Down for a week? Yea, that sucked! But what now?

[snickells]

Hello everyone.First off I'd like to apologise for all the down time. It was a real pain in the arse losing the forum for so long, and I think I need to explain what happened over the past few weeks, and what the implications are on our future.

So, what why was the site missing and that lovely "This account has been suspended" page put up?

Well, It was because the forum and it's database, were using WAY too many resources and due to this, we broke our user agreement with Jumba (our host) which in turn led to the site being knocked off the web. It turns out we are quite a popular site and with the product/service we were using (A shared server with multiple customers on it) we just chewed through too much too quickly. Also, because of our popularity, our forum was actually knocking the other customers sites off the web (lol) and that's what caused the real issue.

Now, in my minds eye, being a bit of an internez noob, I would have expected Jumba to communicate this to me in a way that a "customer", not an I.T. l33t haxor, would be able to understand and a solution would be agreed too and everyone would be happy!

But no. They knocked the forum off the air, the day before a 4 day public holiday, with NO access to C-Panel, NO access to the back end, NO ability to access the site at all, other than a back up file to down load... UNLESS! we upgraded to a $300 a month private server solution.

I questioned, I argued, I swore, and I was hung up on.

So what would you call this? Extortion? Perhaps. Either way, it wasnt very nice.

So what did I do? I paid the bloody $300 in the hopes we could get the site up and running again so that we could figure out what the hell to do next.

Now, from my research on hosting solutions with the equipment to handle the sort of traffic were generating and the sort of bandwidth we need, I'm not finding anything that is much below the $200-$300 a month mark. Sure, we can go back to an OS host, but it's a compromise. Shit response times, 404's, lost pages, you name it, it will happen. But it will be cheap.

We cant stay on this plan, so we have less than 30 days to figure out what to do. After that, we're flat broke, and I cant keep paying for this place out of my pocket like I have in the past.

So, really, there's not many options. People either start paying for access, or we move to a shitty cheap solution and not complain about it.

But, I'd really love to hear some suggestions from you guys, as YOUR the ones who use this place, I just sweep up after everyone :001_tongue:

[eyeballprawn]

Mind posting up the site usage stats? People might have some suggestions of hosting services they've had good experiences with.

And can you post a link to this $300 plan they are currently forcing you on to for comparison?

[snickells]

Don't think I have access to it any more Dylan with the change of server. It's a new C-Panel and all new stats, which are empty seeing as it's only a few hours into activity. Basically, our data base and it's activity was what killed us. We have too many people with too many open connections for small/lite hosting plans. It's a real shit, but nothing we can change seeing how many people we have using the site. Plus, we're only going to grow, which will mean even more users and more resources... etc etc etc.

[rh1n0]

Agree with usage statistics. (As I said in the email to you. :P)

Good work on coming back though!

Edit: Saw your post just now. That sucks! Surely they kept logs of this though? Perhaps a 'friendly' email to them would get you results? As a server to the public, they'd want to uphold some sort of positive image. Tell them to play nice or you'll tell on them.

[eyeballprawn]

Well for starters you must have some idea of what disk storage space you are using right now, and roughly how much data is transferred each month? Just so we have a starting point...

If you go to a VPS then the CPU usuage shouldn't be anyone else's problem but our own. Perhaps this vBulletin thing isn't optimised very well? Don't totally rule out the overseas hosting, it won't be as bad as you think.

[rh1n0]

If you go to a VPS then the CPU usuage shouldn't be anyone else's problem but our own. Perhaps this vBulletin thing isn't optimised very well? Don't totally rule out the overseas hosting, it won't be as bad as you think.
Overseas can be good - if we were a gaming server or something it would be different all together.

Additionally though, vBulletin itself should be very optimised. It's a very popular forum solution and as such I doubt they'd get very far if they used more resources than necessary. Having said that though, I cannot speak for any plugins/modifications that have been added since installation.

[TomTom]

Don't know any about all this, but I've just donated another 5$ to help you out! :001_cool:

[Nitephyre]

Congrats and thanks for all the hard work Steve. With a reaction like that from them, I believe it's in the best interest to fuck them off ASAP. Did you agree to a long-term ****ract or is it month to month?

I agree that we definitely need a dedicated server, so that is going to cost more. While I can't do it straight away, once our old house sells I'll quite happily donate some more cash to help pay for the costs.

As for what I mentioned in the unofficial chat to Kat plus on CVR4, I have plenty of time on my hands at the moment (hooray for being Mr. Mum) to help out in any sort of admin-ish way. I don't know much about the backend of VB, but being a nerdy geek it wouldn't take me long to get the basics down pat.

Are we running on a Linux or Windows server?

Again, thanks for your effort and let me know if you need a hand :)

[rh1n0]

Currently running Linux. :)

Thank god.

