Edit 2009/04/10: The site is now back online.
I've been contacted concerning the ongoing downtime at Gaudiya Repercussions. The issue appears to be with the services of the hosting provider itself, beyond anything I (as consultant admin) can do until a company response is received.
Currently all HTTP and FTP access is offline. That notwithstanding, we now have a current site MySQL backup secured. Whatever happened and happens to the site with what seems like the hosting disaster we had been half fearing and half expecting, no texts will be lost. This might also be a major network issue, but most likely the server's gone totally defunct.
Watch this space and the comments feed for more information as the issue resolves.
Edit 2009/04/09: There seems to also be a software vulnerability in InvisionBoard that allows registered users to abuse the forum system by flooding it with spam comments. A certain comments table we have was filled up with tens of thousands of entries (76,963 to be precise) in 125.1 megabytes... (Turns out this was an unrelated older issue that had gone unnoticed. The database garbage has now been removed as well.)
Edit 2009/04/10: The site is now back online. Turns out the issue was caused by vandalism, as reported here. While any proper hosting datacenter does have redundant connectivity over several independent pipes, in this case a grand total of ten bundles with hundreds of fiber-optic cables were cut down at four separate protected locations, taking down telecom and internet access from some 50,000 subscribers, affecting our server as well.
29 comments:
I never expected eternal free service, but I did expect some warning. We'll see what my friends say--I'm negotiating for some access in order to transfer stuff before they pull the plug completely. I always sent bills first and gave a full month before cutting off former employees. Each account is clearly marked as belonging to a former employee too, so it's not like they don't know.
Thanks for putting this GR update on your site Ananda. It looks like a major event in the hosting area and the InvisionBoard vulnerability with spam. It's great you have a backup with plans that can put the forum back up. Will be checking in periodically.
Hosting costs every bit of $9.00 a month.
You guys risked disaster over $9.00 a month?
I live in poverty and even I can afford $9.00 a month to host several websites on.
But, I could care less because I am not a member of that pathetic forum and never plan to be.
"all classic domains are still down, our DS3 isn't back up yet, AT&T are currently telling us midnight, we just got a single DSL line up for communications."
It is connected to that cutting of the fiber optic line that happened today, apparently.
I would expect to get a bill before anything happens to my domains. But it can't hurt if you want to find an affordable host either. That's up to you guys.
I have noticed a couple of spam accounts joining that appeared to intend spamming the forum, but as these were promptly deleted by vigilant admin I didn't think to mention it.
"Hosting costs every bit of $9.00 a month.
You guys risked disaster over $9.00 a month?
I live in poverty and even I can afford $9.00 a month to host several websites on.
But, I could care less because I am not a member of that pathetic forum and never plan to be."
I don't get it either, with all the MODs they have over there you would think they could all pitch in a buck or two apiece.
Bunch of nuts and fags over there!
Wow Ananda, I forgot all about the virtual viral types who hide in darken rooms and tippity tap troll style from musty keyboards onto forums and blogs to attack and destroy! I guess if one cannot create things in life or find value in giving something positive back to humanity, they get off on doing such things while sitting alone in front of glowing screens! I guess we do a pretty good job of keeping them out of the GR sphere of life after all!
Well, as it turns out it wasn't a billing issue at all and my faith in my former employer is restored. I do expect some warning before we lose free service. Today's outage was caused by vandals cutting more than one fiber optic cable belonging to AT&T, bringing down internet service, phone service, cell phone service, and 911 access in a broad area and impacting some domains and email as well. There is a 100K reward out for information leading to their arrest. Service is back up.
That said, the Mod staff should give some thought to future hosting options and have a backup plan in place. I'll get a couple of weeks' warning most likely.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/BAP816VTE6.DTL&tsp=1
For more information about the fiber optic vandalism.
Thanks for the update, Tapati! (And thanks to nitwits for trolling here and staying out of GR.) I suspected it might be a network issue, but the shutdown of services seemed most probable. My theory was they took down or relocated an old server and purged the "redundant" accounts while they were at it..
At any rate, the service provider has been reliable enough otherwise, and if we have a guarantee of a bill in advance before the termination of services, I don't see a reason to swap hosts. Downtime from vandalism can affect any and all hosts (and ours is not a small company), unless your server is sitting atop five redundant tier one backbones.
