I just made a rather embarassing mistake. During the changeover to the new .com domain, the only thing that wasn't working was the user avatar picture. It's a simple matter of deleting the old one and uploading a new one. But as I clicked on my avatar, I scrolled down and hit the delete button... for my sb56637 user account! And then as if that wasn't enough, I proceeded to not read the warning confirmation and hit "Really delete". And the forum software happily let me delete my administrator user account. Not good.
So, you've all been asking if the backup system works. The proof is in the pudding; we're still all here on BLF after the fact. Fortunately I messed up in the early morning hours, during a low period of activity, just hours after a routine nightly database backup. So, I asked our webhost to restore the backup. This means we lost a few comments between GMT -05:00 00:00 and 04:00. I checked before asking them to do the restore to make sure we wouldn't be losing a lot of new posts. Fortunately there was nothing huge. But nevertheless, a couple of users lost a few comments. My apologies to everyone, I'm really sorry about this.
So shame on Drupal (the website software) for letting me delete my administrator account so easily. But above all, shame on me.
Anyway, please enjoy the new domain! Best regards.
Congrats on the switchover! And that goes double for a successful test of the backup and restore. Sadly, all too often backups are done but never tested.
That was a quick change-over. I saw the sight was down this morning while I was drinking my coffee getting ready for work. Yeah, every time I hit the delete button and the system says "Are you sure you want to delete this file?" it always aggravates the crap out of me. Except during times like these. LOL
Thats what back-ups are for my friend. Just think of it as a trial run to see if they actually work. Kudos to you for performing your due diligence and demonstrating your usual high level of sys admin competence. Its just another reason why we like you so much!
Thanks guys! I actually enjoyed learning how to do this, up until the stomach-wrenching moment when I saw my user account and all of my PMs go into /dev/null oblivion...
I'm very pleased to see that our webhost has a good automated backup plan. But my next project is to investigate the numerous Drupal modules that allow for easy scheduled rotating backups of the flat files and the database. I want to have several lines of defense. I can also use this experience now to quickly backup and duplicate the entire site into a separate sandbox to test new forum module updates or Drupal upgrades or new features.
Now that I researched and bumbled around by trial-and-error, I could move the site again within about 5 minutes. Basically, I just had to modify the .htaccess file of mod_rewrite for Apache.
I just BARELY got this changeover done on time. I tied up most of the loose ends and stopped working on it around 7:00 AM local time. By 9:00 AM local time a nationwide internet outage occurred for most of the morning and afternoon. It would have been a real mess if I got it partially configured and then lost my internet connection in the middle of some trial-and-error URL redirection operation. Half-configured sites are not a Good Thing.
You've got a darn good eye for details edc. I would suspect that your observations are correct! I've heard that the "salt water drive dunking philosophy" is still sporadically practiced among the Wiccan Mafia when all other electronic disaster recovery technics have been exhausted. Things like - eating rat claws while squatting naked over a hornets nest for 48 hours while chanting the speeches of Adolph Hitler.
Also, (from the Wiccan Bible) hostile angry faces and cursing are often thought to help breath new life into fallen hardware.
You just need to build up your tolerance to the dark side. Today, do the most evil thing you can think of. Then tomorrow try to top yourself. Keep that up for a few months and soon totally evil photos won't phase you.