1.6.2 Patch update, fixed minor issue with order list rendering in blog posts. Added new blog entry.

blogs/2022/2022-11-19_future_of_the_subcon_server.md

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+# Future of the Subcon Server
+
+*Written on November 19th, 2022*
+
+---
+
+Howdy reader! Today I wanted to talk a bit about my home server and its
+immediate coming future, now that I've finally gotten a little roadmap
+established and new plans made. It has been a while since I wanted to
+decommission the current server hardware, as it's slowly showing its age
+now, both in terms of hardware incompatibility and power efficiency.
+
+
+## The current system
+
+Currently the server is a fairly typical desktop computer. It's nothing
+special or enterprisy, just a regular joe desktop PC, rocking an old
+Intel Haswell board with an i3-4170 CPU and some 16GB of terribly
+mismatched RAM. Since my server has never seen heavy traffic, this has
+worked quite well, despite it obviously not being very suitable for more
+advanced things like virtualization. Truth be told, that has simply never
+been my end goal.
+
+![The current Subcon server, tucked away under my desk.](/img/20221119/Haswell.jpg)
+*The current server, together with the UPS powering it.*
+
+When I first built this iteration of my home server, it was a
+substantial upgrade to its predecessor. It provided much more stability
+and steady processing power, and still came in at using about 35 Watt
+while idling. This, including multiple big wonky hard disk drives, so I
+was satisfied for the time. And all this has served me ridiculously well
+for how simple and budget tier it was.
+
+However, with time I have dropped a number of the heavier services on my
+server (such as the Minecraft and Garry'sMod servers), leaving my setup
+quite overpowered still for its remaining tasks. With the current plans
+to dedicate the server to become a more limited pubnix system, I can
+downsize it to a much more low-power system to save on the energy bill.
+
+
+## The next generation
+
+I've been seaching for a while for hardware solutions that
+would fit the bill. Given the desire for a low-power system, I had placed
+my bets on a Single-Board-Computer (SBC), such as a raspberry pi or
+an x86 board with integrated Intel Pentium or Celeron processor. It had
+to be simple.
+
+Coupled with this I'd figure I pair it with a set of two NVMe SSDs. 
+Unfortunately, I went ahead and bought a couple of such expensive
+(though still for a good price) SSDs, before checking if my current 
+hardware plans could even support such a thing. Turns out many 
+low power computers can barely run a single NVMe SSD, and that is if 
+they supported it at all. So to run two of them? Not gonna happen.
+
+It was at that point that I decided to make the most of what I had and
+find a system that could at least run one of the two sticks I had bought.
+After some searching, I finally managed to find a system that almost
+perfectly fit my needs: the *Odroid H3*.
+
+![The Odroid H3.](/img/20221119/H3B.jpg)
+
+The H3 is a small x86 board with a reasonably new Celeron CPU that can
+boost to a whopping 2.9GHz clockspeed if needed, but runs at a more
+comfortable 2GHz when not under stress. Besides that, it will run one of
+my NVMe drives, as well as two more SATA drives so I can still expand the
+storage capacity to more than I will ever need for now. Lastly, it can
+deal with more RAM than could possibly be healthy for a small board like
+this. All of this in a very power efficient package that isn't even
+particularly expensive. It was here that I decided to make the H3 my
+plan for the future.
+
+
+## The roadmap
+
+Before I can actually start running an H3 as my new server, a lot of
+migration will have to be done from the older server. As such it won't
+be a quick job. Certain things will have to be taken into account, such
+as what to do with my huge personal media library, how to deal with
+backups, and certain other things need some figuring out: most
+importantly, how do I wish to set up and organize the file system? As it
+stands on my current server, the file system is a mess and not very
+friendly or secure.
+
+As such, the roadmap for migrating will look a bit like this:
+
+1. Plan out the new filesystem. This will tell me if I need to look into
+   setting up LVM partitions, in case I need my partitions to be dynamically
+   resizable at a moment's notice. Such a thing is easy with LVM, not so
+   with regular partitions.
+
+2. Plan out how to migrate existing data. Besides the obvious things like
+   databases, this also includes thinking about where to move my software
+   installations and if this requires more than a simple copying of a
+   directory.
+
+3. Backups. How will I make them? If I figure this one out beforehand, I
+   could potentially already make some backups the new way.
+
+4. The other backup, a backup battery. As it stands, my current UPS is
+   extremely overpowered already, even more so for the Odroid. This may
+   take another long search, as low-power UPS systems are rare and expensive,
+   and as of writing there is no custom solution for an H3.
+
+5. Actually purchase the H3 and other parts. These won't be available
+   here until December, so I'll have to wait at least until then. Given
+   how much storage space I'll initially need, I might have a think about
+   buying one or two SATA SSDs.
+
+6. Finally, migration time. This just comes down to doing it, moving
+   files and reinstalling everything. For this I will likely need a few
+   days off from work so I can take my time to do everything properly.
+
+I estimate that it will all take at least until the end of the year to
+complete, so some changes in the plan might still pop up. However, I
+think the above roadmap sums up quite well what needs doing.
+
+
+## The future of Subcon
+
+After all is well and done, I think this will mark another period of
+stability where the system will not change, not unless something breaks.
+My current server has been doing its job for quite a number of years now,
+and I hope the H3 will serve me as well for just as many years.
+
+This means I can focus on building the pubnix community, perhaps adding a
+few new bits of software, but most importantly, just use the damn thing
+on a daily basis without having to worry about anything else. Once it is 
+done, I hope I can welcome some of you as new users!
+
+Until then, and happy computering!
+
+![Cute Kosuzu!](/img/20221119/51c20c1fb71fd4ff26ed7288fe074183.jpg)

index.html

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     <title>Comfitu.re</title>
 
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                     <h2>2022</h2>
                     <table class="blog-table">
+                        <tr>
+                            <td>19 Nov</td>
+                            <td>"Future of the Subcon server"</td>
+                            <td><a href="blogs/2022/2022-11-19_future_of_the_subcon_server.md">.md</a></td>
+                        </tr>
                         <tr>
                             <td>07 Oct</td>
                             <td>"Fresh Blog!"</td>
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                 </div>
                 <div class="content-tab" id="changelog">
                     <h1>Changelog</h1>
+                    <ul>
+                        1.6.2 Patch:
+                        <li>Fixed rendering of ordered lists in blog posts.</li>
+                        <li>Added a new blog post.</li>
+                    </ul>
                     <ul>
                         1.6.1 Patch:
                         <li>Updated copyright notice to provide proper attribution to third party works used on this website.</li>

style.css

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