Help Beta Test The New Slashdot Server

Its been a long tradition here of letting Slashdot users pound on new boxes before we take them live, so if you don't have anything more exciting to do, feel free to test beta.slashdot.org. The new setup is bigger, faster, stronger, and will hopefully make these busy afternoons nice and perky. Please go post comments, moderate, meta moderate etc etc. When the dust settles, we'll make the big switch, and all will be well. We'll have detailed specs on the setup soon, too.

Comments

Do We Get Free Stuff?

[dougman]

Most Beta programs offer the volunteer testers free stuff. So what do we get? Slashdot T-Shirts? Underwear? Condoms? Kitchenware?

A comment to the /. crew

[spiralx]

Kind of offtopic, but anyway. I browse at -1 since I like to be able to see everything, but the posts below that consist of endless copies of "DEEZ NUTZ IS SUX0RED BY SLASHDOT" is very annoying and makes /. take a lot longer to load.

Could we have it so that comments at -1 are cut off at 15 lines or so, with the "Read the rest of this comment..." link after that? It's a simple solution IMHO to the cut-n-paste spammers, and doesn't require any changes to the moderation system.

Comments are welcome.

It was working

[jbarnett]

It was working, really fast to... but I think it got slashdotted.

If slashdot runs a news story about slashdot, does the slashdot site get slashdotted in an infinate loop?

First Root!

[zCyl]

Woohoo! I'm the first one to gain root access! I posted this by hand using vi!

Re:First Root!

[Dr. Sp0ng]

Woohoo! I'm the first one to gain root access! I posted this by hand using vi!

Hahahaha oh, I see. So vi can now insert rows into MySQL tables, eh? :-)
--

Re:First Root!

[zCyl]

> Hahahaha oh, I see. So vi can now insert rows into MySQL tables, eh? :-)

Ah, uhm, well, uh, maybe I used emacs then. It was really dark, I couldn't see...

Looks like...

[jd]

The beta site has not only been slashdotted, but has suffered a DB roll-back, too.

Assuming that wasn't a one-off, I hope that Rob upgrades to the ultra-latest versions of Slash, Perl, mod_perl and MySQL. To minimise server lag, I'd also recommend using Apache 1.3.12 + SGI Apache Acceleration patches. PGCC is a good bet, too.

I would =strongly= suggest that script fans stress-test the beta system above and beyond the call of duty. That'll give Rob, et al, a better idea of how the system will behave under extreme system loads. (Better to find that out now, than when the system goes live.)

Last, but not least, Rob - install ip-utils, compile the QoS drivers, and soft-limit the throughput. This will reduce the chances of the server blowing up every few minutes from being Slashdotted. (By using soft-limits, users can borrow unused bandwidth off each other. This makes a lot of sense. Or a lot more sense than relying on luck and penguin mints.)