Server Hiccups

**Man1c M0g** · 12-29-2003

An announcement about the recent server troubles will follow shortly. I'll also see about mending the server's extreme slowness at times. Don't worry... it'll all come right in the end, I promise...

Update: OK, its all mended now. To cut a long story short, a hacker tried to take over the server a number of weeks ago using a very obscure Linux kernel exploit. To a certain extent he succeeded, but only managed to get himself a very low level of access, and subsequently gave up. With all his fiddling, however, he ended up TOTALLY wasting the servers kernel and /proc partition. This went un-noticed until I rebooted the server on the 28th when, of course, the server failed to boot. My hosting company were excellent throughout the whole saga and even offered to replace the server free of charge. Unfortunately I did not have a recent backup of the content (my bad), so I asked them to recover the data. They spent a couple of hours saving everything and put it all into a new server. This little extra cost me $200.

So... what about the hacker? Well, as the actual attack went un-noticed for several weeks, all evidence, logs, etc, has long since been lost. I'll never catch the little git, alas, but at least I can offer a few insults as to the amazingly small size of his manhood, etc... . As from now, though, the server runs on an updated OS, which automatically upgrades itself every night. Hopefully this will prevent this type of problem happening again in the future. In the meantime, though, i'm pretty sure I have everything fixed and operational again. Drop me a line if you see anything broken and i'll mend it pronto. Thanks once again for your continued support!

ConceptualMind · 12-29-2003

I was guessing it was something of that matter.

Hmm... does this in any way relate to what you posted on the Moderator/Admin board a while back?

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UPDATE: (Posted on the BioRUST main page by m0g)
As you may have guessed, the recent downtime was due to a very dedicated and sustained attack by a hacker. No data was lost in the attack, but a *LOT* of damage was done to the server and the partitions were corrupted beyond repair... I'm working to restore all site functions, and they should be back soonish. Your continued support during this time is definately appreciated...

**Man1c M0g** · 12-30-2003

First post updated....

**Man1c M0g** · 01-03-2004

Whoops! Sorry about the second outage. This incident was *NOT* due to hacking, but an oversight on my part. You see, Hostcentric's default installation turns on persistent mysql connections, with an infinate connection limit. On a popular server with forums this can, understandably, lead to MASSES of unused connections clogging everything up, and that is exactly what happened in this case! Anyway, i've put out the server fires and now everything seems to be running just peachy. Lets hope this is the last incident of this kind for some time....

Order · 01-03-2004

Hehe.. I remember mentioning that persistant connections can lead to problems.. this is a good case of it being so..

**Man1c M0g** · 01-04-2004

Now now, no saying 'I told ya so...'

Order · 01-04-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Man1c M0g
Now now, no saying 'I told ya so...'

Never said I told ya so... just mentioned that I told you so

ConceptualMind · 01-05-2004

I'm so confused right now. Haven't been able to go on BioRUST at all for a few days and everything changed. Can someone update me?

Young Spartan · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by SuBjEcT2fAiLuRe
I'm so confused right now. Haven't been able to go on BioRUST at all for a few days and everything changed. Can someone update me?

I will, just inform me on what you are cofnused about. r4z0r got dropped because of inactivity, the server got hacked, a few new forums went up, all of us mod a few more forums now, I (TekVex) changed my name to Yuneek... anything else? I'm not sure what all you know and don't know about.

Order · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by SuBjEcT2fAiLuRe
I'm so confused right now. Haven't been able to go on BioRUST at all for a few days and everything changed. Can someone update me?

Mr. Tek forgot to mention the persistant connection problem, but everything is back to normal.

Young Spartan · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Digital
Mr. Tek forgot to mention the persistant connection problem, but everything is back to normal.

Ah yes.

Bah, its right here in this thread, lol.

**Man1c M0g** · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by SuBjEcT2fAiLuRe
I'm so confused right now. Haven't been able to go on BioRUST at all for a few days and everything changed. Can someone update me?

LOL! Sometimes even I get confused with this place, but its all returning back to normal now... whatever normal is...

Young Spartan · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Man1c M0g
LOL! Sometimes even I get confused with this place, but its all returning back to normal now... whatever normal is...

Normal for us is abnormal to most.. haha.

Order · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Man1c M0g
LOL! Sometimes even I get confused with this place, but its all returning back to normal now... whatever normal is...

hmm.. normal, sounds nice to me... *continues to stare at slightly melted server*

Young Spartan · 01-05-2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Digital
hmm.. normal, sounds nice to me... *continues to stare at slightly melted server*

Haha... *looks around* Where?