Subject: Server unreliability

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:13:21 -0400 (EDT)

It is my opinion that we have to make major changes in the way we
provide hosting for our servers.  There are several problems:

o  Location of servers

The location of our servers in Panama is a problem.  They are too far
for any PostgreSQL maintainers to access.  Changing hardware or
diagnosing problems has been too hard.  I have had like 2 days of
downtime on my home machine in the past 12 years.  We have had more than
2 days of downtime in the past 6 months.  My wife would not accept such
a reliability level.

o  FreeBSD

The use of FreeBSD jails can cause servers to take +8 hours to fsck on a
server crash or power failure.  Again, I would never accept such
problems on my home server so it is hard to fathom how a project with
thousands of users can accept that.  Either we need to find a fix, stop
using jails, or get another operating system, but continuing to use a
setup with a known problem is just asking for trouble.

o  Web site

We have been talking about a new web page layout for years at this
point.  I almost don't care if they just put a dancing bear up on the
web site.  Let's do something!

o  Archives

The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing
bear can help.  :-)

Basically, with no money and no one offering servers, I don't see a good
solution to any of these problems, but I think we need to recognize
these are problems and that we will continue to suffer until they are
addressed.  

Are there any proposals, no matter how radical, to correct these?

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  [email-masked]               |  (610) 359-1001
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  13 Roberts Road
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

---

From: Devrim GUNDUZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:26:16 +0300 (EEST)

Hi,

> 2 days of downtime in the past 6 months.  My wife would not accept such

I think mirroring of the web & FTP sites helped hub.org too much, but I 
still agree with you. Do you have any suggestions for that? Who 
would/could support/donate such a bandwidth?

> setup with a known problem is just asking for trouble.

I hope we'll not begin a OS/distro war! (O.K, it'd be good if Red Hat 
contributes RHEL to PostgreSQL project ;) Anyone from Red Hat in here, or 
in -core? ;) )

> web site.  Let's do something!

Like this one? : http://www.jensummerfield.supanet.com/bearaniy.gif

Heh heh.

Well, web team (mostly Alexey) is working on it. We have a fabulous new 
design (you know...). I think it'll be ready before 8.0.0. See the -www 
archives for that (Archives? Umm maybe Google...)

> The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing

:-) A Google search box could be better sometimes...

Regards,

- --
Devrim GUNDUZ 
devrim~gunduz.org				devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr
 			http://www.tdmsoft.com
 			http://www.gunduz.org

---

From: Robert Bernier <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:30:16 -0400

>2 days of downtime in the past 6 months.  My wife would not accept such

Could somebody explain to me how panama came to be chosen. Those reasons 
may have changed since then.

>setup with a known problem is just asking for trouble.

I'm very comfortable using Debian and would be willing to remote admin 
using that. As for sticking with FreeBSD its the better choice if 
there's somebody up to speed with security. The best resource person I 
know is OReilly's FreeBSD columnist Dru, dlavigne6.sympatico.ca. She 
might be convinced to "advise" what to do.

>The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing

How does the archives work i.e. what's running it? I hate to state the 
obvious but can we have an itemized list as to what's wrong with them. 
I've got my own ideas but I'd like to be on the same page as everybody else.

>Are there any proposals, no matter how radical, to correct these?

I've got thoughts as to server hosting but I don't even want to discuss 
it until the guts of the site has been updated.

Robert

---

From: Darcy Buskermolen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:41:30 -0700

> 2 days of downtime in the past 6 months.  My wife would not accept such

Yes location is a bit of a concern, but I think it's muchless of a concern 
than the rest of the issues. I think with hardware/jail issues sorted out 
this one will for the most part take careof it's self, or at least be far 
less apparent.

> setup with a known problem is just asking for trouble.

The over use of jails I think is complicating things, what are the odds that 
someone could find it in their heart to raid the old hardware pile in their 
serverback room, and come up with a PIII 800MHz + system with a gig of ram 
that they could donate to the cause, and we move some of the more critical 
services (www/ftp/anoncvs) to that box without jails.

Yahoo, Pair, Fugtisu, Affilias , Somebody, Anybody???

> web site.  Let's do something!

One thing I know we can do here to help at least the availability of the 
website itself, is to use a round-robin DNS based setup.  I know Marc 
adjusted DNS records to point the main website at www3.ca a while back during 
a time that www was stuck in fsck hell.  As for the website redesign, I agree 
fully, it's been talked about for at least 3 full releases now and from my 
understanding it's no closer now than it was before.
Can anybody comment on the hold up here?

> The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing

What about combining the efforts od pgsql.ru and command prompt to do this, or 
maybe even monarc or google groups ?

> these are problems and that we will continue to suffer until they are
Ok i know how much we all hate banner adds and the like, but what about using 
Google ads especially on the archives to help generate income to fund these 
requirements?

-- 
Darcy Buskermolen
Wavefire Technologies Corp.
ph: 250.717.0200
fx:  250.763.1759
http://www.wavefire.com

---

From: "Gavin M. Roy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 10:48:34 -0700

/I think mirroring of the web & FTP sites helped hub.org too much,
    but I still agree with you. Do you have any suggestions for that?
    Who would/could support/donate such a bandwidth?

    /

I'm always willing to donate such things.  I've got about 80mbit unused 
right now./

/

    /I hope we'll not begin a OS/distro war! (O.K, it'd be good if Red
    Hat contributes RHEL to PostgreSQL project ;) Anyone from Red Hat in
    here, or in -core? ;) ) /

Heh, I use Gentoo if it makes any difference. /

/

    /Well, web team (mostly Alexey) is working on it. We have a fabulous
    new design (you know...). I think it'll be ready before 8.0.0. See
    the -www archives for that (Archives? Umm maybe Google...)/

/
/Hopefully the logo banner gets updated with my change or the author can 
clean it up a bit... the current one is too fuzzy, the glassy logo is 
nice but didnt resize well.  I can make one sized correctly if wanted.

