Comments on: Blog update http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/ I am an astronomer, writer, and skeptic. I likes reality the way it is, and I aims to keep it that way. My real name is Phil Plait, and I run the Bad Astronomy blog. Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:56:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: Greg in Austin http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76381 Greg in Austin Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:04:27 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76381 BA, I still experience issues where your site is slow to load, or completely unresponsive. Just now, when I tried to get to this post, I received this error: "Couldn't write to: /var/www/vhosts/badastronomy.com/httpdocs/bablog/wp-content/cache/wp-cache-c4523ff689e59b577ba1f8009a01bf52.html" It happens with both Firefox and Internet Exploder. Of course, during the day I'm behind a corporate firewall, which could be an issue. However, I also read your blog at home, and it too sometimes hangs. If I can see any more error messages, I'll let you know. 8) BA, I still experience issues where your site is slow to load, or completely unresponsive. Just now, when I tried to get to this post, I received this error:

“Couldn’t write to: /var/www/vhosts/badastronomy.com/httpdocs/bablog/wp-content/cache/wp-cache-c4523ff689e59b577ba1f8009a01bf52.html”

It happens with both Firefox and Internet Exploder. Of course, during the day I’m behind a corporate firewall, which could be an issue. However, I also read your blog at home, and it too sometimes hangs.

If I can see any more error messages, I’ll let you know.
8)

]]> By: natefoo http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76380 natefoo Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:11:28 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76380 "IIRC you don’t need to reboot, but can clear out the current mappings by some abstruse command. As I remember it I had to do that on some machines on local nets when rebooting didn’t help. (Windooze machines and their little Registry, of course!)" lookupd -flushcache "It’s BSD Unix based with a kernal called, appropriately enough for this blog, Darwin." Kernel is mach, BSD "distro" is Darwin, but who's keeping track. ;) “IIRC you don’t need to reboot, but can clear out the current mappings by some abstruse command. As I remember it I had to do that on some machines on local nets when rebooting didn’t help. (Windooze machines and their little Registry, of course!)”

lookupd -flushcache

“It’s BSD Unix based with a kernal called, appropriately enough for this blog, Darwin.”

Kernel is mach, BSD “distro” is Darwin, but who’s keeping track. ;)

]]> By: JonStrickland http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76379 JonStrickland Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:27:29 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76379 I'm glad your new digs are beefy, because I cited and linked back to the blog as part of an article I wrote called "Top 10 Space Conspiracy Theories" (not yet published). Hopefully it'll drive more readers to your blog, which I find to be an invaluable resource both for information and entertainment. Keep up the great work! I’m glad your new digs are beefy, because I cited and linked back to the blog as part of an article I wrote called “Top 10 Space Conspiracy Theories” (not yet published). Hopefully it’ll drive more readers to your blog, which I find to be an invaluable resource both for information and entertainment. Keep up the great work!

]]> By: Fraser Cain http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76378 Fraser Cain Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:42:38 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76378 We're now running on a Xeon 5100 server with 4GB of RAM. Of course it's Linux. :-) I'm not sure how much faster it is, but it's certainly taking on triple the load without a problem. Phil and I wanted to see how well it would withstand a Digg, and we got it last night. Of course, we didn't expect his biggest Digg ever with the Mythbusters post. It was like hoping for a breeze to test your kite and getting a hurricane. The server went through the load perfectly. No slowdown at any time, even though there were many, many simultaneous users. It's funny how technical you have to be to just run a successful blog. There's no way we could afford to run our sites these days if we weren't able to manage them ourselves. We’re now running on a Xeon 5100 server with 4GB of RAM. Of course it’s Linux. :-) I’m not sure how much faster it is, but it’s certainly taking on triple the load without a problem.

Phil and I wanted to see how well it would withstand a Digg, and we got it last night. Of course, we didn’t expect his biggest Digg ever with the Mythbusters post. It was like hoping for a breeze to test your kite and getting a hurricane.

The server went through the load perfectly. No slowdown at any time, even though there were many, many simultaneous users.

