Downtime - ?? PCGUY

[Carlman]

So what was updated in the downtime, just the server OS?

EDIT: Also who is this "iemand", most of the times i enter the chat, iemand goes offline instantly, cannot possibly be human to react that fast.

[Technician1002]

So what was updated in the downtime, just the server OS?

I watched the server on several breaks through the change. I am guessing the server is a new box with a new hard drive.

It looks like Spudfiles got a full backup, hardware replacement, new install of Apache webserver, and a full restore on the new hardware. Just a guess.

It may simply be a reformat, OS upgrade, and reinstall of the web server and site, but I doubt it. It took too long.

[far_cry]

maybe he is a bot. like counter strike bot hackers

and admin why you dont make the video embed on in this web site

[Carlman]

How do you mean you watched the server tech?

[Technician1002]

How do you mean you watched the server tech?

I kept reloading and got no DNS, (Hint of a new box or relocation) the Apache server welcome page, the placeholder page for Spudfiles, and the other placeholder page that simply had plain text "test page". All these in combination show various stages of the site recovery.

I did not attempt to "hack" the site.. I just reloaded whatever would come with a regular page request. Of note, while the Spudfiles was down, the Wiki remained up. It seems to be on another server.

@far_cry.. No hacking. I don't do that on anything not mine. It's just not right.

[Carlman]

Ah k cool, the only thing i saw was the text stating that spudfiles was down whilst an OS install was in progress, chat remained up aswell.

[Biopyro]

I just got the wait a couple of hours notice every time I checked. 22 hours later, and it's back online. Must have been something interesting!

[Technician1002]

Ah k cool, the only thing i saw was the text stating that spudfiles was down whilst an OS install was in progress, chat remained up aswell.

I didn't know chat was up. Since the site was down and I don't have chat bookmarked, I was unable to try it. The spudfiles is down page seem to have been served by a temporary box while the main box was off line for backup and restore on the new OS. After the spudfiles is down page vanished, DNS didn't resolve at all for a while (assuming a hosting update maybe) so DNS pointed to the new server.

When the new server came online, The Apache web server welcome greeted me and let me know the new installation of Apache was successful. This is where I presume the admin was able to restore Spudfiles to the new host. In this process a couple temporary Spudfiles temp pages were displayed. One was an Apache placeholder and the other was a plain text page (black on blank white page) with just 2 words. It was interesting to watch.

There was no way I would attempt to hack the site. I like it here and hacking would probably get me banned for life. It's just not worth it.

On another note. Hacking from work is a double strong no no. It's a quick way to submit your resignation from the company. A hacking attempt traced back to the corporate proxy and user is bad for the company and they don't take that behavior as good for the company. No thanks.

I hope PC Guy had the AV and firewall up before the new server went online. A fresh install of Apache has some known attacks. It seems to be better than a fresh install of Windows and IIS server.

http://isc.sans.org/survivaltime.html

This page shows the average survival time between when a new server goes online to the time it may be hacked. Note most fresh installs of Windows is likely to be attacked before it can log into Windows update and one of the AV sites to get the AV up to date. This is why I mentioned the server should have been hardened before being put online.

http://isc.sans.org/survivalgraph.html? ... pg_csimd=1

[psycix]

"iemand" is a member of spudfiles. Hes from holland, and he is not a bot.
It was probably a bug that you saw him leave every time you joined.


Well PCGUY, whats the news?

[iemand]

LOL, come on, a bot?

Anyway, its probably a bug because when I log in I get the same thing with other people...
(although I've been in the chatroom for hours and hours with no one into it except me(so maybe the chatroom creates a different timeline where chatters get struck untill they log out ))

[jrrdw]

A bot, no way. It takes a email link to activate your account here.

[Davidvaini]

it is a known problem with flashchat that happens when you have dual login (if you are not logged in on the forum but you log into the chat, it automatically logs you in on the forum as well.)

There are problems with every version of flashchat however, some don't have this problem, but they have worse problems.

Overall the current version of flashchat is the best one.


Now as ar as the site is concerned.. I believe it said Spud files version 7 before the downtime, and it still says version 7, so most likely it was just some sort of server,node, or other change.

One problem I have noticed so far, is that when I edit my posts to embed a picture or change the location of a picture I have embeded so far, it won't let me.. I'm using the same format I have used in the past...

[PCGUY]

Ahhh alright!

There was supposed to be a post BEFORE this happened, but due to some serious scheduling screw ups things did not go as planned.

I contacted my host about doing an OS upgrade. I was running on CentOS 4.7 but wanted to move to 5.x. They told me this could be done, and to do this they wanted to create a brand new virtual server that was running the new OS, then transfer my data over to it. I said OK and they gave me a time to do it. I told them I would have my sites shutdown then. I didn't want to just shutdown without them letting me know they were starting (since sometimes they don't do things when scheduled) and I never heard anything, so I didn't make a post and take things down. It was scheduled to happen in the middle of the night here in the US.

A few hours later they updated my support ticket to say they had a new virtual server ready for me to transfer to, and they would take my backups when I was ready. It was the middle of the day so I was waiting until the evening, when I notice that someone is backing up my server when about 30 people were logged in and posting. I look at the support ticket, and they told me that the backup and transfer would be done in a few hours.

I got mad and yelled at them to stop since doing that while things are live would cause big problems and SpudFiles would be caught in a time warp of about ~24 hours in reverse. I don't know why they just started, but as soon as I told them to stop I took down SF and Theopia and told them they need to now restart the backup.

A few hours later, I get a different tech (different shift I guess) to finally tell me that OK they will delete the old backup and make a new one. A few more hours go by and they ask me when can they start to do the backup? I reply with NOW I didn't think they were waiting!

So I go to sleep (very early in the morning) and I wake up and they give me details to the new server it is on so I can make sure everything is there. I check it out, then I had them switch over the IP's. After that things were more on track, people were seeing the new server and I started to do various updates/tweaks/extra hardening which is what made you guys see various problems as I rebuilt Apache and updated other software and edited zone files, etc. At no time however was SpudFiles really vulnerable, Linux servers when even half way setup are far better off online than an outdated Windows server install.

One problem I have noticed so far, is that when I edit my posts to embed a picture or change the location of a picture I have embeded so far, it won't let me.. I'm using the same format I have used in the past...

I can't replicate this problem? Can you give anymore details? Anyone else see this?

and admin why you dont make the video embed on in this web site

You can, you just can't do it via the Quick Reply, you actually have to hit "Add Reply" and you will see the options.

As far as the chat goes, yes it was left up and most of the time it should have worked, I just couldn't have any posts changing and such. As far as the user that you see popup as leaving when you first join, I believe it is usually the last user that was in there... it is just a bug however, they aren't running from you! And there are no bots, in fact it would be very hard for a bot to register here at SpudFiles.

[Davidvaini]

yeah I can give you details, in my Free Graphic Design thread, I was organizing my photobucket account so that all of my Graphics were in one folder. I moved everything and it obviously created broken links.. So I went back to edit my posts to include the correct address.. I tried doing that and this was the result:

http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/free-gr ... 18326.html

Go ahead and try to edit it yourself..

Edit: Spudfiles used to put in %20 for spaces automatically for you.. does it not do that with address' anymore? This could be the problem.

Edit X2: yeah It doesnt automatically put %20, I would of swore it did in the past... So yeah, that was the problem.

[mark.f]

I think the chat bug is simply from people leaving by just closing the browser window instead of hitting the logout button and then closing the window.