Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with servers

Direct FTP please

Jason Land — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:52:20 -0800

How do I setup a FTP-like service without having a website? I'm of limited internet knowledge, but without using things like Rapidshare, I'd like to have an FTP-like function where I can open a program, have someone else also be logged on, and we can directly send large files to each other, without having to own and operate a website with a connected FTP server.

I guess it's technically like the AIM file transfer, but without using AIM, and more stable/secure.

I'm on a Macbook Pro, OSX 10.5.8. I have Cyberduck, if perhaps there is a hidden function there like what I'm asking about.

Recommended party help in Toronto?

uans — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:19:02 -0800

Toronto: I'm giving a large party and want to hire one or two servers for the evening to help with prep and serving. Are there any companies/individuals you would highly recommend?

Hosting web service on S3

bjork24 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:49:20 -0800

Is it possible to host a commenting system on Amazon's S3 servers? I know most people use it for file storage and access, but would hosting a web service on their servers be possible?

What is the server OS market share?

espertus — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:35:37 -0800

Where can I find estimates of server operating system market shares? To be concrete, I'd like to know what percentage of web servers, either by absolute numbers or popularity, use Linux, Windows, etc.

How to chose an server for a small mac digital media lab?

yuletide — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:43:23 -0800

I'm trying to figure out my options for setting up a small digital media lab for a new non-profit, but I have no idea how to set a minimum level of server specs! How much CPU and RAM do I really need? What determines this? The server will be used to administer local user accounts, and store files (including large media files). We may also end up using it to host our website and mail, if it makes sense (unlikely). All the main client computers will be macs, so I assume I should make life easier and just get an XServe. But I'm open to other suggestions. See below for some prices and models for various XServe's I'm trying to choose between. How low can I go? How much CPU/RAM do I need? Let me know if you need more information... Best Used Xserve Prices

* 2.0 GHz single G5, $800 (no OS), $1,000 (10.3 unlimited or 10.4 10 user), MacResource
* 2.0 GHz dual G5, $1,000 (10.3 10 user), $1,100 (10.4 10 user), MacResource
* 2.3 GHz dual G5, $1,649 shipped (10.4 unlimited), Power Max

Best Refurbished Xserve Prices
* 2.66 Ghz 4-core Xeon, $2,399, Apple
* 2.8 GHz 4-core Xeon, $2,100, Small Dog
* 3.0 GHz 4-core Xeon, $2,799, Apple

Best New Xserve Prices
* 2.26 GHz 4-core Nehalem, $2,888 shipped, Power Max
* 2.26 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $3,449 + shipping, ExperCom
* 2.66 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $4,799 + shipping, ExperCom
* 2.93 GHz 8-core Nehalem, $5,999 + shipping, ExperCom

Free Moore's law upgrade?

Dag Maggot — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:42:19 -0800

We've had 4 high-end dedicated servers with a hosting company for almost 2 years. Since then, technology has marched on and the servers they are offering new customers are much higher spec than ours - for the same price. Is it reasonable to expect them to upgrade our servers for free to bring them into line with their current offerings?

Now just add the parmesan cheese solution..

Pants! — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:08:32 -0800

Miko says: I've seen a lot of similar "SCIENCE!" tricks done at the bar. In fact, I've known some bartenders who collected them and mastered them in order to perform for customers and thereby increase their tips and build their crowd. One of the most wonderful nights I ever had working was when a group of Navy engineers... What other "SCIENCE!" tricks do you know along these lines? For the purposes of this question, assume a very broad definition of science.

Small Production Office Needs a File Server

captainscared — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:04:50 -0800

I work in a very small office, less than 10 people, that is mac based doing primarily Final Cut Pro editing. I know a lot about the mac but not much about putting a server together. Here are our needs: - We will continue to work on independent systems but would like the ability to keep some files centrally located. These files will be copied to the seperate workstations as needed.
- a fast transfer protocol. Currently we are using ethernet which is not fast or efficient enough to tranfer large video files.
- We'd love the ability to harnass the prossecor power of all the computers for rendering, particularly with renders and encodes. (Is a render farm even possible using Final Cut? And how would you do it? I know this is a seperate issue from the files sharing above but we'd like to accomplish both tasks.)
- No one is particularly UNIX savy so if actual server software is avoidable all the better. But certainly not a deal breaker.

