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iBlack
iMarch 10th, 2018
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i
iIf you're reading this that means that my sdf gopher hole is dead.
i
iThat's dramatic!
i
iRecently there was a second round of shake-ups in the SDF gopher
ispace. Unlike sdf.org, which has been running gophernicus for
iquite a while, gopher.club suddenly forked away and started
irunning a different server. This was a surprise for most of us
isince gopher.club was just an alias for SDF, or so we thought. The
ichange blew up a few of the prettier gopher holes like jynx and
icat's. Mine was relatively unscathed, but it raised an issue in my
imind. SDF is not a safe space for things to live.
i
iSDF is a test-bed for lots of things. It does some fantastic work
iin aiding the stability of NetBSD. I know better than to host
ia critical web site there, but for some reason I thought of it as
ia place where gopher holes could persist relatively unscathed over
itime. It's been running for so long already, what could change
ithat, right?
i
iThen in the matter of months we witness some pretty big shifts in
ithe system. The worst part of it is the lack of communication.
iThere was no warning of changes coming, no announcement of why or
ito what end, nothing. The SDF users are pretty relaxed about it,
ibut it still put that nagging thought in the back of my mind. Is
ithis really safe?
i
iSo on a whim I bought a handful of gopher domains while at a diner
ifor lunch. One of these is gopher.black, my new home. It's running
ion a raspberry pi in my spare room, clinging to my wifi and
idangling on the edge of the desk without so much as a plastic
icase. Is this safe? Well, no. I'll get a case for it tomorrow and
ihard-wire it to the network. I've set up dynamic dns through
inamesilo.com using their API and a little python. I've still got
ito configure the pi to restart the gopher server upon reboot.
iThere's plenty of work to be done.
i
iIs it reliable, is it safe? Well, no and yet yes. I'm running
ithings myself and in the end that's where reliability is. Do it
iyourself, own it, and you can trust it. Anything else is false
ihope.
i
iBlack thoughts for gopher.black? I think it's hopeful.
i
iI wish the SDF gopher community the best. I'll still be active all
iover SDF, in IRC, com, even anonradio. I love it there, but I've
ilearned my lesson not to trust it with my stuff.