You find some cool piece of software, and you spend a week or so fiddling around with it, but then you decide you like it, and later decide to use it. Well, instead of scrapping everything you’ve been working with and starting over from scratch you just go ahead working with what you’ve got.

Sound familiar? If so, and your software of choice happens to be the DHCP service on OSX 10.5 Server, this post is definitely for you. I went through Server Admin and setup my subnets, static maps, and logging levels. The one thing I forgot to change was the Lease Time. I left it configured to issue leases for a week. No biggie for most folks (including myself) since you’re probably not going to be maxing out your leased IP’s anytime soon. But if you’re like me, it annoys you to have to wait for several leases to expire, and you see duplicate leases for devices in your clients table. Here’s a quick easy fix to clear out all the leases and start fresh (since the option isn’t available via Server Admin):

1. Stop the dhcp server either through Server Admin, or from aTerminal:

% sudo serveradmin stop dhcp

2. delete the file /var/db/dhcpd_leases. You will need root access. Terminal command:

% sudo rm -f /var/db/dhcpd_leases

3. Restart dhcp via server admin or from Terminal:

% sudo serveradmin start dhcp

A very simple Apple Script can be developed to do this (if you have recurring needs). Contact me if you would like it,

-Phenix

New Server Specs:

• 20″ Aluminum iMac
• 2.0 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 4GB DDR2 (667Mhz) RAM
• 250GB SATA HD
• Gigabit Ethernet
• 128 Mb ATI Radeon 2400HD Graphics
• 8Mb/s High Speed Cable Internet
• Sitting on a desk next to the kitchen!

If you don’t like the fact that I use an iMac for a web server send me money for an xserve!

If you don’t like the fact that that I hosts sites off of an 8Mb/s connection, send monet for OC3!

If you don’t like the fact that my server is on a desk next to my kitchen, send money for a Data Center!

-Phenix

<?php query_posts(’category_name=special_cat&showposts=10′); ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<!– Do special_cat stuff… –>

<?php endwhile; ?>

This isn’t just some thrown together code from a lonely developer, it’s the actual snippet from the official WP Codex. I however have never been able to get it to work. No matter what I substitute in for “category_name“, I get all posts. I normally just modify this a little and use:

<?php query_posts(’cat=cat_id&showposts=10′); ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<!– Do special_cat stuff… –>

<?php endwhile; ?>

Where “cat_id” is set to the numeric category ID stored int he MySQL DB. This proves to be cumbersome for anyone who doesn’t have direct access to the DB. One way to find out the category ID without DB access is to view the source of a page within a browser and look for the ID there (provided your WP Loop is set to display categories). The use of the “special_cat” tag is suppose to enable the use of the category “slug”, or textual short name for the category (ie. the “News” category might have a slug of “news”). You can find the category slug when editing the category from the admin interface. The us eof the “slug” over the “ID” is much more convenient to most users. I have found a little more modification of the loop from the Codex offers a solution (have tested this on a WP 2.8 & WPMU 2.7.1 install, please let me know if there are potential problems I’m missing by using this):

<?php query_posts(’category_name=cat_slug&showposts=num_posts‘); ?>

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<!– Code for Post Display –>

<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Where “cat_slug” is equal to the Category Slug, and “num_posts” is equal to the number of posts from that category you want to display.

Because I normally hate people that just leave an example with “<!– Code for Post Display –>” rather than actually showing me what goes in there, I’ll give you an example of this modified loop used within a page:

<?php query_posts(’category_name=News&showposts=5′); ?>
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<!– Begin Code for Post Display –>

<DIV class=”post” id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>”>

<h1><a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark” title=”Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>”><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>

<DIV class=”entry”>

<?php wp_link_pages(array(’before’ => ‘<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ‘, ‘after’ => ‘</p>’, ‘next_or_number’ => ‘number’)); ?>

</DIV>

</DIV>

<!– End Code for Post Display –>

<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

This modified WP Loop displays 5 posts form the “News” category, Titles only that link to the actual individual post page, and pagination showing if more than 5 posts exist. I hope this helps someon out in the future! Please leave feedback of others possibilities to obtain this same feature, your troubles, or links to your site where you use something similar.

-Phenix

For anyone unaware of the recent events in Valdosta/Lowndes County, see this article and video (to the right of the article)  with details.

-Phenix

-Phenix

• Remote data Replication
• Remote Load Balancing
• Remote Failover

The ideal setup would be to have 1 web server (Server A) at ground zero that dynamically replicates it’s files to another web server (Server B) 20-100 miles away, while simultaneously sharing the load across the two, and also providing an automatic failover to the other in case one goes down. I have never before venrutred into the realm of any of these topics, so I barely have a surface knowldge if this scenario is even possible, let alone practical. Should I configure this setup differently? I have already reserahced and found (as well as been referenced to) rsync for data replication. I will also note that all of this will be on the Mac OS X 10.5 platform (slight possibility to move to 10.5 server) using a residential ISP connection. Thanks in advanced to anyone that can help out,

-Phenix

-Phenix

Here’s the message that went out from our CIO:

During the week of spring break, we plan to move over 200 servers from existing data centers across campus into the new Oak Street data center.

Most of the moves will take place after normal business hours, tentatively starting around 8:00pm with the major services.  We will endeavor to bring back up major services the same night as they are moved. These moves will be spread out over the whole week and we will only move one group of servers at a time, so that everything should not be down at once. We are still working out the logistics and weather next week calls for scattered thundershowers and high probability of rain, so we may start as early as Friday evening, March 13.

You can expect to see outages in all services such as the main web site, WebCT, Luminis, Banner, Email, and Mailman.

As part of the Oak Street Parking Deck Project and the partnership with Auxiliary Services, the university has gained a new data center of unprecedented capacity and resources, including about 1700 square feet of raised floor space, two 140kVA uninterruptable power supplies, four 15 ton air conditioning units, and a 300kVA backup power generator. This facility will house our redundant network core and all of our production systems using energy efficient hardware, providing us with a significantly higher level of resiliency and availability for our computing and networking infrastructure and the services which they host.

We appreciate your patience and support during this transition to the new facility.

-Phenix