So to reiterate: our two primary goals are the ability to make quick transfers between machines and two, a way to harnass the processor power during renders and encodes.

ECC ram for my personal server?

cowmix — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:53:23 -0800

ECC memory on a personal Linux server? My friends and I are upgrading our server that hosts a few VMs that run under VMWare Server 2.0 on a Ubuntu 8.10 box. We are buying this small ASUS 1U server (http://tinyurl.com/9dr3ee) from NewEgg and it happens to support ECC or non-ECC memory...

When I ususally build my custom whitebox servers I almost never use ECC memory.. when I do things a corporate environment I usually have no choice and always get ECC memory for servers..

Here are my questions:

1. Is it worth getting ECC memory for a personal server? I haven't had any issues in the past (that I know of) with non-ECC based servers but now I am kinda freaking out over not getting it.

2. Its not clear what RAM I would get for it if I do go the ECC route.. NewEgg has this RAM (http://tinyurl.com/9s82dk) but then NewEgg says is for HP/Compaq systems..

Lazyweb..plz help!

Would you like fries with that RAID array?

Mozai — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:20:57 -0800

The server room at work has two air-conditioner units for controlling the atmosphere in the place. There's a key on the door, and only five of us can enter. About an hour ago, while changing backup tapes, I got a whiff of the smell of baked potatoes. Now the smell of baked (or boiled?) potatoes is really strong. What the hell's going on? I pulled up the floor tiles. No water. No signs of evaporated water. As far as I know, the A/C units get their air from the roof, and we don't have a chipwagon up there. What else could smell like potatoes that would show up in a computer server room?

Do waiters and waitresses mind people writing for a long time in cafes?

TheManChild2000 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 18:20:05 -0800

Don't servers hate it when people camp in coffee houses and cafes for hours to write? There's this constant idea that the place to go to write is some sort of public food/drink spot. But having been a waiter who lived and died by how many times I could turn a table in a given night, all I can think about is the server turning purple with rage as the second hour rolls around of someone clanking away at bad poetry and sipping at the $2 drink they bought and didn't tip on.

How many servers per country are there?

mhh5 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:06:09 -0800

How would you estimate the number of web servers that a country uses? According to Gartner and IDC, about 8-9 million servers are shipped in a year (2007) -- but how does that break down by country? One of the ways I'm thinking about measuring this.. is to use Netcraft's data for estimating the number of servers by country. Is there a better data source for something like this?

Netcraft doesn't really break down server shipments.. it measures servers that are in use already. but that's okay.. I'm just looking for a ballpark method to estimate this kind of thing.

Backup web interface?

Aanidaani — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:55:23 -0800

I recently got a new web host that I'm going to use for backup and I'm looking for a free AJAX web interface / CMS to manipulate files online. See inside... Essentially I'm trying to create my own hosted version of an online backup service like Dropbox or Mozy. I found a cheap host that gives me a lot of bandwidth/storage and I'd like to find a good web interface that I can use to access and manipulate my files when I'm not at home. Does anyone know of an open-source (or otherwise free) CMS that I can use for this?

Also, are there any programs (again preferably open-source) that I can download to regularly back up files to my server? I use Windows, OSX, and Linux. For Linux and OSX I know I can use a variant of Rsync, but I'm at a loss for Windows.

Looking for an FTP server that can auto-mirror new content to secondary server.

mattoly — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:48:15 -0800

Can anyone recommend a Windows-based FTP server that will automatically mirror (copy, replicate, whatever) files uploaded to it to a back-up server? Say user "X" uploads foo.jpg, I want the FTP program to log into my back-up server's FTP site and automatically upload the image as soon as it's done uploading, if you follow me. Any ideas? Cheaper's better, and I'd like it to work in real-time if possible. I remember seeing a server like this years ago but I can't remember what it was called, and the one I was using doesn't work in Server 2003. Any help is appreciated!

