20 replies to this topic

[dspdrew]

Due to some hardware problems with the server, the forum will be going offline for repair tonight around 9:00 10:00 PM PST, and probably won't be back online until Sunday night. If all goes well, it might be back online sooner.

[dermy]

Thanks for giving us a heads up on this drew. I know lots of forums that sometimes [even if they know they need to do stuff] forget to tell their userbase that they need to repair stuff and everyone's "left in the dark" freaking out about stuff .

[dspdrew]

Sorry I meant 10:00 PM, not 9:00 PM.

[Trythis22]

Many people are also unaware of the headaches associated with maintaining a website, especially if you shoulder a lot of the work yourself. So many things go wrong and diving into the CSS to find a needle in a haystack is a nightmare. I know from personal experience. Every year you also pay a hosting fee (to keep your site online), which is typically more expensive than any formicarium you can buy. 

 

I'm sure Drew's outsourced a lot of the muscle and he's familiar with the process, but I wanted to say this so that others can appreciate the amount of work that goes into a website. It took a long time for this community to become this large and the beginning must have been tough. 

 

Thanks Drew. 

[Nare]

Was this all a big prank? Or does it take a little while to go down?

[Major]

Was this all a big prank? Or does it take a little while to go down?

No it wasn't. The forum was offline and you couldn't connect.

[sirjordanncurtis]

 

Was this all a big prank? Or does it take a little while to go down?

No it wasn't. The forum was offline and you couldn't connect.

 

 

 

Lol, he asked that question since Drew said the forum would be down at 10:00pm in California, but it was still on a little afterwards.

Edited by sirjordanncurtis, August 12 2018 - 5:51 PM.

[CoolColJ]

I thought forums were hacked!

[dspdrew]

Many people are also unaware of the headaches associated with maintaining a website, especially if you shoulder a lot of the work yourself. So many things go wrong and diving into the CSS to find a needle in a haystack is a nightmare. I know from personal experience. Every year you also pay a hosting fee (to keep your site online), which is typically more expensive than any formicarium you can buy. 

 

I'm sure Drew's outsourced a lot of the muscle and he's familiar with the process, but I wanted to say this so that others can appreciate the amount of work that goes into a website. It took a long time for this community to become this large and the beginning must have been tough. 

 

Thanks Drew. 

 

Thanks. I actually don't outsource anything. I own the server the forum is hosted on. I literally had it in my apartment all weekend working on it.

[DaveJay]

Was this all a big prank? Or does it take a little while to go down?

No it wasn't. The forum was offline and you couldn't connect.

Lol, he asked that question since Drew said the forum would be down at 10:00pm in California, but it was still on a little afterwards.

Actually, Drew didn't even say American time, let alone California
We Aussies are used to that cr*p though!

[dspdrew]

 

 

 

Was this all a big prank? Or does it take a little while to go down?

No it wasn't. The forum was offline and you couldn't connect.

 

Lol, he asked that question since Drew said the forum would be down at 10:00pm in California, but it was still on a little afterwards.

 

Actually, Drew didn't even say American time, let alone California
We Aussies are used to that cr*p though!

 

Due to some hardware problems with the server, the forum will be going offline for repair tonight around 9:00 10:00 PM PST, and probably won't be back online until Sunday night. If all goes well, it might be back online sooner.

[StopSpazzing]

So, did you fix everything? Get a chance to upgrade php to 7.0=< and fix db issues? And upgrade arrow chat to latest? 

[drtrmiller]

So, did you fix everything? Get a chance to upgrade php to 7.0=< and fix db issues? And upgrade arrow chat to latest? 

 

The forum is being held together with duct tape and epoxy, and you think he's going to be upgrading software?

[StopSpazzing]

 

So, did you fix everything? Get a chance to upgrade php to 7.0=< and fix db issues? And upgrade arrow chat to latest? 

 

The forum is being held together with duct tape and epoxy, and you think he's going to be upgrading software?

 

 

Yes, via a staging server, since he owns the hardware. Test the upgrades in a VM and verify the outcome. Honestly 30min of time will be needed (if you have done it before) and could solved other issues by upgrading this software.

[drtrmiller]

 

 

So, did you fix everything? Get a chance to upgrade php to 7.0=< and fix db issues? And upgrade arrow chat to latest? 

 

The forum is being held together with duct tape and epoxy, and you think he's going to be upgrading software?

 

 

Yes, via a staging server, since he owns the hardware. Test the upgrades in a VM and verify the outcome. Honestly 30min of time will be needed (if you have done it before) and could solved other issues by upgrading this software.

 

 

I suggested that over a year ago. He says it's too hard to make a copy of the forum.

[nurbs]

Don't think any of you have any idea how much time hardcore antkeeping takes out of our daily lives (caring for over 100 colonies, making nests, feeding, researching, all the while trying not to step over all the tools and boxes and containers and all kinds of ant related sh***t in our apt).

 

Drew and I b***tch about this on a daily basis, because we don't think anyone else can relate.

Edited by nurbs, August 13 2018 - 7:24 PM.