[GSRSOL]

Dont get me started on jumba...

they suspended our account and took us offline for no reason whatsoever, no accounts were due, nothing was in breach of contracts etc etc.

on talking with them they had no idea why 4GT was suspended, so they reinstated it, but without all the redirects that Jase had put in place from our recent overhaul.

In other words, Jumba = Bumba, time to host elsewhere. We're currently looking at our options also.

[snickells]

Working on all the data requests guys, and knowing those clowns, it wont be a fast response.

[jet150]

Hey Steve didn't a member on here I think it was bennoz? He said he can let us host for free on his server.

[gilly]

Thats quite strange...I have been a loyal jumba customer for 3-4 years now - we have purchased hundreds of domains through them, have a number of reseller accounts and a VPS with them and have never had an issue with them. Their support and communication has always been really good. Perhaps they give us priority because we are a reseller?

I know you have been turned off by Jumba, but have you looked at their Supreme VPS plans? $30 a month, 24/7 support, 1gb of ram, 100gb of bandwidth and 30gb of storage seems ideal. You get a portioned amount of the cpu so it shouldnt effect the other vps users.

Another one I have heard good things about is Slicehost. They are US based but have heard good things. Here is another one - http://www.web24.com.au/vps/204/linux_vps.html - not sure what their like, you would have to do your research.

[king_panther]

Glad to see the site back up & running!

As for what to do, well I don't know, but I would have no problem with ongoing financial support if the site requires it to keep functioning, owning a VR4 or not.

[Tom]

I use these guys, I'm pretty happy.. When I signed up it was $95 a year for 1tb of space and 1tb of bandwidth and a domain name included..

http://www.globat.com/

Just my 2c

They're help desk is pretty quick to respond and help out.. Sure it's overseas hosting but I haven't noticed any problems.. but I'm not on a high bandwidth using website, so I don't know if there'd be a difference with performance or whatever!

[rh1n0]

You can spend hours on Whirlpool looking at and reading about hosts. I'm lucky enough to have a free reseller type of account that I am currently using for 2 relatively small sites/forums and 1 that is growing and is already rather large. So I will have to move to something soon too.

I've been keeping an eye on Cove (which seems to have recently renamed/moved to VentraIP... Whatever. They have some seemingly good hosting options for a reasonableish price. With Sydney, Melbourne and US based hosts.

Anyway, I'm rambling.

If you truly can't be bothered looking at options I'm sure you can post a thread on Whirlpool's forums asking what would be your best bet (given your budget and resource needs) and as an added bonus, representatives from hosts often troll their forums so you may get some better than advertised deals too! I did once when I was starting up a gaming server. :)

[smitty]

Steve, at the lan on Saturday there will be someone who may be able to help us out, he runs his own server or some such

[OVR444]

It is only a idea at this stage... but I may be able to sway my manager to let me setup a box in our DMZ for use. It all depends on the stats needed and the current $$$ being paid etc.

Feel free to PM me Steve if you can get some stats and a general run down on what we need to host the site.

We have plenty of rack space available in the resarch clustering room, so it has the usual 24/7 power protection and a dedicated fibre backbone to the interwebs :P

[tommo]

I have opportunity to get hold of a server and may be able to upgrade it to the point of usefulness it will be a 32bit intel zeion. I can get as much ram as the OS will take and may find a few good scuzzie or even sata hotswap drives. If a host is needed I can sort that out as well. In the short term I may be able to get something up and running in my shed but it will be on a small biz adsl2 line and not realy the best option. I have also some good mates with a few racks in a data center here in adelaide and may beable to convince them to give me a good bandwidth option at a smaller cost. I will need some more traffic stats before I can get the hardware upgrading started.

Drop me a line if you are interested.

[eyeballprawn]

Slicehost's support is really helpful, and especially so for those new to setting up a VPS. Plenty of step-by-step guides to follow.

[Supplanter]

Hey Steve didn't a member on here I think it was bennoz? He said he can let us host for free on his server.

He hosts FTOAU, although I'm not sure how your forum traffic compares to ours.

That being said the annual FTO bonfire was on this weekend, so he might be hard to get into contact with, at least until he sobers up:001_tongue:

[Bladerunner]

Guys, I have an account with dreamhost, a reasonably large US provider. If someone else wants to pay for the domain, I have an unlimited account (transfer and storage).

I'm happy to host the site if someone wants to point the DNS in my direction.

PS: DONT GO AWAY AGAIN I WAS HAVING KITTENS! Ozvr4 is such a great resource it would be terrible to see it go.

[steveP]

i also used to have a DreamHost account. highly recommended.

