This blog runs on a virtual private server from Slicehost. We set the blog up more than 6 months ago and it’s never had even a hiccup. Tonight I tried to login to the blog admin site and couldn’t. The blog site responded to pings but not much more. I’ve never had to reboot the slice before, so I’m new to the Slicehost admin tools. In a matter of a few minutes, I was able to log in and figure out how to perform a soft reboot. I did, but nothing came up for a minute or two. I became a little nervous but then found the web console tool within the Slicehost admin site. I launched it and saw the familiar Linux bootup messages. I watched for another 30 seconds or so and then finally saw the shell prompt. Then I tried to access the blog site from my browser and all was fine and normal again.

Very nicely done Slicehost. I’m a believer. Great stability and great management tools. I love it when stuff mostly just works and when it doesn’t I can solve my own problems.