#newoldimac — Public Fediverse posts

Guys I think I really did fix it this time! #selfhost #mastoadmin

It has been solid and responsive on #newOldiMac since switching colima from Apple's vz system to qemu.

Still up!

Have now split Colima into two contexts. One for the streams and one for docker. Not sure if that is the most efficient. But it’s working!

#newOldiMac #selfhost #mastoadmin

colima seems to be dealing with the traffic a lot better now that it's using qemu. Might also be doing diskIO better as it's using a different driver for that as well.

The mastodon client seems more responsive.

The database is already using 6.4GB of 8GB! Usually it barely got over 2.5GB before crashing.

I am forever optimistic for what I find in the morning! :+)

Goodnight sweet mastonauts!

#newOldiMac #selfhost #mastoadmin

bam. Looks like #newOldiMac is back up this time using qemu instead of vz underneath colima. We'll see if this helps with stability!
#selfhost #mastoadmin

about to attempt to bring my #SelfHost back up. It took over an hour for #newOldiMac to compile and install all the requirements for the qemu emulator for colima so that's why it's been a minute. Ended up taking all day lol.

Anyway, it's running now. I'm able to run a colima context under either the original vz or the new qemu profile.

If I get the db and redis running on it successfully, we'll see if it's more stable as hoped!

#mastoAdmin #Colima #macOS

it always takes so much longer than you want…. lol zzzzz #newOldiMac #selfhost #footiMac #newOldiMac #mastoAdmin #qemu #colima #cantHelpMyself

“what are you trying to do now?”
you might be asking.

Colima on macOS Ventura and later uses the Apple-supplied 'vz’ engine.

#newOldiMac is running Ventura.

So maybe docker was interacting poorly with that engine, especially because it was the first macOS version with it… maybe it's buggy?

So I'm installing ‘qemu', which is the native colima engine on all pre-Ventura Macs and Linux.

building it is taking a bit…

#selfhost #footiMac #newOldiMac #mastoAdmin #qemu #colima #cantHelpMyself

I said I wasn't going to fiddle around with my #selfhost #footiMac #newOldiMac anymore... well.

that didn't last. lol

#mastoAdmin #qemu #colima #cantHelpMyself

so far so good. #footiMac and #newOldimac are stable and services are being restarted periodically.

ok. *this time* i think my #selfhost is going to be stable or at least self-recoverable. Both #footiMac and #newOldiMac are now set to periodically restart to catch any times when the become unresponsive or colima dies.
#mastoadmin

I was hoping to get a new macmini to replace #newOldiMac before the summer but there are no refurbished ones in the Canadian Apple Store right now and the wait time on a new one is 12 weeks!

So no point doing that… plus the prices on RAM and SSD upgrades are crazy rn. Maybe the bubble will pop by then and we’ll have a flood of ex-AI gear on the market…

So instead I will focus my homelap on improving our home network situation, getting a couple 10gBT switches and capable router, and running a couple important cables around the house.

Then maybe I will see if I can make some space in our basement wiring closet for another shelf to hold a few old MacBook laptops that I have gathered over the years and see if I can turn them into a ProxMox cluster.

#networking #homelab #macmini #inflation

restart worked. udpating again to v4.6
This feels like the never ending tale... but I am resolved now that I will not tweak anything more on the containers for at least the next month unless the system starts crashing immediately or something. I have other fun things I need to get to :)
#selfhost
#docker #newoldiMac

ok... files restored... restarted with appropriate crossing of fingers and toes…. #docker #newoldiMac

Guys I broke it again 😂
Clearly still a docker newby.
When you mount a container to a volume it is supposed to be persistent… right? No?
But when you remove the container and then recreate it from an image, it goes back to the container? Not the image? Confusing.

Anyway… recombobulating.
#docker #newoldiMac

With all the drama today fixing Colima and docker on #newOldiMac and then the upgrade to v4.6, who knows what could have happened, but it all worked out!

Colima and Docker *seem* happy with the changes. All the docker containers have their own settings. The webcams are pinned to one core, and the db and redis are allowed to use all. Memory is customized for each.

So far, no crashes! Fingers crossed it is up in the morning!
#mastodon #mastoadmin #docker #colima

Had to do a revert back to v4.5.11 on #selfhost as I messed up the update steps. lol. Which is a first. Totally brain cramped. Anyway, after restoring the db to this morning just in case I am happy to be back at the point of updating to v4.6!

Because…. Eeeeeee new things are oouuuuttt and I want them nooowww… and yes I am doing it on the bus on my ippaaaaaaaad. 🤓 😱 😀
#v46 #mastodon #mastoadmin #footiMac #newOldiMac

Alright well, no luck on finding the command used to invoke a container. But I’ve tweaked the containers nonetheless that I have running in #colima on #newOldimac. It *feels* like docker is overshooting what colima is able to give it or one container is stepping on another's toes.

So I have ‘pinned' the three webcam containers to one CPU core and allowed the mastodon db and redis containers to continue to access all 4 cores.

I also trimmed down memory available for the webcam containers to only what they need. 256MB normal reservation shrinking to 128MB if the other two containers need a little extra.

I have yet to see the DB container demand more than 2GB of memory, so 4GB should be plenty.

