In chronological order:

1. Finally learned how to install packages in FreeBSD. I’m getting the hang of it and I’m sorta starting to like it.
2. “Cover your ass” — backup and backup backups.
3. Got to triple boot CEntOS, Debian and FreeBSD. Did this for one whole day (yes, I am that dense).
4. FreeBSD’s console has the coolest screensavers!
5. CEntOS takes a lot of time and CDs to install. Not to mention that Debian and FreeBSD are more advanced.
6. Debian is sooooo sexy.
7. When reformatting partitions, don’t forget to edit fstab.
8. In network interface configuration, NETWORK != GATEWAY (D’oh! Isn’t that obvious already?)

I’m pretty sure you didn’t notice but my blog was down yesterday and the other day. I forgot that I jumbled up the partitions of the server this blog is on. That was months ago and I didn’t get to update fstab. I reformatted a partition that was mounted as /swap but I had to reboot the server to use the new swap partition. It was live so I couldn’t just reboot it.

Days, weeks and months passed by until I forgot about it. A power maintenance was scheduled last Sunday and the servers were set to go down. Actually, I forgot about that too. I was all set to do some hacking when it went down.

It was 3 hours later when the other servers went up. I thought somebody forgot to turn on this server. I waited for a couple more hours. Sent text messages, emails then finally got bored and decided to make some calls.

I finally got in touch with somebody within reach of the rack. I was told that it’s running but it goes to recovery mode. I was told that an indicator with an exclamation mark is lit. I actually thought that the server was left with two drives and one of them was dead. I have backups of my stuff but most of them are on the same machine. It scared the hell out of me. When will I learn my lesson?

When I got there last night, it turned out that it couldn’t mount one of the partitions. I’m wondering if it should’ve been designed to handle the error and continue mounting the rest of the partitions. The warning indicator is for the redundant power supply. They said something about the cable about being something.

In very rare idle moments, I wonder and think if I want to be a sysad. It’s thrilling and there’s a lot of suspense [at the very first days] and you don’t have to think so much. Plus I love watching LEDs blink. Sysad or sysdev? Hmmmm…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 12.40.57 and is filed under Geektraptions, Techitude. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.