The Joys of Home Servers

It's bound to happen eventually, but a couple of days ago I found myself unable to access my home Linux server from work. This is important to me, as I host my PhD thesis / other writing Subversion repository there, as well as using it as a general-purpose relay into my home network.

I figured that my home Internet connection was being flaky, or needed to be reset; no big deal, right?

When I got home, it turns out that the Internet link was just fine. Unfortunately, the server was emitting a very high-pitched whine from its power supply unit and was otherwise offline.

With the problem escalated, as my wife's business documents are in its file-serving backend, I rushed to buy a new power supply. After replacing it, the system could power up, but otherwise not POST.

D'oh! The motherboard and/or CPU are out of commission. New parts are on the way, but it's not a nice feeling. >: /

Fixed an odd SVN Error This Morning

I've been running my own SubVersion server for some time now. Until today, I'd never had any problems.

I was updating the working copy of my thesis (kinda important!) when my favorite Windows SVN client, TortoiseSVN, gave me the following error:


Can't find a temporary directory: Internal error

It turns out that on my SVN server, the disk hosting the / filesystem was full. Freeing up some room there fixed the problem immediately.

Others have suggested this might be the problem, but I figured it can't hurt to post solutions when things work!