Of course everyone could pay ten bucks a month for hosting, that's hardly an issue. I'm sure many would pay twenty or thirty bucks for hosting, and some pay even more. But if you get reliable service as a free benefit and have an assurance of a timely notification before termination of services, what's the point of paying? It's not a free host, it's a former employee's extended benefit with a middle-range telecom company.
Quoting from the article: In each case, the vandals had to pry up heavy manhole covers with a special tool, climb down a shaft and chop through heavy cables. Britton said the four cables cut in San Jose were about the width of a silver dollar and were encased in tough plastic sheath. One cable contained 360 fibers, and the other three had 48 fibers each.
So this was hardly the case of an ordinary outage...
So, Ananda, why is it that people from GR forum only come here to post when their forum is down?
Perhaps I should make arrangements for more downtime at GR then...
Seriously, most of the 50-100 daily visitors don't leave comments regularly. Only a certain class of people haunt the comments section.
So, your blog is kinda like a zoo where people just come to gawk and walk off?
Why don't they feed the monkey once in while?
The sad truth is, they know the trolls would devour it all. Don't feed the trolls please.
Maybe I should just make a blog for trolls. Halftrolls.Com. We could have half for me and half for the trolls, and make a ton of money on the spectators.
So, in other words, Trolls are the only people who post on your blog?
Could it be that even the motley crew over at GR forums lot all interest in you when you flip-flopped on Gaudiya Vaishnavism at about the same time your wife locked you out of the house at Radha kunda?
Strange how the two things just happened to occur at the same time.
So you're saying GR audience lost interest in me because I divorced with my wife, or are you saying we divorced because the GR audience lost interest in me? Strange how things seem strange!
Since Ananda is AT GR regularly, we haven't given up his association!
Some of us share other social networking venues with him as well.
There are plenty of ways for us to communicate with him. His leaving GV just made him even more like us, after all.
I read Ananda’s creative site as often as I can and have not posted here because I am in contact with him at GR.
I am amazed at the amount of folks who get off on dissing and pissing in this comments section, living in anger and hate while supposedly being spiritual practitioners, especially Vaisnava's. I seriously doubt any of troll commentators here would have the balls to say what they write, if they had to stand in front of the person they are targeting, be it Ananda or anyone at GR.
The troll commentators criticize and rant toward others mainly because those others do not believe or practice their style or tradition of spirituality. Under the anonymity of cyber names, they get nasty toward anyone who may have left thier faith behind or practices it differently, appalled that someone would dare to exercise freedom of choice and thought in their life. I find it rather immature and strange, and by all means not something to spend much time on, hence I’ve got more important creative things to do with my time than reading angry troll posts. I gladly spend my time reading Ananda’s writings and communicating about it via other means, just to avoid the darker hypocritical side of spiritual fundamentalist cyber bullies, who only hit targets via telephone and cable wires while being cowardly anonymous due to the inner fears that drive them to write all that they do.
No amount of angry trolls scare kalisurfer, but the number of mistakes he made in his post above sure scared the hell out of me.
kali-surfer said: Under the anonymity of cyber namesOh and I suppose kali-surfer is your real name?
What a goof
kali-surfer said: Under the anonymity of cyber namesOh and I suppose kali-surfer is your real name?
What a goof
(sorry for double post)
The main reason I use an online pseudonym to conceal my identity is to protect myself from people such as Anonymous, whose only intention is to harm others while on forums and blogs. I do not use my alias online name to go onto blogs and forums to debase or heap insults upon others such as you do, which is the meaning for the term troll. I do reveal my real identity to online friends who are trustworthy, whole and healthy, but not to those whose sole intention is to hurt or marginalize others.
I give Ananda a lot of credit for being himself and putting up with people such as Anonymous, whose comments only reflect a personal release of fears, frustration and anger toward those who do not think or believe exactly as he does.
I do reveal my real identity to online friends who are trustworthy, whole and healthy
Yea like that healthy, whole crowd at GR, LOL,
Who you kidding bucko? Only yourself it seems. There is only a hand full of screwballs there just like you! You nuts at GR think you represent the ex devotee community, yea right, no body even heard of most you fart heads until GR, Oh excuse me, you were on that whole, healthy Darwin's forum for years too, LOL
No need to reveal your identity, and even if you did it would do you no service, it's obvious what you are by your long winded neurotic posts and rants.