Linux admins: I know, I know, I know.

Where Have All The Problems Gone?

gadha — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:17:19 -0800

Where can I find accurate, concise information on short-to-medium term technical problems in the data-center/server/colo markets? I'm interested in learning about the problems facing server manufacturers, data farms, etc... at any level -- software architectures, hardware architectures, algorithms, energy consumption, etc. I have looked around a lot but the information is either out of data or very commercial and tied into specific products. Is there any resource out there that will present concise, clear information about the (hopefully unsolved) technical problems in these areas?

Linux-compatible very slender PCI vid card?

everichon — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:40:17 -0800

I need a skinny, possibly fanless video card for a 1 U server. Linux drivers, PCI Express, very little room for it to live. Currently, we are using a Palit 8500gt (pic), and the fan is big enough that it is pressing against one of the server's CPU heat sinks. It can spin, and so far no disasters, but we want something else.

Is there a mid-range video card made that is either fanless or has a very tiny fan, with Linux drivers, and fits a very narrow PCI express slot?

how is proper load-balancing done these days?

helios — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:54:44 -0800

What are large websites using these days to load-balance their traffic? I have been using round-robin DNS on my site which has five front-end web servers. I am beginning to realize why this is not a good idea - first of all, the first IP address in the round-robin chain seems to get a disproportionately high amount of traffic, and secondly, if one of the servers goes down, then 1/5 of my users can't access the site until I either fix the problem or change the DNS and allow it to re-propagate.

I have realized that many high-volume sites that I visit have a DNS entry that only resolves to a single IP address. So what are they doing differently?

I'm assuming that they are using a "load balancing" device, but is this just a reverse proxy server running Squid or Apache, which would itself be as vulnerable to hardware faults as any other server?

Or are there specific high-availability "load balancing" devices (like something Cisco would make) which automatically act as the front-end for all servers, taking a server out of the loop if it stops responding and/or notifying me by mail? If so, where can I find these devices?

Large Site Network Infrastructure (Hardware) Examples?

hmaugans — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 16:03:57 -0800

Network admin / geek question: I'm in the process of building a small cluster of servers for my quickly growing wallpaper website, but I've never charted those waters before. I found a nice article on TorrentFreak about Mininova's server setup, and found it quite intriguing. My question is, are there any other big-ish sites like Mininova that are open about their hardware infrastructure? Googling around yielded few results. I'd be interested to see the setup for a site like Digg, MeFi, or Flickr. Thanks in advance. Currently, I have a single Dual P3 load balancer, four DL360 (each 2x 2.8Ghz xeon) servers for apache, one DL560 (quad 2.8 xeon) server for MySQL and NFS, and a few misc. servers.

Do most large sites use NFS to share the website source? Any idea how much load NFS puts on a server? Also, any idea how much overhead a load balancer requires to route connections? Can a dual P3 1.6Ghz handle a 15mbit'ish site?

Any links or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.

How can I get full functionality out of MMC?

odinsdream — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 13:42:13 -0800

Help me better use MMC (Microsoft Management Console) for server maintenance tasks. I manage several servers. Each server has a bunch of stuff available under Administrative Tools. I can open these locally on each machine to maintain the various items, or, I can use one machine and add these snap-ins to one master MMC.

This is what I currently do. I have the Active Directory snap-in for our domain, I have several DHCP snap-ins, and a couple Event Viewers.

However, with the Active Directory snap-in, I cannot access some property pages on the master console that I would be able to access if I were directly working on the server.

For instance, I cannot see a user's Dial-In tab on my master console, but I can see it if I use the same area on the domain controller. Likewise, I don't have any of the user's Exchange tabs on the master console, but these are available if I'm working directly on the Exchange server.

What accounts for these differences, and how can I reconcile them?

How can I put certain webpages on a separate webserver from the rest of the site?

Hartster — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 04:06:25 -0800

How do I/Can I put certain directories (and pages) on a separate webserver from the rest of the site? For example. I have http://www.example.com on one server. I wish to have http://www.example.com/directory2 on another server. Also, possibly, http://www.example.com/directory/page3.htm on another server (but not anything else in /directory/). I'd like this to be as transparent/unobvious to the user as possible.

