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I need advice! I might of messed my server up.
MagniPhiCat
Member
Hi there!
Our main (well, only) server crashed (partially, but still... no ssh, no apt-get, no rsync, no emails... fortunately web is still ok, but for how long?) and now we are looking to urgently create a new, more agile, infrastructure (spoiler alert: I am not a sys admin, please be tolerant...)
I contacted NexusBytes because I have read here that they are very nice people always happy to help, and that they reply in a matter of minutes. And I like kind people 
But now almost 2 days have passed and I sent a couple messages, but still no answer.
Do you think we should look into another provider? This one was so promising... 
I know very well they absolutely don't owe us an answer quickly, or even at all...
... But this is somewhat urgent because our partially-crashed server has been badly impacting our customers for 2 days now (yes, I also know it is on us because we didn't have a backup server with everything setup on it... I'm precisely trying to make things better).
Our needs:
- several small servers around the globe
- each server with its own task/responsibility (mail, database, files, web...)
- for a website with around 5k users / day worldwide
- budget of 60-80$ per month (for around 8 servers)
- of course: root ssh access, dedicated IP, port 25 for the mail server (on which I will install MailCow)
- if possible: guaranteed/dedicated CPU
Followup question: we need the different servers (worldwide) to share the same storage space/disk/server (I don't know which term applies). I am having a (very!!) hard time finding information on this kind of setup. How should we proceed so that all webservers share a "network-drive" (or something, instead of just a local path on the local drive) to save user-uploaded-files on it? (without needing each webserver to have 500GB of storage and to rsync everything both ways between all webservers)
Should we create something like a private network? I remember having seen this in one of my previous jobs. But I don't know how it's done and more importantly I don't know if it's even possible across multiple providers (in case we have one provider for the EU and another for the USA).
Any link to documentation/tutorials/tips on the topic would be so very welcome!
Thank you kindly in advance
Best,
R.
Comments
@seriesn dear, someone is looking for you.
@seriesn ping ping
Thank you both for the ping
but I don't want to be someone invading the tranquility of people (that's why I didn't send Jay a message here on LET when I first contacted NexusBytes through their website).
Any advice for the other points? Maybe a popularization website of infrastructure setups matching my initial idea? I try to dabble at sys admin to help my client, but it is not my core job (at all). Anything too convoluted/complex would be hard for me to grasp I fear.
If it's urgent, go with Azure, which guarantees immediately availability.
When you have time later, you can move back to cheap servers.
If the server is up and you can't fix the software on it, you really do need a managed VPS. It's the only way you're going to be able to sleep at night.
"a new, more agile, infrastructure"
So what old, less agile, infrastructure are you currently using?
You may have too high expectations for your budget
(Congrats on your first post)
I have an OpenVZ server that still responds to ping and SSH port is open, but I lost the SSH private key and password authentication was disabled.
Moreover, I don't have any access to the Virtualizor account.
Is this server still "up"?
Try other providers, NexusBytes was great but I doubt it is still so
Thank you for the feedback! Not sure I want to do it all over again next week though... ^^
Thank you for the input, I'll look into it but I'm not sure it will be in the same price-range.
I don't mind doing some sys admin even if it's not my job, but having a somewhat disposable and self-contained small server (separation of concerns) is a peace of mind too. At least, I think so.
But it doesn't matter what I think, actually, my client asked me for this kind of new setup...
It seems like going to a managed provider would be better based on what seems like a lack of knowledge. But, you're running a tech operation -- do you happen to have a tech team (or single developer), and if so, could you get your tech team to hop on this forum? Otherwise, I doubt the help and suggestions that people post will be helpful.
A dedicated server with 8 cores and 32GB ram. Everything runs on it: custom-made mail server, database (mariadb), redis, web (nginx/php), and a few other things.
My client is now asking for a more compartmentalized infrastructure.
What do you mean? I am genuinely interested, because sys admin is not my job. But if you're knowledgeable about sys admin, then I'm sincerely all ears, eager to learn things!
This is the budget my client gave me, not much of a choice here either.
But I was thinking it would be enough...
Thanks
Thank you for the reply!
What do you mean by that? I thought I did read a few topics praising NexusBytes here. It is also (very) well rated on both HostAdvice and TrustPilot (although I did not look deep about which reviews are recent and which aren't)
Which providers are you advising me?
