So I am sitting here talking to a few people online after a really long day at work, and I get this email from the [colo] mailing list. This list is a discussion with the people who host their servers with Online Policy Group, including myself. To make this post a little more relevant, over the past 2 weeks or so, this group has been discussing the direction and future of the orginization with a big emphasis on going towards some form of virtualized hosting. Anyways, needless to say I believed the message that I got at 1am from the president of the orginization. It reads:

Folks,

As you know, we’ve been exploring options for CCCP/OPG to expand and
begin offering our clients space to grow again. Well, I’m proud to
announce today that we’re being acquired by Equinix! We’ll be moving
your servers soon from HE Fremont to the hosting facility in Foster
City in the next few days; don’t worry, your server will only be
offline for an hour or two.

Now you can sleep soundly at night, knowing your servers will be
backed with the full security of a publicly traded corporation. We’ll
have the resources to bring thousands of clients, for-profit and
non-profit alike, in alongside us.

Now, I should probably be clear that this transition is going to come
with some changes. Unfortunately, the new arrangement is not going to
be free; it does cost money to run these facilities, and power
certainly is not getting any cheaper. So starting tomorrow, we’ll be
levying a $10/day/server fee on machines hosted with us. That’s less
than a penny a minute! Cell phones are much more expensive than that.
CCCP is still a good deal.

But such a good deal doesn’t come without strings. A publicly traded
company wants to make sure it can take pride in its clients. So we’ll
be needing folks to please make sure that your content is something
Equinix would be proud to announce in their press releases. If it’s
not, we might ask you to delete it. To help ensure compliance, we’ll
be asking box owners to please give us copies of their logfiles and
root accounts. It’s a small price to pay for getting hosting at a
quality location.

We’re looking forward to serving you in this new way!

Yours,
David Weekly
EVP of Marketing & Sales, CCCP-Equinix

I immediatly sent an IM to david askig what was up, as well as did some quick math in my head to see that the new service would cost $300/month, way more than I currently pay. For the rest of this post, you can read my conversation with david on Aim. It wasnt until near the very end that I actually caught on that it was a prank.

tomh: DAVID!
david: tomhhHHHHHHHH!
tomh:
david: ?
tomh: cccp
david: what?
tomh: did u just sent a message to the colo list?
david: yeah.
tomh: yeah.
tomh: =(
david: …
tomh: they want root access?
david: yeah, pretty much.
tomh: =(
tomh: part of what I liked about cccp was the ability to host somewhat questionable free speech content
tomh: without question
tomh: not saying im doing anything illigal
tomh: but if someone else is to have root access to a server of mine
tomh: that means that I cant store personal backup iso’s and such
tomh: does it hoever mean that I can sell hosting?
tomh: however*
david: yes.
tomh: hmm.
tomh: i guess you gotta do what you gotta do
tomh: what sort of bandwidth will we have access to use?
david: they’ve got a lot there.
tomh: how much does it actually cost for space at he?
tomh: for 1 rack
david: $300/mo/cabinet
tomh: and then bandwidth on top of that right?
david: yep
tomh: whats the going rate for bw there?
david: ranges from $1000/mbps to $20
tomh: huh
tomh: so what does ‘acquired by Equinix!’ mean as far as your role in the org?
david: well, i’m going to be an EVP at Equinix, helping manage CCCP but now getting paid big bucks for it.
tomh: ah nice
tomh: so it is becoming a job for you then.. in conjunction with pbwiki?
david: yeah, actually it pays much better than pbwiki.
david: i think i might just drop pbwiki and go fulltime with equinix.
david: better benefits
tomh: wow
tomh: big news
tomh: so by me giving cccp my root password for the server at equinix, that really means giving YOU the password?
david: pretty much.
tomh: interesting
tomh: do you think they will object to sites like
tomh: http://tvrss.net
david: maybe, maybe not. i’ll have to check with management to get approval.
tomh: do you think this might clear out a number of cccp clients?
david: it’s possible. but the show must go on.
tomh: yeah
tomh: it sounds like a really great plan actually
tomh: i dont really know how i actually feel about it for my personal needs.. but it will really allow the org to expand a lot
tomh: so does this rule out the option for you living in the south bay?
david: hm, not neccessarily
tomh:
tomh: what sort of timeframe are we looking at for the server move?
david: oh, maybe tomorrow afternoon.
tomh: wow.
david: anyhow, bed time.
david: and hey, happy april!
tomh: oh
tomh: hmm
tomh: this isnt april fools is it?
david: [cough] oh, i guess it is april 1st, isn’t it?
tomh: yeah
tomh: hmm
tomh: fuck.
tomh: so is it true or no? i wont tell i swear
david: let’s just say this transcript is going up on my homepage.
tomh: EXCELLENT>
tomh: <3
david: kisses
david: can’t believe your sorry ass thinks i’d sell out that quick
tomh: yeah
david: and btw YOU CAN’T SELL A NON-PROFIT
tomh: it really caught me by surprise actually
david: hehehe
tomh: fkn april 1
tomh: lol
david: FOOLED YOU
tomh: yeah
tomh: .
david: [hugs]
tomh: brian’s going to freak
tomh: lol
david: i was biting my hand the whole chat
david: so bad!
david: and giggling

