On Server Reduction + Vim Tip

-=20180312=-

On my main Raspberry Pi server, RPoD, I run a variety of services. Web server. Gopher Server. Baikal dav server. Gogs (git frontend). sFTP access to a large external drive.

I want to 86 the baikal server, and gogs.

The reason why is the requirement for mySQL. If I stop the servers requiring the database I can decommision RPoP (Raspberry Pi of Perdition). RPoP lives a quiet life. It runs mySQL. That is all. My home is not an enterprise that requires a dedicated DB server. The energy usage to run a Pi is negligable, but it just feels like a waste.

There are choices to be made here. I can leave the current configuration alone. I can open up the MariaDB installation on my VPS and redirect the servers on RPoD to point to it. I can find something else to fill the void.

Baikal is nice in that all my devices sync to it. That is pretty snazzy, truthfully. I just don't know if I want to run that way. I am leaning towards text. iCal is an ASCII format. I can make those files with awk and a text file format of my liking. Same with vcf for contacts. No overhead, no server. The workings of a caldav server can't be too difficult to fudge in PHP to handle file generation or calling my awk script. This is sounding ambitious on the whole, but in nibbles and segments it is a series of small projects.

As for gogs, I have pretty much moved origin master to gitlab for the majority of repos that matter. I am probably an abuser in this context as I am not storing any "project", but just using their service as a bit of backup storage with a conveiniant interface. I know I am not alone in doing this, so at least I can take sollace in that. If I paid for more than a 25gb VPS maybe I'd use a repo there. As it is I cannot even upload all my music (I went on a multiyear release binge).

On a completely unrelated topic most likely known to everyone but me (until today), the following line improves vim's backspace handling:

set backspace=indent,eol,start

On *BSD boxes vim by default does not like backspace. Not upon a line change. Not across lines. That snipet added to .vimrc changes the behavior to agree with people that want to backspace where ever the hell they choose. It is the small things in life :D