The Butt Ugly Weblog

Moving

Well, I'm moving this server physically from Germany to Finland. Or to be precise, I rented new hardware, moved all my stuff, and am now in the process of rebuilding everything on the new server. So if you're reading this, at least the web servers have been moved properly.

Anyway, moving digital assets is much the same as moving in the physical world. It always takes longer than you plan, you invariably break stuff, and you are constantly amazed at the amount of cruft you have accumulated over the years and you SWEAR you're going to clean everything up AS SOON AS everything has settled, and then you basically end up putting stuff in a big box that says "TODO" and go open a beer. And when the next move comes, you open the box and you go "Oops, do I still need these?"

There's another surprising thing that is similar, and it's that configurations don't move well. It's very difficult to end up with the same order of books on the shelf in the new place, or the same configuration in the kitchen, and most likely you don't even want to. Some of the stuff you just chuck in place, and for some you spend hours contemplating what would be the best configuration be - should the sofa be in that corner? What's the best way to get lighting on my desk? Should this lamp be there?

Same with digital stuff: Web server needs to be reconfigured; your <program> config needs to change (since the original is probably from 2012 and the server config file format has changed)... When you own your furniture/server, you need to think about configuration as well. If you have a web hotel and just copy stuff from one place to another, it's almost like moving from one furnished apartment to another - no need to think, just fill the cupboards and you're done. But when you insist on renting just the walls/server, you need to configure things on your own.

And I know I don't need to. Most of the things I use my server for is, well, you could just rent the equivalent - probably better even - from a SaaS provider. And modern software development revolves around docker containers and serverless these days, so there's little to no need even professionally to know the ins and outs of servers anymore. And this tinkering can be a bit frustrating too. However, I do appreciate the fact that by tinkering on this server I gain far deeper knowledge of how the internet really works on a very concrete, even visceral, level. After all, I've always been a bead curtain kind of guy.

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Oh, and Happy New Year 2024! I think this blog can now legally buy beer even in the US...