Server Update #4

[Scott Alden]

Update - Since the restore from backup process took over 14 hours, I
decided that I wanted to convert to a way that would not take as long
in the future. However, this process took 14 hours so I apologize for
the inconvenience.

Unless major disaster occurs BGG will be back up today. Nobody wants
BGG back up more than me.

--
Scott

[Guantanamo]

Thanks for the update!

[Lawnjob]

Good luck!

[HappyProle]

I hope you were able to sleep during one, if not both, of those 14
hour jobs.

[Jat...@gmail.com]

Thanks Aldie!

On Dec 30, 3:08 pm, "Scott Alden" <scott.al...@gmail.com> wrote:

[GROGnads]

"I want MY... I want MY... I want MY BGG! money for something! and the
'clicks' are FREE!..."

[Eclectic (Natalie)]

*bows down before Aldie*

[Wulf Corbett]

On Dec 30, 8:08 pm, "Scott Alden" <scott.al...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Unless major disaster occurs BGG will be back up today.  Nobody wants
> BGG back up more than me.

Hmm... 'today' could mean up to 12 hours & 2 minutes from the time of
posting... let's not get too exited here!

(I work in local government ICT, I've seen servers take a lot longer
than this to be rebuilt - and some of them did stuff like calculate
benefits, track children in care, etc. The payroll server seems to be
entirely reliable, for some reason...)

[Raiderjakk]

"Unless major disaster occurs".... I've used that line a
lot.... :-)

Thank for all your efforts, Aldie.

[Howitzer_120mm]

Let's hope that once it's up, we don't deluge the server with so many
requests that it fails.

[Verkisto]

> Let's hope that once it's up, we don't deluge the server with so many
> requests that it fails.

No kidding. We could help test Aldie's DoS filters, eh?

[Craniac]

I am glad that Mr. Alden is making improvements to the system during
the down time.

Now let us await the arrival of armchair sysadmins with helpful advice.

[HappyProle]

I'm working on a story to submit to Slashdot that links to BGG.
Something like "Microsoft develops board game that invades your
privacy." That should take care of it.

[enzo622]

"> Now let us await the arrival of armchair sysadmins with helpful
advice."

Well, say what you will, but none of this would've happened if he had
done this right the first time. He connected the conflabulator to the
hixadooey when he should've routed it through the whatsitjigger.

I mean, d'uh!

[Doc Kaotic]

When we built Stonehenge we didn't have any of these "Down times" and
it's still working after 5,000 years! ... I logged a game play on it
the other day

[iklinck]

On Dec 30, 3:19 pm, GROGnads <GROGnads....@gmail.com> wrote:

> "I want MY... I want MY... I want MY BGG! money for something! and the
> 'clicks' are FREE!..."

Look at them gamers, that's the way you do it
You write the reviews on the BGG
That ain't playin', that's the way you do it
Geekgold for reviews and the thumbs for free...

:)

[framorin]

Thanks for the news Aldie! and good luck!!!

[LimboLance]

S-s-l-l-o-o-w-w-l-l-y-y G-g-o-o-i-i-n-n-g-g I-i-n-n-s-s-a-a-n-n-e-
e!!! Man, you don't know how much you use it until it isn't there -
a message in there somewhere to those who have yet to donate to
BGG!!! Please make it go back on soon! Happy New Year to all!

On Dec 30, 3:08 pm, "Scott Alden" <scott.al...@gmail.com> wrote:

[EYE of NiGHT]

Aldie, can you please give me a quick call when it's back up?

Cheers,
Jon.

[Melissa Rogerson]

There's something I can at least volunteer for ;-)

Melissa

[deacondavid]

Having had to do a massive rebuild more than once on my servers
(including
a massive crash on the server that we use for tracking the grades for
4,000+
lower division undergraduate students in the middle of a semester (eek
- a
week before BGG.con 2006!)), I wish you luck and certainly understand
the
meaning of "unless major disaster occurs"!

I hope that you got some rest while all of this has been going on. In
spite
of the frenzied posts here, I'm pretty sure that none of us want you
killing
yourself for our fix of BGG.

[deeja...@gmail.com]

Thank you for everything you've done! It'll make us appreciate the
site doubly so!

[Barticus]

On Dec 30, 12:28 pm, enzo622 <enzo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Well, say what you will, but none of this would've happened if he had
> done this right the first time. He connected the conflabulator to the
> hixadooey when he should've routed it through the whatsitjigger.

That won't help until he letharbalizes the retroencabulator. I also
suspect Aldie has been lax on rotating the parity bits.

Hey Aldie, when you get BGG humming again, take yourself a good long
sleep, then write us a post mortem.

Also, I suggest you give a 24 hour extension on buying 08 patron
badges. (No, this does not contradict what I said in Grognad's
thread. Stopping the clock for a day due to force majeure is
different from rolling it back by years.)

[HappyProle]

Letharbalization at this stage would just increase his PFD to klarb
ratio while doing nothing to solve the underlying verflecticity
problems.

[cfer...@gmail.com]

> When we built Stonehenge we didn't have any of these "Down times" and
> it's still working after 5,000 years! ... I logged a game play on it
> the other day

Yeah, yeah, but none of the games you can play on it are really any
good. I mean there's "predict eclipse" and "stuff wicker man full of
human sacrifices and set on fire", but there's really barely any game
there, and the theme is pretty much pasted on.

I suppose it still beats the Stonehenge boardgame though.

:P

[Friendless]

On Dec 31, 7:21 am, Barticus <Barticu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  I also
> suspect Aldie has been lax on rotating the parity bits.

