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now and up to sync, so happy downloading!</p></description>
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<title>Sotirov-BG.Net News</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/</link>
<description>News from Sotirov-BG.Net</description>
<language>en</language>
<copyright>Copyright (c) 2004-2023 Georgi D. Sotirov</copyright>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2022 18:36:36 GMT</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2022 18:46:25 +0000</lastBuildDate>
<managingEditor>gdsotirov@gmail.com (Georgi D.
Sotirov)</managingEditor>
<webMaster>gdsotirov@gmail.com (Georgi D. Sotirov)</webMaster>
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<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/</link>
</image>
<item>
<title>Upgrade to Slackware 15.0</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=38</link>
<description><p>Last Friday (11/02) the server was upgraded to
<a
href="http://www.slackware.com/announce/15.0.php">Slackware 15.0</a>.
The
upgrade of the system itself took about an hour, but it was necessary to
re-configure and fix problems with many services. It was also necessary to
upgrade to <a
href="https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html">MySQL
8.0</a>, because MySQL 5.7 would simply not start (as <a
href="https://slackpack.eu/search.cgi?q=%22mysql%22&lo=1">existing
packages</a>
are build for older Slackware versions with old libraries). Due to strange
error (manifesting itself as <code>ListUtil.c: loadable library and perl
binaries are mismatched (got handshake key 0xdb00080, needed
0xeb00080)</code>
when <code>perl</code> or <code>cpan</code> commands are run),
all Perl modules
had to be reinstalled. In addition to this there was also a boot
problem.</p>
<p>Thus the server was completely or partially inaccessible from about
2022-02-11 17:50 <abbr title="Eastern European Time">EEST</abbr> to
2022-02-12
03:00 <abbr title="Eastern European Time">EEST</abbr>, but on the
next day and
the day after more problems with public and private services were tackled.
Some
more problems with hosted applications and sites were fixed as well.</p>
<p>Both Slackware 15.0 and MySQL 8.0 were much needed upgrades and I'm
happy
to be running both now.</p></description>
<author>ibeleva@nbu.bg (Ivelina Beleva-Sotirova)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=38</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 13 Feb 2022 18:36:36 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Disk replacement (affecting mirrors)</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=37</link>
<description><p>Just about an hour ago finished the replacement of
a potentially
failing disk drive on the server. Unfortunately, this affected the
<a href="/#content">mirrors</a>, because their partition was on the
drive without a backup. So mirrors were unavailable between about
2021-09-27 20:06 <abbr title="Eastern European Summer
Time">EEST</abbr>
and about 2021-09-28 05:41 <abbr title="Eastern European Summer
Time">EEST</abbr>.
Sorry for that, but the replacement was necessary to prevent the
consequences of imminent drive failure.</p>
<p>The new drive is 4 times the size of the previous one, so eventually
more mirrors and/or other content may come soon. The mirrors of <a
href="https://www.gnu.org/"><abbr title="GNU's Not
Unix">GNU</abbr></a>
and <a href="http://www.slackware.com/">Slackware</a> are available
again
now and up to sync, so happy downloading!</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=37</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Sep 2021 03:35:19 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Improved web sites security</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=36</link>
<description><p>I was considering dropping support for <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security">
<abbr title="Transport Layer Security">TLS</abbr></a> v1.0
and v1.1 protocols for <a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/index.en#content">the hosted web sites</a>
since 2016, when it was suggested, but I was still seeing such
clients in the logs (and unfortunately I still do even today).
I was thus reluctant, because such clients would NOT be able to
access the sites anymore. However, we are 2021 now and there are
no excuses for using too old and insecure clients (i.e. browsers).</p>
<p>Therefore, since about 12:00 <abbr
title="Universal Time Coordinated">UTC</abbr> today the hosted
sites are no longer supporting TLS v1.0 and v1.1 clients. I also
disabled weaker ciphers like <abbr title="Cipher Block
Chaining">CBC</abbr>.
This effectively cuts the following browsers as <a
href="https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=sotirov-bg.net">SSL
Labs' report</a> shows:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.android.com/">Android</a> 4.3 and
earlier;</li>
<li><a
href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/internet-explorer.aspx">In
ternet
Explorer</a> 10 and earlier;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.oracle.com/java/">Java</a> 7 and
earlier;</li>
<li><a href="https://www.apple.com/safari/">Safari</a> 8 and
earlier.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you are still using any of these apart from testing purposes
in isolated environments (like me), then too bad for you. It is
really time to upgrade!</p>
<p>This is considered a necessary step for improving web sites
security and something that perhaps should have been done earlier.
