Coin,
=== Mail ===
First, it's time for major software upgrades and cleanups, so we'll be
updating a few things this we, causing downtimes on the POP/IMAP
services and incoming mail latency. If you go sunbathing somewhere
nice instead of geeking all day long, you won't notice anything bad
when you're back, i promise ;-).
And you should already have noticed by the end of january that the
webmail.dc.o application transformed into a portal, adding one more
choice in the process. Someone asked about having the RoundCube
webmail software, but at that time it was plain unusuable, so we
postponed its installation until recently.
=== Backup ===
No housing sponsoring on sight, but space problems occuring once in a
while. thus we decided to loose extra data security to get more space:
our important data are not on RAID anymore. It should not be a
problem, except in case of double disaster, and should hopefully help
with the current issue.
By the way, you had no way to know which data where saved or not, so a
new wiki page was created to fill in the gap:
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/Backup
You would notice an interesting feature allowing you to exclude data
from backup, which could also help reducing backup size if it is not
useful to do so.
=== Security ===
We were fed-up with SSL certificates and the mighty CAs, so, from now
on, we do not trust them anymore on our servers. This gave a false
impression of security when there was none.
=== Database ===
PostgreSQL was successfuly upgraded to 9.0 on 2011-04-06. Do not
hesitate asking for a database.
=== FTP issues ===
Recently, people without anything better to do in life, or with a
silly FTP client, caused DOS attacks. Automatic bans have been added
to mitigate this behavior where previous connection limits could not
help. Please tell us if you get any problem connecting, so we can
adjust sensitivity.
Btw, we're still looking for a housing, so if you get a lead, please tell us.
Hugs.
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coinyear everybody,
Hope you had fun and good food/drink. We wish you plenty of pleasant
things for 2011.
=== Plans for the Future ===
==== Backup / Stats Machine ====
As the current backup process is done through Duck's personnal ADSL
connection, borrowing a huge bandwidth, slowing down backup times a
lot, it is not a very funny situation. Moreover, as data size is
increasing slowly, we reached a point where the current capacity is
not enough to keep up with the previous backup granularity. Before
X-mas, we had to reduce the backup frequency of the big sources of
data (www, ftp…).
We recently acquired some hardware from a sponsor, which would be
suited to build two small machines. We plan to use one of them to
build a machine dedicated to backup and stats, hosted in a datacenter
in order to get a proper network connection.
For this, we need to buy disks, and find housing.
==== Free Party Machine ====
Currently, DC focus in providing managed services, for users who do
not care about technical matter, or do not want to bother taking care
of an infrastructure. We've been suggested that some people might want
to go a step further and handle some kind of services themselves.
That's why we plan to acquire a bigger machine in order to provide
several virtualized hosts.
This is of course a big investment and also requires housing.
=== Call for Help ===
There are three main areas in which you can help us:
* apply for being an administrator (the selection is harsh and not
only based on technical skills): this is the obvious way for
non-financial help. A few less-sensitive tasks may also be delegated
to "admin-helpers".
* give a bit of money: we don't need much, and the goal is to survive
without a huge recurrent investment. However, once in a not-so-often
while, we need some to repair or improve things, and currently this is
the right time for a helping hand
* help us find sponsors: the best way to run smoothly without too much
financial load, is to find kind and reliable sponsors; so, if you know
dicks we can suck, please tell us ;-). This is mostly for housing
purpose, but hardware donations may also help.
Well, this said, and even if DC has no trace in its history of acting
democratic in any way, you can express yourself and suggest
improvements. We don't have much feedback, so sometimes it's hard to
figure out what we could do better.
=== Misc Late News ===
==== Thorfinn Reboot ====
2010-12-27 afternoon, after a long network outage (~1h30) affecting
Thorfinn, we took advantage of the resulting mess to reboot the
machine on a new kernel. It should be a bit more secuuuuuuuuuure now.
==== Roaming SMTP Fix ====
Sending emails through GPRS/3G connections using IPs without reverse
was problematic. Now, when SMTP Auth is used, many such checks are
lifted.
Have a Lot of FUN !
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
Tomorrow afternoon we will restart Orfeo a few times in order to test
things related to the kernel bug discovered after the recent power
outage. And we may check a few other things btw. It should not last
long, but nevertheless sorry for the inconvenience.