[rh1n0]

Guys, I have an account with dreamhost, a reasonably large US provider. If someone else wants to pay for the domain, I have an unlimited account (transfer and storage).
I've got the same. :)

I think OzVR4 would be too big for that to work though. Well, at least with my one. As it's shared between everyone else who has it for 'free' like me. :p

[Hotwire]

I have no idea on hosting stuff but happy to donate $30 annually rather than the current $10...

[illuzian]

User servers australia... thats where I have my dedicated and its $99 a month... $300 is WAY too steep.
http://www.serversaustralia.com.au/

Alternatively I can setup the server for $120 via my own hosting http://hostzen.com.au

[skyrex]

Just donated $5 to the cause!
(That and I would like to be able to sell some gear to the memberz...) :001_tongue:

[M0R81U5]

I have a good mate with his own side project hosting business which already hosts at least one other high traffic forum that I know of, like many others have said, if you can provide some stats etc I'll hit him up and see what he can do for us.

I'll also chip in with some coin when pay day hits on Thursday. I too was lost without this place....stupid Internet not providing a contingency for my VR4 fix (cept for cvr4)

[snickells]

Guys, these are all some FANTASTIC offers, seriously, thank you. Like I said earlier, I'm waiting on the actual usage data, but I know for a fact that every month we chew through 22-24gig of bandwidth, and have even piped over the 25gig mark a few times. Storage wise, we only use about 500mb to 1g, with backups and junk making it go up and down. The real question is how much processor and ram do we chew through, coz that's the big one.

Anyway, as soon as I know, I'll be making a thread with the details for you all to look at.

[OVR444]

Guys, these are all some FANTASTIC offers, seriously, thank you. Like I said earlier, I'm waiting on the actual usage data, but I know for a fact that every month we chew through 22-24gig of bandwidth, and have even piped over the 25gig mark a few times. Storage wise, we only use about 500mb to 1g, with backups and junk making it go up and down. The real question is how much processor and ram do we chew through, coz that's the big one.

Anyway, as soon as I know, I'll be making a thread with the details for you all to look at.

Sounds good, keep us updated when you can mate.

[Bennoz]

Yeah as mentioned, I host OS now because exactly the same thing happened to FTO Aus. Our traffic & stats are almost identicaly to yours - and to my way of thinking - this and FTO Aus are not heavily used sites... especially in comparison to something like SAU - which can have anywhere up to 1000 members online at a time.

In the end, I pissed off my host (same as here all they did was give me a backup & sent me on my way) and went with Host Monster. They have ample resources & the speed is pretty good for a US company. Not only that, their support is super helpful. I had a bastard of a time moving all the databases across & they sorted that out for me in less than 24 hours.

Having said all that, after the move, I did some research on why we kept getting pulled down for overloads & found a number of answers. It wasn't regular users & the like, it was a combination of spam bots & poorly configured software. A number of tweeks were made to the config files & stopping persistent connections almost doubled the site speed.

For vbulletin, Im told you can also turn off persistent connections in your config.php file:


$config['MasterServer']['usepconnect'] = 0;Then you can up the 'max connections' in php.ini

If you want, what I can do is create a test domain & move a backup of this site up onto it & we could test from there. As I mentioned before, I've got plenty of paying customers already & there will be no need for money to change hands.

[Gary31]

I have no idea on hosting stuff but happy to donate $30 annually rather than the current $10...

Yeah i dont mind chipping in a bit more as well.

[pauly]

welcome back guys....

[godzilla]

Currently there are 524 active members on OZVR4. If all of those 'Active' members donated just $10pa that would give us $5240 (had to use a calculator) pa - more than enough to cover the $300p/month server costs.

I still reckon that we should start being a little more tight rectum on what people can view/accsess on here for free.

Just my $0.02

[OVR444]

I still want to see more then half of the guides on CVR4 ... but i'm too tight ass to pay up. :(

[VR-04-TT]

You can't start charging people to see the tech articles. It would then make this site redundant as CVR4 has the same and more.

Also it goes completely against why this site came into existence in the first place.

I'll happily donate, but I don't believe we should be charging people to access information as eventually someone will just start another forum with the same info for free...

[VR4Rocket]

Get some site advertisers...
Banners for a year $1200 bucks
Seller Memberships from $100 bucks a month.....ya know where this is going...
Just make sure you are making enough to cover costs etc and keep fairly cheap for advertisers

[steveP]

Agreed, donating should be optional.

Thats the main reason i dont go on Club VR4. I can afford a donation, i just dont like being forced into it.

[fieldy107]

Well I donated another $10. I think we could raise the donation amount, it is really cheap. I know plenty of sites that ask for much more and offer much less.

[Bennoz]

Funnily enough, I just got this 'update' from my host...


