If you are reading this you are looking at the new mini running Lion!

Why not buy the latest hardware you might ask, because it cost a lot more then a second hand and I really don’t need the power of it. All the sites and mail running on my mini are not giving it a real hard time. If I got slasdotted/fireballed I’ve got WordPress tuned with caching and could handle some load. The highest I got was 10.000 page views in a day, no sweat…

Currently I’ve got rsync scripts which copy my mail, web, database and /etc to an external disk. Thinking that I can rebuild a new mini in a few hours, I got a spare at home (which still would need a rebuild) and can change DNS entries quit quickly to make the change transparent for users. But this requires for my server to be online. I’ve used Amazon S3 earlier for backup earlier with a specific rsync script that copied everything over to Amazon. But somehow never got to that….

What is your solution for handling outages?

Here is nice one for the people wh recently bought a mini, someone found out that it will take 8 Gb of usable memory just like the newer MBP’s. It’s a shame that it still soooo expensive but it is a good thing to look forward to. I’m almost temped to by another mini just to see how this would perform. I think it would make a awesome server, although I must confess that of my current production server only half of it’s 1Gb is in active use.

For people looking to host a server at MacMiniColo.net, they have some second hand mini’s listed on the sign up page which will do the job perfectly for less money. I did this myself as well and it is stil working. I like their service so much I recently renewed for a two year period.

Back to testing…

Update: Forgot to mention that I’ve finished installing everything on a clean install of Snow Leopard. So that now works as it is supposed to do. Next up getting my mini ready for the update and installing everything in 32 bits.

Appleinsider.com however came with a report this friday that gives a little spark of hope. Their report mentions a new mac mini that is on the way. As a source they have Brian Stucky of Macminicolo.net fame who mentions he knows what is coming. Read the article if you want to know more, I for one hope it is true as I really love the mini. Mine is getting a bit old and slow for desktop use and would jump at a newer and faster mini!

PS. On the appleinsider article there is a picture of the macminicolo.net datacenter. I wonder which of the 400 mini’s is mine?

The first thing I tried, now I’ve got everything migrated, was getting my home server to work as a backup MX server. I found out that it was pretty straightforward and adding one line to the main configuration made it work.

I’ve added it to the documentation set, so if you have the same luxury as I have and have more than one server connected you could use the this as well. Read how to do it here: Configuring a backup (relay) MX server.

If you want to read more on what is affected in the updates I would suggest reading the Apple support site for the 10.5.3 update and the 2008-003 security update.

In case of doubt, please make a full bootable disk image backup with Cabon Copy Cloner.

Tis was my first major update of the server located in the Macminicolo.net datacenter. It’s a bit scary as I have had the experience of a freeze of the computer after a big update before. But it that time the server was sitting in a cupboard at home within reach. If that happens now I would be at the mercy of Brian. He normally responds very quickly on my emails and iChat request so it might take a bit longer to get the machine back online because he is in a very different time zone. Therefore I schedule these critical activities at a time where I know he is available.

Update: It is always good to wait a few days and monitor the blogosphere and forums to see if there are any major issues with the last update. It’s good to be prepared!

It’s not something I decided on a easily, I was always proud to be able to host all the sites with their respective email server from my home using my simple DSL connection. But lately the stability of my DSL connection has gone down. I’ve had two outages this year alone.

I used to have my DSL connection with a small reputable ISP which delivered great service. Whenever you needed assistance you could call the help-desk and someone who actually understood what you where talking about was able to help you and get you going again. But consolidation is the name of the game and large ISP’s are buying the smaller ones and the service deteriorates rapidly. Whenever I call now they tell be to reboot the computer as they assume I’ve got a Windows machine and all the questions are scripted as with any call-center.

I still believe that it is possible to host from home using your DSL line, the outages I had never lasted longer than half a day. Which meant that I would never loose any mail. But too many people are currently depending on my server to be up and running 24/7. If you don’t have that requirement and can live with 99% uptime instead of 99.999% you’ll be fine hosting at home.

Brian Stucky offered me a great deal at macminicolo.net which made the decision to go outdoor a lot easier. In exchange I’m putting a banner on the site to return the favor. I think he is running a great service for us Mac lovers who want to use a mini as their server platform. He’s very quick to respond to any question I had, even the outlandish ones. Besides the standard packages macminicolo offers there is room to customise the offer to your needs. I will keep posting on my experiences with macminicolo but untill now they are excellent… TUAW recently tested macminicolo and they liked it as well.

An additional benefit might be that the site might become a bit more responsive as the bandwidth will be a lot better.

PS. If fiber to my home becomes affordable (which will take a few years) I will reconsider my options again!