Gavin

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:52:40 -0300 (ADT)

> 2 days of downtime in the past 6 months.  My wife would not accept such

This is currently being worked on ... we are looking at various remote 
management solutions so that we don't have to deal with waiting for a 
technician to get 'on the scene' ...

> setup with a known problem is just asking for trouble.

Actually, again, this one is being addressed ... there is a solution in 
the pipeline to fix the cause of the 8+ hour fsck, but, since it is a fix 
to fsck itself, it hasn't been put into the mainstream code yet, due to 
*obvious* testing reasons ...

We've also added in hot failover as an option ... I've posted to -www 
asking about putting www.postgresql.org onto it, but so far, the only 
responses back have been along the lines of 'how are you doing it?' ...

The "risk" is that its not real time replication between the live and 
failover server ... on our high performance servers, the 'delay' is about 
5 minutes ...

... now, knowing that, if you feel comfortable with me putting this onto 
the mailing lists/cvsroot as well, knowing that there is a possibility of 
something being written 'in the gap' before failover, I'll do that VM also 
...

note that altho the replication has a gap, the heartbeat process runs 
every minute ... as soon as it can't ping anymore, it fails over ...

> web site.  Let's do something!

What's wrong with the existing one?  Have you designed the dancing bear 
you'd like us to put up in place of what we have now?

> The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing

What is wrong with it now?  I'm cleaning up the code itself, but that is 
due to it being a mess right now, not due to any problems reported to me, 
removed one of the banner ads so that loading is a bit faster, and John 
has done, I think, a fantastic job on the search engine itself, including 
sending me changes for the archives themselves so that the 'time searches' 
should now work properly ...

So, do you have something specific you'd like to point out to us that 
we've overlooked and haven't fixed yet?

> Basically, with no money and no one offering servers

So far, I've had one person donate $10 ... in order to put a dedicated 
server onto the network, I'd need alot more of those ... that would pretty 
much eliminate your second point about the fsck's, since its only our 
*loaded* servers, that we have that problem with ... but, as I said, the 
fsck issue is being addressed as well ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: [email-masked]           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:57:05 -0300 (ADT)

> I'm always willing to donate such things.  I've got about 80mbit unused 

a few things to note ... the only 'critical' thing right now that can't be 
mirrored is the cvsroot/mailing lists ... web and ftp are both well 
mirrored, and, in fact, ftp.postgresql.org is on a seperate network/server 
that I have ... archives was also moved there, and over the next few days, 
will be pointed to one of commandprompt's web sites ...

in fact, bittorrent, ftp and archives are all on a US based server ... 
what I'd like to do is setup www.postgresql.org to point, via dns round 
robin, to the www.us.* mirrors, so that hits to it are more load balanced, 
but that requires some major changes to the mirrors themselves, and few of 
them are configured to recognize a virtual host of www.postgresql.org 
right now, as I found out not too long ago :(

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:04:37 -0300 (ADT)

> may have changed since then.

Client requirements ... and, quite frankly, the issues that Bruce is 
bringing up are in the works of being fixed by getting some remote 
management hardware so that I can deal with 99% of the problems from here 
...

> might be convinced to "advise" what to do.

the problem isn't a security issue ... the problem is that the unionfs 
creates these 'zero length directories' all over the place in the normal 
course of operations.  fsck was never coded to handle them properly, so 
when it does do the fsck, it goes through a removes them all (not harmful, 
just time consuming) ... one of the developers was recently able to come 
up with a patch to correct the behaviour, but is rightfully nervous of 
putting it into the source tree, so is doing some more testing on it first 
...

As I also mentioned in the other thread, we've setup a hot failover option 
that I'd like to put on the VMs, but haven't had any good feedback on the 
-www lists about doing this ... for www.*, I don't believe there is any 
risk with doign it, but for stuff like pgfoundry/gborg and mailing lists, 
those VMs all have a cvsroot, so am a bit afraid to have it hotfailover 
and potentially lose someone's commit ... if ppl feel that is an 
acceptable risk to avoid the lengthy downtimes, I can enable it on all of 
the *.postgresql.org VMs right now ... but I need some feedback on that 
first ...

> I've got my own ideas but I'd like to be on the same page as everybody 

I'd love to see a list as well ... I thought that John/Dave and I had 
addressed all of the outstandings, but obviously Bruce doesn't feel the 
same way ... or, of course, he could be doing like the last time and 
rambling off past problems that have since been fixed :(

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:09:41 -0300 (ADT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Darcy Buskermolen wrote:

> The over use of jails I think is complicating things, what are the odds 
> that someone could find it in their heart to raid the old hardware pile 
> in their serverback room, and come up with a PIII 800MHz + system with a 
> gig of ram that they could donate to the cause, and we move some of the 
> more critical services (www/ftp/anoncvs) to that box without jails.

jails are not the problem ... the problem is the file system we are using 
to share applications ... but, yes, if we could put a dedicated box in 
place, we could very easily eliminate the use of the file system ... we 
have never had a jail related crash on those servers, they have always 
come down to the file system itself ...

> adjusted DNS records to point the main website at www3.ca a while back 
> during a time that www was stuck in fsck hell.

To do this, and I'd love to, we'd need to have *at least* all of the 
www*.us.postgresql.org mirrors setup a ServerAlias for www.postgresql.org 
... not sure what would be involved in getting that done though, but the 
DNS side wouldn't take much ...