And so thats that. Tomicles got owned.

This afternoon I got my fourth phonecall from a strange number. The caller ID says the call is from ‘ 1 ‘ and when I answer, I can hear someone hang up the phone. The four calls have been coming in at random times during the past two weeks or so. I had a few entries in my phonebook that started with the number 1 as the contact name, and ive since changed them to something else, but I dont think they were in anyway related. I called Verizon to see if they could tell me that the phone number was actually ‘1′, but their systems are very lagged, and I have to check it on my next statement. The guy proceeded to tell me that I could ‘change my number’ if the problem persists. Like thats going to happen. Ive had my number since highschool and I’m not about to change it.

Today slut-o-meter.com got posted on Digg.com. It took a couple of hours to get upgraded to the front page, but once it did, mysql on my server couldn’t handle it. Adam Smith quickly jumped in and limited the type of statistics that were being reported and offloaded a few static parts of the site to another server but it was not enough. Eventually all of the system’s RAM as well as its SWAP were completely full and after traveling to HE.net to check it out, I found the server’s console with the image seen at the bottom of this post. It was not possible to login via SSH or from the console itself so my server lost its 319 days of uptime. Because I had to reboot the server to fix these memory issues, I also upgraded to the current legacy kernel once it rebooted to take care of any potential security flaws. It now appears to be working just fine, but the load has also gone down quite a bit. In the morning when I get up, I’ll be installing some Linux OS on my Dell SC420 to place at the colo as a backup system. I’ll also configure this box to do secondary DNS, and be a box usable for offloading sites in the event of a flash flood like today.

Once again the town of Los Gatos has failed. Every year now since I graduated from LGHS they have held this ‘fantasy of lights’ thing at Vassona on Blossom Hill, and every year, they block all traffic in every direction anywhere near the event. It took me 20 mins to get to starbucks tonight and an hour has passed and I am still LIVID. Ive sent emails to the City of Los Gatos, LGPD, and to two event organizers that I found on the Fantasy of Lights webpage. What is a citizen to do? I’d guess most of the people at the event are tourists from nearby places, not residents of Los Gatos.

Update:
I drove to the LGPD to file a complaint and they said that the Santa Clara County Sheriffs Department is the one in charge of the event, and that the LGPD assists them with the traffic management, but it is entirely the Sheriff’s deal. The money collected at the gate benefits the Sheriff, not the park. To me this is entirely jacked, because the Sheriffs don’t even have jurisdiction to manage traffic in Los Gatos, they only have jurisdiction within the park. The nice LGPD dispatch lady that I talked to told me I would have to contact them to file a complaint.

How to solve traffic issues