LightSpeedTaco

Well, really it’s recommended every 6 months according to Microsoft but I’m noticing instabilities in the system, specifically with the networking so I’m going to announce now and change the banner to reflect the same news; for the next 48 hours there will be interruptionsin service of the Plex Media Server as I will be reinstalling/refreshing my installation of Windows and hopefully bringing back stability to the network and the entire system as a whole. Keep your eyes on Nobreaks.ca because it will be your source for what’s going on, what the ETA is and basically anything related to this specific incident. Sorry that its sudden and without notice however if all goes well I can have things back in order within around 24 hours or earlier. 48 hours is a very large span of time I’m throwing out there because things happens that aren’t expected and delays occur. Again, sorry for any inconvenience! LightSpeedTaco

A few months ago I decided to stretch my security legs and dip into the world of HTTPS and SSL certificates. At the time and for some time, I’d been using Cloudflare for my DNS server and for the obvious performance and security improvements offered. A free account was sufficient at the time. I saw the options regarding SSL and what was offered seemed good and I liked that the Full (Strict) option existed. However, what I didn’t know at the time is that I’ll be sitting my self down on their DNS server with a bunch of other people/sites I’d never know. Utilizing the Full (Strict) mode of mode of SSL required one to have their own properly signed SSL certificate, which I had so I assumed their end handled their cert and once things reach my site my SSL will take over and all is well. One day I was doing some work on the site and click on the green lock in the URL bar and saw what I had expected. A cipher I’d setup was in use and everything was green for go. I click on certificate information and instantly saw that the “Issued to” field… Read More »Why I Decided to Leave Cloudflare

Hey all, If you navigate over to the “Is the Server Up” link on the left side of the page and follow it you’ll noticed I’ve added a few new monitors. Mainly for my use and notification so I can tell where the problem is actually occurring on my end of if it’s out of my control. I’ve also added a “Recent Events” section to that page where you can get the latest dirt on why whatever was down was down. I’ll try to be as honest as I can since I’d like to take ownership of any downtime incurred by me or otherwise, so keep an eye on that. To go along with the new editions to that page I added a banner that only appears on the homepage which will either contain news, announcements or other important information. It also features a button that says “Details” which upon clicking will bring you to the new and improved server uptime and details page! Convenient eh? I know, my uptime looks bad right now due to server maintenance and a networking fiasco both on my ends but things should be smoother sailing from here on out. I believe last I… Read More »Updated and More Detailed Server Statistics

Woo! There have been a lot of changes here at Nobreaks.ca I’ve just completed moving hosts to Digital Ocean in favour of their OS image selection and backup/restore/snapshot options as well as a slight decrease in cost a slight decrease in hardware specs followed naturally however the new OS we are running (Fedora 21) manages software and resource interactions so efficiently a downgrade was very much in the cards without risk of harming performance or availability. IPv6 is now used on the servers as well as some of the most up to date software I have ever used. So far it’s been a great experience. The snapshot capabilities are stellar and the regular backups done by them are a nice safety net. One outstanding feature I was taken totally by surprise was the fact that I can VNC into the session as it boots meaning I could utilize grub during an update of the OS for example. Topping out at nearly 90,000 files between the two servers I manage it takes the NAS running in RAID 6 even with the gigabit connection about an hour to rsync and backup to disk from empty folders to full synchronization. But, you can… Read More »Busy Busy Busy

As the number of user increased at a more steady rate than I ever expected I’ve been pushed to keep up network capability and reliability. These are some behind the scenes shots of what runs the Nobreaks.ca Plex Servers. All images clickable for large scale Brace yourself, rack mountable gear not mounted ahead… 24 Port Easy Smart Switch TP-Link, Smart RG DSL modem/router cooled by one of my many fans around the world   8 Port TP Link Easy Smart Switch behind 55 inch LED Smart Samsung TV, TV provided via IPTV, Phone via VOIP and PS3 (Roomates), XBOX One and XBOX 360 when I get the time.   Bad picture of the 6 bay RAID 6 dual gigabit NIC link aggregated NAS holding a backup of all Plex Data   Rear of NAS Above     Rear of PC spouting 6 Gigabit NICS all aggregated for 6 gigabit bandwidth Admin Fule above Night Shift Worker above LightSpeedTaco Out!