> What about combining the efforts od pgsql.ru and command prompt to do 
> this, or maybe even monarc or google groups ?

Until someone can *list* the problems, how can a solution be suggested? 
John and I know of no issues at this time ... the last one was the 'time 
period' searches, which we believe we've just fixed ...

> Ok i know how much we all hate banner adds and the like, but what about 
> using Google ads especially on the archives to help generate income to 
> fund these requirements?

Huh?  Google ads?  I know what you mean, just how do we make use of them?

----

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:15:52 +0200

Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Basically, with no money and no one offering servers, I don't see a
> good solution to any of these problems, but I think we need to
> recognize these are problems and that we will continue to suffer
> until they are addressed.

I'm sure people would offer money, servers, and pipes if there were some 
public accounting and governance.  Right now, we don't really know

- What services are being run?
- How many resources does that take?
- Who provides those resources?
- Who administers these services?

Take a look at this: <http://db.debian.org/machines.cgi>.  This is the 
sort of thing we need before we can continue planning our system 
resources.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

---

From: Mitch Pirtle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:19:28 -0400

Hi Bruce, we met in Manhattan for your NYPHP presentation - I was the
lone PostgreSQL cheerleader in the back ;-)

You ask for proposals, no matter how radical, so here goes:

o  Location of servers

Pending bandwidth requirements, I am willing to sponsor hosting of
these sites, possibly on dedicated hardware.  But I need some ideas of
bandwidth usage so I can figure out which strategies make the most
sense financially.  BTW be glad your servers are not in Florida, I
have one client that is in a significant amount of pain right now.

o  FreeBSD

I'm agnostic in this regard, but have experienced that Linux distros
seem to be the easiest to maintain (Debian, Fedora).

o  Web site

I am a core developer on the Mambo project (www.mamboserver.com), and
joined the core team primarily to implement database abstraction
(currently tied to MySQL gasp!).  Mambo has grown quite famous for
being easy to use, has lightweight requirements, and has a huge 3rd
party community that provides all kinds of extra goodies (forums, i18n
support, commerce, you name it).  I would happily volunteer the
efforts to migrate the existing site to Mambo to make it easier for
the core gang to keep the site current.  I would also consider having
PostgreSQL.org running Mambo being excellent incentive to prioritize
the implementation of ADOdb ;-)

o  Archives

Depending on the format, Mambo natively supports archiving of content.
 This may be a big win for PostgreSQL; and I would just need to get
more information on the scope (and current format) of the archived
content.

o  About me

I have been very active as a PostgreSQL booster (not as a developer),
so none of you have ever heard of me - but I have been very vocal in
both Switzerland (where I lived until last year) and in Manhattan. 
Writing articles for International PHP Magazine (www.php-mag.net) also
gives me a chance for some subliminal advertising.

There you have it, consider it as a preliminary offer - it is the best
I can do, being that all of you have given me such a powerful database
for free.  Perhaps being a web developer means that the best way for
me to contribute would be on the website?

Regards,

Mitch Pirtle
Mambo core eveloper (www.mamboserver.com)
International PHP Magazine author (www.php-mag.net)

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:33:16 -0300 (ADT)

> have one client that is in a significant amount of pain right now.

The server location is not changing, but thank you for your offer ...

> seem to be the easiest to maintain (Debian, Fedora).

Again, operating system isn't changing, but thank you for your offer ...

Both of the above issues that Bruce pointed out are being worked 
on/addressed, just not as fast as Bruce would like to see happen ...

> the implementation of ADOdb ;-)

There is currently a re-write of the web site being worked on ... if you 
wish to aid in that, please feel free to subscribe to pgsql-www, where the 
discussions on this are taking place.  Alexey(sp?) has spent a good deal 
of time working on/cleaning up the backend code itself, and there has been 
one site redesign proposal that I *believe* has been accepted already for 
how the new site will look ... the fun part is trying to find man hours to 
implement it :(

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:41:59 -0300 (ADT)

> sort of thing we need before we can continue planning our system

If someone wishes to create the form/interface, I'll fill in the blanks 
... right off the top of my head, we have the following VMs running:

svr1.postgresql.org     - mailing lists, developer.postgresql.org, cvsroot
                         - host server: neptune, Dual Xeon

www.postgresql.org      - techdocs, advocacy, www
                         - host server: venus, Dual Athlon

pgfoundry.org           - host server: jupiter, Dual-PIII

gborg.postgresql.org    - host server: venus, Dual Athlon

archives.postgresql.org - mailing list archives
                         - moving to one of commandprompt.com's servers

ftp.postgresql.org      - also bittorrent and anoncvs
                         - host server: saturn, leased computer

pugs.postgresql.org     - host server: venus, Dual Athlon

search.postgresql.org	- hosted on John's server

Did I miss any?

----

---

From: Darcy Buskermolen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:43:35 -0700

> On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Darcy Buskermolen wrote:
----8<----[snip]
> come down to the file system itself ...

Poor use of terminlogy on my part, but the net effect is the same, the FS is 
being used to facilitate the jail, take away the jail, take away the need of 
the stacked FS.

> DNS side wouldn't take much ...

*nod* In the interim there is nothing stoping getting the process rolling with 
those sites that are known to work, as well as contacting the mirror admins. 
of the unknown sites.. 

> period' searches, which we believe we've just fixed ...

I'm not sure what the issues have been other than availability.

> Huh?  Google ads?  I know what you mean, just how do we make use of them?

Specificly the program out lines at: https://www.google.com/adsense/  I know 
of a few reasonably high traffic sites that are generating about 5k/mth 
income from this program. 

> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
>     (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to [email-masked])

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 15:49:55 -0300 (ADT)

> being used to facilitate the jail, take away the jail, take away the need of

Actuallym, not true ... the FS is used to reduce the overall amount of 
disk space required, since ~90% of the jail is redundant ... when I can 
get a dedicated server in place, and only have the 10 or so VMs running on 
it, then disk space is no longer an issue, so I can easily get rid of the 
FS component ... that would get rid of the crashes ...

> *nod* In the interim there is nothing stoping getting the process 
> rolling with those sites that are known to work, as well as contacting 
> the mirror admins. of the unknown sites..

I think you are the only 'known to work site' ... so, if I setup a round 
robin between the Panama and Canadian location for www.postgresql.org, 
would you be okay with the extra load? :)  If so, I'll get to work on the 
coding changing required for the DNS ...

> Specificly the program out lines at: https://www.google.com/adsense/ I 
> know of a few reasonably high traffic sites that are generating about 
> 5k/mth income from this program.

'k, will have to read through, but first scan, would the replace our 
current search system, or would the 'Google search box' be on the right of 
the screen, or ... ?  Without me reading it all the way through, do you 
already know?

----

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:52:05 -0700

Bruce,

> provide hosting for our servers.  There are several problems:

You're not the only one to have noticed this, believe it or not.  ;-)

> 2 days of downtime in the past 6 months.  My wife would not accept such

To be fair, PostgreSQL uses an enormous bandwidth and traffic that gives our 
systems very little tolerance for anominalies.   Not that having the stuff in 
Panama doesn't slow down fixes, but hosting postgresql.org is a bit more 
demanding than hosting, say, your or my personal web site.

> setup with a known problem is just asking for trouble.

I agree that when we have more servers dedicated to PostgreSQL, we should use 
a different approach than the jails.  Marc, what are the advantages of the 
jails on a dedicated server, since we are so familiar with their drawbacks?

> web site.  Let's do something!

I'd suggest finding some money to sponsor somebody full-time for a month to 
accomplish the migration to the new web structure, which is more-or-less 
finished.   That's what's holding us up right now AFAIK.

> The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing

But being solved.   The archives have been copied to CommandPrompt, and the 
various archive search tools have been distributed.   Once we can change the 
web interface, there should always be one tool and/or version available 
regardless of individual server/hosting failures.

Further, SF.net has offered to host our mailing lists, which is tempting 
because of their direct mailing-list-to-database tool, as well as their more 
distributed hosting structure which prevents DNS-based failures.   I expect 
to find out the terms for this next week, and then discuss it on WWW.

> Are there any proposals, no matter how radical, to correct these?

The big obstacle in moving anything is bandwidth.   While any number of 
companies will offer to host stuff for us, we can't match the amount of 
bandwidth we're currently using in Panama -- and hosting donors won't support 
anywhere near that level (which runs to scores of GB per month).  So while we 
can move individual, less-crucial components, the mailing lists and the main 
WWW require either Hub.org's generous bandwitdh or other hosting that we 
"own".  

I have actually been working on raising money for additional servers.   The 
obstacles which have made this a year-long process are more complicated than 
I want to go over right now, but there are people thinking about it.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: "Gavin M. Roy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 11:58:34 -0700

>I want to go over right now, but there are people thinking about it.
I'd be more than happy to donate 50mbit per sec or more on an ongoing basis.

Gavin

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:05:59 -0700

Marc, Darcy, Bruce, Peter, et. al.

> Poor use of terminlogy on my part, but the net effect is the same, the FS
> is being used to facilitate the jail, take away the jail, take away the
> need of the stacked FS.

The other BSD experts I've talked to all agree that the Jail setup on the 
current servers is a severe performance drain.   I think we really need to 
look at not using jails for the the dedicated PostgreSQL server(s), when we 
have them.

> website itself, is to use a round-robin DNS based setup. 

FWIW, some folks at SourceForge have offered their help in configuring this.   
I'm currently waiting for Adi to get back from vacation to proceed.

> - Who administers these services?

This is why I'd like to do some of this stuff -- particularly fundraising -- 
through the Foundation.   However, as you know Peter, there have been some 
delays in that regard.

-- 
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:07:20 -0300 (ADT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Josh Berkus wrote:

> I agree that when we have more servers dedicated to PostgreSQL, we 
> should use a different approach than the jails.  Marc, what are the 
> advantages of the jails on a dedicated server, since we are so familiar 
> with their drawbacks?

'k, just to re-emphasize ... the jails are not, and have never been, the 
problem ... when I can put a dedicated server in, though, the thing that 
will fix the problem is getting rid of the unionfs that we're using to 
converse disk space ...

as to what advantages the jail's provide ... mainly, security ... we can 
easily provide root access to pugs.postgresql.org, as an example, so that 
Fred (please tell me I remembered right?) can do whatever work he wants, 
without giving him full root on the developer jail ... same with all of 
the other jails ... Chris has full root on gborg, so that he doesn't have 
to ask someone else to do something when he notices a problem (ie. restart 
mailman) ...

The other advantage ... seperate process space ... so, as an example, if 
someone wanted to run a different server then apache on port 80, they 
could ...

> But being solved.  The archives have been copied to CommandPrompt, and 
> the various archive search tools have been distributed.  Once we can 
> change the web interface, there should always be one tool and/or version 
> available regardless of individual server/hosting failures.

Joshua and I should have this switched over by end of day today ... I just 
did a bunch of "clean ups" to fix some of the issues with the search form, 
but to also balance things out a bit more ... also removed the right 
banner ad, so that page loading is a bit faster ... and I think we have 
the 'Last-modified' stuff finally working properly ...

