WikiFur is getting a new server, software upgrades

Doesn't time fly? It's been a couple of years now since our move from Wikia. Traffic has fully recovered, at over 200,000 visits a month. You know what that means? It's time to upgrade!

In the coming days, WikiFur is moving to a new server with improved software:
* Editors should find the site faster and easier to use
* The skin currently in use on Wikipedia will be available (but not defaulted)
* Usability enhancements should make new users more comfortable editing
* General access should be faster in Europe
* Languages may be read-only for a few hours while moving

timduru has the server ready for us in Germany, with a i7-975 CPU (quad-core, 3.33-3.6Ghz, 8Mb cache) and 12GB RAM - of which we're getting a generous chunk. It's running the latest version of FreeBSD, PHP and MySQL, all compiled to take advantage of the new CPU.

Sounds good, right? But wait, there's more!

We're also upgrading to MediaWiki 1.17 - currently in use on Wikipedia - which offers significant performance and usability improvements, watchlist RSS feeds and a new skin option, Vector.

Lastly, we're switching reverse proxies from Squid to Varnish - a newer cache with a configuration language which offers a lot more flexibility. We've done a bit of tinkering and hopefully old versions of pages hanging around should be a thing of the past.

We'll keep the old server up in read-only mode during each transfer. It may take a few hours or days for the name change to propagate. If you see any problems after the move, please report them here or in #wikifur.