Author Topic: Army.ca Status- The History of Outages & Dark Days (Read 143737 times)

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #50 on:** April 14, 2004, 20:41:00 »

Well, through the sleuthing of some members here, it turns out we were actually *blown* off the air with intent.

Seems we were mistaken for the official site, and took a lambasting for everything from the site intro to the layout to the posts, and these guys took it upon themselves to overwhelm the site and take it down.

They must be truly proud that they managed to take a server, that was already limping along, off the air.

~RoKo~ · « **Reply #51 on:** April 14, 2004, 22:14:00 »

Quote

They must be truly proud that they managed to take a server, that was already limping along, off the air.

I wouldn‘t joke about that.. They probably ARE really proud..

Tyrnagog · « **Reply #52 on:** April 14, 2004, 22:24:00 »

They are, in fact. It is a running practice for them to see how many hits a site will take before it goes down...

I think the following quote will help illustrate the point..

"WOA, link is farked!!! FARK HAS DEFEATED THE CANADIAN ARMY! bwahahah"

:rolleyes:

webster · « **Reply #53 on:** April 16, 2004, 01:29:00 »

This might sound like a stupid question...i dont know alot about computers and stuff but is there anything we can do to help keep the forums running smothly?

Tyrnagog · « **Reply #54 on:** April 16, 2004, 01:32:00 »

I think when Mike gets the new equipment installed, it will help. but, this is costing him real $$, so I am happy it is up most of the time..

webster · « **Reply #55 on:** April 16, 2004, 01:39:00 »

I agree. Mike I hope your not losing to much money from this site...lol

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #56 on:** April 16, 2004, 09:47:00 »

Thanks guys... I have to admit it‘s taken a bit more of my time and money than I‘d anticipated lately, but I live in the hope that these stability problems are "just about to end."

In terms of help, you‘re already doing it... Being pateint while I work out the kinks helps, as does the odd bit of encouragement.

Cheers

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #57 on:** April 17, 2004, 19:31:00 »

Just to give a status update: testing *seems* to indicate that our router is failing intermittently. What that means is we‘ll probably be off the air sporadically until it‘s replaced. Luckily, that should be some time this coming week.

However, there‘s no conclusive proof that it‘s the router, so there‘s a chance the problem may continue to exist for a little longer yet.

Thanks again for bearing with me through this. I know it‘s annoying to have the site go off the air without warning, and it seems to be occurring more frequently now.

I‘ll post here when the new router is in place.

Cheers
Mike

CheersShag · « **Reply #58 on:** April 19, 2004, 11:20:00 »

*sobbing*
Why? WHYY? GOD WHY?

Actually it‘s good luck for me, all weekend it was down I had to write a research paper and not having this wonderful distraction made it much better.

For a part-time internet Guru, a weekend down is hardly anything to be sorry about!

Cheers!

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #59 on:** April 19, 2004, 12:33:00 »

Hehe, glad you got some quality working time in this weekend.

Well, the "good" news about the weekend outage is that I was able to confirm a few things... Previously, both the router and the actual system itself were crashing.

Now, the router is certainly crashing, but I believe I‘ve stopped the system from following suit. So once the new router is in place, we may actually be reasonably stable again!

Cheers
Mike

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #60 on:** April 08, 2004, 23:22:00 »

Just a quick note to say that we‘re back on the temporary hardware on the bandwidth limited connection. I moved us back because we were having some serious stability issues, and I didn‘t want us to be out over the weekend.

Due to the limits on this connection though, I‘ll have to move us back again after a few days, which may mean some more interruptions, unfortunately.

The good news is I purchased some new hardware for the "permanent" connection today, and hope to have it tested and in place in about a week. That should resolve the majority of the issues we‘ve been seing.

Thanks again for your patience, and please bear with me while we continue to work out the kinks.

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #61 on:** May 20, 2004, 18:50:00 »

Well, as most of you know by now we've had a major setback. After spending a great deal of time and resources getting Army.ca running smoothly with new hardware and a new router, something went wrong. The current "primary" hardware simply won't boot. Because Army.ca is hosted remotely (in British Columbia), it's very difficult to diagnose let alone fix. Unfortunately the person looking after the server (as a favour to all of us) simply doesn't have the time to investigate.

