Forum Maintenance

[jabcat]

Gary reported this morning by email that the site was undergoing maintenance today and would be down.  Didn't have any way to notify anyone, just letting you know retro what was going on.  If I ever have advance notice on such a thing I will post it so you have some headsup.  Don't know if there was a problem they had to fix or what.  Anyway, Thanks.

[joeteekay]

Thanks James. I just hope the tent-maker web site has a regularly scheduled back up in case of a total wipe out.
:trampoline:

[WhiteWings]

During your early night I could access the forum but got an error message on an increasing number of pages.
The security software (malware, virus) started refusing display pages because the are flagged as spreading malware.

[jabcat]

Yeah, not sure of many details of this event.

I do know Gary has said that Tentmaker (being an older site) can be unstable, as it's sort of patched together over the years on a bit of an unsteady platform/foundation.  They keep it bandaged up and work on glitches as they occur.  And yes, I think there's ongoing backups. 

[WhiteWings]

The forum isn't really unstable, but there is are more recent versions.
No new functionality but security patches to stop hackers doing unwanted things to the forum.

[Tom]

I was actually busy doing some computer maintenance of my own yesterday, but I was unsuccessful every time I tried to take a quick look at the forum until much later when I was ready to log off for the night.

[RonnyTX]

Gary reported this morning by email that the site was undergoing maintenance today and would be down.  Didn't have any way to notify anyone, just letting you know retro what was going on.  If I ever have advance notice on such a thing I will post it so you have some headsup.  Don't know if there was a problem they had to fix or what.  Anyway, Thanks.

Ronny to Jabcat:
Thank you. :-) Was wondering yesterday,why the page was so slow to load and wouldn't load? Good to know,that it was just for maintenance.

[RonnyTX]

Yeah, not sure of many details of this event.

I do know Gary has said that Tentmaker (being an older site) can be unstable, as it's sort of patched together over the years on a bit of an unsteady platform/foundation.  They keep it bandaged up and work on glitches as they occur.  And yes, I think there's ongoing backups.

Ronny to Jabcat:
Blamed,that sounds a bit like a description of my 59 year old body! :-) LoL

[rosered]

Gary reported this morning by email that the site was undergoing maintenance today and would be down.  Didn't have any way to notify anyone, just letting you know retro what was going on.  If I ever have advance notice on such a thing I will post it so you have some headsup.  Don't know if there was a problem they had to fix or what.  Anyway, Thanks.

Ronny to Jabcat:
Thank you. :-) Was wondering yesterday,why the page was so slow to load and wouldn't load? Good to know,that it was just for maintenance.

  Good to know ,   Thank you !!        :flowerred:

[jabcat]

getting there ronny  :)   


up and running  :thumbsup:

[rosered]

  Thanks for the   help    once again ,  bro James !!

[joeteekay]

Hello,
I was unable to get on the forum for the last few days. Was this maintenance, a glitch or was it hi-jacked?
:dontknow:

[rosered]

Hello,
I was unable to get on the forum for the last few days. Was this maintenance, a glitch or was it hi-jacked?
:dontknow:

   Me too Joe ! :dontknow:

[jabcat]

I don't know yet..no information has come my/our way...I've been out a couple of days with a family situation (good, new grandbaby :) and just was able to log back in...i see there are 173 new members awaiting approval.  since we might get one every couple of days or so, something's very fishy.  i'm wondering if we were hacked/slammed with a ton of spammers or something and it clogged up the server?? ..i'll have to check some things out and report back.. :(

if john or card know anything about it plz let me know..i can dig some more later...

[jabcat]

i've emailed gary to see what he knows...in the meantime, there are 2 more member requests that are obviously spammers bringing current total to 175... and i see 3 more currently registering :doh:  looks to me like some spigot has opened up somewhere and we're under attack from spammers somehow and for some reason...  more later..say a prayer

[jabcat]

since i posted a little while ago, 9 more have requested membership and 4 more currently registering..anyone heard anything out on the web about any such thing happening recently on other sites, or any other ideas?

[WhiteWings]

Ok James,

BIG GUESSWORK

I don't know any details....
On average you get 0.5 member request a day. Right?
Now you got 175 in 3 days. I bet if you check the times they are regged on the same day.
My other guess is that the previous time the forum crashed you had a lot of new members too.

If so, I'm quite sure what is happening.
The forum gets hacked and new members are inserted into the database directly. That saves the spammers lots of work and those irritating chaptha questions a computer is never able to pass.

Solution: Ask Karen to update the forum. It has few well known security flaws. Not my opinion but from the 'company' that programs the forum. Those security holes were fixed over a year ago. Because TM is running old software, those holes are likely exploited by the hackers.
The hackers know this forum has this weakness so my guess is they will return....
I can guarantee the forum will be more hacker proof after Karen applies the security updates.
I can't, nobody can, guarantee the forum will never be hacked after the updates because even the Pentagon gets hacked....

[jabcat]

thanks tony..i'll definitely look into the updating

awhile back we were getting slammed so bad with spammers, we went to every member request must be manually approved...so it's not that we have new members, it's that we have a list now of 185 (and counting) awaiting approval or rejection.  out of interest and future reference i'm just leaving them sitting right now, unless i find one here or there that actually looks legit...

in 6 years i've never seen anything like this...i wondered if something happened elsewhere that sent so many here..i don't know, i'm just guessing too...just very strange...

thanks again

[WhiteWings]

This sort of hacking (well more likely script kiddies) roughly goes as follows:
Someone discovers a security hole in certain version and brand of a website, forum, etc.
A script (little program) is written to automatically hack the forum/site etc.
But before that happened 'they' started a search program that finds all sites/forums that are vulnerable to that specific hack.

i wondered if something happened elsewhere that sent so many here

What happened is likely this:
a] A flaw was discovered in a certain SMF version.
b] They figured out this forum runs this version.
c] Accounts are fully automatically added.

It's nothing personal against TM. Likely the owners of the hack program don't even know the forum exists. It's just one of 1000s on their list.

awhile back we were getting slammed so bad with spammers, we went to every member request must be manually approved

Do you have email verification switched on? That way they have to reply to an email even before you get a registration request. Depending on the hack it may totally stop them because the email address is usually fake.  Or it doesn't help at all because the hack bypasses that step.

Again just a possibility because I don't know any details.

[rosered]

  Congratulations on the new   grandbaby James !!! :HeartThrob:  little bundles of joy they are . :thumbsup:

  Thanks Tony !!!They  should have you as the fixer  as well as Karen , a  team effort    :gimmefive:

[jabcat]

thanks rose :)  yes they are

tony, i passed your suggestion about updating onto gary...he said the server is giving them fits and they're having trouble with support (in india now) and may change servers...he is contacting karen about a thing or two and we'll pass along pertinent info as it comes...thanks

[Seth]

Congratulations James, that's awesome

[jabcat]

thanks seth...i know you know how cool little ones are :)

[Seth]

They're so much fun. They're like little monkeys

[WhiteWings]

thanks rose :)  yes they are

tony, i passed your suggestion about updating onto gary...he said the server is giving them fits and they're having trouble with support (in india now) and may change servers...he is contacting karen about a thing or two and we'll pass along pertinent info as it comes...thanks

http://www.arvixe.com/
It's for Karen and Gary to decide but Arvixe is cheap, flexible  and gets great user reviews on their support. I have only a tiny site but have been on their support forum. They are really on the problem. Servers are US based.