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• Server Move For multimedia.cx

  1er août 2014, par Multimedia Mike — General

  I made a big change to multimedia.cx last week : I moved hosting from a shared web hosting plan that I had been using for 10 years to a dedicated virtual private server (VPS). In short, I now have no one to blame but myself for any server problems I experience from here on out.

  The tipping point occurred a few months ago when my game music search engine kept breaking regardless of what technology I was using. First, I had an admittedly odd C-based CGI solution which broke due to mysterious binary compatibility issues, the sort that are bound to occur when trying to make a Linux binary run on heterogeneous distributions. The second solution was an SQLite-based solution. Like the first solution, this worked great until it didn’t work anymore. Something else mysteriously broke vis-à-vis PHP and SQLite on my server. I started investigating a MySQL-based full text search solution but couldn’t make it work, and decided that I shouldn’t have to either.

  Ironically, just before I finished this entire move operation, I noticed that my SQLite-based FTS solution was working again on the old shared host. I’m not sure when that problem went away. No matter, I had already thrown the switch.

  How Hard Could It Be ?
  We all have thresholds for the type of chores we’re willing to put up with and which we’d rather pay someone else to perform. For the past 10 years, I felt that administering a website’s underlying software is something that I would rather pay someone else to worry about. To be fair, 10 years ago, I don’t think VPSs were a thing, or at least a viable thing in the consumer space, and I wouldn’t have been competent enough to properly administer one. Though I would have been a full-time Linux user for 5 years at that point, I was still the type to build all of my own packages from source (I may have still been running Linux From Scratch 10 years ago) which might not be the most tractable solution for server stability.

  These days, VPSs are a much more affordable option (easily competitive with shared web hosting). I also realized I know exactly how to install and configure all the software that runs the main components of the various multimedia.cx sites, having done it on local setups just to ensure that my automated backups would actually be useful in the event of catastrophe.

  All I needed was the will to do it.

  The Switchover Process
  Here’s the rough plan :

  • Investigate options for both VPS providers and mail hosts– I might be willing to run a web server but NOT a mail server
  • Start plotting several months in advance of my yearly shared hosting renewal date
  • Screw around for several months, playing video games and generally finding reasons to put off the move
  • Panic when realizing there are only a few days left before the yearly renewal comes due

  So that’s the planning phase. BTW, I chose Digital Ocean for VPS and Zoho for email hosting. Here’s the execution phase I did last week :

  • Register with Digital Ocean and set up DNS entries to point to the old shared host for the time being
  • Once the D-O DNS servers respond correctly using a manual ‘dig’ command, use their servers as the authoritative ones for multimedia.cx
  • Create a new Droplet (D-O VPS), install all the right software, move the databases, upload the files ; and exhaustively document each step, gotcha, and pitfall ; treat a VPS as necessarily disposable and have an eye towards iterating the process with a new VPS
  • Use /etc/hosts on a local machine to point DNS to the new server and verify that each site is working correctly
  • After everything looks all right, update the DNS records to point to the new server

  Finally, flip the switch on the MX record by pointing it to the new email provider.

  Improvements and Problems
  Hosting on Digital Ocean is quite amazing so far. Maybe it’s the SSDs. Whatever it is, all the sites are performing far better than on the old shared web host. People who edit the MultimediaWiki report that changes get saved in less than the 10 or so seconds required on the old server.

  Again, all problems are now my problems. A sore spot with the shared web host was general poor performance. The hosting company would sometimes complain that my sites were using too much CPU. I would have loved to try to optimize things. However, the cPanel interface found on many shared hosts don’t give you a great deal of data for debugging performance problems. However, same sites, same software, same load on the VPS is considerably more performant.

  Problem : I’ve already had the MySQL database die due to a spike in usage. I had to manually restart it. I was considering a cron-based solution to check if the server is running and restart it if not. In response to my analysis that my databases are mostly read and not often modified, so db crashes shouldn’t be too disastrous, a friend helpfully reminded me that, “You would not make a good sysadmin with attitudes like ‘an occasional crash is okay’.”

  To this end, I am planning to migrate the database server to a separate VPS. This is a strategy that even Digital Ocean recommends. I’m hoping that the MySQL server isn’t subject to such memory spikes, but I’ll continue to monitor it after I set it up.

  Overall, the server continues to get modest amounts of traffic. I predict it will remain that way unless Dark Shikari resurrects the x264dev blog. The biggest spike that multimedia.cx ever saw was when Steve Jobs linked to this WebM post.

  Dropped Sites
  There are a bunch of subdomains I dropped because I hadn’t done anything with them for years and I doubt anyone will notice they’re gone. One notable section that I decided to drop is the samples.mplayerhq.hu archive. It will live on, but it will be hosted by samples.ffmpeg.org, which had a full mirror anyway. The lower-end VPS instances don’t have the 53 GB necessary.

