SITE DOWNTIME

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SITE DOWNTIME

Postby Fred » Wed Oct 12, 2005 9:08 pm

My appologies for the site being down for the past week. Here is the skinny on what happened and why it was so difficult to fix the problem.

1. the site was hacked because the forum wasn't updated with the latest version

2. to prevent further damage I removed the forum from the server

3. I got my web host provider to recover the old database from a previous backup

4. here's the problem. NOw there is no program to interface with the database

5. I tried to install a new forum and then recover the database.

6. since the database is larger than 2MB the php has a time out feature so it can't upload the entire file

7. I tried using a "bigdump" program to dump the database in a SQL file and then it uploads it in small chunks but failed miserably

8. It was no problem to get a new forum up and running but if I couldn't recover all our posts and user names etc it wasn't worth the effort

9. finally I've recovered a backup from a week ago so we've lost minimal information and I"m updating the forum as we speak. Hopefully all will go smoothly.

To make matters worse, my support team at my web host had a two day response time on support emails so it was a painfull process to get back and forth answer question going. Finally I was able to recover most of the information.

again, sorry for the inconvenience but I tried my best to get the forum back up and running as soon as possible with minimal information loss

Cheers.
I want to go to hell... there's probably lots of rock to climb there.
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Postby dcentral » Wed Oct 12, 2005 10:45 pm

Welcome back.

Sucks to hear about all the extra work you had to do.
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Postby dcentral » Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:21 pm

What was the weakness they exploited?

What version were you running too?
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Postby Fred » Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:24 pm

apparently you have to be on your toes and have the latest version all the time. I was running version 2.0.10 and they were up to 2.0.17

they are mainly security updates. I don't know how it works.


So there will be some buggs in the meantime. Looks like for now there is a small list:

-avatars are missing
-weather, links, tides etc missing
-CNS logo on the CNS page is missing


let me know if you guys see anything else

thx for your patience
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Postby Fred » Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:37 pm

Fred wrote:-avatars are missing
-weather, links, tides etc missing
-CNS logo on the CNS page is missing


ok I have found the avatars and fixed the weather links as well as regular links.

I'll work on the CNS logo tomorrow. It's 12:30 and I'm sleepy so I'm off to bed. :)

again, sorry for the downtime

cheers
I want to go to hell... there's probably lots of rock to climb there.
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Postby granite_grrl » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:28 am

Thanks Fred, thanks for getting the site back up and thanks for being able to recover everything.
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Postby martha » Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:42 am

and Thanks for letting me go to bed at 9pm last night when you started working on all this and then chatting my head off at 1am when you decided to join me. :lol: :lol:

Seriously though, good work. I was lost for something to do all day at work. :)
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Postby tracstarr » Thu Oct 13, 2005 8:58 am

that's the problem with these kind of things. very easy to hack if you know what you're doing. even if you don't know what you're doing it can be even easier as others provice scripts that anyone can use with the click of a button. My guess is it was probably some mysql injection risk most likley. but who knows, i don't really keep up to date on these things. good work getting it back up. i know the pain.
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Postby Fred » Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:15 am

unfortunalty these programs aren't very user friendly. It's nothing like downloading your latest messenger program and just two clicks to upgrade. UG!

They work great when it's the first install but working with an existing database or upgrading is difficult.
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Postby thicks » Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:37 am

good work Fred.
When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. -- Emo Philips
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Postby Fred » Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:43 am

thicks,

I suspect you changed your avatar after the date that I used for a back-up. You'll have to reload your avatar

cheers
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Postby dcentral » Thu Oct 13, 2005 10:30 am

Yeah. I've been playing around with one of these message baords and they are pain to even tweek.

You should check out http://www.getvanilla.com. It's so easy to set up and play around with.
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Postby Andrew » Sat Oct 15, 2005 9:34 am

Good job on recovering the forum and information, Fred. I know what kinda tedious work goes into this sorting thing, having been messing in the computer world for most of my life. My forum doesn't work now either. I had to re install windows a while back and so some drivers and such aren't installed and i haven't the patience anymore to search around and install the stuff.

Climb on.
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