Thursday, June 22, 2006
It was my rerouting to switch B that saved the files.”
[So now we get to learn why Sean is using a crappy keyboard in the Data Center to write these entries and not a real keyboard. I would also advise you to read that entry for the necessary background of events leading to this situation. —Editor]
The idea is to copy the files from the dying server to the new server. XXXXXXXX had a spare computer lying around, already pre-installed with Linux. So the easiest thing would be to copy the critical files over (the server in question is just a mail server—that's it). Should be a simple operation.
Should.
There's that word again.
We get the new server on a temporary IP address and start copying files. One of the directories we need to copy over is the mail spool directory, but copying the files is taking way too long.
As in “at this rate, this 10M file will take two hours to copy across the local 100Mbps network” too long. Something was wrong with XXXXXXXXX's switch, and no amount of mucking with either server's network card settings would get the connection to go any faster.
I then grabbed a spare switch sitting above my desk and plugged both machines into that.
Nothing.
I then realized that both machines were technically in different networks. Once I put then into the same network the copy proceeded at a much faster pace.
It still took over an hour to copy the files though.
[And that's why I was sitting in the Server Room making entries. Thankfully, everything worked after that.]
