Re: Inherited ISP host configuration nightmare
On Fri, Aug 18, 2000 at 01:07:52PM -0600, Kevin Blackham wrote:
> From what I understand here, you need a simple webserver on the Linux
> mail server (domain.com) that will redirect clients to www.domain.com,
> at least until you can get the customer base reconfigured. Stick
> Apache on there and set your index.html with this tag in the header.
>
> <META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="0;URL=http://www.domain.com";>
he's probably better off using squid on the linux box as an http
accelerator. much easier to configure, just set it up to accelerate for
virtual domains and that's it.
squid is also a lot faster and avoids the delays inherent in sending a
redirect (browser queries apache, apache sends redirect, browser queries
2nd server).
doing it with apache would require a redirect rule for each virtual
domain - even then it's hard to see how it would work....where is it
going to redirect TO? if the linux box is www.domain.com, then there's
no point in it redirecting to www.domain.com.
actually, the same problem would occur with squid - but at least you
can use a redirector with a bunch of simple rules to redirect from,
say, www.domain.com to real.www.domain.com (and set up the DNS entries
accordingly). that could be done with a single rule: as a perl regexp,
that would be:
s/www(.*)/real.www$1/
it's probably a lot simpler to just use a port redirector, to redirect
all connections to port 80 on the linux box to port 80 on the NT server.
this is a TCP level redirection, not an application level (http)
redirect so there's little overhead/delay incurred.
thinking more about it, there's a whole bunch of things like that which
could go wrong. it's impossible to tell without a good knowledge of
exactly how the current system(s) are set up. you can't make a viable
migration plan until you know what kind of mess you're working with.
it would be much better to leave things exactly as they are for now
and configure a new linux server to do everything that the NT box is
currently doing....then, when it is working, cut over to the linux box.
alternatively, do this in conjunction with the port redirector idea
above. first set up linux to redirect port 80, then set up apache on
port 81 and copy the virtual hosts over to it. test well. when they're
working on port 81, turn off the redirector and reconfigure apache to
use port 80.
after a week or so (when you know that you wont need to revert to the
old setup because everything is working fine), recycle the NT box -
format it and install debian.
there's lots of ways of doing this, and lots of potential problems. the
most important thing is to have a plan. think out what you're going to
do, step-by-step before you do it. make backups and always give yourself
a way to revert to the old setup in case of a mistake or unforeseen
problem. proceed slowly and cautiously. don't panic.
craig
--
craig sanders
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