In this particular case, server one is IIS and server two is unix. I'd also be interested to know how to do it if both servers were unix.

Private Dancer

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 09:18:17 -0800

How do I make services publicly available behind a private network? I have a department that uses NAT to hide a bunch of machines behind a single public IP address.

Is there an easy way to allow some (2 or more) of those machines to run services, e.g. web or VNC — whatever — such that someone from outside the NAT could connect to those machines?

What kind of service would I run in conjunction with the NAT box?

Help me sell XServe to my boss and our client.

odinsdream — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:33:57 -0800

Help me recommend XServe to my boss and our client. Please share your personal experience with the XServe hardware and software, particularly the GUI tools for service management. I work for a small business that provides technical support for a local school. They have a very small IT budget, and no IT staff (except for select volunteer students).

Currently, they have two 7-10 year old NT 4.0 servers. One is running Exchange, and the other is just used as file storage.

I have no personal experience with the XServe, but reading their specifications, it seems to fit what this school is looking to do. For the most part, I'd like to know about any caveats with recommending this system and software to my boss, and to the school, that otherwise aren't obvious from reading the specs and reviews.

I'm a bit concerned that it doesn't yet have iCal Server built in, but could I install some web-based software while we wait for the release?

What won't this server be able to do for them? The biggest hurdle I need to overcome is the momentum generated from my boss' sole experience working with Exchange and Windows servers. He's open to the idea, but seems to only vaguely understand that Macs aren't locked-off in some proprietary realm apart from Windows machines anymore.

Personal opinions, experiences, and thoughts on such a recommendation?

Thanks!

How can I determine a server's power supply type remotely?

littlegreenlights — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:56:17 -0800

For UNIX-like systems (Linux, BSD, Solaris) is there a way to determine power supply type remotely, preferably with a simple command-line tool? I occasionally need to know whether servers in remote offices are AC-powered or DC-powered, and I haven't figured out a way to get that information without visual inspection, which isn't convenient for me or for central office technicians.

I'm familiar with dmidecode and lshw, but they don't seem to provide power or chassis information (when I run `lshw -C power` I get no output, so I assume power is going undetected). I thought maybe acpid or /proc/acpi/* would have useful information, but no luck there, either.

I assume this information is available to the operating system, since OS-specific tools like OpenManage seem to be able to provide it, but maybe there's something fancy happening behind the scenes (service tag --> some database --> power supply part number --> some database --> extended hardware information).

Thanks for your help!

Where to buy a 1U server?

cowmix — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 00:36:09 -0800

I need a cheap / loaded 1U server.. where should I buy it? I haven't bought a server in years and I need to get one that's sorta loaded (with RAM / processor / drives). I don't mind buying from multiple places to cobble together if I have to.. but it would be nice to get from a single vendor if possible.

That basic specs are:

1U rackmount
4 Gig ram
Dual Core Processor (Athlon or Duo Core 2)
2 X 250GB HDs

Anyone have any recommendations aside from Dell (or Dell if that's the best place.)

Domain Name Purgatory

BigBrownBear — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 01:37:59 -0800

Domain Name Purgatory: I cannot change the nameservers on a domain I purchased despite the fact that I'm paying TWO companies for it... ...here's the deal:

I purchase a domain several years ago from 1&1. I saw a 5-year special with Yahoo so I purchased it from them as a transfer.

I had never transferred a domain name before and I thought it was automatic. However, 1&1 charged me again. I asked why they were doing it and they told me that a domain could be registered with two companies.

I told them to cancel it, that I had it registered with Yahoo. They said ok.

Finally, I am getting around to using the domain but yahoo says I need to change the name servers at 1&1 to point to them. 1&1 tells me that I can't change the name servers because the account is cancelled and that yahoo should change the servers.

I've been emailing both companies for three weeks and both are insistent that they can't do anything and that the other needs to fix it.

Meanwhile, I've paid BOTH of them and I can't use to domain.

I admit that this is my fault for not handling the transfer properly but how do i fix this?