  Going Forward
  Here’s to another 10 years of multimedia.cx, even if multimedia isn’t as exciting as it was 10 years ago (personal opinion ; I’ll have another post on this later). But at least I can get working on some other projects now that this is done. For the past 4 months or so, whenever I think of doing some other project, I always remembered that this server move took priority over everything else.

• Unable to stream swf file with ffserver

  12 août 2014, par user993766

  I’m trying to stream swf w/ flv video & mp3 audio & have had some issues. I believe my ffmpeg command line is fine, I think the problem is with my ffserver configuration. If I comment out the audio configuration, I get video output fine. If I have both, I only get audio - no video. However, upon stopping my input stream, audio will stop and video will start playing(at a faster speed than normal). Saving my ffmpeg to a file & viewing on mplayer yields both audio & video playing at the correct rate.

  Before posting an entire output dump, can anyone tell me if anything is blatantly wrong with my code ?

  FFMPEG is taking in an MPEG2 TS from a digital video tuner, transcoding to flv & mp3 :

  ffmpeg -i /dev/dvb/adapter0/dvr0 -c:v flv -r 15 -c:a mp3 -b:a 128k -ac 1 -ar 44100 http://localhost:8090/feed1.ffm

  My ffserver conf file is :

  Port 8090
  
  BindAddress 0.0.0.0
  
  MaxHTTPConnections 2000
  
  MaxClients 1000
  
  MaxBandwidth 16000
  
  CustomLog -
  
  
  
  <feed>
  
  File /tmp/feed1.ffm
  
  FileMaxSize 5M 
  
  </feed>
  
  
  
  <stream>
  
  Feed feed1.ffm
  
  Format swf
  
  
  
  AudioCodec libmp3lame
  
  AudioBitRate 128k
  
  AudioChannels 1
  
  AudioSampleRate 44100
  
  #AVOptionAudio flags +global_header
  
  
  
  #AVOptionVideo flags +global_header
  
  VideoCodec flv
  
  VideoFrameRate 15
  
  VideoBufferSize 80000
  
  VideoBitRate 100
  
  VideoQMin 1
  
  VideoQMax 5
  
  VideoSize 720x480
  
  PreRoll 0
  
  
  
  </stream>

  I’ve tried all kinds of permutations, adjusting QMax, video size, framerate & VideoBufferSize. Nothing seems to work. Any & all help appreciated !

• Help us Reset The Net today on June 5th

  5 juin 2014, par Piwik Core Team — Community, Meta

  This blog post explains why the Piwik project is joining ResetTheNet online protest and how you can help make a difference against mass surveillance. It also includes an infographic and links to useful resources which may be of interest to you.

  Snowden revelations, a year ago today

  On June 5, 2013 the Guardian newspaper published the first of Edward Snowden’s astounding revelations. It was the first of a continuous stream of stories that pointed out what we’ve suspected for a long time : that the world’s digital communications are being continuously spied upon by nation states with precious little oversight.

  Unfortunately, mass surveillance is affecting the internet heavily. The Internet is a powerful force that can promote democracy, innovation, and creativity, but it’s being subverted as a tool for government spying. That is why Piwik has decided to join Reset The Net.

  June 5, 2014 marks a new year : a year that will not just be about listening to the inside story of mass surveillance, but a new year of fighting back !

  How do I protect myself and others ?

  Reset the Net is asking everyone to help by installing free software tools that are designed to protect your privacy on a computer or a mobile device.

  Reset the Net is also calling on websites and developers to add surveillance resistant features such as HTTPS and forward secrecy.

  Participate in ResetTheNet online protest

  Have you got your own website, blog or tumblr ? Maybe you can show the Internet Defense League’s “Cat Signal !” on your website.Get the code now to run the Reset the Net splash screen or banner to help make privacy viral on June 5th.

  Message from Edward Snowden

  Evan from FFTF sent us this message from Edward Snowden and we thought we would share it with you :

  One year ago, we learned that the internet is under surveillance, and our activities are being monitored to create permanent records of our private lives — no matter how innocent or ordinary those lives might be.

  Today, we can begin the work of effectively shutting down the collection of our online communications, even if the US Congress fails to do the same. That’s why I’m asking you to join me on June 5th for Reset the Net, when people and companies all over the world will come together to implement the technological solutions that can put an end to the mass surveillance programs of any government. This is the beginning of a moment where we the people begin to protect our universal human rights with the laws of nature rather than the laws of nations.

  We have the technology, and adopting encryption is the first effective step that everyone can take to end mass surveillance. That’s why I am excited for Reset the Net — it will mark the moment when we turn political expression into practical action, and protect ourselves on a large scale.

  Join us on June 5th, and don’t ask for your privacy. Take it back.

  – Message by Edward Snowden

  ResetTheNet privacy pack infographic

  

  Additional Resources

  Configure Piwik for Security and Privacy

  • Turn on automatic SSL redirection in your Piwik.
  • Configure Piwik for advanced Privacy.
  • Best security practises for Piwik.

  More info

  • Learn why this matters (EFF)
  • Data Privacy Day – Why is privacy important ? (Piwik)
  • Web Analytics Privacy (Piwik)