An explanation for the board being so unreliable

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An explanation for the board being so unreliable

November 25, 2005, 06:40:54 PM

I just got an email from XLinternet (our host) explaining the board outages. Here is their reason:

Quote

Dear client,

Please be advised that we once again experienced a PHP problem due to a buffer overflow on the apache server...

Due to the nature of this problem ... it fails to set off alarms at our NOC

The last PHP patch did not work as prescribed.

We have opened a ticket with Ensim our panel designers in an attempt to resolve this problem once and for all.

We have set 2 monitors on the affected boxes and hope to catch the problem
before it affects any customers.

Your patience on this matter is appreciated..

So there you have it. Hopefully it will be fixed for good soon...

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #1 – November 25, 2005, 07:06:23 PM

As Forrest Gump says... shiznit Happens...

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #2 – November 25, 2005, 07:08:55 PM

thought it was "stupid is as stupid does"....lol...

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #3 – November 25, 2005, 07:54:48 PM

I have absouletly no clue what all that means but it sounds like he has it under control,lol.
Thanks,
Chris

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #4 – November 25, 2005, 08:48:34 PM

i dont know about under control, but it looks like they are at least aware of the problem... we open help tickets because our servers go down or a computer will be compleatly unuseable (we are not *alloud* to fix them) and sometimes they never even call back. i swear, i hate dealing with IT people, i call em every day it seems and i can literaly hear them reading off the screen to find solutions to simple problems, or ask the guy in the cube next to him. iv never had any good IT experiance... i wonder what it looks like on the other side of the IT window...

Quote from: Lx-tasy

I have absouletly no clue what all that means but it sounds like he has it under control,lol.
Thanks,
Chris

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #5 – November 25, 2005, 11:22:50 PM

Well, what worries me is that they cut phone support. If you can't talk to a person there, that could also imply that perhaps there's not a 24/7 staff anymore, which would seriously suck. And then things can slip by them even more. We can only hope and pray that they will stay on this.

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #6 – November 25, 2005, 11:24:03 PM

I think what they're saying is they forgot to put cover letters on their TPS reports and its catching up to them.

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #7 – November 26, 2005, 02:26:01 AM

Quote

I think what they're saying is they forgot to put cover letters on their TPS reports and its catching up to them.

so...whats the risk or is there a risk of losing all our stuff?

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #8 – November 26, 2005, 09:09:21 AM

With all fairness to XLINTERNET, they discontinued the phone support many months ago, and it went unnoticed until we had a problem. I don't think they're going tits-up, because they're a division of a larger hosting service, called Planet Velocity. I think the phone tech support was discontinued simply to create more of a difference between the cheap XLINTERNET hosting service and the (much) more expensive Planet Velocity service - you know, you pay extra and get more reliable service with better tech support.

Now having said that, I'm not saying I agree with the decision. When this site was first started and the hosting service was purchased the phone support was part of the package, and when they discontinued it they should have either lowered the price or at least mentioned somewhere on their site that phone support is not included (they still have tech support numbers listed on their site but when you call them you get a machine that says they only accept calls for planet velocity service now, not xlinternet).

As for the risk of losing our stuff, I think it's pretty remote right now, but backups are made regularly just in case

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #9 – November 27, 2005, 10:31:55 AM

Drewstang,
I don't know if anybody else picked up on your post, but I did. I love that movie (Office Space). I definitely recommend it to anybody who does or ever has worked in an office environment, or to anybody, really. It's like a Dilbert comic strip with real people.

As far as the explanation of the server problem, whoosh, right over my head, too. I never know if it's a server problem or just my dumb PC being it's usual buttheaded self.

Fordman3

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #10 – November 27, 2005, 04:31:23 PM

The IT point of view. Why not just set-up your own server and run it on your own, very easy and then you have full control over the up-time. All you rally have to do is purchase a PC and windows server software, being regular windows will only allow 10 users at a time.

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #11 – November 27, 2005, 04:47:23 PM

You're forgetting a dedicated Internet connection. Eric, for one has dial up at home..

Calculate the expenses.. Purchase a PC and server software. you're looking at over $1000, then what about connection? if you want any kinda deticated connection you'll have to take it to a place that has a fast line and will house your server. I've ran servers from home but comes a bad storm, power gets koncked out there goes your site.

It's just a lot of money to throw into a site that doesn't ask for money from users. I'm in IT as well and yeah, what you say makes sense for a business. But not for a site like this.

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #12 – November 28, 2005, 12:13:20 PM

I work as a Linux sysadmin for my university, and with regard to the server and software, I would much rather lean towards a *nix solution which would be free and require a cheaper computer as well as provide a lot more flexibility when it comes to customizing things.

The internet link is the problem with a different setup, just like baxo said, and excluding the recent problems I don't remember ever having any other problems with the current setup, so keeping it like this would probably work out for the best.

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #13 – November 28, 2005, 12:33:19 PM

AND. most connectoins available for home use would not have the upload capacity to support such and active site, or the storage array for as many pics and posts as this site has.

Hosting is the cheapest way to go.

as far as IT service, well it really depends on who you get, just with anything else. There is so much in IT that not everyone will know it all or some ppl just are bad service techs and others are just phone jockeys whose company doesn't want to pay for real helpdesk techs.

An explanation for the board being so unreliable

Reply #14 – November 28, 2005, 12:55:36 PM

I had thought about a server colocation thing a few years ago. It ends up being fairly expensive and really, there's no advantage to having your own machine colocated like that. If something breaks, you have to fix it, whereas putting the site on someone else's server makes fixing things their problem. I think that's what ISP's want anyway. Also, I don't know if I or anyone else here would be willing to monitor a server for problems like what happened a few weekends ago. It's too much maintenance for a simple message board. Like it or not...we're sort of stuck with a hosting company, one way or another. At least this one is affordable and has been pretty reliable for Carm and myself over the last few years.