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Old forum access...


David Allen
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Same issue here. Can access the old galleries, the old resources section, pretty much all of the old site but the old forum. I think it’s been a week or more for me. Before then, I’d get a spam redirect page about 50% of the time but would exit out and reenter without a problem. I use the old forum often because of the shear volume of knowledge there. Hopefully it’s not gone. 

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Thanks Tony!  Same old same old with the malware but at least I can back out and get to it eventually!!

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  • 4 months later...

I've been having issues gaining access to the old forum since early June. Is there a way around this? Any help would be appreciated!

Server Error

503

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

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4 hours ago, Mike Kearns said:

I've been having issues gaining access to the old forum since early June. ....

Mike, I just tried and got the same error.

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The old forum server is NOT down, but it is—veeeeeeery slooooooooow!:AFCA_Ping_13Jun23.jpg.4207d139d750e0c5189894e46b974806.jpg

Edited by Paul Michael
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Have we heard anything about the status of getting the old forum up again?

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On 6/13/2023 at 12:38 AM, Mike Kearns said:

I've been having issues gaining access to the old forum since early June. Is there a way around this? Any help would be appreciated!

Server Error

503

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Same here. I went to Chrome and same thing. If I google images after entering topic, the old forum website topic images will be there. If I click on them, I get the server error. Can't even cheat or sidestep my way in.

Priceless information and images on that website forums to revisit for present forum topics.

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13 hours ago, Dave McManaman said:

Have we heard anything about the status of getting the old forum up again?

Bupkis.

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This morning I had a conversation with Annie. She has reached out to the owner of the old forum server.

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Hi everyone,

I'm the guy who manages the server. I have the old forum back up and running again for now, but it is not a sustainable site. It was being hit hard by a very bad "denial of service" attack that was having an impact on the entire server...not just that old forum. That kind of activity will continue to happen...and most likely get worse.

The old forum is running on decades old code and requires an old version of PHP that hasn't been in production for years. That site will go permanently offline at some point and there will be nothing that can be done about it. That's why we set up the new forum.

If you still reference that old forum you really need to copy and paste or screenshot of whatever you want to do to download that information and move it over to the new forum. The new forum has been up and running for 2 years now and we will do our best to keep that old code running, but like I said, it is not sustainable on a permanent basis.

Chad

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34 minutes ago, Chad Smith said:

Hi everyone,

I'm the guy who manages the server. I have the old forum back up and running again for now, but it is not a sustainable site. It was being hit hard by a very bad "denial of service" attack that was having an impact on the entire server...not just that old forum. That kind of activity will continue to happen...and most likely get worse.

The old forum is running on decades old code and requires an old version of PHP that hasn't been in production for years. That site will go permanently offline at some point and there will be nothing that can be done about it. That's why we set up the new forum.

If you still reference that old forum you really need to copy and paste or screenshot of whatever you want to do to download that information and move it over to the new forum. The new forum has been up and running for 2 years now and we will do our best to keep that old code running, but like I said, it is not sustainable on a permanent basis.

Chad

There s a way to migrate *anything* . . . 😉$$$

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Is there any chance that the club can afford transferring the old site.
Possibly by a dues increase?

This information should be saved!

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4 hours ago, Chad Smith said:

Hi everyone,

I'm the guy who manages the server. I have the old forum back up and running again for now, but it is not a sustainable site. It was being hit hard by a very bad "denial of service" attack that was having an impact on the entire server...not just that old forum. That kind of activity will continue to happen...and most likely get worse.

The old forum is running on decades old code and requires an old version of PHP that hasn't been in production for years. That site will go permanently offline at some point and there will be nothing that can be done about it. That's why we set up the new forum.

If you still reference that old forum you really need to copy and paste or screenshot of whatever you want to do to download that information and move it over to the new forum. The new forum has been up and running for 2 years now and we will do our best to keep that old code running, but like I said, it is not sustainable on a permanent basis.

Chad

Thank you Chad. It is so frustrating that a DOS attack would be launched against an antiques collecting site. Very disappointing. What do they possibly hope to gain from that?