> can move individual, less-crucial components

And this is somethign that we have been working on over the past several 
months ... search has moved to John's location/servers, archives has done 
one move so far, and is going to be moving to CPs location, etc ...

And, now that we have, at least, an option for the hot failover, those VMs 
that it is safe to do it with, we can get that going so that downtime of 
one server isn't near as critical as it once was ...

----

---

From: Darcy Buskermolen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 12:08:48 -0700

----8<----[snip]

> coding changing required for the DNS ...

I have no issues with that being setup now, I'll keep na eye on the bandwith 
and let you know if it becomes problematic.

> the screen, or ... ?  Without me reading it all the way through, do you
Not the search system, but the addsence.  it's just a banner serving 
technology where you embed piece of javascript to imbed in the site and away 
we go..
For example here is a sample I just fired up based on what I use in another 
site....  http://www.dbitech.ca/
and the JS to pull it of is...

<script type="text/javascript"><!--
google_ad_client = "pub-6839445463094639";
google_ad_width = 120;
google_ad_height = 240;
google_ad_format = "120x240_as";
google_ad_channel ="";
google_color_border = "DFF2FD";
google_color_bg = "DFF2FD";
google_color_link = "000000";
google_color_url = "336699";
google_color_text = "333333";
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript"
  src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
</script>

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:13:05 -0300 (ADT)

> and let you know if it becomes problematic.

'k, will play with the DNS code tonight then ...

>  src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">

Sweet ... okay, will look at getting that added to archives then ... 
thanks for the pointer ...

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:23:47 -0300 (ADT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Josh Berkus wrote:

> The other BSD experts I've talked to all agree that the Jail setup on 
> the current servers is a severe performance drain.  I think we really 
> need to look at not using jails for the the dedicated PostgreSQL 
> server(s), when we have them.

k, have your experts talk to my experts :)

more seriously, I have two Dual-PIIIs running with ~25 jails each, and 
there are no performance issues that are readily apparent, either with 
processes or network ... even neptune, where there are currently 59 
running, isn't breaking much of a sweat, to the point that our 
conversation here is almost real time, and that is where the mailing lists 
are running off of ...

All the 'jail' does is a chroot to a specific directory structure, and 
tags the processes running on the server with the 'jail-id' so that ps 
inside of the jail only shows those processed appropriately tags ... 
unless I've been mis-informed, there is no other overhead ...

once we can put dedicated servers in place, the # of jails running won't 
be more then 10, unless there is some major growth in requirements ...

we could probably reduce the # of jails though ... pugs could be merged in 
with www quite easily, but I wouldn't merge cvs/pgfoundry and gborg into 
the same jail for what I would *hope* are obvious reasons ...

If your experts can give me something more substantial to work with then 
opinions, though, I'd happily read it ...

> FWIW, some folks at SourceForge have offered their help in configuring 
> this. I'm currently waiting for Adi to get back from vacation to 
> proceed.

As there isn't much required in order to config this (as its stuff that 
we're already doing to load balance things like the banner ads), not quite 
sure what they have in mind *shrug*

----

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:08:03 -0400 (EDT)

> Again, operating system isn't changing, but thank you for your offer ...

I assume you mean "not changing" while you are administering the
servers.  I don't remember any community agreement that the current
setup was permanent, and my thinking now is that all avenues are open
for exploration.  

I am not ready to dismiss this offer/idea.

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:15:56 -0400

> to ask someone else to do something when he notices a problem (ie. restart 

This business about anyone having to restart anything is strange.  I
don't run mailman lists personally anymore, but back when I used to,
there was no need to restart anything.  This sounds like there are other
reliability problems that should be attacked.

Also I understand that it's a problem that fsck takes 8 hours to run.
However, why on earth is fsck running in the first place?  Do the
servers go down unexpectedly on regular basis?  This also screams of a
more fundamental problem that should be solved.

Another thing: I've seen several times already PHP warnings show up
about pg_query not getting a good connection or similar problems.  Isn't
normal advice to check return codes before even trying to use the
connections?  Why isn't this done in the main postgresql.org code, where
anyone can see it, is beyond me.  Of course the solution to the
underlying problem is to restart the Postgres server, but why should we
inform the user that Postgres' own database server is down, in the worst
possible way?

Just random thoughts ...

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"Hay dos momentos en la vida de un hombre en los que no debería
especular: cuando puede permitírselo y cuando no puede" (Mark Twain)

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:18:21 -0400 (EDT)

> contributes RHEL to PostgreSQL project ;) Anyone from Red Hat in here, or 

I have to say I am about as pro-*BSD as they come, but if Linux is what
it will take to make things better, I am ready to try it.  If it takes
SCO Unixware, I am ready to try it.  However, I think Marc has pointed
out some less drastic changes that will fix the fsck problem.  My point
is that the fsck problem has gone on too long and it is time to address
it head-on.  Let's take the approach with the best possibility of
success and implement it.

> Like this one? : http://www.jensummerfield.supanet.com/bearaniy.gif

Yes, and its animated too.  Everyone knows animation on a web site
spices it up, as does blinking text and text that changes color.  :-)

> archives for that (Archives? Umm maybe Google...)

Yes, but how far is it from the image I saw to the completed site?  I
have no idea, and why has there been so little progress in the past few
years?

> :-) A Google search box could be better sometimes...

