Server issues {server hiccuping ?? and 500 - Internal Server Error}

[Crimson-Guard]

rui u just posted the same thing again ... and i have no idea why i cant quote ..
EDIT: double posting too =)
EDIT2: i mean i cant quote ur second post ....

 

[Tleno]

We need Ralle asap. But he's too busy now...

 

[Crimson-Guard]

We need Ralle asap. But he's too busy now...

where is he woh ?

 

[Tleno]

Don'tknow, it says something about going somewhere in his signature... anyway, we still need this problem to be fixed someway.

 

[Crimson-Guard]

Don'tknow, it says something about going somewhere in his signature... anyway, we still need this problem to be fixed someway.

i think u mean immediately ? but anyway nobody can fix this prob other than ralle ??

 

[Zombie]

Yeah, it was down for a lot of time, still is very slow.

(Тестинг сигнатуре).

 

[Ralle]

It really should be better now.I have been trying to deal with the hiccup which lead to server busy.. Choose your poison

 

[Tleno]

Yup, now it's better... hope it won't happen again.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Too many online, i.e don't close their browsers if afk? Too many models ( i won't be surprised) ? Maybe it's time to make a break frm thw cause im sick of:

Server is too busy

 

[Tleno]

Happened today again... seems the sever is just overloading. We need to do something... anyway Ralle, how much money you have to get until you'll be able to afford a new server?

 

[Septimus]

403

Why we keep on getting 403 - Forbidden lately?

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

The database has encountered a problem.

the server went from bad to really bad.

 

[HardOn]

ive been having the same problem.

 

[thelifelessone]

the server went from bad to really bad.

Correction, it went from really bad, to really really bad.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Yes I got 3 types in 1 day:

1) Database error
2) Could not load page
3) Server is busy at the moment - HOly sh1t 30 minutes got server is busy

 

[TriggerHappy]

Ralle has been working on it.
He believes someones attacking the server (DoS).

 

[thelifelessone]

I'm fairly sure it's not a DoS.
With how powerful the server is, a DoS would have no affect, that is if the ISP doesn't limit the maximum bandwidth (which would stop all attempts at a DoS).
If it's a DDoS (which would be more likely), the server would be entirely unaccessible. You wouldn't even get the "Server too busy" message.


I'm no expert, but past experience tells me this isn't a (D)DoS.

 

[ap0calypse]

I only got the 403 once as far as I can remember, so that's not my main concern.
The 'server is busy'-error however is far more common (only today about 7-8 times, sometimes for a few seconds, other times for several minutes).

Ralle will figure it out I guess, you just wait
(Server is too busy, can't post right now >.> add one to the above number - though it doesn't go to a new page now so my text is saved :O
Damn, this is taking long...)

 

[thelifelessone]

You know, something is making me think it's the chat client.
I was told that Ralle had made it himself, and I only ever see the site slow when there's a bunch of people in the chat, so it could be that the chat can't handle that many people properly
I'm not doubting Ralle's skill, just offering a suggestion that you look into it.

 

[TriggerHappy]

Ralle's stress tested the chat before, and the server load from the chat was fairly low IIRC.

 

[thelifelessone]

How "hard" has he tested it? As I said, I don't doubt Ralle, just exploring possibilities.
Also, check database load.

 

[The Panda]

I thank you ralle, so very much

 

[TheDivineBoss]

Ralle probably put the plug back into the server.

 

[-Berz-]

I'm getting "server off line" or something like that all the time, in last week then I have to click THW link a few times and it works.

 

[thelifelessone]

DON'T KEEP REFRESHING.
Here's an important piece of information: When the server says "Too busy", it means it's maxed it resources/bandwidth/etc, and isn't accepting any more connections. It does this in the hopes that it can fix whatever it overloading it, and bring the site up quickly.

REFRESHING/RELOADING THE PAGE DOES NOT HELP. AS A MATTER OF FACT, IT MAKES IT WORSE.
When the server has maxed its connections, trying to open new ones, really don't help.

So, next time you get this issue, don't sit there clicking the refresh/reload button.
Wait 20 minutes, come back and refresh ONCE. Not twice, not three times, not 20 times, BUT ONCE.

 

[ap0calypse]

DON'T KEEP REFRESHING.
Here's an important piece of information: When the server says "Too busy", it means it's maxed it resources/bandwidth/etc, and isn't accepting any more connections. It does this in the hopes that it can fix whatever it overloading it, and bring the site up quickly.

REFRESHING/RELOADING THE PAGE DOES NOT HELP. AS A MATTER OF FACT, IT MAKES IT WORSE.
When the server has maxed its connections, trying to open new ones, really don't help.

So, next time you get this issue, don't sit there clicking the refresh/reload button.
Wait 20 minutes, come back and refresh ONCE. Not twice, not three times, not 20 times, BUT ONCE.

Thanks for the hint, this is what I usually do though ^^ (more like 10 minutes though :/).
I can imagine that if hundreds of users start spamming the refresh-page, that the server won't be happy with that.

 

[thelifelessone]

Well, I'm surprised there isn't some sort of functionality in vBulletin that will automatically ban users trying to make so many connections within a certain period. Especially when it says "Server too busy".

And I don't mean ban as "Sorry, your banned". I mean you get a 404. No access at all.

 

[Ralle]

I hope it is better now.

 

[Ralle]

It's not a money problem anymore thanks to The World Is Flat. Now it is just a matter of planning and decision making.

 

[Tleno]

500? That's really generous action, I say we all should thank the World is Flat!

 

[Ironside]

Yeah as someone above said, the hive was DoS-ed...

