General site information etc (Issues go its dedicated thread)

[drguild]

@Claire I sent you a PM a few days back just asking about few things and hoping to connect with you a little.

I added a Information forum at the top with some placeholders at the moment,
Was wondering if you would like to help me fill in some information for them, I could use some advice and paragraphs for some documents.
Always good to have a second opinion and perspective on how to go about things so it doesn't become all 'my' site so to say but a site by the people for the people.
You don't need to worry about spelling grammar etc I can proofread it when putting it in and reword it if it's a little confusing.

[drguild]

I have set-up a virtual machine on Debian to test and to temporary run and host this and other sites, as I am going to change my physical server over to it from Centos 6.9 which is ending extended support and most packages are old on Centos even on the latest version.
I have installed the web server and the front page of this as well as my other personal blog site drguild.noip.me and will be testing it out a little before I change this forum over.
I am also testing out a few backend internal changes for my own use such as window manager etc as my server is both hosting web servers and downloads.

The changeover should be quick as all I will need to do is to stop the site, create a backup and do a straight import to the temp vm while changing the ip forwarding on my modem.
It will be about the same time as reboot of the server for updates.
Then once my server is re-installed using Debian I will be transferring the sites back the same way with the other sites first then this forum after then the random internal test sites if I still need them.

I will see about updating the forum to the latest version just before the changeover to make things smoother.
If there is anything that needs doing before I do the changeover please let me know in this thread.

There is no schedule for the changeover as its fairly quick and painless it will be when I am motivated to do it and satisfied with the temp server.

There's currently a email bug with delivering to outlook servers as @Claire email was bounced back to me, so I'll need to fix that and check my mail server before moving the backend mail settings to the temporary server, I'll look at that tomorrow my time.

[drguild]

Here is a look at some of my server configuration windows I use for running my server and sites etc I change windows and monitors and load different apps based on what I am doing and the tasks involved, I run 5 monitors on my main system.

On the left I have Virtualmin which is my server web dashboard.
In the middle is the site where I will usually have multiple tabs and windows open for managing stuff.
On the right is Windows command line when I need to renew the dns server, ping systems etc.
Next to that is Putty which is my SSH client for connecting to the server (Windows 10 will be getting a native terminal client soonish).
Under those is WinSCP which I use to do file transfers to my different websites 'vhosts' and local root file system.
- I use Samba and standard windows networking for my download folders.

I usually have multiple Explorer window open for files etc I am transfering, Notepad++ for editing files directly, a YouTube window on a 4th monitor for music videos while I work and a 5th monitor with communications on it, skype etc.
I also use Chrome developer tools inspector when coding on one screen with Chrome on the other and my web code on another screen and other things like PHPMyAdmin, Virtual Machine windows etc based on need.

[drguild]

I have successfully imported last nights backup of this community forum into the Debian test server (minus the lets encrypt SSL stuff) and made a post in the test thread, which is a big step towards changing the server over to the temporary one.

The import was pretty quick and I will re-import when I start to change the server over.

[drguild]

I am nearly ready to change the server over to a temp VM and then redo my physical server.
Just need to backup my downloads etc and I am ready.
I have been testing some extra backend things (server monitoring apps) recently as well as how I can port my configs over.
I will continue to use the initial Debian 9 VM I made for testing a few extra things before deployment to the server.

I created a initial VM for testing migration which ended up with the configs for Virtualmin/Webmin not being compatible for direct import between distros Centos 6.9 and Debian 9, So I spun up a second vm with Debian 9 and am using that as the temporary server and am going to configure the settings by comparing values between installs.

There may be some slight issues when moving the server over such as mail servers not working etc but I will work through as needed.

When the server is moved I will initially disable it in first which will throw up a 'Under Maintenance' page, I will then create a backup and import into the VM, then change port mappings which will redirect these forums to the new VM.
The process should take the time of a usual server reboot to move the server over.

Once the VM is active I will fix anything like mail servers by comparing to my older server, testing and working through anything that needs doing.

Once that is done I will wipe and reinstall the server ands set it up testing everything out first for a bit before switching servers over.
As the new system is Debian 9 and the temporary system is Debian 9 i can just make sure the mail servers match rather than trying to work out configs between the two distros.

This post is just informational, while I can just do it it's nice to just let anyone here know what's going on and some behind the scenes stuff.

Timeframe to have this switched over with the new server up will be in the next week.

[drguild]

As of right now the web servers have been moved to the virtual temp server.
I will check out and properly configure the mail servers etc for the change in distro now.
>> Email servers should be working as I sent and received ones to myself, though be nice if there was users here who could help me test them a bit.

Time to put the servers back to the physical server should be in a few days once I finish checking out the other system and physically clean it.

[drguild]

I am working on the new physical server getting it setup with my own services before moving the web servers over.
There are always new learning things and changes to work through but I am working through it.

The server may be moved over in the next few days to next week sometime.
I will need to look at the SSL certificate also due to hardware changes to keep it active.
- Working on getting the certificate working again I have till the 9th of July to fix the certificate issue.

[drguild]

Fixed a bug that was showing the Staff category to guests.
- As I am always logged in I didn't really notice.
- Just the category was shown and not the forums inside it.
- Was also wondering why bots were reading the threads in the spam and deleted forum.
-- While the forum may have been hidden, not shown, the 'simple' permissions on the surface looked correct, it appears threads may have been readable and editable directly to people due to advanced settings.
--- Shouldn't be a issue now as I set the whole Staff category to hidden and went through every forum setting in advanced mode removing any permissions left for non allowed groups.

There is nothing really to look at in the staff area anyone for anyone wondering, just some tutorials and testing posts, links etc I made with info on backend stuff for the site, and a few other things that would need cleaning if we got a second admin (anyone interested?).

[drguild]

Right now the servers have been flipped back to the physical server which is running Debian 9 same as the VM.
Still need to double check mail servers, fix SSL certificates, make some adjustments and put the IP parking page placeholder back.

[drguild]

Certificates have been sorted out but I still need to look into some stuff with them as I have separate certificates for the home page and these forums.
So I need to work out how to create and generate a certificate for the home site and then have these forums managed from that certificate instead of seperate certificates.
But for now certificates are working.