staff blogs

distributed.net staff keep (relatively) up-to-date logs of their activities in .plan files. These were traditionally available via finger, but we've put them on the web for easier consumption.

2005-09-14

nugget [14-Sep-2005 @ 16:08]

Filed under: Uncategorized @ 16:08 +00:00

:: 14-Sep-2005 16:08 GMT (Wednesday) ::

A moment of silence for oldnodezero…

859 days ago (check my .plan) the UPS sitting behind our server
oldnodezero.distributed.net exploded in an exciting boom described even
today as “the great UPS cataclysm” by visi.com staff. The UPS explosion
dashed the spiffy 761 day uptime on the server.

Today the box finally died, setting a new record 859 day uptime. Attempts
to resuscitate the box have not been successful. It died with page fault
warnings on the console and now it won’t even POST. ODD is going to swing
by visi.com tomorrow to pick up the carcass and ship it down here to Austin
for forensics.

It really says a lot about a colo facility when they can provide that kind
of stability though. Visi has been babysitting this box since we put it
into production in 1998. It’s the first piece of hardware that we ever
bought for distributed.net and it’s been in productive use ever since.

It’s an AT case. Pre-ATX. An AMD K6 with a gigantic 8GB IDE hard drive.
Garage-built consumer junk, but it sure did hold up well. We’ll be
replacing it with a more modern 1U rackmount machine soon. In the
meantime though, we’re down to just the single server for dns and web.

Thanks again to visi.com who have consistently provided peerless colo
services. I’m sure if we manage to beat 859 days this time around, the
eventual failure will again be something beyond their control.