Yes, except Google has decided to stop archiving our groups since
September 16.  We reported this on the www list, I think.  I think they
had the best archive interface, and now it is gone.  Take a look:

	http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&group=comp.databases.postgresql.hackers

---

From: David Fetter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:20:04 -0700

On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 04:08:03PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > Hi Bruce, we met in Manhattan for your NYPHP presentation - I
> > > was the lone PostgreSQL cheerleader in the back ;-)
> > >
> > > Pending bandwidth requirements, I am willing to sponsor hosting
> > > of these sites, possibly on dedicated hardware.  But I need some
> > > ideas of bandwidth usage so I can figure out which strategies
> > > make the most sense financially.  BTW be glad your servers are
> > > not in Florida, I have one client that is in a significant
> > > amount of pain right now.
> > 
> > > I'm agnostic in this regard, but have experienced that Linux
> > > distros seem to be the easiest to maintain (Debian, Fedora).
> > 
> setup was permanent, and my thinking now is that all avenues are
> open for exploration.  
> 

Bruce, it isn't just you who finds this airy dismissal ridiculous.  In
fact, the only person who's acting like this is dismissed out of hand
is Marc.

Marc, you've been a great contributor to the community, but lately,
you've gotten quite severely off track.  You can continue to help by
straightening up and flying right, but you are, as you have been
reminded publicly in the past, *not* the dictator on this project.
You are not indispensable, and if you continue to pull this nonsense,
you *will* be dispensed with.

Sincerely,
David.
-- 
David Fetter [email-masked] http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 510 893 6100   mobile: +1 415 235 3778

Remember to vote!

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:32:10 -0400 (EDT)

> this one will for the most part take careof it's self, or at least be far 

I agree, and Marc has an idea for remote administration too.

> services (www/ftp/anoncvs) to that box without jails.

I have a dual PIII 550MHz here that I can give away.  It was my previous
server.

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:35:20 -0700

David,

> you *will* be dispensed with.

Hey!   Take it easy!    Everyone here has been working hard to promote and 
support PostgreSQL, particularly Marc, and taking a superior tone does 
nothing to improve the real problems.

Even if we were donated a 5-server data center at Globix with unlimited 
bandwidth tommorrow, Marc would still he helping us with list/server admin, 
and it would still be the case that Hub.org has supported this project for 
years, including periods in which there was no/little benefit in doing so.   

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Tom Lane <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:40:42 -0400

> have no idea, and why has there been so little progress in the past few

Lack of people doing the work is why.  Complaining that nothing is
getting done is just sucking time away from more productive activities
... and I think that extends to all the points made in this thread.
We all know perfectly well what the problems are --- it's a matter of
finding time, and sometimes money, to solve them.  We don't need "new
ideas" unless the ideas are about how to produce those resources.

			regards, tom lane

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:41:11 -0400 (EDT)

> technician to get 'on the scene' ...

OK.

> *obvious* testing reasons ...

Even if it is experimental, I think we should try it.  But the larger
issue is why we are having OS crashes in the first place.  Not all the
fsck downtime was because of power failure.   What are the causes of the
other downtime, and if we don't know or can't fix it, I think we need to
look at more dramatic changes to increase reliability.

> every minute ... as soon as it can't ping anymore, it fails over ...

Right, failover is nice, but we need to find the cause of why we need
the failover so often.  From my perspective, if your servers can't be as
reliable as my home machine, there is something fundementally wrong,
either in hardware purchase, hosting provider, operating system,
software infrastructure, something.  I don't know what the problem is,
but I know a problem when I see it.

> you'd like us to put up in place of what we have now?

Looking around now.  Perhaps a dancing elephant.  WARNING:  This will
make you ill:

	http://janetskiles.com/ART/greeting/greet-ani/dancing-elephant.jpg

:-)

> we've overlooked and haven't fixed yet?

"It not working" seems to be a continual problem.  I don't know the
details and maybe it is already being fixed.

> fsck issue is being addressed as well ...

Yep, that is pretty pathetic.

---

From: Bruce Momjian <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:44:27 -0400 (EDT)

> years, including periods in which there was no/little benefit in doing so.   

"Years" where there was no/little benefit.  We had first-class
infrastructure when other open source projects were run on servers that
moved every few months.

My problem is that our reliability has gone _down_ in the past few years
when it should have been getting better, and I am trying to find out the
cause and push us to adopt a solution.

---

From: elein <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:54:38 -0700

I took a look at the google ad site.  There is a lot more to it
than the part where you put the java script onto the page.
You have to create an account and be approved, etc. etc. etc.

--elein

On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 04:13:05PM -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>      subscribe-nomail command to [email-masked] so that your
>      message can get through to the mailing list cleanly

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 22:56:15 +0200

Josh Berkus wrote:
> The big obstacle in moving anything is bandwidth.   While any number
> of companies will offer to host stuff for us, we can't match the
> amount of bandwidth we're currently using in Panama

... which amounts to exactly what?

---

From: Peter Eisentraut <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:04:01 +0200

Tom Lane wrote:
> We all know perfectly well what the problems are ---
> it's a matter of finding time, and sometimes money, to solve them. 
> We don't need "new ideas" unless the ideas are about how to produce
> those resources.

Throwing more resources at an entity that does not scale won't achieve 
anything.  In order to improve, we need to listen to competing concepts 
and pick the best one, not keep giving the current one more time over 
and over.

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:15:53 -0300 (ADT)

> You have to create an account and be approved, etc. etc. etc.

yup, already put through the application, Darcy says it takes about 48 
hours or so to be approved ... 

----

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:35:34 -0700

Marc,

> hours or so to be approved ...

Um, can we vote on this?  It's my long-term goal to get rid of all ads on 
postgresql.org, so I'd like to hunt for other funding sources before doing 
this.

-- 
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

---

From: Alexey Borzov <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 01:37:48 +0400

Hi,

> spices it up, as does blinking text and text that changes color.  :-)

You forgot background music in MIDI.