I bet Derk was supposed to do that.

[Jogadorzeco]

Good Work Scott and Good Luck too.
I know these kind of problems, sometimes are more dificult to solve
then we thought or wish.
Keep the good work and all the best for 2009.

[Jorune]

I feel bad for the fundraiser. You guys wanted to hit that mark before
the new year and lots of days lost. Hopefully people will swamp you
with donations ;-)

[Jorune]

On Dec 30, 3:09 pm, Guantanamo <theow...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the update!
>

[Jorune]

:-)

> > I mean, d'uh!- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Murkland]

Many thanks for the update! we're still here :)

[Mike Gibbs]

Scott,

Do you have one of those "gift" lists that can be used if some of us want to send something other then just money donations for such hard and dedicated work?

Mike

[chad....@gmail.com]

The servers are coming....the servers are coming!!!

One of our main servers at work went down this fall and was out for
3.5 days. I didn't really care since I wasn't able to do much during
that time without it. :-)

On Dec 30, 3:31 pm, "cferej...@gmail.com" <cferej...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > When we built Stonehenge we didn't have any of these "Down times" and
> > it's still working after 5,000 years! ... I logged a game play on it
> > the other day
>
> Yeah, yeah, but none of the games you can play on it are really any
> good. I mean there's "predict eclipse" and "stuff wicker man full of
> human sacrifices and set on fire", but there's really barely any game
> there, and the theme is pretty much pasted on.
>
> I suppose it still beats the Stonehenge boardgame though.
>
> :P
>
> On Dec 30, 12:38 pm, Doc Kaotic <dock...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > When we built Stonehenge we didn't have any of these "Down times" and
> > it's still working after 5,000 years! ... I logged a game play on it
> > the other day
>
> > On Dec 30, 3:28 pm, enzo622 <enzo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > "> Now let us await the arrival of armchair sysadmins with helpful
> > > advice."
>
> > > Well, say what you will, but none of this would've happened if he had
> > > done this right the first time. He connected the conflabulator to the
> > > hixadooey when he should've routed it through the whatsitjigger.
>

[gamer-stu]

I really think that BGG should migrate to zLinux running on a z10. By
using Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex/Metro Mirror, BGG
could recover from site failure in milliseconds, and could quite
possiby survive a low yield nuclear blast depending on the distance
between data centers.

On Dec 30, 4:31 pm, "cferej...@gmail.com" <cferej...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > When we built Stonehenge we didn't have any of these "Down times" and
> > it's still working after 5,000 years! ... I logged a game play on it
> > the other day
>
> Yeah, yeah, but none of the games you can play on it are really any
> good. I mean there's "predict eclipse" and "stuff wicker man full of
> human sacrifices and set on fire", but there's really barely any game
> there, and the theme is pretty much pasted on.
>
> I suppose it still beats the Stonehenge boardgame though.
>
> :P
>
> On Dec 30, 12:38 pm, Doc Kaotic <dock...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > When we built Stonehenge we didn't have any of these "Down times" and
> > it's still working after 5,000 years! ... I logged a game play on it
> > the other day
>
> > On Dec 30, 3:28 pm, enzo622 <enzo...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > "> Now let us await the arrival of armchair sysadmins with helpful
> > > advice."
>
> > > Well, say what you will, but none of this would've happened if he had
> > > done this right the first time. He connected the conflabulator to the
> > > hixadooey when he should've routed it through the whatsitjigger.
>

[Iron Brigade]

I think some folks forget that sometimes. You want BGG to be up and
running smoothly more than anyone else. I expect these last 2 days
have been an exercise in patience and frustration for you. Thanks for
the hard work.

Brian

[jgrundy]

btw, when your done with this little "server" thing, more
importantly ... can you import all the google-group post star ratings
as thumbs to our profiles?

[purplewurple]

Lemme guess... it's the Heisenberg compensators not compensating,
right? Or is the flux capacitor fluxing when it should be capaciting?
Either way, thanks for the updates and the hard work; let's hope BGG
is back soon!

[peacmyer]

Huzzah for Aldie! This is giving me flashbacks to life at MACC at UW-
Madison during graduate school....

[tommynomad]

Thanks for your efforts, Aldie.

Here's hoping this wake-up call results in thousands of new donors.
You can count on me for 2009.

[Jim]

As someone who has done this for personal pursuits, as well as
professional....

Three words... Dedicated Server Hosting :)

Seriously, this is where one should perform a genuine gut check, and
asses the economics around this, for something like BGG. Done right,
one should have virtually no downtime, even with hardware failures, as
such providers are equipped to deal with exactly this kind of issue.

On Dec 30, 3:25 pm, Craniac <Cran...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am glad that Mr. Alden is making improvements to the system during
> the down time.

[Vaughn]

It took me a while to track this down so I figured I'd give it a bit
of a *bump*.

> > Now let us await the arrival of armchair sysadmins with helpful advice.- Hide quoted text -

[ltux]

A bump, you say?

[captai...@gmail.com]

Thanks Aldie. Can't wait for the site to be back up and get my first
time donation in. Guess I needed an event like this to show how much
I appreciate all the work you do.

On Dec 30, 12:08 pm, "Scott Alden" <scott.al...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Update - Since the restore from backup process took over 14 hours, I
> decided that I wanted to convert to a way that would not take as long
> in the future.  However, this process took 14 hours so I apologize for
> the inconvenience.
>

> Unless major disaster occurs BGG will be back up today.  Nobody wants
> BGG back up more than me.
>

> --
> Scott