The new server hardware is up and running now.  It’s a Pentium dual-core system with 2GB of RAM.  This box will be used as the new source code repository.  It’s running Team Foundation Server 2010.  I used to use the database server to host Visual Source Safe 2005.  But now, the existing database server is just going to be used for the game databases only.

All of the Orion Engine solutions and projects are now converted to Visual Studio 2010.  Also, everything has been successfully added to Team Foundation Server 2010.  Once the source code tree grew really large, Visual Source Safe just became too slow and cumbersome for remote developers to use.  I’ll be able to use my new Team Foundation Server to allow outside developers/partners to easily access portions and/or all of the local source code repository.

I finished upgrading the operating system on the web server/gatekeeper server today.  I installed a fresh copy of Fedora 13 Linux.  Everything seems to be working fine so far.

I have the entire source code tree upgraded to Visual Studio 2010. However, I’m still using Visual Source Safe 2005 for my source control. I’m in the process of building a new dual-core server that is powerful enough to run Team Foundation Server 2010. I still need a SATA hard drive and another stick of memory. I was going to use my database server, but I don’t want it to be loaded down with all of this other stuff.

I’m in the process of upgrading the source control (version/revision tracking) for the Orion Engine source code.  I’m moving from an ancient Visual Source Safe 2005 database to Team Foundation Server 2010.  I need to upgrade the memory in the server, before it will let me configure TFS.  I hope I can get the TFS server up soon.  I’m also upgrading the entire source code tree to use Visual Studio 2010.

I had to replace the Ethernet cable on the database server today.  Whenever I used Remote Desktop to connect to the machine, I was getting a lot of vertical lines and garbage pixels.  As it turns out, the signal was getting really crappy.  The new cable should actually help the performance of the game server considerably, since the communication to and from the SQL server won’t suffer from so much network packet loss.

I had a faster CPU laying around that I was able to put in the database server.  I also upgraded its memory, switched out the old CD-ROM for a DVD-ROM drive, and installed a second hard drive that I can use for backups.  I wish I had the money for all new database server hardware, but I guess it’s not in the cards for me at the moment.

While I was at it, I upgraded the database to SQL Server 2008.  This caused a few issues with the game servers that I had to work out.  It took me several hours to figure out why I could not connect to the DB using ODBC.  As it turns out, I have to also specify the port number, i.e. 1433, in order to successfully make a connection.  Apparently, the database server was trying to respond on a different port than what I was expecting.  Anyway, the upgrade is complete.  The game is back online and everything seems to be working smoothly.

It’s inevitable, the more computers that you own, the more problems you are going to have!

There were a few power outages recently that took their toll on the Gatekeeper server’s file system.  It wasn’t worth fixing, so I went ahead and installed a fresh copy of Fedora 10 Linux.  I need to get a battery backup for this computer!  Anyway, I luckily had a current backup of all the important data.  Everything is back to normal now.

I want to install Fedora 11 once it’s released.  I think I’m going to install a fresh copy, since I’ve had problems in the past with upgrading.  While I was rebuilding the server this time, I kept better notes on how to do everything again; so that it will be even easier the next time to get the server setup exactly like I want it.

When I came home from eating tonight and walked in the door, I smelled the unique odor of burnt electronics! Oh crap, the computer that was running the Server Manager had a meltdown! Another power supply decided it was going to quit on me. The only spare power supply that I have was temporarily hooked up to my test server. So I decided to steal it’s power supply, once again.

The game servers ran all week without any problems, so this is good news. However, one of them is starting to run really hot. So, I decided to take them all down today for maintenance. I’m going to clean them out and/or replace any faulty fans that I find – before I blow yet another power supply. I’ll be bringing them back online again for more testing fairly soon.

I fixed the database server hardware several days ago. It was important to me that I got it running again quickly. I had to borrow the power supply from my test server in order to get it working again. Now, I don’t have anywhere to test my experimental server code! Oh well, I guess I can live without it for now. Anyway, I’ve been taking a much needed break away from the hard core network coding. Although, I’m going to need to get working on the bug in the authorization server code again very soon. The show must go on!

I ran into some unfortunate news this morning. My database server is busted. We had a power outage and a subsequent power surge last night. Then the power just stayed off. The computer is on a battery, so I was able to shut the system down properly. I simply went back to bed thinking everything was alright. However, when I got up this morning to power the system back on, I discovered that it’s totally dead to the world. It turns out the power supply is shot. The only problem is, there are no replacement parts available – the power supply is some weird proprietary crap. I’ve tried to find one like this before for a customer’s computer. So, I either have to build a new system, or try to replace the voltage regulators in the blown power supply. Man this sucks, that server also held my source code repository. This is surely going to hold me up for a bit.