Quick Links

(alphabetic order, left to right)

Literate Programs

(alphabetic order, left to right)

TODOs

1. Install MoinMoin version 2 on albens, and setup asHurst-Stevens family archive, and also church wiki.
   1. completed download and successfully run localhost version
   2. installed mod_wsgi
   3. need to check what Flask needs to go into production mode
   4. familiarize myself with the new look and feel
2. Setup cron job to do Church wiki makeHomePage.py regularly.
3. Setup regular mailing list updates and wiki displays.
4. flask.py does not handle visit counts
5. downloads.py to handle camera.xml update, NOT filePics.py
6. install mysql on spencer
7. downloads.py to handle camera.xml update, NOT filePics.py
8. downloads.py smarter about detecting SD card origin (see next)
9. 20170116 blat to have archive handling methods:i) read log file and make up-to-date list
10. 20180601:104336 find out why web page hit count is occasionally reset
11. 20180610:132315 build movie interface for web photo albums

Configuration

I have a range of computers. Keeping track of them (andmaintaining them!) can be a headache. So I've compileda list of machines in use. There are also a number of webservers (such as the one you are reading right now onajh.co@spencer). The general principle used toname them is

1. railway junctions in Victoria (on-site and laptops)
2. eucalyptus trees (off-site)
3. disused railway stations in Paris (micro-computers)

albens

Virtual server maintained by Digital Oceans. Used foroff-site serving, mail and various maintenance tasks.

bittern

an old laptop, still operational (infrequent use)

burnley

My old home desktop iMac, which used to run Mac OSX 10.6.8.Now running Linux and used as a TV entertainment centre.

everton

My latest laptop, an HP 14" Pavilion running Linux. Reallyonly used when I am travelling.

fat-controller

An old Intel box running an old version of Ubuntu. Used tocontrol the model railway, but out of use until the railway isrestored.

gwuc-wiki

DigitalOcean virtual Linux box (Ubuntu), maintained to supplywiki services to the GlenWaverley Uniting Church.

• Control panel not yet linked
• ssh connection
• Church wiki
• Wiki Tuning

My own use for this machine is residual - all regular datastorage and web-serving is now done by albens.

sophos (previously wolseley)

Previously used as a house server. An HP Compaq machine,purchased second-hand from Monash University. Now has a newlease of life as a network controller, running Sophos UTM9with 2 network cards, one running bridge mode to our NBN cablemodem, the other to our local network.

spencer

disk farm and house server. An 82TB (4TBx4 + 6TBx6 + 8TBx4drives) lizard fssystem is used in an EC(5,3) configuration to store allhousehold data and backups for other machines. It also housesa number of other smaller disks for use in day-to-day use(e.g., TV and Photographs)

A very nice Christmas present from my son was a Brother MFCL8600CDW colour laser printer, which is networked across thehouse, and provides the main printing facilty (although thereare other inkjet and laser printers around).

Obsolete Systems

This list is maintained for archival purposes

central

Perhaps the longest lived system of them all. Ran from themid 90s until 2010, serving the house computer system andall that that entailed. Used as the original developmentsystem for the house computer, and sadly missed when itdied. It had nice features like plenty of I/O ports andparallel interfaces, all good for home DIY use.

dimboola

Was an iMac running Mac OSX 10.11.6. A Time Machine restoresaw it reimaged (unintentionally) as a clone of hamilton,including the same (stupid) default name of MU00087507X. Thiswould not have been a problem, except that hamilton is aMonash eSolutions managed machine, and nobody knew how tochange its name. When two machines on the same network havethe same name, you have problems. So it got rebuilt as aUbuntu 18.04 system with the purpose of running mythtv as ourregular TV recording system.

echuca

My home desktop iMac (Mac OSX 10.6.8) Used for archival purposes.

eregnans

The original church wiki system. This virtual serverservice provided by Rackspace was decomissioned in Jan 2017,due to a non-recoverable error in its BIOS which could notbe repaired. This came about due to the age of the system,and the fact that it had insufficient memory for more modernversions of the operating system.

flinders

Decommissioned. This was our old house server beforespencer came along. A Dell R90 system, noisy as allget-out, and died with a memory fault that was fixable, butwe could not be bothered. Now being cannabalised for sparecards, and destined for hard rubbish. I am not sorry to seeit go.

hamilton

old laptop. Was a Monash University machine, now life and OSexpired, and has been added to my museum.

lilydale

Interesting history. Bought explicitly to run Linux, and tobe used as my regular laptop. But I found the trackpad andkeyclick very frustrating to use, and it saw service as thehouse computer for a year or so. Died when I tried to upgradefrom Ubuntu 14.0 to 16.04.

ringwood

A MacBook Pro system, inherited from my father. Ran as thehouse server for a few years, until it died with an explodedbattery!

Disks

This section has been moved to a separate page ondisks.

Hints and Fixes

For Unix (Ubuntu 16.04)

For Mac OSX (10.6.8)

How The Web Pages were One

These web pages have gone through a number of interations.This Web Pagedocuments the story.

Context

We previously rented a house while our primary residence wasbeing extensively renovated. While renovations were inprogress, along came NBN (wouldn't you know it?) This causessome inconvenience, as we had to change our ADSL line across toNBN, without immediately being able to access and test it. Theold connection used a 2.9Mbps download/0.74Mbps upload internetconnection (Internode ADSL2+), via a Billion 7800N modem, whichall worked fine throughout its lifetime, and I was loath tochange it.

However, Optus had other ideas. We had a land-line telephonesupplied through Optus, and had paid for the connection duringthe renovation (although unable to use it), because we wanted tokeep the number. With the advent of NBN, Mr. Optus told us thatthe phone would be disconnected only a few months after the NBNwas available, and in any case, well before the renovations wereto be finished. So we had to do something. I switched both thephone and the internet to NBN (with ISP Internode), and toldOptus to go jump. I since see that they are being prosecuted byACCC for fraudently telling customers they would be disconnectedby the statutory period had expired! My three separateexperiences with Optus have all been bad. I don't know why theysurvive. Perhaps because Telstra is so bad?

I took advantage of the fact that our rented house is only 2doors up the street from the renovations. With the permissionof the intermediate neighbour, I ran a cat5 cable along his backfence, connecting number 5 with number 7, and we ran ourinternet connection via this.

I mentioned Telstra. We paid for a premium cable connection ($140/month)into our rented house, and found it worked well enough. It runsat 113 Mbs download, but only 2 Mbs upload. Contrast this withthe Internode NBN connection which supplies 93 Mbs download and29 Mbs upload, a 6 Mbs improvement for $40 less! ($100/month)

Now! We are back in our extensively renovated house, andhave rationalized the systems somewhat. However, things arestill in a state of flux, and in particularly, the housecomputer is waiting to be restored, along with the irrigationsystems and the chook house door. The chook house door has beenre-instated, at least to the point of being able to control itremotely, although this does not mean by computer control asyet. Nor do we have any chooks to control. Our internetconnection is now via NBN and Internode, and works well enough,although it is no faster than the old Telstra cable we had inthe rented property. We still don't have a telephone fixed line!

This page is copyright, and maintained byJohn Hurst.	211 accesses since 19 Jul 2020
Local servers:LocalhostNewportBurnleyEvertonKerangOuyenSpencerTerang(accessible only on local network.) Public Web Servers:HurstServerHomeServer1HomeServer2InternodeServer(not all may be active.) Dynamically generated at20210123:0020from an XML file modified on20200816:1328.

A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.

NameError: name 'clientIP' is not defined
      args = ("name 'clientIP' is not defined",)
      with_traceback = <built-in method with_traceback of NameError object>