Planned maintenance

[Nexus]

I will making a clone of the current system in order to sandbox the update process that has been slow going. That will allow me to test without taking the website offline. This will require downtime as the system can't be cloned while running. I'll post again before the server is taken down for cloning.

[Nexus]

Operating system has been copied for sandboxing - I can use the replica to test updates without shutting down the production system. Have also moved it back to SSD storage - has been operating on spinning rust last couple of months or so.

[Nexus]

First successful update of the underpinnings required for the next vbulletin update tested on sandbox replica of the site this evening. There was quite a lot needing adjusting to get it to this point. From here the 4.2.5 update can be applied. Bit more testing to go, yet.

[Nexus]

Tapatalk has been updated to latest version
reCAPTCHA human verification has been updated to current version (v2) and enabled for registration and password resets.
This should slow down the mob of spammers who've been trying to register of late - generally were still getting blocked by other checks, but there's been hundreds of attempts in recent weeks.

Pending changes coming soon:
OS updates required to support 4.2.5 forum update will be attempted on production after successful testing on sandbox.
4.2.5 vBulletin update
https default browsing - above maintenance has been required to get this happening in a neat fashion.

[Nexus]

There will be a planned outage this evening to run through a fairly lengthy update process to get the forum up to the next software version and finally enable https default browsing.

[Nexus]

Core OS updates have been applied. Update to forum version 4.2.5 is pending.

[Nexus]

4.2.5 forum upgrade has been applied. https browsing has had a quick test and although better behaved under 4.2.5, still has a small number of quirks, so configuration of https as default browser connection remains pending.
If I find significant troubles with the forum version, I may revert to last nights backup (17-07-18)

[Nexus]

https has been set as default.
major bugfix was applied : when https was set as default browsing connection the post editor was not working properly and failing to present WYSIWYG editing tools for when you are writing a post.
https is not yet forced but 4.2.5 is looking more capable of being well behaved when it is.

[Nexus]

Hi everyone, a simple facebook integration test is underway - you'll see a like link now available on threads and a connect link at the top of page that _should_ allow you to associate your ozmpsclub account with your facebook account and authenticate you account through it.

Should is the operative word. Currently in testing.

[Nexus]

I've identified some more chunks of the website code that needs updating before move further forward - these are responsible for the https:// connections reporting less than perfect results on the home page, article, and forum pages. The culprit object is icon1.png which is the little icon1.png icon that appears next to news articles on the home page and "last post" links on articles page. These are less extensive updates than were required for 4.2.5 - much less extensive - but will be fiddly. More a debugging task than plain update. Once this is completed, however ssl security will get a clean pass and the magazine style website can get some attention which is where we will distill information from the forums into helpful articles and provide a register of MPS related service agents, vendors. Maybe some product review type articles as well.

[Nexus]

Hi everyone, due to a solid state storage fault the server will be shutdown and moved to an alternative storage location while the solid state storage is debugged and rebuilt. This fault has been responsible for a couple of previous server restarts and ozmps needs to be removed to protect it from storage failure. Not sure when I'll pull it down yet, but likely sometime this afternoon / this evening.

[Nexus]

ozmps forum operating system has been moved to spinning rust (mechanical magnetic storage) temporarily while solid state storage is debugged.

[Nexus]

Some disruption to at least 50% of users this afternoon - faulting solid state storage caused issues for some supporting OS as they were copied off onto magnetic storage. Now resolved.

[Nexus]

Some performance issues at present due to a server down in QLD. Affecting at least 50% of users

[Nexus]

Due to network/bot abuse of the registration process, new registrations have been temporarily disabled. I am investigating ways to harden the registration process.

[Nexus]

Some performance issues at present due to a server down in QLD. Affecting at least 50% of users

Hi everyone - quick update on this issue - we currently have no redundancy as QLD site server is still down so all traffic is via VIC. I am looking at replacing the main system board/whole server in QLD.
The QLD storage array is intact but inaccessible until this is done so no QLD operating systems are running at all for now.
Routing has been adjusted to prevent performance impacts on OzMPS while this system is rebuilt.

[Nexus]

These issues remain outstanding at present. I've also noted that the post reply button isn't functioning 100% for me. There appears to be some significant debugging needed - more than just the document icon and https link consistency.

We have had some attacks on the website recently, especially registration. We really need recaptcha validation re-enabled on registration - the weaker image recognition validation is not strong enough - bots can break it.

Work on these issues is stalled presently until QLD site is restored to full function.

I've identified some more chunks of the website code that needs updating before move further forward - these are responsible for the https:// connections reporting less than perfect results on the home page, article, and forum pages. The culprit object is icon1.png which is the little icon1.png icon that appears next to news articles on the home page and "last post" links on articles page. These are less extensive updates than were required for 4.2.5 - much less extensive - but will be fiddly. More a debugging task than plain update. Once this is completed, however ssl security will get a clean pass and the magazine style website can get some attention which is where we will distill information from the forums into helpful articles and provide a register of MPS related service agents, vendors. Maybe some product review type articles as well.

Due to network/bot abuse of the registration process, new registrations have been temporarily disabled. I am investigating ways to harden the registration process.

[Nexus]

Hoping to have QLD site server back online sometime tomorrow. There may be some website outages tonight and over the weekend due to VIC server hardware being reconfigured as well.

[Nexus]

QLD site has been restored by mainboard replacement. Was offline for a whole month(!), minimal effect on forums. QLD gateway has been reopened and reintroduced a degree of redundancy.

[Nexus]

I've patched a bug in the human verification code, and re-enabled recaptcha verification and user registration. Hopefully this will be sufficient to keep the zombie bots at bay.
Am also performing some database maintenance, this appears to be introducing some performance issues while it executes - will be keeping an eye on.
Cheers.