Update 2022-NOV-06 1900 hrs P-something-T
Wind knocked out power in the entire region Friday evening... not the blowjob one would hope for on a Friday. Power has been out continuously since Friday. Liquid Dinosaurs have been smelted and turned into angry spark pixies since then for intermittent server fun. It's a lot like intermittent fasting, but more like you give up Netflix, Facebook, and all of tha fun stuff.
Even the cell towers have had problems keeping Internet available.
In theory, First World problems should be returned sometime in the next 24 hours.
That is all.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 02-03-2022 1630 hrs PDT
On or around 24 hours ago, an event occurred. Both switch stacks serving the website were in need of a reboot. After a flawed A/B reboot of the switch pair, the Admin farted and several of the cluster servers spontaineously rebooted. Upon clearing farticles from the cooling ducts of the servers, completing boot up, and restoring several dependent services, the website was restored in roughtly 10-15 minutes.
That is all.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 12-11-2021 0115 hrs PD-who-frickin-cares-it's-dark-0800TZ
So... a pretty smart network engineer I once knew said "You can make a really good WAN simulator on-the-cheap by pissing on an old hub. I'd suggest you unplug it first, though... otherwise the experience might be a little electrifying for the uninitiated."
I hate computers.
When they break... people call me. When mine break... I have to consult o-great Oracle Google, spend 15 minutes figuring out that half the sites don't know WTF they're talking about, and blaze my own trail anyway. If it's a really bad day and a really bad problem, I'll find ONE post on some random forum of someone describing the exact same problem with no solution. If the universe wants to smite me, that same lone post will have a self-reply of "nm, fixed it." with zero details.
Firewall software must have done a partial patch, even though I told it to not update on its own. Pretty sure it self-nuked its lil' brain. Sure, it'd work okay for me to go to Google to pull documentation about obscure incantations of the BSD kind (just to find out that the binary you're looking for is in another castle). For our readers, my e-mail, my other services... nah... Firewall acted like there was a big boat of containers wedged in its little canal.
I about wedged something in its canal, lemme tell you. We're still talking about my firewall, by the way.
In this re-enactment, my firewall will play the role of your friend's dim-witted two year old... you know the one... they're going to peak at "Do you want fries with that."
The firewall software vendor will be playing the role of the kid's Uncle Ronny, who likes likes to give dim-witted Johnny Firewall a penny and say "Go put this in that socket over there.... heh.... Falls for it every time."
So -- Ladies, Gentlemen, Gentlemen who used to be Ladies, Ladies who used to be Gentlemen, non-binary, binary, quadradic equations, and Apache Attack Choppers; I apologize it took so long to fix this. I was birthing angry badgers at work (quarter backing the exchange, not playing center)... I was birthing angry badgers at home, (roles reversed here)... and there wasn't enough time in the day to work, work (yes, listed twice), receiving birthing, give birthing, get beer, and sleep appropriately.
All's fixed now. Nothing to see here. We have 100% uptime because our declared maintenance window is between Sunday at midnight to Sunday at midnight in addition to whenever the hell shit breaks.
Mental Note: Supply of Chickens, Goats, and Virgins is running low for Pagan Rituals and Incantations of Computer Repair.
In summary, Spike's been ground into jockey shorts farticle tracks... but the lil' bastard is fully versed in reincarnation.
If anyone happens to hear some news about someone blowing up their garage or stealing uranium -- it's just me becoming power self-sufficient and removing myself from our shit local power grid. No worries of Russians hacking crap infrastructure hardware from the 80s here.... Borris and Ivan just need a fifth of Vodka and some Russian grade beans to put this place to shame.
something something in Soviet Russia ... I'm going to bed.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 11-17-2021 1700 hrs PDT/PST/Whatever-0800TZis
So much wind and rain. Just do a search for "Flood" and "Pacific North West". Servers are fine. Admin is fine. Admin needs to get an uber generator that can be running 24/7. Unfortunately, the Admin shut down the not-uber-generator during Admin Sleepy Time so the website was offline for a few segments of time.
The Admin was able to stay warm while whispering sweet nothings to the server rack, but alas -- was limited to bread and beef jerky for over two days because The Admin was too lazy to cook outside on the grill. Due to an angry Lightning Pixie shortage for a few days, The Admin wasn't able to el-nuke-o pizza pockets or chicken tendies in the microwave.
The 'trons are back to a-flowin' now, though... so the website should return to its normal-ish performance.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Fresh First Storm of the Season
Update 09-18-2021 1645 hrs PDT/PST/Whatever-0800TZis
Fresh First Storm of the Season swept through the other day. With the fresh storm came fresh wind, and with the fresh wind finding the stagnant untrimmed and uncared for debris and foliage found the first major power outage of the season.
Since the Admin was out spreading joy and mischief to other drivers by being a complete roadway tool, the Admin wasn't able to get the magic angry spark fairies box out and convert liquid dinosaurs into electron shuffle streams and keep the site up and running. Luckily, the local utility did their job finally and provided the Admin with angry spark fairies of the utilitarian consumer nature and the site was restored back to its normal glory. The Admin was able to drink copious amounts of IPA not in the dark.
The Admin apologizes with regards to the SG1 Team's adventures being unavailable during this time, but the Admin would also like to remind readers that it is opporunities like these that provide small population surges about nine months from now.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 05-27-2021 0200 hrs PDT/PST/Whatever-0800TZis
So... you say you've been seeing something about 500 Gateways? Well, you know the reefer is a gateway drug and it's legal in our neck of the woods... but that's not it.