> have no idea, and why has there been so little progress in the past few

Er, the "beta" site is already working:
http://alexey.beta.postgresql.org/
I am unfortunately a bit busy ATM but expect to continue work on it the next 
week. There is very little work left, in fact.

As for the "past few years" --- I've no idea. I volunteered only this year and 
had to overcome some resistance when I said that the current site is inadequate.

---

From: Devrim GUNDUZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 01:02:33 +0300 (EEST)

Hi,

> 	http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&c2coff=1&group=comp.databases.postgresql.hackers

Dave has contacted with Google, and I'm sure that they'll solve this 
problem. See:

http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-www/2004-09/msg00191.php

Regards,
- --
Devrim GUNDUZ

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:20:37 -0400

> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-www/2004-09/msg00191.php

Now that people are talking about www and archives, please take a look
at a problem I've pointed a couple of times in the past and had no
answer: the pgsql-es-ayuda list is not on the left column.  It's also
not listed on the " Search in: " combo box at the top either.

Why is this?  Any chance to correct it?

Note that, of the regional lists, this is the one with the most traffic,
and the oldest (don't be fooled by the length of the month list ... the
last item has articles going back to 1997, it's just badly built)

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"Cuando no hay humildad las personas se degradan" (A. Christie)

---

From: Justin Clift <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 09:05:19 +1000

> ... which amounts to exactly what?

If it's helpful, I can ask my boss here if we're willing to host the PG 
project.

Lots of bandwidth and grunty servers.

Any rough ballpark figures on the amount of bandwidth we'd have to 
figure in?  i.e. xxx per month?

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

---

From: Josh Berkus <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:13:20 -0700

Marc,

> I got fast approval on the AdSense stuff from Google, so am working this
> evening on implementing that ... should help some ...

Let's please discuss this.   It will piss people off, and will disrupt the 
attempt to move to the new webserver code.

--Josh

-- 
__Aglio Database Solutions_______________
Josh Berkus		       Consultant
[email-masked]	 www.agliodbs.com
Ph: 415-752-2500	Fax: 415-752-2387
2166 Hayes Suite 200	San Francisco, CA

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:24:31 -0300 (ADT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

> about pg_query not getting a good connection or similar problems. 
> Isn't normal advice to check return codes before even trying to use the 

Just curious here, but when/where?  We haven't had a database issue in 
quite awhile that *I'm* aware of ... in fact, the whole web site is 
static, generated periodically from .php files, so that the mirrors can 
pick things up properly, so there should never be a 'cannot connect to 
database' issue, since there are no connections to the database being made 
...

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:35:51 -0300 (ADT)

Fixed ...

----

---

From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:51:08 -0000

> quite awhile that *I'm* aware of
 
Earlier this very day I got a page full of php erros when I tried
to view one of the mailing list "by thread". I would have wrote down
the errors and reported it. but it seems so par for the course I
did not bother.
 
My other concern is that often myself or someone else points out these
errors on the list, and *then* they are fixed. They should be caught
before this, either by testing by the people who make the changes
(which I've seen fail to happen), or by some sort of automated script
that does some quick basic checks.
 
- --
Greg Sabino Mullane [email-masked]
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200409291947
 
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:56:11 -0300 (ADT)

> attempt to move to the new webserver code.

As I mentioned in IRC, just so that everyone knows ... this is *only* for 
the archives, not the main site ... and there is no "contract that I have 
to put it up", so it can come down at a later date if we don't want it 
anymore ... but, there was no thought/intention of it for any of the other 
sites, only to tap into the archives site itself ...

----

---

From: Mark Harrison <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:56:25 -0700

> Are there any proposals, no matter how radical, to correct these?

Here are a few radical ideas... The basic idea is to leverage as many
outside resources as possible.

1.  Move primary file downloads to sourceforge.  That should reduce the
     traffic load a lot.

2.  Move the mailing lists to a mailing list server (e.g. yahoo).

3.  Base the new website on a blog-style package that makes it
     easy to update for multiple people (disclaimer, I don't know
     what the current site is running, so maybe that's already
     been done).

4.  For the website, concentrate on simple static pages that can
     be served efficiently.

5.  I like the google ads idea, it will possibly generate a bit
     of money and connect people with organizations interested
     in postgresql.

All just IMHO, and with immense gratitude for all the work
that's already been done!

Mark

-- 
Mark Harrison
Pixar Animation Studios

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:09:40 -0400

> Fixed ...

Thanks ... there is a typo though: on the upper menu, the combo box says
"German" where it should say "Spanish".

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"God is real, unless declared as int"

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:10:02 -0300 (ADT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004, Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:

>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>

My fault, sorry ... I've been going through and cleaning up the code, 
removed the right banner ad, and missed an include directory :(

> that does some quick basic checks.

In your case, you caught it between edits ... again, sorry about that ... 
the main web site itself is tested on a beta site first, so if you ever 
see an error there, its definitely not from lack of testing by the -www 
crew ...

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:34:21 -0300 (ADT)

> "German" where it should say "Spanish".

Oops, sorry, was even looking for that and missed it :(

Fixed now ...

----

---

From: "Greg Sabino Mullane" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 01:16:26 -0000

> server onto the network, I'd need alot more of those
 
FWIW, I've been more than willing to put my money where my mouth is,
but as long as we have banner ads all over out site, I'm not willing
to provide money. I seem to recall that people offered to offset the
costs of the banner ads earlier, but the discusion never got anywhere,
mostly because nobody could produce the amount that the banner ads
brought in.
 
