29 Apr 09 Server Migration Is Go…
Well I’ve been doing some reading and thinking, and I think I have mentally prepared myself to re-image the server with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. Everything seems to be manageable without Plesk. I did some reading, and discovered the default Mail Transfer Agent (MTA – I learned a new acronym!) in Ubuntu is Postfix. I started reading their online documentation, and at first I found it quite inscrutable. I kind of panicked and ordered a book on Postfix. But after reading the docs some more, it is starting to make sense, and seems quite easy to configure it to just forward email. I’m glad I bought the book though. It hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m sure it will be handy down the road. I don’t currently have a need for locally hosted mailboxes, spam filters, etc. One thing I can definitely appreciate: administering mail for a large network is very complicated. My use case is pretty simple though, I hope.
I did some poking around on my Ubuntu equipped laptop. Configuring Apache should be easy. They made support for virtual hosts very easy right out of the box by how they arranged the configuration files.
So right now I am taking some notes about what to backup, making lists of databases, database users, collations, etc., all in preparation for RI-Day (Re-Imaging Day). I’ve got lots of stuff to juggle. I surprised myself by how much custom stuff I added in little over a year, and it will take some time to get it set back up on the new server. Therefore I am going to have to give myself a lot of time to do this. I’m thinking Memorial Day weekend would be a good target as I have some additional days off around then.
I think it will be a very good step to move to Ubuntu and I’m looking forward to it! I’m curious as to how my host has customized the image. Surely they have some things like DNS and SSH configured, otherwise no one could remotely login and administer it out of the box. But did they also setup mail? I guess I’ll find out.
