Server Setup

I decided to test out VMWare's ESXi server 4.1. I got the install on a cd, setup my usb cd-rom drive, and got it all loaded without much trouble at all. Then I found out that the hard drives are setup as 4 seperate hard drives. No RAID setup at all...so I will be resetting that when I get back to Potlatch. (I am at a conference in Boise for the week.)

But since I have remote access to the server while at my conference, why not test out some of the settings and setup a Windows XP and Windows Server Core 2008x64 virtual machines.

Windows XP was no problem at all. Although I found out that Windows XP defaults to an IDE hard drive setup. Well apparently you can't change the size of an IDE hard drive. You can change the size of a SCSI hard drive. But you can convert an IDE drive to SCSI, change the size and then change it back to IDE. (How To)

Needless to say, I will now be using SCSI drives only!

More information about my official server setup will follow when I get back to town and setup the RAID. I will post any new information that I find and figure out as I continue to setup my server.

New Server!

I am so excited to announce that I was allowed to purchase a new server...budget: $3500. So I went shopping...here are the specs:

*Dual Xeon (Quad-Core) 2.13Ghz

*16 Gb of DDR3

*4 Tb of Hard Drive Space

Nothing pre-loaded on it...

So the first thing I did was get a space set aside for it on the rack and get it placed inside. I might want to get a second power supply, it only came with one, but I don't think those are too expensive and redundant power supplies aren't that mission critical for this server. I plan to use it for mostly a file server, to increase storage space. More on what I did with the server in another post.

MySQL on Windows Server

These are the steps to install MySQL on a Windows Server.

Download MySQL for windows from here.  Make sure you have IIS and PHP installed.

Run the installer and choose the options that you feel are important for your setup, I usually use the Typical setup.  I also like to include PHPMyAdmin, which you can get from here.

When MySQL is finished installing then you need to set it up.  Run the Server Instance Configuration Wizard and select detailed install.  Then select either Server or developer machine.  I also use Multi-functional database setup.  I use mostly default settings except I like to include the bin directors in the windows path.  I also like to give Root a password but allow root access from remote machines.  Then you are done.

Copy PHPMyAdmin to your InetPub folder and you now have access to your MySQL database from an easy to use front-end application.

That is it.

PHP on Windows Server

So I have spent the past few months working to get a few web servers up and running.  I am finding that the more I can make things available on the web the more information that the users can get access to.  I like how php works and I like programming in it so I am setting up PHP as often as I can.  This is a document on my steps that I have taken to get PHP setup on a Windows 2003 R2 server.  I am also going to include the install of MySQL as well because the two go hand in hand.

First you need to go and download the latest version of PHP from this website.  As of this writing they were on 5.3.6.

While that is downloading, you also need to download the latest version of FastCGI for IIS.  You can get it here.  This is used by PHP for server response.

Start the PHP installer and answer the basic questions.  Make sure to place PHP directly on the C drive.  It works better if there are no spaces in the folder names.  I like to put it right on C:\PHP\.  Select IIS FastCGI as the Web Server Setup.  I also like to make sure that all of the expected extensions are installed and enabled.

When that is installed I like to go to IIS and set the default document to be index.php.  It should have already been added to the list so I just move it up to the top.  Then I create an index.php file in the inetpub folder and put this code inside:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Make sure you go to Web Service Extensions in IIS and allow FastCGI Handler.  I also allow Server Side Includes.

Then from any web browser you should be able to browse to your server and see the PHP info presented.  You have now setup PHP on Windows Server 2003.

Weather

I have successfully setup a laptop that had a broken screen as the weather logging station. It is mounted on a tv mount in the corner of the high school science classroom.

That lab room has a Davis Weather Monitor II mounted and setup. It even has the Data Logger attachment with all of the bells and whistles, but it wasn't exporting outside of the display because the computer it was setup on was a Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Yeah, you heard that right!

Anyway, got it setup with Windows XP and Weather Underground's WUHU software. You can check it out here.

I setup a Weather Underground account so that we could send the weather data somewhere other than locally. You can see it here. We were having some power issues, the laptop kept shutting down at 11pm with the power saver feature of our server. I have since gotten that fixed today, or so I hope.

Anyway, if you want to see the webpages that the WUHU software can create you can also go here. These pages are very basic, and the graphs don't work yet. Apparently the pages use a generic jpeg picture for the graphs. I am working on getting some other javascript graph, or something.

Weather Online

We have been able to successfully post the weather data online.  There is a weather logger in the science classroom and it is connected to a computer running WUHU (Weather Underground/HeavyWeather Updater).

I have connected this software to a Weather Underground account and the live data can be viewed at http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KIDPOTLA2.  There is also a "RapidFire" full screen view that can be seen at http://www.wunderground.com/swf/Rapid_Fire.swf?units=english&station=KIDPOTLA2.

Please take a look.  We are working on getting a webcam to display a live picture.  Stay tuned!

ISEE Cuddo's to the District

I received a letter today from the Superintendent.  It was actually from the State Superintendent, Tom Luna.  I have posted that letter here as a PDF and anyone is welcome to see just how amazing Potlatch School District really is.  I want to thank and recognize the hard work that these staff members have done to make this error free:

Joe Kren, Superintendent
Gwen Burkgart, Cleark
Verlynn Emerson, Secretary
Lelia Millick, Secretary
Shannon Richards, Special Education Director

And all of the SPED staff and other staff members that took the time to make sure that the data was entered accurately and in a timely manner.

I appreciate everyone's hard work and hope that we continue to receive these letters of recognition.