DANSE Sever Upgrade Plan

The DANSE servers have served the community well for over a decade and continue to be relied on for a variety of services. However at Code Camp VIII it was noted that some of the critical drives have been spinning for nearly 10 years straight while the youngest drives have been going for over 3 years. Further it was realized that no regular backups were being made. While all disks passed error tests it was felt that a plan needed to provide for long term reliabilty.

Phase I

DONE

• Copy all of danse2 backup disk to danse1 4T disk
• Image danse1 4T disk onto second 4T disk
• Remove two main drives from danse 2 but keep for a while in case of problems
• Insert new 250GB WD BLue SSD 3D NAND SATA SD as boot drive into danse2 and transfer imaged 4T drive from danse1 (matched serial number with github notes) to danse 2 as sdb
• Install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, released on April 26, 2018 with end of life April 2023, on sda of danse2
  • Used minimal install option (no games etc?)
  • installed ssh server
  • used apt-get update and upgrade … also ran upgrade from GUI when asked
  • set ssh config file to not allow root login
  • Installed ufw firewall and enabled only ssh. Not sure we want to keep that?

TODO

• Verify contents of 3^rd disk on danse2 (sdc)
• Once copied what is needed from sdc of danse2 remove that drive
• Migrate all services one by one from danse1 to danse2

Phase II - tentative

• Shut down danse1
• Transfer danse2 drives to danse1
• Optional:
  • Upgrade memory on danse1
  • Replace 4T disk with new one during transfer to danse1

Phase III - backup plan

• Crashplan with Andrew is only stopgap need a versioned backup to guard against corruption of data/hacking/ransomware etc.

Phase IV - tentative

• Install mirrors
  • Potential locations/funding - estimate <$3000 each
    • UMD or UD (NIST)
    • Bristol/Diamond?