I don’t remember which day it was two weeks ago that I discovered that my web server was no longer accepting queries, but I do remember the distinct annoyance I felt when I got home from work, made my way through the back room to the computer rack, logged on to the management console, and saw that the server was powered off.
That’s nothing to the irritation I felt ten seconds later when it wouldn’t power back up.
This server is an oddity in my collection; it’s not the standard desktop/server size for motherboards and power supplies. As it turned out through some testing a couple of days later (when I found some free moments), the power supply had given up the ghost. Unfortunately, I didn’t have another power supply that would fit into that particular case, nor could I locate one in the local area.
So, today I got to do a motherboard-ectomy. For the uninitiated, that’s where you take the contents of one computer (in this case, the motherboard and the disk drive) and transplant them into a new case. It’s a relatively straightforward process, just long and (usually) cramped in a couple of places. This process was actually simpler than normal — the web server motherboard is so much smaller than a regular one that the usual cramped space problems didn’t happen — but was complicated in other ways by the need to jury-rig a couple of things in place (very minor tweaks; the delay was more from finding the right pieces to do things as close to The Right Way as possible).
However, it all went well — and as you can now see, the web server is now back up and running. With some of the changes coming in my network in the next month, this is a temporary measure, but at least Steph and I can blog again.
