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.
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.
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.
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
dare I say the #footiMac + #newOldiMac combo are currently delivering snappy mastodon performance.
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
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
Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸
Chris Alemany