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Title: New Web Server (2016)
Author: bnewbold
Date: 2016-05-01
Tags: tech
For the past 9 years or so ([February 2007][0] through April 2016), this
website has run reliably despite being a weird machine: a custom prototype web
application for archiving and sharing digital "artifacts" of all sorts. I
remember a bold and sparkling afternoon at a coffee house in Santa Cruz
agonizing over URL structure and refining categories to collect all the
material that would (aspirationally) accumulate here over my adult life. All
things considered I think this effort wasn't wasted: I have indeed collected
wiki notes, photos, images (distinct!), short links, one-off pages, and longer
form writing over the years. My enthusiasm for maintaining and interfacing with
idiosyncratic administrative and upload panels, however, declined rapidly.
Neither the source code web interface nor the git-backed wiki were ever
completed or used. I gave up on spam moderating the comment system pretty
quickly, never actually posted any blog entries, and only ever pecked in a
couple dozen web links and tweet-like microposts. Even the photo gallery system
became too much of a time sink to deal with after traveling. Over the years I
deployed [gitweb][] and [gitit][], and after RSS starting going out of favor I
even started using [tumblr][1] for random content posts. I was still using the
Django admin panel's "flatpages" plugin to update my contact info and project
pages right up through this spring though.
[gitweb]: https://git-scm.com/docs/gitweb
[gitit]: http://gitit.net/
[0]: https://git.bnewbold.net/bnewnet/commit/?id=5b31039d4c581048959dc51436f6918f29fbf9ea
[1]: http://journal.bnewbold.net/
While it's been amazing how simple and low maintenance running everything
(email, repositories, website, etc) has been, the thrill of being on an old and
unmaintained release of GNU/Linux (Ubuntu 10.04) has worn off, and I'm cleaning
house. This website (`bnewbold.net`) is now a simple statically generated
([pelican][]) site. I've kept `gitit`, but moved to `gitolite` (one of my
favorite pieces of software) and `cgit` for repository hosting. The server runs
Debian stable (`jessie` to start with), and SSL/TLS certificates come gratis
via the Let's Encrypt project, for which I'm very grateful. I've stuck with
[linode][] hosting for this server, though [digital ocean][] is comparable and
cheaper for setups with fewer photos and large files. Many of these components
are deployed in an automated fashion using the `ansible` deployment tool; you
could fork and edit my [infrastructure scripts][infra] to set up those
components in minutes if you like (though it would probably take an afternoon
or longer if you've never done something like this before). Not everything is
settled yet: I haven't moved email, and I'm not sure if I'll stick with
[mediagoblin][] for photo hosting.
[pelican]: http://blog.getpelican.com/
[linode]: https://www.linode.com
[digial ocean]: https://digitalocean.com
[infra]: http://git.bnewbold.net/infra/
[mediagoblin]: http://mediagoblin.org
<br />
<center>
<div class="centerize" style="font-size: smaller;">
<a href="http://bnewbold.net/photos/detail/529/">
<img src="http://media.bnewbold.net/hosted-photos/cache/2008/02/08/IMG_7232.JPG" />
</a>
<br />
An adelie penguin (the tiny black spot) wandering off alone over the Ross Sea
ice shelf
</div>
</center>
<br />
The name of my old server is `adelie` (named after a small species of penguin
that [I saw a lot of][4] in Antarctica), and it's days are limited. Though the
[`hier`][5] (filesystem layout) of most of my systems are almost identical, I'm
particularly comfortable on this one. It's seen me through a lot, more than any
other computer system, and I'll probably miss it in a weird way.
[4]: http://bnewbold.net/photos/detail/527/
[5]: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/hier.7.html
The new server is `adze`; here's hoping it lives even longer!
<br />
_**Note:** As initially posted this was just a stub; I re-wrote it in June
2016_
|