Server system has been super-revamped for a while, and short of major power outages caused by windstorms.... the Admin's shack has been pretty solid in the "is it online" arena. Except when our dependency, Bitbucket, has issues.
After a few beers, a lot of cursing, and a bit of investigation -- it has been determined that our redundancy and reschedule/reload design is a little too aggressive when Bitbucket has problems. They've been having a few as of late: https://bitbucket.status.atlassian.com/history
Short story: BitBucket starts throwing errors on sourcecode sync... ... our server says "Stuff is unhealthy, re-initialize!" ... BitBucket fails during the re-initialize... and James Doohan can be heard saying "Imma givin' it all she's got Cap'n!" and then the reschedule gives up for a short bit. When the multiple web servers for the site synchronize their failure -- nobody's left to serve web pages and a 500 gateway error surfaces.
The Admin is now looking at ways to cushion any BitBucket shenanigans.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 10-18-2007 1645 hrs PDT
What wind?
(Power is currently out... running on non-mains power... The midgets on the treadmill are doing wonders)
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 5-31-2007 1930 hrs PDT
Hot weather and worn fans. It's amazing that things that are not designed for 24x7x365 run-time... Those consumer items which are designed to run for X hours -- only run for X hours. What ever happened to the days of paying 2 bits for a nugget of gold good enough to retire on, spend insanely unwisely and still have enough to pass on to the kids and grandkids?
The system is back up after some hardware replacement (cooling fans... Some more cooling fans). The machine has returned to a nice breezy oasis from the Digital Sahara wasteland which it had become causing the hardware to scream like a little girl and shut down in the hot weather we've been having locally.
Not bad uptime for not being on anything close to enterprise-class redundant hardware. This is especially impressive when most service providers have guaranteed downtime which they don't calculate into their uptime standards. By the way, my scheduled downtime is only when I'm not around in enough time to switch to gen power from mains when the power is out... or when the hardware completely craps out and/or cooks to the thermal shut-down point.
You gotta love new hardware... Back in the day -- hardware shut itself down due to thermal excess only after the magic smoke was released. Usually capacitors released something else as well.
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 4-04-2007 2200 hrs PDT
...or you experience pain in your banner, seek professional medical assistance immediately.
Whoo Hoo! I got a response! Toolshed Detected. "Shields Up, Captain?"
From: Arcady <[email protected]> To: Steve <[email protected]> Subject:Re: Site problems Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 02:53:06 -0500 (00:53 PDT) There's something wrong with your image. When I paste in the URL for any other (valid) image, the form works fine.
Uh. Yeah. Sure. Tell me how the graphic displays fine in IE and Mozilla. Now, Granted... IE isn't the most stringent on standards. I would have loved details on HOW my image doesn't meet the JPEG Standard. But alas... Nothing. The interesting thing... The web board doesn't fully read the graphic. It uses a JPEG library to check the size and that's about it. It's only interested in the URL until that check anyway -- and it's complaining about the lack of an URL. So whether the banner's a banner, a picture of my ass in TIFF format, or a copy of the Stargate Theme played on a Kazoo in Vorbis format -- it should tell me that I'm dumb and uploading a non-JPEG file, not that there's NO LINK.
So good at assisting in troubleshooting -- I was asleep for the first and the second e-mail... I received the other response...
From: Arcady <[email protected]> To: Steve <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Re: Site problems Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 06:02:17 -0500 (04:02 PDT) Okay, I figured out the reason why your banner wouldn't work. There is an error in my site which for some reason does not allow images with a - (dash) in them. I inserted your URL manually and now it works. I'll see about getting the bug fixed. BTW, everyone's stats were reset to zero last night. We're starting over from scratch. Arcady
Ah... Sloppy input validation... So sloppy that an LA $20 hooker on Broadway would even exclaim "Mmm Mmm, that is NASTY!" Okay. Understandable. But still no apology? No "Oops I made a mistake"?? Not even a sound bite of Britney's "Oops I did it again" (outside of my head)???
And here I was prepared to make a speech about giving birth to Arcady's children if I was equipped with a uterus... Begging to see if simply cloning Arcady instead would suffice as providing offspring. Just waiting to use that statement to exclaim how great it was dealing with Arcady. Nope. Nothing. Just an aftertaste similar to a shot of tequila after blowing Chunks (Chunks was the dog's name).
But then I took some comfort in spelunking into the headers of the e-mail -- a good way to gauge the ability of your communicative other party... I see why there's such a cold snide demeanor.
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.2) Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=Apple-Mail-7--191158327
Ah... The possibilities are:
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against the Macintosh. Hell -- I own a one. I use whatever's best suited and handy... whether it's Mac OS Classic or OS X, Solaris, Linux, OpenBSD or FreeBSD, WinDoze desktops, Windows NT Server, 2000, or even 2003 -- or the dreaded Vista... They all work if you apply them correctly... I just like poking fun at the snide stupidity that keeps others from really reaching any real level of competency in life that adds to the enjoyment of others.
Nothing quite like a trouble-shooting session with a colleague that's quite similar to smashing one's own kiwis with a ball ping hammer. Dude, thanks for the assist. But I was lucky.. 'cause I had a spoon in my hand. (the reference occurs at 6 minutes 47 seconds for those slower individuals).
Thanks!
----The System Admin
Update 4-03-2007 2100 hrs
Looks like the form for SG1Archive doesn't like my browser, nor Robin's... or it's all horked up. For your reading pleasure, the e-mail thread is below. We'll get a banner back up on their Top Sites page ASAP whenever they get back to us regarding why we're inept at clicking on Submit.