So, feds raided today. Main server was taken. So far that’s all. We’ll see how well security measures hold up. This will probably be the last official post for a while…

I wanted to remove mono because it was causing some weird dependency problems, and I don’t need it. Here’s what Apt wanted to do:

WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
apt debian-archive-keyring (due to apt)
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1073 to remove and 6 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 3076MB disk space will be freed.
You are about to do something potentially harmful.
To continue type in the phrase ‘Yes, do as I say!’
?] no
Abort.

So, XFS is officially the best file system around at the moment. Why do I say this?

1.) It’s fast, especially when I have around 50,000 3MB-4GB files being pulled by apache for a site almost constantly.
2.) It supports online defragmenting.
3.) When I know the drive is going to fail, backup/restore is a piece of cake.

#3 was the reason for this post.

I had to move a bunch of stuff from one drive to another. Normally this is easy, just move all the said shit.

This is not so easy when it’s / with linux installed on it.

Normally, I’d say fuck my life a lot and have to reinstall everything, since moving an OS is never an easy task. With windows, might as well forget about it. I tried that once, no go at all.

Linux theoretically doesn’t care, which is awesome. The problem I was stuck at was how to do this efficiently, with minimal downtime. This is on a production server after all.

Did some research, found out that normally this would involve firing up a live CD and using dd to mirror image the drive to another one, then adjust the partition size on the new drive since it’s bigger, then expand the file system size to match it. This would have meant close to a day of downtime. Not an option.

XFS saves the day. There’s a few awesome tools that come with it, but not by default, that make this job quick and easy.

How I saved the day with these great tools: xfsdump, xfsrestore, & a Debian Lenny live CD.

1.) Quickly rebooted to the live CD and ran xfsdump to copy the file system to an external.
2.) Quickly rebooted back to the installed version, with only 32 minutes downtime to copy the drive to the external.
3.) While everything was back up, used xfsrestore to put the image onto the hard drive that was getting swapped. Nice thing is, I was able to have the drive pre-partitioned and pre-formatted for this already.
4.) Once done, shutdown and drive swap, followed by another quick boot into the live CD to reinstall grub to the new drive.
5.) Reboot back to the installed version, and everything worked perfectly, with only another 10 minutes of downtime.

So, I replaced the OS drive in under 45 minutes of downtime. Beat that!

So, Citi fucking sucks. They need to be sued. Class action anyone?

Situation:

I owed Citi some money. It’s me, it happens…. Anyways, I paid them what they wanted and they shut up, so all was well. Or not… Now, over a year later I get a letter from the collections agency saying Citi wants money. So wtf?! I call them, and they tell me that Citi sold them the account to collect it. No problem, not their fault. So I call Citi to piss and moan because they are fucking retarded. Now, here’s where things get really fucked up, and why Citi needs to be sued.

THEY HAVE NO RECORD OF MY ACCOUNT PERIOD! WTF?!?!?!?!

There’s obviously a serious problem some where. They are required to keep records for 7 years (federal law). Now, the situation gets worse.

EVERY TIME I CALL THEY “LOSE” MORE INFO ABOUT ME! WTF?!?!?!

First time I called, they pulled up my account info, told me it was sold to said collections agency.
Second time I called, they couldn’t pull up my account, just could tell me it was sold to said collections agency.
Third time I called, THERE’S NO FUCKING RECORD OF ME EVER HAVING AN ACCOUNT!

Problem: I paid them, and per WellsFargo, Citi got the check and cashed it. So that’s not the issue.

Now I’m between a rock and a hard place. Thankfully, I have the records from paying them. Now I just have to figure out what to do and who to rip a new one…

FUCK CITI, DON’T EVER BANK WITH THEM!!!

They take way too long to preheat. Why must the damn heating element cycle so much?

Trick: Hit broil for like 5 minutes first, then set the desired temperature. Gets there much faster