I wish I had experience with web applications. I do develop and troubleshoot industrial control software so I'm not illiterate. What I wish I knew how to do was come up with a program to analyze the old forum database and move content into a static, read-only format which could be hosted alongside (or as a part of) the Fan Wiki area. Seems like a non-interactive form of website would be less susceptible to attacks. But again I don't know how the software works so that may be extremely involved to do.

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1 hour ago, David Allen said:

Thank you Chad. It is so frustrating that a DOS attack would be launched against an antiques collecting site. Very disappointing. What do they possibly hope to gain from that?

I wish I had experience with web applications. I do develop and troubleshoot industrial control software so I'm not illiterate. What I wish I knew how to do was come up with a program to analyze the old forum database and move content into a static, read-only format which could be hosted alongside (or as a part of) the Fan Wiki area. Seems like a non-interactive form of website would be less susceptible to attacks. But again I don't know how the software works so that may be extremely involved to do.

On 6/16/2023 at 12:24 PM, Paul Michael said:

I just left an inquiry (voice mail) with Pamela Smith, who *appears* to maintain  the servers NS3.spaceout.com and NS4.spaceout.com which from what I garner, host the domain for afcaforum.com, this after her website contact form was also NOT working for several days. . . 🤔

David, the 'attack' might be directed at a different site hosted there, or at the server(s) themselves, although there's plenty reasons why this site with its vulnerabilities would be the access target... But data is data and any data can be migrated to a new code running on an up to date (security-wise) server. it just takes thought, time, and $$$.

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2 hours ago, Paul Michael said:

David, the 'attack' might be directed at a different site hosted there, or at the server(s) themselves, although there's plenty reasons why this site with its vulnerabilities would be the access target... But data is data and any data can be migrated to a new code running on an up to date (security-wise) server. it just takes thought, time, and $$$.

Yep, I understand. Agree completely. I'm just lamenting I don't have the experience to provide hands-on help with this.

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10 hours ago, Chad Smith said:

Hi everyone,

I'm the guy who manages the server. I have the old forum back up and running again for now, but it is not a sustainable site. It was being hit hard by a very bad "denial of service" attack that was having an impact on the entire server...not just that old forum. That kind of activity will continue to happen...and most likely get worse.

The old forum is running on decades old code and requires an old version of PHP that hasn't been in production for years. That site will go permanently offline at some point and there will be nothing that can be done about it. That's why we set up the new forum.

If you still reference that old forum you really need to copy and paste or screenshot of whatever you want to do to download that information and move it over to the new forum. The new forum has been up and running for 2 years now and we will do our best to keep that old code running, but like I said, it is not sustainable on a permanent basis.

Chad

Thanks for the response and heads up. I wouldn't have a clue how to transfer that much data. It is what it is, thanks for restoring it for now. Time doesn't stand still for anything or anybody. Change is inevitable.

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22 hours ago, David Allen said:

This morning I had a conversation with Annie. She has reached out to the owner of the old forum server.

Thanks David.. actually , I reached out to Chad Smith.  The old server guy/company is long gone and not available  and to be honest, was not that helpful at the time...I appreciate your post regarding our convo... 🙂😀

It does  however look like we have a volunteer amongst the posters here to set up and lead a committee to work on getting the old forum and all of the backed up, priceless info moved to the new site.

I look forward to working with the team he puts together to do this job and reviewing the proposal for incurred costs to get 'er done...

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DoS attacks of this nature don't  typically start off targeting any particular site. They are "bots" that simply scan countless IP addresses looking for known exploits in old code or services. Some are more sophisticated than others, but they all usually work the same way.

That's why it will definitely happen again and from a technical standpoint that old forum really needs to be taken completely offline. If I block one bot, others will soon follow.

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There’s a thread started in General column. Let’s combine efforts to that thread.  I’ve proposed a path forward on this matter, but there will need to be volunteers, both for technical know how and grunt work to transfer data IF THIS can be done.  

Let’s stop complaining about it and try to find a fix.  
 

if you’re willing to volunteer when needed, please make it known on the other thread.  
 

We’ve been notified that there is an end of life soon for the old site. That is inevitable. What we do about it, is something we can change if we move on this instead of sitting on our hands saying “the old site doesn’t work” 

I lack the technical knowledge to lead this project, but I’ll be happy to grind through the old posts and help to move them.  

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