84 replies to this topic

[jaydfox]

The DNS entry for imminst.org is currently missing and assumed hacked

Rejoice, rejoice, 'twas not hacked! Apparently the DNS got overloaded and shut down (no word yet on why it was overloaded), and had to be rebooted manually for some reason.

This makes me feel better, because I honestly didn't think LifeMirage was savvy enough to effect such a hack. While I have no doubts he is immature enough and determined enough to lash out at us like this, I did have doubts that he's technically capable of such an attack.

[jc1991]

If this keeps up, you should probably trace whoever is doing it and report them to their ISP. Depending on who the ISP is, this can be very effective. As for the hacker's ability, it sounds like whoever it is isn't actually hacking per se, but using automated programs to do the work for him. Apart from the IP relay he hasn't done anything that requires any skill or actuall knowledge beyond how to push buttons.

[rahein]

I am still having troble getting to the site. One day it will work fine the next it will be really slow, won't open at all, or I get PHP errors. Maybe moving to a host with better protection from DoS attacks would be a good move.

[jaydfox]

One day it will work fine the next it will be really slow, won't open at all, or I get PHP errors. Maybe moving to a host with better protection from DoS attacks would be a good move.

PHP errors are usually hiccups with the mysql database, and they usually work themselves out pretty quickly (an hour or two at worst). I'm not aware of any attacks in the past week or two. If you've had problems in the past week or two, it's because the server we're on is no longer adequate for how big we've grown. We've got an average of three times more members and guests online at peak times than we did a year and a half ago, and the server just can't keep up. We're moving servers soon, and the new server can easily and quickly be upgraded when needed (the current server can't be upgraded easily or quickly).

[rahein]

How many hits does that site get a day now? If you don't mind me asking.

[jaydfox]

I can't check that from work, so I'd have to get back to you.

[jaydfox]

Mar 2006 (Daily Averages / Monthly Totals)
Hits: 145,375 / 4,506,639
Pages: 27,392 / 849,181
Visits: 4,843 / 150,136
KBytes: 1,612,312 / 49,981,662

Sep 2005 (Daily Averages / Monthly Totals)
Hits: 85,693/ 2,570,809
Pages: 11,962 / 358,872
Visits: 2,669 / 80,099
KBytes: 820,527 / 24,615,819

That's six months' change.

Edit: six months change => six months' change. I'm not positive, but I believe it needs to be a possessive.

Edited by jaydfox, 21 April 2006 - 01:38 AM.

[Live Forever]

Mar 2006 (Daily Averages / Monthly Totals)
Hits: 145,375 / 4,506,639
Pages: 27,392 / 849,181
Visits: 4,843 / 150,136
KBytes: 1,612,312 / 49,981,662

Sep 2005 (Daily Averages / Monthly Totals)
Hits: 85,693/ 2,570,809
Pages: 11,962 / 358,872
Visits: 2,669 / 80,099
KBytes: 820,527 / 24,615,819

That's six months change.

We are so popular. [thumb]

[rahein]

Thanks and wow. I had no idea we got that many hits. Any idea the # of unique visitors? 4.8k visits a day probaby tranalates to 2000 unquie visitors a day if I had to guess. I bet 1000 come for the notropic forum that leaves 1000 people a day comming here about life ext.

Thanks for your time getting these numbers Jay.

[jaydfox]

Yay! Canaca has generously offered to host ImmInst!

Canaca's banner ad at the bottom of every page has been updated to reflect this, though of course we're still on the old host at the moment. So if things are slow for the next couple days, don't blame it on Canaca. The new site should be quite a bit faster than it is now.

The switch to the new host should hopefully occur this weekend. The forum will have to be taken down for a few hours probably, though hopefully not too long. I'll post an announcement in the General Forum, and link to it from here, once I know the date and time of the switch.

[Infernity]

Gee I am in quite a delay... I find myself many time anable to upload files to any server cuz they mostly allow only photos, and also that to a very limited size, I also second that idea. I did not go through this whole thread.

Jay, if they host us, do you realize that if they decide to eventually quit, all the links to the files will be broken. Is this deal ultimate?

-Infernity

[jaydfox]

Jay, if they host us, do you realize that if they decide to eventually quit, all the links to the files will be broken.

Hmm, I could have sworn I replied to this question.

