Slice Management

Managing your Slices is done via the SliceManager (could have guessed by the name I suppose).

This article will take you through the basic features available when administering your Slice(s).

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Slice Panel

Log into the SliceManager at https://manage.slicehost.com and you will see the default page which is the Slice Panel:

I've only got one Slice on this demo account, but if you have more, they will be listed in age order (oldest first).

Slice Summary

To manage the Slice, simply click on the Slice name. Then you will see a Slice summary and the tools available listed along the top:

Let's have a quick look at what's available.

Console

A very useful tool to manage your Slice when SSH is not available, whether because you have misconfigured your SSH or iptables config files, or you simply do not have access to SSH.

To launch the ajax console, just click on the 'Launch web console' link:

A quick warning, you can only have one console open at a time:

You may well experience some latency issues so I wouldn't use the console on a daily basis, but for the odd emergency, it is ideal.

Stats

If you are interested in taking a snapshot of your Slice statistics, then this is the place to be.

Do be aware the stats will be reset after a reboot but they can be useful if you are monitoring general Slice usage:

To get a new snapshot, click 'Get New Statistics'.

Backups

Slices come with backups turned off by default:

Enabling them will pop up a warning as they are charged for.

Should you continue, you will have a chance to set the Daily Backup window (choose a time when your site is quiet) and a day for the weekly backups to take place.

You can also take a snapshot of your Slice at any time. Keep in mind you can only have one custom snapshot at a time, so a new one will overwrite the older one.

To begin with you will have no snapshots available but, as time goes by, the daily and weekly slot will be filled.

You can restore a backup at anytime by simply clicking 'restore'. This will destroy your current Slice and replace it with the snapshot!

You can, of course, turn off backups at any time.

Rename

As your accounts grows (?!) you may add more slices and want to rename them:

Renaming the Slice does not change the Slice hostname. To change the Slice hostname, you will need to do that by hand in the various hosts files, or rebuild the Slice using a new name.

Reboot

Two types of reboot to choose from. Firstly is the 'Soft Reboot' which will gracefully shutdown the slice and start it backup again:

The 'Hard Reboot' should only be used if your Slice is not responding (from too many spawned processes for example). It is the equivalent of removing the power cord. It will immediately stop and then start up again.

Although your data should be safe, do use this with a little caution.

Resize

Although we are always told that size doesn't matter, there is the odd occasion when, in fact, it does.

No problem, you can resize your Slice at any time from here:

Of course, you are not restricted to increasing the size of your Slice, you can also resize to a smaller Slice if you find you do not need the extra capacity, etc.

Rescue

Two things are available here. Firstly is the 'Rescue Mode' itself. Very useful for those who want to tinker a bit more and perhaps install another distribution or play with setting up LVM.

You can also access the file system when the Slice is turned off. For example, if your Slice was compromised then the Slice would be switched off until rebuilt, but you can have access to retrieve your important files.

The second, and very useful feature is the 'Reset Root Password' link.

Perhaps obviously, this will reset the root password. See this article for more details.

Rebuild

I know when I first got my Slice, I rebuilt it at least twice a day while I tried out various settings and configurations (either that or I was just plain incompetent!).

Either way, you can rebuild your Slice at any time and with a choice of distributions:

There are no restrictions or charges for this. Play, learn and grow,

Delete

I can't for the life of me think of any reason to delete a Slice but, hey, if you do need to delete one then it is very simple to do:

Do be careful as, although there is a warning pop up, this procedure is not reversible.

Summary

The Slicemanager is a powerful tool that enables detailed Slice administration to be a breeze.

Feel free to build, rebuild and test your Slice as often as you want.

PickledOnion.