As a result, we are back to running on the "backup" hardware on my home connection. That means a few things:

We no longer have backup hardware ready - the next crash takes us completely off the air.
Because of the nature of the connection, some Army.ca e-mail (such as to AOL accounts) may not get through. This means people registering from these accounts may never see their registration notices. I will try to manually forward these as much as is practical.
We have lost all postings and user accounts from Sunday, May 9th to Wednesday May 12th.
We currently exceed the bandwidth limit for my home connection by 6 to 7 times the allowed limit. This means that the site may need to be taken offline again from time to time, or I may have to beg for donations again. :(

Clearly, this is a temporary solution and I'm investigating the following options to get us up and running again in a more permanent fashion:

[list=1]

Fix the hardware and ship it back to BC. The BC connection is free, so this is pretty appealing (no need to beg for donations) however the problems associated with managing a remote site have been very limiting lately. This also means that the defective hardware has to be shipped to me, fixed, then shipped back, which is likely to take 3 weeks minimum.
Obtain a new connection and probably new hardware to increase stability. I've been on a holding list for over a month for a new net connection that would help out here, but Bell hasn't actually enabled me yet. Until they do I'm on my current (limited) connection. The new connection would cost more per month than the existing options, but would allow me to host Army.ca from my house, where I can quickly address any faults. This option may be "donation driven" as I've run out of "out of pocket" money to keep the site going for the next little while.

The bottom line: things are going to be tough for a while yet, but I'm working as quickly as I can to get things back in order. As I learn more, I'll be sure to post it here.

Thanks for your patience through all this.

Cheers
Mike

Bruce Monkhouse · « **Reply #62 on:** May 20, 2004, 18:58:00 »

No Mike,
THANK YOU for your hard work and time.
If you need, please ask. CHEERS, Bruce

Infanteer · « **Reply #63 on:** May 20, 2004, 19:22:00 »

Weird, it‘s like stepping back it time. Arguments and flames will have to be reargued and reflamed....

Bruce Monkhouse · « **Reply #64 on:** May 20, 2004, 20:14:00 »

Agreed, I‘m reading things I already commented on or did‘nt wish to. Hey for some people this could be a blessing.

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #65 on:** May 20, 2004, 20:24:00 »

FYI the defective hardware was shipped out today and should be in my hands early next week. Assuming I can fix it relatively quickly, we should be up and running again "for real" in more like 2 weeks... (That‘s assuming everything goes according to plan, which I‘m learning is rarely the case.)

As for the lost posts... That‘s why I was keeping the site down... in the hopes that I could recover quickly. But tonight I made the call: better to be back online with some loss than to be out for another 2-3 weeks...

mattoigta · « **Reply #66 on:** May 20, 2004, 22:05:00 »

Thanks for the hard work mike

CheersShag · « **Reply #67 on:** May 20, 2004, 22:32:00 »

Alllllllllllllllllllllll-right.

Good news is, thanks to the lack of distraction I‘ve got my paperwork done that had been backed up for weeks on my personal comp so now I can finally get into the landscaping dirt.

Bad news is, I‘ve been having serious withdrawls..like this rash..and uncontrollable shakes...

Excelsior · « **Reply #68 on:** May 21, 2004, 00:54:00 »

Thanks for getting us back online, Mike.

If you need back up, we‘re there.

lostgrenadier · « **Reply #69 on:** May 21, 2004, 02:18:00 »

If you need a couple of bucks from each member to survive, then let‘s do it! There seems to be a good number of us, maybe with a small donation each, we could help this site get some better equipment to further enhance the spread of our b******t

: Hey buddy, don‘t be afraid to ask, the answer might stun you

Mike Bobbitt · « **Reply #70 on:** May 21, 2004, 07:39:00 »

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. I‘m going to try to get things going "under my own steam" first, but it‘s good to know the help is there if needed.

There‘s a few possibilities where I may need some bakup... Namely, paying for bandwidth overage charges, helping cover the cost of the new connection (if it ever comes through) and possibly buying new hardware.

I have to admit the temptation to buy new hardware (as opposed to going back to the historically flaky stuff) is pretty strong... I‘m sure if we managed to raise a few bucks we could get a system that‘s more stable (and faster).

Anyway, we‘ll see how things turn out.

Thanks again...

GirlFiredUp · « **Reply #71 on:** May 21, 2004, 09:35:00 »

Mike, why don‘t you give us some idea on the amount of dollars it will cost to keep this thing permanently stable. What are we talking here? A couple of hundred bucks? More?

jrhume · « **Reply #72 on:** May 21, 2004, 10:14:00 »

I emailed Mike separately on this topic, but I see a few posters are in favor of having some form of user support for the site.

I‘m ready to pay a few bucks annually to make the thing stable and to take the load off Mike alone. I already do that with another military sim-related forum I go to regularly. There‘s no such thing as ‘free‘ when it comes to the Internet. Somebody has to foot the bill.

This is a **** good site and one of my favorites. I know I‘m not alone in that. Let‘s discuss the issue.

Jim

Bzzliteyr · « **Reply #73 on:** May 21, 2004, 11:17:00 »

I‘d be willing to throw in a quick $10 or so to a paypal account. If we all did that, it‘d build up pretty quick..

Bzz

Cpl Bloggins · « **Reply #74 on:** May 21, 2004, 16:19:00 »

Thanks for all your hard work Mike, appreciate it.

News:

Author Topic: Army.ca Status- The History of Outages & Dark Days (Read 143737 times)

webster

webster

mattoigta

lostgrenadier

jrhume