We'll be backing up the site regularly to an offsite location, and we own the domains (and hence the URLs/links), so if they did decide to quit the deal, we'd just have to move to a new host, and then everything would be back to normal. If they shut us down unexpectedly, the regular backups would help ensure that we don't lose more than a week's worth of data/files.

At any rate, the relationship seems quite good at the moment, and I suspect that if arrangements did need to change, they'd give us plenty of warning so we could move the site and not lose anything, so I'm not really concerned about this.

[rahein]

Jay,

Do you have access to search engine keyword reports? I am doing some research for the follow idea I had and wonder what other keywords people come in under besides "immortality".

http://www.imminst.o...=0

[jaydfox]

To the best of my knowledge, this latest problem with the forum is a repeat of an old problem we used to have, where the mysql database would start reporting errors. The database would usually fix itself in 30-120 minutes. This time took longer for some reason.

The problem may be a compatibility issue with the version of mysql we're running. I'm going to back up the database and upgrade mysql some time in the next 24 hours or so (possible much sooner, we'll see).

[Live Forever]

It was really looking weird there for awhile. If I believed in God, I would say you were a godsend, Jay. Thanks.

[jaydfox]

Heh, I didn't do anything, other than log in. In a weird twist of fate, the forum was down until I logged in. Maybe I've got a super-duper session cookie that fixes mysql service hangs on login... [huh]

[jaydfox]

Hehe, my bad!

[jaydfox]

Okay, as soon as I figure out how to properly restart the mysql service, I'll take it down and try again. It's currently running in my open shell terminal (AHH!).

[Live Forever]

Haha, I was wondering what the heck was going on. I read your reply to my comment, and then when I refreshed it was messed up again.

[jaydfox]

Heh. Well, I think it's properly restarted. I couldn't find an option anywhere in the control panel to manually restart mysql, even though they have options for restarting several other major services... Oh wait, there's the damn thing..

I was looking for "MySQL" or "mysql" or some variant. You know, something with MY in it! Anyway, it was under "SQL Server (MySQL)". My brain stopped scanning the moment it saw the initial S. There's even a little bitmap, which has "SQL" in big bold black on white, with "my" in tiny, illegible orange on white.

Anyway, I tried restarting it through WHM, and it won't restart. So I obviously broke something. My bad.

[jaydfox]

Okay, I'm obviously not as cool or geeky as I need to be. Back to the drawing board...

The system is "stable" for now, so I'll leave it alone until I've had a chance to back up the database (in case I seriously screw it up next time).

[rahein]

If you don't know this already jay go to Start->Run and type "services.msc". This brings up the services manager (on any post NT Win OS) and you can stop them directly from there. Some services the reset option does not work well. Instead always stop, wait a few seconds, and start again.

[jaydfox]

It's, um, a linux server in Canada. It's not quite that simple...

I wasn't able to restart mysql through the WHM control panel. It would try to restart the service, but then complain about something (I forget what at the moment). So I had to manually run the service:

su mysql /sbin/services mysql restart

Typical linux commands, so I don't think I'm giving away any vulnerabilities by posting that. And it might be educational. And it also might help someone help me figure out a better way to restart the service. Part of the reason the service didn't restart automatically last night could be that the control panel software isn't able to restart mysql. But it did restart eventually, and not because of anything I did (except maybe my super-duper session cookie), so somehow it used to work, even if not so great...

[Live Forever]

It seems like my ability to get to ImmInst keeps going on and off at the moment. Sometimes I can get there, and sometimes not. During the periods when I can not, if I turn on Tor, and route my packets elsewhere, then it works, so I guess it is another "partial outage" type situation? It is weird cause it will work for awhile, and then for like 15 or 20 minutes it won't work (unless I use Tor), and then it will come back again.

[jaydfox]

Yeah, it's not just our site, it's Canaca. Canaca.com went offline today for 20 minutes (at least once, I haven't been pinging the site often enough to know of any other outages), and because of our routing situation, that meant we went down too.

Canaca's in the business to make money (well, I assume so anyway), so when they go down, they stand to lose business and money. So I assume, or hope anyway, that they'll fix it soon. The site, even when up, has been rather slow at times today, and our server has muscle to spare, so it's not our server. Maybe they're being hit by a DoS or DDoS attack?