The server that runs xlforum.net and v2-forum.com is currently experiencing some major problems and will need to be rebuilt.

Both websites will be going offline soon and I am not sure how long it will take to remedy the situation.

They may both be offline for most of 24 Feb 2008.

Oh no!! It's raining outside and I can't work on my bike 'cause I haven't got my parts yet! I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. Hang with the old lady I guess :headbang

Drummerboy while the website is down I suggest you do something else to the "old lady" that rymes with hang instead.

Drummerboy while the website is down I suggest you do something else to the "old lady" that rymes with hang instead.

She agrees with you misterT. :doh

Thanks for the warning. I hope I can survive without my daily xlforum fix.

Bummer
:bump

Everyone, MARK this date on your calendar now !!
On this date 9 months from now, we will have a new breed of motorcyclist !
They will be called
XLFORUM BABIES !!
We will have a Brazilian of them and It's all Bert's fault and they all be named
Bert of XLFORUM

Jim
:tour

Thanks for the heads up about the site. You're doing a great job!

Still have problems with the server. Looks like I will need a new one.

I have spent all day on this and am bushed. I will work on the new server this week.

I hope things at XLF InterGalactic HQ
get under control soon! You done good
Bert. At least the forum is accessible now.
Earlier I was having withdrawals. I'm ready
with lots of beer on standby if it goes down
again tho.

Wow - that was a tough outage. Good luck Bert!

The server that runs xlforum.net and v2-forum.com is currently experiencing some major problems and will need to be rebuilt.

Both websites will be going offline soon and I am not sure how long it will take to remedy the situation.

They may both be offline for most of 24 Feb 2008.

Well, it looks like you got it back. Congrats.

I didn't realize how addicted I had become. I had an 8 hour power outage at my house last night because of California storms, and when I tried to check in the AM ... aaargh.

Good job.

How come I never find out about these things until AFTER throw my life upside down... LOL

WELCOME BACK!!!

i was expecting it to be longer, im glad it wasnt i was getting bored!

Everyone, MARK this date on your calendar now !!
On this date 9 months from now, we will have a new breed of motorcyclist !
They will be called
XLFORUM BABIES !!
We will have a Brazilian of them and It's all Bert's fault and they all be named
Bert of XLFORUM

Jim
:tour
:roflblack:roflblack:roflblack:roflblack:roflblack :roflblack:roflblack

XLForum and YouTube down on the same day. Guess I'll go for a ride.

When I tried to log in this morning and saw this:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e80/quebeker/xlforum.jpg
and this:
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e80/quebeker/xlforum1.jpg
I thought to myself, "Oh No! This is just like Dallas! I just woke up from a dream and found out that XL Forum never existed."

yeah...i tried logging on this morning and was like"WTF?" i was so bored, it was raining this morning, didnt know what to do...slept off the depression for a cpl of hrs..haha

I'm glad you're back.....I was going to need a 12 Step Program if you didn't get it back...... :xlrocks

The sun was out so i fired up the bike put the old lady on the back and went for a 120 mile run.:clap:clap:clap
More fun than pushing a mouse about.:laugh:laugh


:chop :luvsport

The sun was out so i fired up the bike put the old lady on the back and went for a 120 mile run.:clap:clap:clap
More fun than pushing a mouse about.:laugh:laugh


:chop :luvsport


I wish I could have done the same but...
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e80/quebeker/tempathouse.jpg

Holy Cow! Talk about withdraws. My parts have not arrived yet, so nothing to do but talk to the OL or be on line. Glad your back up and running.Whew...Thought I would have to talk to OL.

Next door is still down. Glad this is up.

When I tried to log in this morning and saw this:

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e80/quebeker/xlforum.jpg
and this:
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e80/quebeker/xlforum1.jpg
I thought to myself, "Oh No! This is just like Dallas! I just woke up from a dream and found out that XL Forum never existed."

Yep, same thing here this morning. Like others said, didn't realize how much I would miss this forum with my morning coffee.

I wish I could have done the same but...
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e80/quebeker/tempathouse.jpg

WTF?!?! It shows it was sunny, right? So, it was 12*...but it was a sunny 12*. I thought you northerners were used to those temps?!? ;)

I did get out today for a ride in the warm mid-30's :p

I did the same. Bike wanted to go south. I kept hearing "Texas" coming from the engine. But alas, a quick ride through the Witchita Mtns, was all I was up for. Maybe next weekend...