Yes Kali was a known crazy at Darwins Istagosthi, one of the worst in fact, then years later he becomes a MOD at GR and is suddenly trustworthy, whole and healthy.
The BS never stops now does it.
As I remember there was even a special area at Istagosthi that was built for kalisurfer and a couple of others not allowing them in the main areas of the forums because he was so offensive to other members at Istagosthi, many of us remember him well.
When did he become a MOD at GR, is this s joke?
Gaudiya Repercussions is just a forum of people who like to get together and talk about a variety of subjects. It contains some practicing devotees, some who have left, some who were never a part of the scene at all. It has no agenda or one voice of belief toward anything. It also allows freedom of thought and expression as long as it does not hurt someone else. It allows dissent and critical thinking, along with irreverence. Importantly though, it disallows preaching toward any ism, it also gets rid of trolls quickly and anyone mean spirited, so I can see why some commentators here would not feel comfortable there or had their membership terminated for writing as they do here.
To set the record straight, I was a member of Istagosthi for only a short period of time before it went under and I never had a section there all to my own, but you can fabricate anything you want to give your existence meaning and power it seems to be lacking.
This will be my last comment in this section, so I will not be reading anything else that will be posted bashing me or GR afterward, for precious time to too valuable. Though I will continue to read Ananda’s excellent journey here, sans the angry comments that just seem to express someone’s frustrated unhappy life.
Bye, and don't be afraid to build or create something instead of knocking down or destroying all the time, it would do you good and refreshen the angry inherent mood you seem to have, that if you are not careful, could become terminal, so there is still hope! :)
Why is the level of comments here as level as it gets? Someone asked me, reading the comments ongoings.
The bulk of the comments is really left by a very small handful of people, who compensate their small numbers and personal failures with bombastic words.
I've only ever deleted one or two comments over the years, and I recall having had to turn off comments once last year as I didn't have the time to babysit a situation that was growing out of control. I do have a pretty thick skin, and to be honest much of the time we laugh our asses off reading the latest troll-goings in the comment section.
Might be a time to switch anonymous commenting off again for a while, we might get some proper and constructive comments again — for change. I've been too busy with work to care a rat's ass about how the situation appears to be down in the comments dung-eon. Let me do an act of compassion and flip comments off for a bit.
Anonymous commenting is now turned off.
It is like this... Said Iam Thatiam Once for All!
╔═══════════╗
╠══════► ∞ ♥ ∞ [ONE-LOVE]
╠═════► ∞ ☯ ∞ — ☺|☻ ═► [Quantum-Bipolar-Bliss]
╠════► ☺☺|☺☻|☻☺|☻☻ ═► [Solar-Lunar-Binary]
╠═══► ☺☺☺|☺☺☻|☺☻☺|☺☻☻ [Solar-Ternary]
╠══► ☻☺☺|☻☺☻|☻☻☺|☻☻☻ ═► [Lunar-Ternary]
╠════════════════╗
╠═ ◄ ≡ ☺ ≡ ☯ ≡ ☻ ≡ ► ═╣ [ Mirror World = Above & Outside ]
╠═══ ∞ ♥ ∞ ☯ ∞ ♥ ∞ ═══╣ ALL-AS-ONE: ONE-LOVE-AXIS!
╠═ ◄ ≡ ☻ ≡ ☯ ≡ ☺ ≡ ► ═╣ [ Mirror Brain = Below & Inside ]
╠════════════════╝
╠══► ☺☻☻|☺☻☺|☺☺☻|☺☺☺ ═► [Solar-Ternary]
╠═══► ☻☻☻|☻☻☺|☻☺☻|☻☺☺ [Lunar-Ternary]
╠════► ☻☻|☻☺|☺☻|☺☺ ═► [Lunar-Solar-Binary]
╠═════► ∞ ☯ ∞ — ☻|☺ ═► [Bipolar-Quantum-Bliss]
╠══════► ∞ ♥ ∞ [ONE-LOVE]
╚═══════════╝
@@@ IN-YOUR-TUBES: Wisdom Matrix ≡ Sahasrara Celestial Lifecycle Harvester
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