As far as suggestions, why not all chip in and get a nice dedicated server
in a centralized place (e.g. Washington DC), get it up and running,
and migrate things over one by one.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane [email-masked]
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200409292037

---

From: Richard Welty <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:39:50 -0400 (EDT)

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:56:11 -0300 (ADT) "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]> wrote:
> As I mentioned in IRC, just so that everyone knows ... this is only for 

i've used google adsense on one of my web sites since last january,
and in general the ads are well targeted, tasteful, and shouldn't tick
anyone off unless MySQL AB makes a big ad buy with PostgreSQL
as the targeted keyword.

richard
-- 
Richard Welty                                         [email-masked]
Averill Park Networking                                         518-573-7592
    Java, PHP, PostgreSQL, Unix, Linux, IP Network Engineering, Security

---

From: Mitch Pirtle <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:57:05 -0400

> > server onto the network, I'd need alot more of those

Then perhaps a different approach needs to be taken?

> mostly because nobody could produce the amount that the banner ads

I use Adblock for FireFox, and as a Gen Xer I don't see them anyway ;-)

> and migrate things over one by one.

This was my thought initially, and servers themselves are actually
quite cheap (at ~$99 each) - that is why I asked about bandwidth
usage, as I believe this would be the cost factor.

For example, Server Beach (www.serverbeach.com) gives you a dedicated
machine for $99 monthly, and despite them being single processor
machines, we could have a dedicated webserver, dedicated database
server, and dedicated ftp/mail/whatever for ~$300...

I'm getting dual-xeons at aPlus.net for $200 or so, but I don't know
if PostgreSQL would need that kind of hardware if we could have
several servers.

Thoughts?  Discuss.  ;-)

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 23:15:33 -0300 (ADT)

> anyone off unless MySQL AB makes a big ad buy with PostgreSQL

ya, and we're only putting it on the archives themselves, not the main 
site ... and the main site itself, with the new redesign will have one 
banner ad, on the right hand side (if i recall right the positioning) ... 
similar to how php.net has their banner ...

archives itself is already down to the one banner at the top left and the 
AdSense stuff ...

----

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 22:22:17 -0400

> Oops, sorry, was even looking for that and missed it :(

Thanks.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"Escucha y olvidarás; ve y recordarás; haz y entenderás" (Confucio)

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 20:38:51 -0700

Hello,

>The archives situation is a continual problem.  Again, maybe a dancing
This  is being resolved by Command Prompt. Marc and I are in the process 
of moving archives as we speak.
In fact DNS should be propagating by morning.

>these are problems and that we will continue to suffer until they are
Command Prompt has offered servers and bandwidth on Multiple occassions. 
We have top notch
redundant bandwidth, natural gas fired generators, and solid uptime.

>Are there any proposals, no matter how radical, to correct these?
Please see above.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

-- 
Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC
Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting.
+1-503-667-4564 - [email-masked] - http://www.commandprompt.com
PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL

---

From: Devrim GUNDUZ <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:19:12 +0300 (EEST)

Hi,

> 2.  Move the mailing lists to a mailing list server (e.g. yahoo).

Are you kidding?

> 4.  For the website, concentrate on simple static pages that can

That's what we are doing now...

Regards,
- --
Devrim GUNDUZ

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 09:26:29 -0400

On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 08:24:31PM -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> Just curious here, but when/where?

I don't remember an exact date or place, just that I've seen that happen
more than three times and I've always thought it was bad programming
practice.  It has been very annoying, mainly because it means casual
visitors could see those and possible think Postgres reliability sucked.
Perhaps it has been fixed since then.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"The important things in the world are problems with society that we don't
understand at all. The machines will become more complicated but they won't
be more complicated than the societies that run them."    (Freeman Dyson)

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 09:32:49 -0400

> not listed on the " Search in: " combo box at the top either.

Oh, another one:  Here

http://search.postgresql.org/archives.search?cs=utf-8&fm=on&st=20&dt=back&q=llave+foranea&ul=http%3A%2F%2Farchives.postgresql.org%2Fpgsql-es-ayuda%2F%25&dp=0&o=0&ps=10&s=date

the pgsql-es-ayuda is not in the upper combo box.  This is the page
that's presented as result from a search (it was originally restricted
to pgsql-es-ayuda).

It seems really weird to have two lists of lists, one at the top when
you are looking at plain archives, and other when you are looking at
search results.  Most certainly they should be identical!  Why aren't
they one and the same?

Thanks,

-- 
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
www.google.com: interfaz de línea de comando para la web.

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 11:14:09 -0300 (ADT)

> search results.  Most certainly they should be identical!  Why aren't

search is on a different server then archives ... we try and keep the 
search box in sync, but John most likely didn't see your posting about it 
yesterday, and I haven't had a chance to update him ...

----

---

From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 13:58:11 -0300 (ADT)

> Perhaps it has been fixed since then.

If you see it, please report which URL you see it on ... there has been 
alot of code cleanups happening, especially with Alexey's work on the 
backend code, but its possible that something has been missed ... you are 
right that it doesn't look good when visitors see it, but if nobody 
reports it, its not goign to get fixed either ...

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From: Gavin Sherry <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 23:34:06 +1000 (EST)

> database' issue, since there are no connections to the database being made

I know this isn't on the main site but:

http://www.alcove.com.au/~swm/gborg.png

Gavin

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From: "Marc G. Fournier" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 Oct 2004 17:08:40 -0300 (ADT)

Chris?  Some extra error checking needed, maybe?

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From: Andrew Sullivan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 13:52:38 -0400

> 1.  Move primary file downloads to sourceforge.  That should reduce the

I'm coming to this discussion late, but given the project's history
with respect to SourceForge, I feel _extremely_ uncomfortable
depending on them for anything.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | [email-masked]
The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace.
		--Philip Greenspun