I noticed things were bad the other day. I couldn't access mine own swerver
to get my email, so I was thinking that maybe the tearists had won. :yikes

If we go down again, and it's for more than 24 hours,
I may have to fall back on one of my former addictions! :drinkup:smoker:banarasta :flasher
:laugh

Well, we ordered the new server and hopefully it will be ready in 48 hours to start the website migration.

I am just praying that the migration will go over without a hitch. I have to pull a lot of data to a new server.

There will be an IP address change so once I make the DNS changes we will all experience some funkyness until everything replicated to all the major routers on the Internet.

Good luck Bert with the server change.

How will we know when it's done ?

I will let you know on here.

I will let you know on here.

Thanks Bert, I'll just keep watching then.

Everyone, MARK this date on your calendar now !!
On this date 9 months from now, we will have a new breed of motorcyclist !
They will be called
XLFORUM BABIES !!
We will have a Brazilian of them and It's all Bert's fault and they all be named
Bert of XLFORUM

Jim
:tour

And don't forget this :shhhh:shhhh

:tour

Might be a good time for folks to back up the pics they have on here just in case. Especially if they don't have them backed up elsewhere.

Is it possible we could loose our photo albums?

Is it possible we could loose our photo albums?

Not if you keep them safe in the cupboard.
:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh:laugh

Would this one do ??

http://www.shelf-space.co.uk/assets/images/304.JPG

That should do it George.
Perhaps Bert should get us a few.
:banana:banana:banana:banana:banana:banana

Server platform migrations can be nerve-racking Bert, so you might want to get a good night's sleep first!

Maybe if someone deleted some of the 3 year old threads that are no longer active, the server wouldn't be so overwhelmed. I bet there are about 150 "What kind of oil..." threads, 100 "How wide of a tire..." threads, 569 "What do you think of my bike?" threads, 534 "Which exhaust..." threads, etc...

Well, we ordered the new server and hopefully it will be ready in 48 hours to start the website migration.

I am just praying that the migration will go over without a hitch. I have to pull a lot of data to a new server.

There will be an IP address change so once I make the DNS changes we will all experience some funkyness until everything replicated to all the major routers on the Internet.

Hey Bert,

Since you are going so far as to change the IP Address, would it be possible for you to let us know what it is ahead of time? DNS changes can be very funky, as you say. I have no experience with with web apps like this forum, so I cannot be of much help in the migration, but I can imagine temporarily adding a static host file entry to my local machine that would allow xlforum.net links to point to the correct IP once the new server is the master.

If it would not be a security issue, it would also help the savvy among us to know what DNS server(s) will be propagating the changes.


Server platform migrations can be nerve-racking Bert, so you might want to get a good night's sleep first!

Seconded. Definitely start with a good night's sleep and contingency plans if circumstances allow.

Since you are going so far as to change the IP Address, would it be possible for you to let us know what it is ahead of time? DNS changes can be very funky, as you say. I have no experience with with web apps like this forum, so I cannot be of much help in the migration, but I can imagine temporarily adding a static host file entry to my local machine that would allow xlforum.net links to point to the correct IP once the new server is the master.

If it would not be a security issue, it would also help the savvy among us to know what DNS server(s) will be propagating the changes.


Probably a better solution when changing IP's and DNS entries is if Bert has control of his DNS server is to shorten the TTL on the records. Generally you keep the TTL relatively long to keep down the requests (reduce traffic for something that doesn't change very often). With a change pending, you can shorten the TTL to a very short amount of time so anyone playing nicely on the web will not cache the old DNS entry for very long. It's not a 100% sure-fire method but the impact will be much smaller.

Probably a better solution when changing IP's and DNS entries is if Bert has control of his DNS server is to shorten the TTL on the records. Generally you keep the TTL relatively long to keep down the requests (reduce traffic for something that doesn't change very often). With a change pending, you can shorten the TTL to a very short amount of time so anyone playing nicely on the web will not cache the old DNS entry for very long. It's not a 100% sure-fire method but the impact will be much smaller.

I am no expert, but wouldn't the TTL need to be honored by the downstream DNS servers? My business ISP generally tells to plan on 2-3 days before I can be sure that a changed DNS entry can percolate through the entire system, and we are primarily concerned with US based traffic.

