About this WWW server


The Machine

The server, bizet.nethelp.no, used to be a Pentium-166 machine with a PCI motherboard (Intel 430HX chipset), 128 Megabytes of ECC RAM, Tekram DC-390F SCSI controller (based on the NCR/Symbios 53c875 chip), and about 20 gigabytes of disk space. This server had been performing admirably since 1997. However, the P-166 died at the beginning of February 2004 - I think the greatest problem was simply age and some dust in places where dust isn't supposed to be.

The server is now a Dell Poweredge SC 420 with a 2.53 GHz processor, 1 Gigabyte of RAM, and more than a hundred Gigabytes of disk space on two vinum mirrored disks. The difference between a 166 Mhz and a 2.53 GHz Pentium is noticeable :-) Also, ATA disk technology now has advanced to a point that I see no point in using SCSI for my home servers - this machine is now pure ATA.

The operating system is FreeBSD 5.4-STABLE. I've been running FreeBSD since 1995, and I am very happy with the performance and stability of FreeBSD.

The Software

These pages are served by the small and efficient thttpd server, written by Jef Poskanzer.

The Network

Nethelp has its own dedicated link to the rest of the Internet, via Catch Communications. Here in Norway, traditional leased lines are still rather expensive. Nethelp uses a DSL connection running at 1.5 Mbps.

I do a lot of network experimenting and testing as part of my job, so I have a small lab with several Ethernet switches, Cisco routers and similar equipment at home.