Oh... And... Would you happen to have anything for me regarding my last question (in my original post)? Since you are an admin here, surely you know a thing or two!
In the worst case, no chance of rebooting the server?
You make it sound as though there were no chance of fixing things, at least temporarily
Indeed it is, no offense taken
But, no matter where I go, nobody seems able/inclined to give me the proper directions to find tutorials on the topic.
I might not use the proper keywords, but my googling did not yield anything.
I am the tech guy. The lone one
I am a web dev, and I dabble at sys admin to help my client. I previously manually configured the mail server from scratch, following tutorials, and it went well! But as you said, I lack some knowledge. But if you're not using too complicated tech words, I might very well understand...?
Again, not sure a managed hosting would be good, because it would cost too much I think.
@MagniPhiCat If welcome to work with a couple of different providers. Here is the top 4 on my list of providers
Myself. DataIdeas - https://my2.dataideas.com
@Francisco - BuyVM https://buyvm.net
@seriesn - NexusBytes https://nexusbytes.com/
@jonathanspw KnownHost https://www.knownhost.com/
Otherwise I would say look into Digital Ocean/Linode/Vultr
As you describe it, it's still up, but you've lost any way of accessing it
But the OP's issue appears to be different
No believe me there is not. I won't touch the server now, because it is barely standing on its trembling feet right now. Rebooting it would only give it a chance to make things worse (e.g. reloading a lib that was broken beforehand) and to break the only thing that is still standing: the website.
The only thing I can do, is access it using the (lame) OVH console (iKVM or something). But everything is broken because I messed up some upgrade...
If I were a sys admin guru, I might (or might not) find some fix. But honestly, with glibc broken, I don't have any slight hope. I'm just waiting for the new infrastructure, and then I delete this server
Yes. Because glibc is broken, I can no longer:
I can only use the OVH iKVM console, which is a pain to use, and hope that I can zip some files and download them using HTTP as a last resort backup. Really, nothing more.
Ah, so the current situation is the result of a (perhaps customized?) upgrade that went wrong. Yes, this could be tricky.
The end is nigh.
I've yet to detect PMS.
Thank you Josh for the suggestion!
How did glibc break?
Precisely
(I am using a smiling face here, but I have been quite stressed these last couple days...)
I tried to upgrade openssl following a (quite old) tutorial, and failed miserably. Fortunately I have a database slave with real-time backup, and a very recent files (user-uploads) backup. But I still have a few things to (try to) back up before losing the server.
And for the last couple of days, I have been waiting for an answer from NexusBytes, refreshing my email box every 10 minutes, and researching VPS providers in the mean time.
Sorry I am not English. What does it mean?
Sounds more like a Linux issue more than a hosting company issue. Can you use VNC to log into the terminal and try to boot it into single mode or something to troubleshoot the broken Linux install?
If not, if the host provides a way to boot from ISO or open a ticket and have them attach an ISO for you to boot, you might be able to rescue your system that way.
As the old adage goes, always do backups, in fact backup the backup, this holds especially true for production boxes.
When trying to upgrade openssl so that I could install Zabbix agent.
Silly me...
What OS were you using? If you deploy a new server and migrate you should use the latest LTS or use something like AlmaLinux instead of you're using an older RHEL based OS.
If one of my plans work for your needs and are within your budget I'll give you a discount on the first month on any server to help you get things back up and running well.
It is a man-issue ^^ (mine)
If I'm here it's not because I need help fixing glibc. It's because my client asked me to create a more compartmentalized infrastructure.
The current hosting company has nothing to do with my misfortune. Forgive me if it's what (wrongly) transpired from my original post, it was clearly not intended at all.
I can use iKVM yes. But if I reboot the machine, I (immensely) fear the web server will not start again. And since it's still working right now, and I still don't have the new infrastructure, I prefer not to touch anything.
I have backups of the database and of the user-uploaded files. Not from the system itself. Which is probably my fault, as I am not knowledgeable concerning sys admin... I should have done something like a "system restore point" like on Windows 🤷♂️
Anyway I'm here to find a new infrastructure, and, if possible, advice on where to find tutorials on the infrastructure setup I would like to do (mostly: having a shared "drive/server" between the geographically distant web-servers), because I can't seem to find anything on my own.
Sorry Mike, I cannot access your website, it is telling me that my IP is blocked...