But it seems to have stopped now, I had all kinds of errors, like 404 , Server to busy all the time, site doesn't exist and much about this stuff...

It seems the DoS-er got bored

 

[Tleno]

I'm curious who and why he was DoSing the Hive...

 

[Zombie]

I like your signature, Barathrum.

Also, if anyone was -really- DoSing the Hive, he seriously needs to get a life... who the hell would attack a WC3 modding community?

 

[Deathcom3s]

There was the time WC3C was DoS'd. But i really don't feel like going over that whole fiasco.

 

[Pharaoh_]

Just happened again by the way

 

[Tleno]

No, this time it was 500, not 403 or whatever...

 

[Pyritie]

Also, if anyone was -really- DoSing the Hive, he seriously needs to get a life... who the hell would attack a WC3 modding community?

whiners who were banned and so threw a hissy fit

a hissy fit so big it was basically a ddos

 

[Pharaoh_]

I got server hiccup message, not internal 500/403 errors.

 

[Tleno]

Are they dosing us again? seriously, we really should track them and ban their IP...

 

[Ironside]

Tracking an IP is possible, but what will you do if they change their IP all the time...?
As probably every good hacker would do.

I'll observe things, maybe I'll find out who's doing it.

 

[Tleno]

Why would ever a good hacker hack a THW... unles its a sabotage from not a single person, but from a group of people that are against the Hive for some reason... but who would ever want to do that?
Warcraft 3 haters?
Other Warcraft 3 modding communities?
Aliens?

 

[Ironside]

I'd say getdota.com xD

No joke

 

[Tleno]

And I say xgm.ru

No joke, Russians are quite good programmers... and hackers.

 

[Ironside]

True, but are there any Russians on hive anyway...? I don't think they have anything to deal with this.

Also not just anyone knows how to DoS you know...

I know many hackers (friends in the hacking world) who don't know how to DoS, I learned it, but I don't ever use it, as it's still illegal, I'm a good guy

 

[reason 3]

I guess my grandfather is able to DoS too...

It might be hard to do it manually but..with a few programs which you can download you can do it by a few clicks...

 

[Pyritie]

it's not really all that hard to DDoS >__> you just need a lot of computers

 

[Dr Super Good]

Well there has been one DoS attack as far as I know (I do not have information on server stuff like that) which was from a single computer so I guess any further ones are from the same guy or his friends copying him. They are technically very easy to block cause no normal user queries a page (homepage) repetitivly hundreds of times so you could probably write a script to automatically IP ban people making inhuman number of requests for an extended period of time.

A DoS attack is easy to perform, you just request a page or something repetitvly very fast. Most servers will ban your IP very quickly (like Ralle did for the case I knew) so it is not very effective.

Proper attacks are run from bot nets with hundreds of thousands of computers. Each requests a page at a normal human rate but still it will overload the server due to the shair quantity. Additionally they mimic human like download patterns (or in theory should) so they are impossible to tell who is a bot and who a valid user. There is no real way to stop this form of attack and would be lethal for smallish sites like this. Larger sites like facebook, google and ebay have enough money involved that they actually get realtime help from 1000s of people in the anti virus industry to activly combat the bot net attacks, additionally their servers mearly get slowed due to their massive size so a true DoS attack is very difficult to pull off.

However we are at no risk of a massive DoS attack. They can only be pulled off by true hackers which use bot nets. Bot nets are not cheap and can be sold for millions on the black market. With this kind of money involved and the skills needed, no one would even bother with TheHiveWorkshop even if they were pissed off with it cause it is not even worth the effort. They would rather use the BoT net to try and extract data, or hack into some place where data is worth millions (banks, microsoft, millatry).

The slowness on this server I recon are caused by only 3 reasons.
1. Some stupid script kiddy who for some reason thinks its fun to try and damage the site via wasting bandwidth, honestly they should go and download something to use or watch rather as this is totally illogical and pointless.

2. The servers are genuenly overloaded. I suspect this can happen as we do get over 1000 people using the site at a time and if enough do stuff that has serverload like downloads it could slow the server to unusability. Server optimizations are probably the way to go here as new hardware is only worth it when the hardware is bottleknecking the site for large ammounts of time. For example if there were suddenly 10000 people comming to hive, then new hardware would be called for.

3. Ralle is a tallented programmer but is not the ultimate server god who has made millions of servers. Although he knows a lot about servers and has created this great site, everyone can make mistakes. I personally think he has done extreemly well on this site and is continuing to do so. However at times all it takes is the wrong parameters or wrong settings and performance can go from perfect to unusable in a very short while. You must agree that these probels are fixed quite rapidly and can only be expected, afterall even the best prgrammers will occasionally make a mistake.

 

[Ironside]

Nice post I agree with you. It is true that an IP ban won't get rid of any non weak hacker, but a script who bans if he spams to much, would do the job indeed.

we should DDoS the DoS-er that is DoS-ing Hive

I'm not saying it's not possible, because it is actually easy, but it's still illegal.

 

[thelifelessone]

Yeah as someone above said, the hive was DoS-ed...

But it seems to have stopped now, I had all kinds of errors, like 404 , Server to busy all the time, site doesn't exist and much about this stuff...

It seems the DoS-er got bored

DDoS. The server is too powerful for a DoS.

 

[Ironside]

Nop a DDoS would make the server much worse than it was, I guarantee if it was among DoS or DDoS, then it was a DoS.

It also seems to be clear, why would a DDoS stop an attack? A DoS-er can change his IP, but is it really worth banning so many IPs for a warcraft 3 site?

If you don't believe me that a DoS can do this, I'll demonstrate it