I am no expert, but wouldn't the TTL need to be honored by the downstream DNS servers? My business ISP generally tells to plan on 2-3 days before I can be sure that a changed DNS entry can percolate through the entire system, and we are primarily concerned with US based traffic.
According to my boss, I'm no expert at this stuff either...:(:frownthre

Let me first say, I have no idea what changes Bert is planning. If he is planning on changing his Name Servers, that will generally take more time. If he is simply moving XLForum from server A to server B, that should not take days if care is taken.

Many large companies us short TTL's to provide redundancy (as well as a load balancing method). There's companies that make a business model around how this works (F5 and their GTM products comes to mind). The basic idea is that the name server gives out a short TTL (along with the primary server's IP) and if the primary server fails it gives out the secondary server's IP address.

Now, certainly no one can guarantee how other folks DNS servers (or client computers) are configured. And DNS servers can be set to ignore the name servers requested TTL. But, in this day and age of mega bandwidth there's not much reason to disregard the authoritative parties request. Back in the day, it wasn't uncommon for ISP's to cache DNS records because bandwidth cost money (especially when T-1's were considered large).

I suspect your ISP is telling you this because they have set your TTL to a relatively long time (to save them bandwidth) and so it will take time for this to clear from everyone's cache. You can use the dig utility to see any domains TTL (or a website like this (http://www.menandmice.com/knowledgehub/tools/dig)).


(I realize that I watered some of this down and I maybe oversimplified it. But I'm not sure if anyone would understand what I was saying if I got too technical here...this is a Sportster forum and not a IT forum after all)

I suspect your ISP is telling you this because they have set your TTL to a relatively long time (to save them bandwidth) and so it will take time for this to clear from everyone's cache. You can use the dig utility to see any domains TTL (or a website like this (http://www.menandmice.com/knowledgehub/tools/dig)).


(I realize that I watered some of this down and I maybe oversimplified it. But I'm not sure if anyone would understand what I was saying if I got too technical here...this is a Sportster forum and not a IT forum after all)

I think my business ISP was telling me this because they have real world experience with the vagaries of DNS propagation to the consumer level. In my judgement they are pretty darn good, and would not even consider lengthening TTL to save bandwidth.

I only read your SIZE=1 disclaimer upon reply. Agreed, this is a Sportster forum not an IT forum.

Not changing nameservers. Changing the TTL would probably be a good idea.

Last time I did this there was aobut a half a day of funkyness.

I will have XLF closed on one server and open on the other so their should not be a problem figuring out which one your browser took you to. But what could happen is that you post something and when you click reply you are taken to the closed forum and told that you can not post because it is closed. Then you would just need to click the back button and and then the reply button again.

Maybe if someone deleted some of the 3 year old threads that are no longer active, the server wouldn't be so overwhelmed. I bet there are about 150 "What kind of oil..." threads, 100 "How wide of a tire..." threads, 569 "What do you think of my bike?" threads, 534 "Which exhaust..." threads, etc...

HECK NO!!!! Do you want to be the one to go through all the threads and determine which ones should stay and which should go?

Do you want to be the one that gets thousands of emails from people wondering why their post or thread was deleted and being called a censoring SOB nazi? :rolleyes:

Believe me this is exactly what would happen if I did something like that. I do prune the Off-topic areas once in a while and threads that deal with events in the past.

I also clean up a lot of inactive usernames to keep the database down to a better size.

You really think they would really miss those threads that haven't been viewed in 2 or 3 years? I would go through them from time to time. I'll be a paying member here eventually

You really think they would really miss those threads that haven't been viewed in 2 or 3 years? I would go through them from time to time. I'll be a paying member here eventually

Most of the older threads are good info and lots of newbies will open them and everybody thinks its a new thread till they look at start date :doh
I think its a good thing to bring them back up and if youwere to read some you would agree also
try it, you'll see
:tour

Server migration ... hmmmmm

I suspect that Bert couldn't survive the fact that Kev now has more posts than he ... and we will unfortunately lose all of the data concerning the number of posts made ...hihihi :)

You really think they would really miss those threads that haven't been viewed in 2 or 3 years? I would go through them from time to time. I'll be a paying member here eventually

I would miss them, and I have dropped coin.

Okay, Okay. Don't get rid of them. It was just a suggestion. I know there are plenty of duplicate threads that nobody's looked at in years, but, hey, I'm a pack-rat too, just not at saving old threads.