Possible Outage Warning

Discussion about the project in general, organization, website, or any other details that aren't directly about the game.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Possible Outage Warning

#1 Post by Geoff the Medio »

The freeorion.org website might go down for a few days (or weeks?) around the start of the new year.

The current arrangements for hosting payment might expire, and I'm unable to determine if they will continue.

Tyreth offered to help prep for migration of hosting in case it was needed, but he's also been non-responsive for the last week or so. He manages the DNS records so his help is important with the migration part.

In the event the project web hosting does go down, I'll try to be present in the IRC channel ( irc://irc.freenode.net #freeorion ) more consistently than I have in the last 6 months, so anyone interested can continue discussions there temporarily.

There are various backups of the forums and wiki, and the SVN repository and downloads / releases are independently hosted on sourceforge, so development can continue by anyone with commit access.

It's entirely possible nothing will change (noticeably or otherwise), but I thought I should mention it at least a few days before things might break.

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#2 Post by Dilvish »

Geoff the Medio wrote:...but I thought I should mention it at least a few days before things might break.
yes, thanks much for the heads-up.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
adrian_broher
Programmer
Posts: 1156
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 9:52 am
Location: Germany

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#3 Post by adrian_broher »

In case the current hosting goes down will this be permanent and if yes is there an alternative hosting available?

You said that Tyreth manages the DNS records. Does this mean we can be sure that the domain isn't snitched by some domain grabber or will be there some problem too?
Resident code gremlin
Attached patches are released under GPL 2.0 or later.
Git author: Marcel Metz

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#4 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:The freeorion.org website might go down for a few days (or weeks?) around the start of the new year.
Uh-oh, not good. A few days won't be a problem, but weeks...?
The current arrangements for hosting payment might expire, and I'm unable to determine if they will continue.
What are the current arrangements anyway? According to the whois record, a Greg Clarkson owns the domain. The email in the record is Tyreths email, but Tyreth is Mark Saward - that's a bit confusing, unless Greg and Mark are the same person? And who has been providing (paying for) the web space?
There are various backups of the forums and wiki
Who has these backups? How frequently are they done / how current are the ones we have?

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#5 Post by Vezzra »

adrian_broher wrote:You said that Tyreth manages the DNS records. Does this mean we can be sure that the domain isn't snitched by some domain grabber or will be there some problem too?
Well, according to the whois record the domains expiration date is in 2017, so it looks like the domain itself is safe.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Update: Have confirmed that Tyreth, or someone/thing adequate impostering him, still exists. /update

Losing freeorion.org to someone else isn't a concern.

Tyreth would be needed to reassign the domain to a new IP / server / host, should the current hosting service end.

I think Greg Clarkson is someone who Tyreth had do the registration for him. As far as I know Tyreth still is or can be in control of the domain, though.

There are many web host companies and services available. The same company on a similar or different plan could probably be used to host this site. It's not terribly high traffic as far as I'm aware.

I do backups of the forums to my own computer and usually copy to an external drive whenever I feel like it using the built-in backup mechanism. Maybe every few weeks, depending how busy I am. I'll do another in the next few days.

If I don't hear from Tyreth soon [edit]I have heard[/edit] I'll also do a full site backup by shell connection. This was previously done a few months ago by Tyreth, and possibly by myself, though I don't really know what I'm doing with it. Not much wiki activity has been happening since then, so it's mostly forum changes that should be backed up by the forum software method anyway.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#7 Post by Vezzra »

Thanks for the update! Glad to see that you finally heard from Tyreth :)

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

It's now pretty much the same situation as last year...

I don't know if tzlaine will continue funding the hosting, so there might be a website outage in the next few days or weeks.

I'll drop into the IRC chat in the event that happens.

Website backups have been done in the last day or so.

Tyreth can hopefully assist with site migration in the event it's needed.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#9 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I don't know if tzlaine will continue funding the hosting
Still no communications at all from him? Or have you given up trying?

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#10 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Vezzra wrote:Or have you given up trying?
After several years of intermittent attempts, yes.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#11 Post by Vezzra »

Geoff the Medio wrote:After several years of intermittent attempts, yes.
That's really a pity - and also kind of strange. He didn't strike me as someone who would drop out without saying anything at all, even less ignoring repeated attempts to contact him. Normally I'd be seriously worried that something happened to him at this point, but apparently he's active on github. I mean, that's him, isn't it?

Strange... :?

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#12 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Once again, the same situation re: the website hosting this year.

Helpfully, there is also now the github site for ongoing communication about development in case of any downtime.

User avatar
Vezzra
Release Manager, Design
Posts: 6095
Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2011 12:56 pm
Location: Sol III

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#13 Post by Vezzra »

Everything seems fine so far, so hopefully we'll make it another year... ;)

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Possible Outage Warning

#14 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Once again, the same situation re: the website hosting this year.

Helpfully, there is also now the github site for ongoing communication about development in case of any downtime.
And yet again, same as previous years.

Post Reply