In the meanwhile, i'm happy to announce we've got a new IRC server, so
the world should not turn to black during the maintenance. Many thanks
to Nohar who provided the previous server, and to mmenal who provides
hosting for the new one. The service runs on a virtual machine managed
by DC, allowing us an easier management of the service software, and
is named Jinta[1].
Have a Lot of FUN !
[1] http://bleach.wikia.com/wiki/Jinta_Hanakari
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
Today, at 12:03:14, Orfeo suffered from a power outage. It was
restarted quickly, and Hivane/Alionis people assisted us efficiently.
Unfortunately, a kernel bug [1] prevented the machine from booting
correctly. A hardware problem might additionally be possible, even if
not critical. Late in the afternoon we were able to diagnose the
problem and work around it.
Moreover, webmail.dc.o and webdesk.dc.o were unusuable until this
evening due to a software upgrade problem (unrelated to the power
outage).
In the evening, we finished checking all services, and since then
everything should be all right. Do not hesitate contacting us if you
find an issue.
Regards.
[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=3D605496
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
It's not yet X-mas time, but we're happy to have a few things done
each time :-).
=== Toushirou _is_ stable _and_ fast ===
Since very recently, Toushirou's network interfaces are now at 1Gbps
speed, so no doubt everything will be much faster now ;-).
Unfortunately, network card vendors sux sometimes, and due to a
firmware bug in the card controller, we had to reboot Toushirou on
2010-10-29 00:40:00. It should be ok now.
=== Wiki for Users ===
The wiki[1] made for users since the birthday is now mostly closed to
non-users, in order to put sensitive information on our services if
needed.
[1] https://users.duckcorp.org/
=== NSTX Reloaded ===
Our IP over DNS tunnel software, you know the stuff to break through
WIFI accesses, was unmaintained didn't work well with recent WIFI
setups. We've then switched to another software and it seems to work
much better (SFR Portals 0wned !). Everything needed to use it is now
in the wiki[2]
[2] https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/NSTX
=== Antispam Forever ===
After a few fights with bugs in our antispam software, the situation
has much improved, and learning is working better. If you still get
many false negatives, remember the software needs to learn both SPAM
and HAM in order to recognize things well; so you may consider using
learning on all messages (TEFT mode) for a few weeks.
We also improved our "front-gate rejection filters", in order to avoid
several false positive conditions.
=== Secuuuuuuuuuuuuuure DNS ===
First, the zone tranfers between our servers are now fully secured.
Our partner Hivane also upgraded its configuration for us (thanks a
lot!).
Second, the zone content can know be signed, to ensure it is not
altered on the way. We have already secured several DC/MP zones and
our servers now support extra zone validation (using the DLV
Registry). From now on, securing SSH accesses using SSHFP (see
previous news) is now a reality.
If you want to know more about it, or switch your zone to secure, then
have a look at the wiki[3]
[3] https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/Services/DNS
=== Misc ===
projects.duckcorp.org, hosting development code and bug trackers, is
now opened for public registration, allowing hosted projects to share
with the FOSS community. DC users do not need to register: they can
login with their LDAP account.
forum.duckcorp.org was unused for a long time, and not useful anymore,
so it was removed.
That's all Folks!
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
Hope you had fun during the holidays. For DC Admins too, it's now time
to go back to work :-/ (laaaaaaaazyyyy).
=== PHP Cleanup ===
As already advertised, the following PHP obsolete "features" are now
deactivated for ever:
* register_long_arrays: $HTTP_*_VARS
* register_argc_argv: $argc / $argv
* magic_quotes_gpc: "magic quotes"
=== Elwing Rebirth ===
A month ago, one of Elwing's disk died. Unfortunately, he had no RAID
at that time, and much was lost (but hopefully not so important data).
After a few problems during the silly not-for-raid WD "desktop-class"
disks saga, we recently came back to normal operation.
As Elwing was long not very reliable, we changed a few things:
* the XMPP node was moved to Thorfinn, so that redondancy is
available again (and not behind an ADSL link)
* our beloved bots moved to Thorfinn too
That's another step towards proper DL/DC separation, and "nothing
behind weak links" target.
Please note Daneel had to be shutdown, to make use of his almost
identical hardware in order to perform the migration. Backup is back
since 2010-08-25.
=== Antispam Problems ===
Our antispam software (DSPAM) caught a sunstroke and had difficulties
remembering what you taught him. It is work in progress since a few
weeks, and we hope to have made improvements (even if the bugs
probably caused learning problems in the past and results may not be
visible very quickly). Stay tuned.