I will probably trim down the memory for the redis container as well as it has never gone over about 128MB. So I can probably cap it to 1GB with a reservation to 512MB.

I enjoy the tweaking…

docker stats should be more verbose. I enjoy the verbose.
#docker #imac #colima

Checking to make sure #Docker on #newOldiMac is still running. It is still inexplicably unstable inside the Colima VM. I think it is the database taking it down when it gets too busy. But I’ve added RAM, taken it away, ensured the volumes have lots of free space, etc etc.

If anyone has experience running docker in Colima and has ideas, I’m all ears.

The good news is #footiMac (running Debian) is rock solid. As soon as the database returns, it resumes sending requests.

#mastoAdmin

I just reconfigured the Colima VM on #newOldiMac to try to get a handle on the instability.
I love doing stuff in a command prompt on an iPad.
It’s cool.
(Terminal# app on iPad)
#docker #colima #imac #ipad #ipadOS

Colima/docker having troubles on my #selfhost setup again. This is just motivating me to find a deal on a modern Mac mini so I can turn #newOldiMac into another Debian box or maybe the head end of a ProxMox cluster with some old macbooks?
#mac #debian #docker

I think I can confidently say the transition from failing #footiMac trying to handle too many tasks and especially the mastodon database, to a tag team between footiMac and the ten-year younger #newoldiMac running the db and redis process under Colima and docker is complete and successful.

It has been solid for 24 hours now. It’s responsive. It’s almost fast. 😂 even have elasticsearch reactivated.

And the best part: I learned more about docker and feel much more comfortable with it.

Yay
#docker #mastoadmin #selfhost

I think it is funny, ironic, nerdy, and meta (the proper literal sense) that I have maxed out the 2017 iMac by wanting to install btop while watching it be maxed out on htop.

And yet... it's still posting this, so if stuff doesn't break down now, surely it never will? Even the swap is having a moment. Ooof. I need to be nicer to my machines. lol

#newOldimac #selfhost #mastoAdmin #footiMac #docker #colima #homebrew

just tweaked/upped web concurrrency and max threads settings in my .env.production settings for Mastodon to give #footiMac a few more processes to handle requests and things are humming along nicely.

I think a big takeway for me on this #selfhost journey is that except on the very smallest one person and minimal followers instance, the database (and possibly redis) function should always be on a different machine or container from mastodon.

#footiMac was clearly having real trouble handling the database activity once it got busy. Even with an SSD now with two bad blocks (which may have been caused by that over-activity), it is way more stable.

#newOldiMac #docker #mastoAdmin #colima #iMac

It's a day later and #footiMac and #newOldiMac are still up and running. Disk usage is stable. Current RAM usage for the database has gone up to 3GB from 1GB since 9PM last night. I'd like to know why. It's not any busier.

I'm running the backup script then later today I'll see if I can investigate more on why the RAM usage fluctuates so much.

I would like to know why it is more stable. Is it because I've simply given it enough room to expand and contract in the colima VM?

Is it because I set the clocks to the same timezone?

Inquiring minds... but I am happy that it is happy. And I have learned a lot and gotten more comfortable with docker. Which has been a goal almost since I joined Mastodon in Nov 2022.

I’m hoping to look for a new macMini now to replace #newOldiMac. If I can get that an SSD to replace the failing SSD in #footiMac and a large HDD for backup that'd be great.

#docker #mastoAdmin #colima #iMac

success.
docker restart does not jeopardize anything as long as a volume is specified at runtime to preserve the data.

successfully restarted with new conf file and we're now green across the board and hopefully tuned for the slightly larger resources available from #newOldiMac

#docker #mastoAdmin #docker #colima #postgresql #selfhost

dare I say the #footiMac + #newOldiMac combo are currently delivering snappy mastodon performance.

#mastoAdmin #selfhost

ok, really for sure this time.
i think it's going to be stable.

I think.
#mastoAdmin #selfhost #newOldimac #colima #docker

ok, I've managed to clear 250GB of space on my iMac and give colima access to 200GB.

Now that I have a handle on how to monitor disk space both in colima and in each docker container, I'll be monitoring it closely.

The bad news is I had to revert back to a database from Friday night so I've lost some content. But I'm again increasing my understanding of working within a docker environment within a colima virtualization.

I’m updating the docker images for both the db and the redis now and will take current backups from both so I can be closer to realtime.

I'll get there! I refuse to let this beat me. I feel like I'm close!

Kind of in the background of all the drama on #newOldiMac trying to get this colima and docker stuff to behave, trusty #footiMac is much happier now that some load is off. But I still have my eye on a new Samsung branded and hopefully reliable 2TB SSD to replace the one that is failing that gave rise to all of this.

screenshot of realtime “hacking" according to @Jade lol.

#mastoAdmin #selfhost #colima #macos #linux #docker #footiMac #newOldiMac

ugh... definitely no disk space…. #newOldiMac #docker #colima

ok.. not sure how... but the database went away on #newOldiMac so now I'm restoring it again from Saturday night, so I'll lose my posts from Sunday. The tables were gone as if it had never been created... was it when I restarted the docker container and it started from a version with no database!?)

But I have a volume set up so it should keep that the data regardless... but it didn’t?

computers only do what they tell them to, so I'm sure this is a me-problem at some point :)
#docker #colima