The changes were done following <a
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS">Mozilla's
Server Side TLS recommendations</a>. It is not possible to enable
TLS v1.3 for now, because this requires <a
href="https://www.openssl.org/">OpenSSL</a> 1.1.1 or later, which
would become available with <a
href="http://slackware.com/">Slackware</a> 15.0 hopefully later
this year.</p>
<p>Happy surfing and stay safe!</p>
<p><strong>Update 2021-01-26</strong>: Apparently, <abbr
title="National Security Agency">NSA</abbr>&nbsp;<a
href="https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/01/21/1646211/nsa-urges-system-adm
inistrators-to-replace-obsolete-tls-protocols">urged</a>
for the same just three days ago :-)</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=36</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 23 Jan 2021 13:19:59 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Internet connection upgrade</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=35</link>
<description><p>Today, I finally managed to upgrade the Internet
connection.
The server is now connected through a high speed <abbr
title="Gigabit Passive Optical Network">GPON</abbr> network
provided by <a href="https://www.vivacom.bg/bg">Vivacom</a> with
maximum (unwarranted) upload speed of 300 <abbr
title="Megabits per second">Mb/s</abbr> from the whole world.
This is three times higher than the previous capacity and seems
more relevant nowadays. The new connection should make the access
to my content and the mirrors faster and more reliable.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, due to change of the service, I had to change also
the <abbr title="Internet Protocol">IP</abbr> address (it is now
46.10.161.161), which caused some unexpected unavailability, but
for not more than 5-10 minutes as the <abbr
title="Domain Name System">DNS</abbr> servers updated quickly.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=35</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 03 Nov 2020 21:31:18 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Server replacement</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=34</link>
<description><p class="img_left"><a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/news/img/new_server">
<img alt="New server picture"
src="https://sotirov-bg.net/news/img/new_server" width="250" title="New
server" />
</a></p>
<p>Today, between 18:40 and 20:00 <abbr title="Eastern European
Summer Time">EEST</abbr>
the server was not accessible, because I was finally able to move the
system
to the new machine (<a
href="https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/povw/poweredge-r340">Dell
PowerEdge R340</a>). The operation took so long, because I wanted to
copy
the bootable <abbr title="Solid State Drive">SSD</abbr> disk to the
new drive
that came with the server, but I was not able to install it - a special
bracket is required to fit 2.5'' <abbr title="Solid State
Drive">SSD</abbr>s
into Dell's 14<sup>th</sup> generation 3.5'' carriers.</p>
<p>After I moved all the drives I got myself into cabling, which took me
some
more time although my new rack is well organized. I first chose patch
cables
with the wrong length and then I had to reorganize some existing cables, so
I could fit around the new ones.</p>
<p>The first boot was smooth as expected with the default kernel, but I
forgot
to comment out the persistent interface rules of udev for the network
adapters
of the previous machine, so the server was without network. After fixing it
I
decided to reboot once again to test that everything would get up
properly.</p>
<p>I had to tune several other things after the server was up, but
nothing
that would disrupt its normal work. The server is now ready to serve its
purpose.</p>
<p>Cheers!</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=34</guid>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Jun 2020 20:50:44 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Downtime for equipment movement</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=33</link>
<description><p class="img_left"><a
href="https://sotirov-bg.net/news/img/new_rack">
<img alt="New rack picture"
src="https://sotirov-bg.net/news/img/new_rack" width="250" title="New
rack" />
</a></p>
<p>Today between 10:40 <abbr title="Eastern European Summer
Time">EEST</abbr>
and 11:40 <abbr title="Eastern European Summer Time">EEST</abbr> the
server
was unavailable as I was moving my equipment to a new server rack. I could
have done this faster and in future I plan less downtime, but the important
thing is that now all my equipment except the server itself is into the
rack.
I'm now waiting for the new server to arrive in about 10 days, so I could
move the current tower server into the rack.</p>
<p>Earlier this year I noticed that the server is shutting down even
though
the <abbr title="Uninterruptible Power Supply">UPS</abbr> still has
power to
support it. So, three weeks ago I changed the batteries, but as everything
is
connected to it, currently the expected runtime is about 40 minutes at
best.
However, I had some troubles with the power recently and in one of the
cases
there was no line power for about 2 hours (due to accident). I'm now
considering increasing the runtime of my systems on batters or in other
words
buying a new and more powerful <abbr title="Uninterruptible Power
Supply">UPS</abbr>.
I'll need more than one to sustain my two servers and network devices for
at
least 2 hours that is the power interruption I could expect from time to
time.</p>
<p>Cheers until I have better news!</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=33</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 30 May 2020 17:52:46 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Memory upgrade</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=32</link>
<description><p>An hour ago I upgraded the memory of the server to
16 <abbr
title="Giga Bytes">GB</abbr>. And the server was not accessible for
half an hour between 19:30 and 20:00 <abbr title="Eastern European
Summer Time">EEST</abbr>,
because I accidentally loose the <abbr title="Serial AT
Attachment">SATA</abbr>
connector of one of the hard drives :-(</p>
<p>After I added a new 8 <abbr title="Giga Bytes">GB</abbr>
<abbr
title="Double Data Rate">DDR</abbr>3 module the server started normally.
