Technical Details

The bottom of this page was written a long time ago. The Hardware section is mostly obsolete, but the rest is still true. In the good old days (2003) I used DSL with a static IPv4 address, because that's how it was back then. For years I ran an Internet Host with name server, mail server, and web server on a series of computers in my basement, each with the same Tandy monitor (usually off or even unplugged) in turn.

The hardware is now different, but the software is new versions of the same Linux OS, Postfix mail server, and Apache web server. I no longer run my own name server.

Web Server in the Fog (2026)

Things are changing; I had better start dating these comments.

(2026-03-26) For the last three years these web pages and a mailing list have been served by a VPS rented from Afterburst. On 2026-03-12 I received an email from Afterburst which said they are shutting down the service and going out of business. I thank them for the warning.
I looked around and decided to get a VPS from Hostinger. The old Afterburst server was named fcx1 so I got creative and named the new one fcx2. At this time things are kind of a mess with both of them active and various pointers out of date.
(2026-04-03) This page is now served by a VPS rented from Hostinger

Web Server "in the Cloud [1]" (2023)

This web site is now served up by a VPS (Virtual Private Server) leased from Afterburst ( https://afterburst.com ).

The rest of this page was written years ago. Due to problems with my ISP the Hardware section is obsolete.

[1] There is no cloud. It's just somebody else's computer.

Technical Problems (2003)

There have been power outages, some long enough to be noticable, some just brief flickers that make the computer re-boot, and then come back messed up. There have been failures of the internet connection. There is a log of problems with DSL

Hardware

This Web site is hosted on an Intel-based PC in my basement. Since it operates as a server, it is running at all times (excepting power failure, hardware failure, or robbery).

To save power, and because it is not needed, it has no monitor attached. Since the case is nearly empty, the case fan seemed pointless, so I never plugged that in. I'm still looking for a smaller, more efficent processor.

It communicates with the Internet through speakeasy DSL . They are rather expensive if all you want is a web browser, but the service is excellent. They do not block ports just to keep you in your box, they answer their email within hours even at three o'clock Sunday morning, and they know what they are talking about mostly.

The server currently performs two functions for people outside our house

It serves up the web pages you are now reading.
It runs a Mail Transport Agent which, in addition to delivering mail to people in the house, forwards mail that has been sent to an alias address, or mailing list.

Software

GNU and Linux of course. The Web pages are served up by Apache, the email system uses Postfix for SMTP, and Dovecot as a POP server. I run my own primary Domain Name Server with Speakeasy providing Authoritative Secondary servers. The reference implementation (used here) is BIND.

As an old curmudgeon, I edit the HTML as ASCII text through a telnet connection to EMACS set to display a bright green fixed width font on a black background, just like I have done it since 1980. Before that it was still green on black, but with an editor written by Jon Sachs. Before that it was punched cards. Before that I just wrote programs on scratch paper and hoped someday I'd get to see a real computer.

Freedom and Innovation

You may have noticed that Microsoft has not been mentioned. This is not an oversight; no MS software has anything to do with it. This site is powered entirely by Free and Open source software. Much of it is licensed under the GNU General Public License. I have, or could get, the source code for every program I run.

This page was standard validated HTML 3.2 (2008-07-23)

Now this page is standard validated HTML 4.0.
( Checked 2026-04-04 )