Fun with Zope and Linux
I had dedicated my dual-P2 server (Cosmic) to running Mandrake Linux 8.2 and Zope to serve out this site and my family's site. Unfortunately, I think I installed too much of the software included with Mandrake, or created a problem by changing the default system runlevel down to 3. The system started locking up routinely with kernel panics. Read on to find out how I got the site back up...
One of the things I like about Zope is its import/export functionality. I have pumped about one hundred 800KB pics into my family site, and with all the cached, resized views of them, the site had grown to about 90GB. Luckily, I had started exporting that site and this one to local files on the server to back them up.
When the server went belly-up for the second time yesterday, I booted it into rescue mode and ftp'ed the exports to my Windows XP box (Maestro). After a quick install of Zope, Squishdot, and Photo, I imported the sites and set a few permissions, and they were back online.
Cosmic has had its system hard drive low-level formatted is now waiting to be rebuilt. I think I'm going to simplify its hardware config (pulling out the video capture card and extra sound card) and not boot into X by default. I've never had these sorts of problems with Linux before, but this was my first install of ML 8.2 and the first time I used ext3 filesystems.
The other thing I had changed recently was that I used a Zope2 shell script I had found on the Internet to startup/shutdown the Zope service automatically. It didn't seem to be working right. I'm going to make sure this is working before I transfer the site back to Cosmic.
Getting your sites back online is definitely a priority when Grandma wants to see pictures of her grandson!!!