I thought everything is OK and left it, but then I tried to connect
and wasn't able. So, I went back to check the server and on the
console there were many <abbr title="Fourth extended
filesystem">EXT4</abbr>
error messages. I had to stop the machine again, check the devices in
<abbr title="Basic Input/Output System">BIOS</abbr>. Since one of the
hard drives was missing I immediately checked the connectors and solved
the problem.</p>
<p>I should have done this upgrade long ago, but until recently I
though the memory is enough for all the services running. Anyway,
the server has enough memory now.</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=32</guid>
<pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2020 17:29:55 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Inaccessibility due to router replacement</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=31</link>
<description><p>Today between 12:30 <a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/eet">
<abbr title="Eastern European Time">EET</abbr></a> and 14:30 <a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/eet"><abbr
title="Eastern European Time">EET</abbr></a> the server was not
accessible
due to router replacement and change of <abbr title="Internet
Protocol">IP</abbr>
addresses. Although, the replacement was planned and prepared previously,
some
unforeseen circumstances occurred with the configuration of the device
itself
as well as with the server.</p>
<p>The expected change with the replacement is better network
performance for
the increasing outer and inner traffic.</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=31</guid>
<pubDate>Sun, 17 Dec 2017 20:10:15 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Downtime for disk replace</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=30</link>
<description><p>Last night while <a hreflang="bg"
href="https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B5%
D0%BD%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8_%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B8%
D0%BA_(%D0%91%D1%8A%D0%BB%D0%B3%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F)">all
students were celebrating</a>, I spent replacing a failing <a
href="https://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/64gb-ssd-830-series
">Samsung
830</a>&nbsp;<abbr title="Solid State Drive">SSD</abbr> on the
server.
The disk was so rotten that it's copy with <code>dd</code> took about
5 hours,
which is why the server was offline somewhere between 2017-12-08 22:00
<a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/eet"><abbr
title="Eastern European Time">EET</abbr></a> and 2017-12-09 05:00
<a
href="https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/eet"><abbr
title="Eastern European Time">EET</abbr></a>. The disk started
failing in
beginning of September, but recently the number of reallocated sectors
become
extremely high and I started detecting bad sectors on some system files.
The
read performance had also dropped and during the copy it fell to 5 <abbr
title="Mega Bytes per second">MB/s</abbr> (!), which explains the fore
mentioned slow copy of just 64 <abbr title="Giga Bytes">GB</abbr>
between
the old and new <abbr title="Solid State Drive">SSD</abbr>. The disk
failed only after about 24 000 power on hours (i.e. about 2 years and 9
months),
which is rather strange, but maybe this is the normal life span of consumer
<abbr title="Solid State Drive">SSD</abbr>s?</p>
<p>Anyway, the drive is now replaced with a brand new <a
href="http://www.adata.com/us/feature/410">ADATA SU800</a>
128 <abbr title="Giga Bytes">GB</abbr>, which unfortunately is not
yet in
<code>smartctl</code> database (see <a
href="https://www.smartmontools.org/ticket/954">ticket 954</a>).
The server is back online and fully operational.</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=30</guid>
<pubDate>Sat, 09 Dec 2017 04:01:15 GMT</pubDate>
</item>
<item>
<title>Upgrade to Slackware 14.2</title>
<link>https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=29</link>
<description><p>Last Sunday (28/08) the server was upgraded to
<a href="http://www.slackware.com/">Slackware</a>
14.2, which itself passed flawlessly, but then there was a need for
re-install
of all the additionally used Perl modules and upgrade of some packages
(e.g. <a
href="http://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/search.cgi?name=openldap&amp;slac
k=142&amp;latestonly=1">OpenLDAP</a>,
<a
href="http://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/search.cgi?name=rrdtool&amp;sla
ck=142&amp;latestonly=1">RRDTool</a> and
<a
href="http://sotirov-bg.net/slackpack/search.cgi?name=freeradius&amp;
slack=142&amp;latestonly=1">FreeRadius</a>),
which I haven't upgraded/rebuilt yet.</p>
<p>Yesterday, evening the datbase server was also upgraded to MySQL
5.7.13, so
it now remains only to upgrade the kernel to a <abbr title="Long Term
Support">LTS</abbr>
version from 4.4 series.</p></description>
<author>gdsotirov@dir.bg (Georgi Sotirov)</author>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://sotirov-bg.net/news/?id=29</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2016 09:34:17 GMT</pubDate>
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