More on several other topics later.
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Toushirou is moving ===
Due to technical problems, the move had to be rescheduled, and is
happening tomorrow evening. Beware of the short downtime.
=== Photos ===
You can find recent photos (mostly for the 10th Anniversary), in the gallery:
http://photos.duckcorp.org/v/duckcorp/
Remember you can ask for a personnal photo directory.
=== User Wiki ===
We still lack documentation about the available services and how to
use them, so you're welcome to contribute to the user wiki, especially
starting from this page :
https://users.duckcorp.org/index.php/AvailableServices
\_o<~>o_/
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Toushirou is moving ===
As you may know, Sivit, one of our sponsor, was acquired by Nerim, so
we have to move this machine in another location (Equinix). Tomorrow
evening, Hivane folks, Yok, and me, will work on this move, and
Toushirou will be down a short time. Nothing critical would lack, but
a few services will be unavailable (mostly web related, except
webmail/webdesk which is elsewhere).
=== More memory ===
Toushirou has now more memory (4GB instead of 2) since 2010-05-29, and
is working fine. As our stability problem seemes to be memory bound,
it is probably a stopgap, but anyway this machine needed more, so this
is a good and not so expensive evolution.
=== Recent problems ===
* 2010-06-04 ~11:10: due to electrical problems in the bay, Orfeo was
down during about half an hour.
* 2010-12-06: the main Elwing's disk died, so it was quite a pain in
the ass, as this machine had no RAID yet, but we managed to repair it
quickly; nevertheless the disks or something in the OS is not working
well, and we have horrible performance. It should not affect DC's
services too much, as most of them moved or are duplicated elsewhere.
* the second repaired disk for Daneel died after less than a minute of
stress when rebuilding the RAID; happily the spare disk was here to
take it over again until a new disk exchange is done...
Hope this disease affecting disks will soon be eradicated...
=== Ruby for All ===
Recently, we removed the badly working mod_ruby apache extension,
stopped using fcgid which was working but not so efficient/responsive,
and switched to mod_passenger, which seems to behave quite well. You
should be able to activate Ruby apps you need quite easily now, in
your vhost, or in your personnal area (not limited to a single app).
You can read more on this subject here:
http://www.modrails.com/
and do not hesitate asking us if you need to override the ruby-app
detection in your vhost, or need specific settings.
_o<
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
=== Server Maintenance ===
On 2010-05-20 afternoon, due to sponsor needs, Orfeo had to move a few
steps away in the same datacenter, and was halted twice during a few
minutes. I was not able to warn soon enough to be useful, sorry for
the inconvenience.
On 2010-05-29 in the morning, while visiting a datacenter with several
users, we will halt Toushirou a few minutes in order to
replace/improve its memory (both because it needs more, and to test if
a complete memory replacement would improve the stability, even if
memtest found no problem on the current memory).
=== Communication ===
On 2010-05-19 Bitlbee was finally stopped. Minbif has replaced it nicely.
In April, we experienced a lot of problems with our XMPP (Jabber)
server. A few weeks ago we installed a fixed version and it proved
very stable since then.
The IRC upgrade is still... postponed :-/.
=== PHP Migration ===
Yesterday, we moved to 5.3, as planned earlier, and things went quite
well. Please note a few things that are now obsolete and will be
deactivated on 2010-09-01:
- $HTTP_*_VARS
- $argc / $argv
- "magic quotes"
So please check your code before the deadline.
=== Dico ===
Absolutely needed, we now have an open access dictionnary[1],
available both on the DICT port, and via web on:
http://dico.duckcorp.org/
dict/dico text clients are available on Thorfinn and Toushirou.
Happy Birthday DuckCorp ! :-))
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DICT
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
Coin,
The meeting is gonna be a picnic, starting at 13:00, in Parc de St
Cloud, near the water réservoir:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=48.833355,2.206851&num=1&t=h&sll=48.839293,2.…
You've got several ways to come:
- T2, Parc de St Cloud (the nearest station)
- Transilien L or U, St Cloud
- M10, Pont de Saint-Cloud
- or by car of course
You should reach the meeting area in about 30 min from the station
(without running).
We'll have lunch first, but you may join us later in the afternoon if
you prefer. If you come for lunch, please bring food/drink for you,
and some more to share (it is more friendly this way).
We hope to see you soon. Have FUN since then.
\_o<
--
Marc Dequènes (Duck)