It’s funny how technical you have to be to just run a successful blog. There’s no way we could afford to run our sites these days if we weren’t able to manage them ourselves.

]]> By: George E. Martin http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76377 George E. Martin Thu, 13 Mar 2008 01:26:15 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76377 Phil said: "However (Warning: tech geekery ahoy!) to move a site to a different location you have to let all the computers on the planet know it. We updated the Domain Name Servers, but that takes a few hours sometimes to propagate throughout the web." A little more "tech geekery". The maximum time a change in a DNS record should take to propagate through the Internet is the TTL (Time To Live) value of the old DNS record. Name servers typically cache DNS records for the TTL period before looking up the record again. Because of this, when it is known in advance that a DNS record will be changed, the owner of the DNS record will lower the normal TTL of the record sometime in advance before making the change. Thus when the change is made, it propagates known more quickly. Of course this lowering is not always possible. Playing games: [xxxxxx:~] xxxxxx% dig www.badastronomy.com ; <> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <> www.badastronomy.com ;; global options: printcmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 918 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;www.badastronomy.com. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: www.badastronomy.com. 68037 IN A 67.228.209.248 The value 68037 is the current timeout value, in seconds, in the cache of the local name server, decrementing from the time it last looked up www.badastronomy.com. A short time later: ;; ANSWER SECTION: www.badastronomy.com. 67950 IN A 67.228.209.248 Given the value above, I would guess the TTL for www.badastronomy.com 'is 86400 seconds, or one day. George Phil said:

“However (Warning: tech geekery ahoy!) to move a site to a different location you have to let all the computers on the planet know it. We updated the Domain Name Servers, but that takes a few hours sometimes to propagate throughout the web.”

A little more “tech geekery”. The maximum time a change in a DNS record should take to propagate through the Internet is the TTL (Time To Live) value of the old DNS record. Name servers typically cache DNS records for the TTL period before looking up the record again.

Because of this, when it is known in advance that a DNS record will be changed, the owner of the DNS record will lower the normal TTL of the record sometime in advance before making the change. Thus when the change is made, it propagates known more quickly. Of course this lowering is not always possible.

Playing games:

[xxxxxx:~] xxxxxx% dig www.badastronomy.com

; <> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <> www.badastronomy.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 918
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.badastronomy.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.badastronomy.com. 68037 IN A 67.228.209.248

The value 68037 is the current timeout value, in seconds, in the cache of the local name server, decrementing from the time it last looked up www.badastronomy.com. A short time later:

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.badastronomy.com. 67950 IN A 67.228.209.248

Given the value above, I would guess the TTL for www.badastronomy.com ‘is 86400 seconds, or one day.

George

]]> By: MandyDax http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76374 MandyDax Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:40:36 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76374 Yay, BEEFY server! Yay, BEEFY server!

]]> By: Quiet_Desperation http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76376 Quiet_Desperation Wed, 12 Mar 2008 23:37:20 +0000 http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/12/blog-update/#comment-76376 <i>Um, isn’t ol’ Mac unix based now? Roughly Linux ...</i> It's BSD Unix based with a kernal called, appropriately enough for this blog, Darwin. The mascot is Hexley, a platypus. ;-) <i>with a pretty hood and no easy way to tinker with the engine? </i> Apple releases the kernal under the Apple Public Source License which has the approval of the Free Software Foundation as a free software license. Releases available here: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ The "pretty hood" is Aqua and *that* part is proprietray, but you can run X11 with Darwin. Um, isn’t ol’ Mac unix based now? Roughly Linux …

It’s BSD Unix based with a kernal called, appropriately enough for this blog, Darwin.

The mascot is Hexley, a platypus. ;-)
with a pretty hood and no easy way to tinker with the engine?

Apple releases the kernal under the Apple Public Source License which has the approval of the Free Software Foundation as a free software license.

Releases available here:
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/

The “pretty hood” is Aqua and *that* part is proprietray, but you can run X11 with Darwin.

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