seeing server issues. Not ideal. Ugh.

[Shoyru_Lover]

I mean.. one way to keep the nostalgia alive is to keep everything running on tech that is no longer supported? ;-)

[Blue]

I mean.. one way to keep the nostalgia alive is to keep everything running on tech that is no longer supported? ;-)

Very true. I would say that is easier... but the constant SQL errors/problems say otherwise. If the SQL errors vanished, the error logs would be tiny
That said, there will be definitely a learning curve/challenge to upgrade "everything" to work on the new server. PHP version will need to be... creatively installed to keep Pink Ink, Oekaki and others alive. This forum might also look... different, which is not desirable. The skin we use was depreciated at the next major revision... and there's been 3 of them. Oy.

[Shoyru_Lover]

I'm just amazed that the software in use is still "alive" on the Internet! I mean.. phpBB? Oekaki? Still up and running? What a time capsule!!

[Blue]

Indeed. I have done multiple workarounds to keep all of these sites alive. Upgrading may or may not put them at risk of much more work to keep them going...

That said, phpBB is alive and well. We are 3 generations behind. I have postponed the upgrades because they stopped support for our theme and I do not want to negatively impact the look and feel. That, and I have made some heavy modifications to the forums that may or may not survive an upgrade.

It would be awesome ff we can figure out how to prevent the SQL server from crashing every 15 minutes... I recently upgraded it as far as it can go on our system, but that did not seem to help all that much. It is slightly better, but I have yet to figure out the causes for the frequent crashes.

[Shoyru_Lover]

It would be awesome ff we can figure out how to prevent the SQL server from crashing every 15 minutes... I recently upgraded it as far as it can go on our system, but that did not seem to help all that much. It is slightly better, but I have yet to figure out the causes for the frequent crashes.

Let's go ahead and start a support ticket with the host.. see if they can run some diagnostics for us and give us some general guidance?