[StopSpazzing]

Don't think any of you have any idea how much time hardcore antkeeping takes out of our daily lives (caring for over 100 colonies, making nests, feeding, researching, all the while trying not to step over all the tools and boxes and containers and all kinds of ant related sh***t in our apt).

 

Drew and I b***tch about this on a daily basis, because we don't think anyone else can relate.

 

Having 60 queens was a pain in the a** couldn't imagine MORE PLUS anting equipment all over the place. Yes, I understand, I just forget sometimes. Why not just make a mirror of everything BUT the DB and let someone mess with it like drtmiller if he is up for it? It should only need to be done once, afterwards can just rync everything that gets updated to the staging server.

 

Example:

1. Create VM with 40GB? of space 2GB ram with a 1 vcore (maybe max cpu usage at 30%?)

2. Install any [censored] linux flavor, would recommend debian but that's just me

3. Install all require prereqs. Ex. php5.5  (whatever is currently installed) mysql etc

4. Install IPBoards

5. Rync over custom data, probably whole ipboards installation folder

6. Import DB (cause you have them dumped like every 5 minutes)

7. Verify everything works like it should

8. Snapshot the VM

9. Start screwing around

10. Rise and repeat with snapshot reverting if anything breaks

 

Would test:

1. PHP 7+ (there is a known increase in speed just by updating the version alone)

2. Mysql upgrading and db optimizing

3. Caching settings

4. New versions of ipboards and arrowchat

5. New db backup method: maindb--livesync-->duplicatemaindb--->dumpfile - This would prevent locks on maindb thereby eliminating lag during any db backups as once the dupe db isn't locked anymore the sync kicks in and push all new changes without loss of data or time as it queues changes to be synced.

Edited by StopSpazzing, August 13 2018 - 8:37 PM.

[DaveJay]

Was this all a big prank? Or does it take a little while to go down?

No it wasn't. The forum was offline and you couldn't connect.

Lol, he asked that question since Drew said the forum would be down at 10:00pm in California, but it was still on a little afterwards.

Actually, Drew didn't even say American time, let alone California
We Aussies are used to that cr*p though!

Due to some hardware problems with the server, the forum will be going offline for repair tonight around 9:00 10:00 PM PST, and probably won't be back online until Sunday night. If all goes well, it might be back online sooner.

This post was made by me at 2.37pm CST which probably means as much to you as PST means to me!
It's not a problem though, I wasn't meaning to cause an argument or anything, just pointing out that not everyone is going to know that PTS is a time zone in America and is Californian time

Edited by DaveJay, August 13 2018 - 11:40 PM.

[Lazarus]

Just wanted to thank Drew for hosting and putting in all the time and effort to keep this place up and running. As someone actively putting in a lot of my own time an skills supporting another one of my hobbies (rocketry) I can appreciate how a lot of that goes unnoticed by those benefiting.

 

Thanks Drew!

[dspdrew]

 

Don't think any of you have any idea how much time hardcore antkeeping takes out of our daily lives (caring for over 100 colonies, making nests, feeding, researching, all the while trying not to step over all the tools and boxes and containers and all kinds of ant related sh***t in our apt).

 

Drew and I b***tch about this on a daily basis, because we don't think anyone else can relate.

 

Having 60 queens was a pain in the a** couldn't imagine MORE PLUS anting equipment all over the place. Yes, I understand, I just forget sometimes. Why not just make a mirror of everything BUT the DB and let someone mess with it like drtmiller if he is up for it? It should only need to be done once, afterwards can just rync everything that gets updated to the staging server.

 

Example:

1. Create VM with 40GB? of space 2GB ram with a 1 vcore (maybe max cpu usage at 30%?)

2. Install any [censored] linux flavor, would recommend debian but that's just me

3. Install all require prereqs. Ex. php5.5  (whatever is currently installed) mysql etc

4. Install IPBoards

5. Rync over custom data, probably whole ipboards installation folder

6. Import DB (cause you have them dumped like every 5 minutes)

7. Verify everything works like it should

8. Snapshot the VM

9. Start screwing around

10. Rise and repeat with snapshot reverting if anything breaks

 

Would test:

1. PHP 7+ (there is a known increase in speed just by updating the version alone)

2. Mysql upgrading and db optimizing

3. Caching settings

4. New versions of ipboards and arrowchat

5. New db backup method: maindb--livesync-->duplicatemaindb--->dumpfile - This would prevent locks on maindb thereby eliminating lag during any db backups as once the dupe db isn't locked anymore the sync kicks in and push all new changes without loss of data or time as it queues changes to be synced.

 

 

I'll make those forum upgrades when I have the time. The server that the forum virtual machine is on, hosts about 15 other virtual machines as well. There is a lot more going on there than just this forum. Also, I don't think you have any idea how much customization has gone into this forum.

 

The main reason we started talking about this was because of the performance, especially while the forum backs up every hour at :07. This is actually no longer an issue now because as I was working on the server, I increased the memory from 32 GB to 256 GB of RAM. The forum now has gone from having 4 GB to 16 GB of RAM allocated to it.