FREE FEATURES ADDED IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS:

1) CPU Protection - No longer will a single site on a server impact the performance of other
websites on the same server. This means much improve consistency and higher performance
for 99% of our customers.
2) Memory Protection - No longer can a single user or program consume disproportionate memory
that would cause slowdowns for our customers.
3) Bandwidth Compression - This allows our customers to see a 10-25% decrease in site load
times. This is especially noticeable for customers with slower internet connections. This does
not speed up times of PHP/CGI scripts. For PHP/CGI scripts they will run at the same speed.
4) Process Protection - No longer will a single user be able to spawn runaway processes that
cause the processors/cores to slow down trying to handle all the requests. This is especially
useful when it comes to MySQL usage where sometimes hundreds of thousands of queries
happen in short period of time (5 minutes).
5) Many other changes Too many to list in this email.

[matchtheclown]

I'll throw another $10 at the cause.

We might have to look at banners or something if we want to keep it free.

Where has the donate now button gone :|??

[Tom]

I just donated another $10 :)

Hugh, on the front page of www.ozvr4.com (http://www.ozvr4.com) on the left there is a link saying "Donations" underneath the "Forum" link !

http://ozvr4.com/forums/payments.php

[matchtheclown]

All good I found it. ;-)

[TTFreak]

10 big ones coming your way now...a pittance really for what this site provides...

[JediRuss]

$10 Buckeroos on its way

I was starting to get that junkie itch without access to my OZ VR4 fix!

[Kenneth]

Sorry to hear how things are.

Unfortunately, unless you have deep pockets it really is a big burden to try and fund by yourself.

I admire how you have funded OzVR4 from your own pockets. Knowing what it costs to run Club VR-4, I have often wondered if you had a money tree out the back!

To those who begrudge spending the money to donate to OzVR4, or even the $15AUD for Club VR-4... You miserly, stingy arseholes. If everyone did their bit, forums like this would operate easily. You seem to think that things should be free, though you should be old enough to realise that NOTHING is free. Somewhere, someone has to pick up the tab so that you can sit there and absorb the time and money that others have given. Get over yourselves and look at the big picture. The donation is bugger all compared to the money you probably spend on other things such as petrol and alcohol, not to mention the money saved through the network of advice, parts and assistance of others.


Steve, as always, you can count on my donation.

[tommy86]

Another donation to help keep my much need OZvr4.com fix just a few clicks away,

as has already been suggested up the price of banner adds and traider access, also maybe make the donation button more prominate/ pop up every now and then, i wasn't even aware of it for quite a while. just my 2c worth.
thanks to those that keep this site running.

[OVR444]

or even the $15AUD for Club VR-4... You miserly, stingy arseholes. .


Isn't it more like $39 when you do the euro conversion ? :S

[eyeballprawn]

Nup, only AUD$15 for Aussie members. Bargain!

[snickells]

To everyone who's donated, thank you. Seriously, every little bit helps.

[Hotwire]

Another 10'er on its way steve... Didnt realise you could donate again before your subscription was up

so others, even if you are currently paid up, pay up again! :D

[king_panther]

Can you donate through PayPal on behalf of someone else?

[snickells]

Yea, no worries. Get them to log in and just use your paypal account.

[king_panther]

Yea, no worries. Get them to log in and just use your paypal account.

Can I pay the donation & PM you as to who it is for?

Not real keen on handing out my PayPal login details...

[timmae2006]

I would be happy to donate if needed

[Hotwire]

So why haven't you Timmae as all donations are clearly needed :confused1:

[timmae2006]

I just did buddy $10 on the way :thumbup1:

[Hotwire]

So you have, good stuff! :D

[snickells]

Can I pay the donation & PM you as to who it is for?

Not real keen on handing out my PayPal login details...

Go for it, ill just change the details in the back end.

[king_panther]

Go for it, ill just change the details in the back end.

Sweet. $25 coming OZVR4's way!

[M0R81U5]

I just sent a shiny new tenna heading your way and some more will follow just as soon as I hand a grand over to the govt for rego. :closedeyes:

[Dave45]

If it weren't for this kind community I wouldn't have the sweet ride I have today.
Thank you for your ongoing support.. Donation coming your way.

This may be a lame idea but how about we organise monthly raffles?
Put some oil or cool bits and pieces up. Tickets $10 each..
I would be happy to donate a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd prize =)

Edit: I've made a thread about this in the Donator's section. To help not sway this thread off topic here is the link to the thread if you would like to comment or put forward suggestions:

http://ozvr4.com/forums/showthread.php?p=167527#post167527

[fieldy107]

I like that idea, as long as the prizes were something decent. Could have a $200 sway bar or something like that, if we sell 40 tickets, the club makes $200 and someone gets a sweet bit of gear

[VR-04-TT]

I'd be happy to organise a set of braided lines for a prize at some stage.

[Bigfoot]

If there is any thing I can do to help website/hosting wise let me know as I tend to shine as a bit of geek so I can check my hosting contacts.