Booyah Hosting upgrades DarkMatters Servers... Stronger, Faster!

[gogoblender 3,068]

Hi everyone, we've just received notice from Booyah, our hoster, that they will be buying all brand new Dell Quad Core Xeon Servers to deal with all the growth. Here's the announcement from Fernis of Booyah Hosting:

 

 

 

I am very pleased to announce that Booyah is upgrading all server from generic dual core xeon to Dell Quad Core Xeon Enterprise class servers. Thanks goes out to all customers for their business to make this fabulous upgrade possible.

 

The upgrade will require that all hosting accounts are migrated from the old servers to the new servers. Booyah will handle all of the site migrations. I will do everything possible to make sure that this migration goes as smoothly as possible and have as little downtime as possible.

 

 

Server Migration Time line

 

May 26th (Monday) > 29th (Thursday) - Customers Back up site to Local drive

May 30th (Friday) > 31st (Saturday) - Data Migration Begins

May 31st (Saturday) - Booyah Nameserver IPs are changed (2-24 hours domain propagation)

June 1st (Sunday) - ALL Done and running on the new Dell servers

 

Here is what Booyah will need from you...

 

1. Please let your visitors know to expect some downtime and possible missing post on message boards due to the data migration length of time. You may see a 24 hour gap in data on forums our anything that uses a database. If possible you may want to turn your message boards offline if you don't want to have the new post missing on the new server during the data transfer.

2. Patience and understanding. I will do my absolute best so that you have as little downtime and problems as possible as a result of this transfer. But, keep in mind that after we are done your sites will be on new servers! This is growing pain that I welcome and thank you for.

 

There could be some downtime for us here this weekend, but we'll back up and better after the renovations are done.

 

Cheers!

 

 

gogo

[Spock 271]

... There could be some downtime for us here this weekend, but we'll back up and better after the renovations are done. ...

 

Hope yours goes smoother than mine did.

[Schot 407]

Heya gang. I'm noticing quite a bit of trouble accessing FDM and just wanted to give a heads up. I'm thinking that our host is already underway with the Server changes and I believe this is a very significant change at that. Our host provider has stated that he intends to back up all of his clients and probably the reason for FDM being slow. As gogo mentioned these are the dates for the transition:

May 26th (Monday) > 29th (Thursday) - Customers Back up site to Local drive

May 30th (Friday) > 31st (Saturday) - Data Migration Begins

May 31st (Saturday) - Booyah Nameserver IPs are changed (2-24 hours domain propagation)

June 1st (Sunday) - ALL Done and running on the new Dell servers

 

Keep in mind that for some people the transition will be quick and for some it will take a while for you to get access back to the forum. We may also need to clear FireFox's profile. I believe Myles brought up that tip so I will look that up and bump it for reference.

 

We'll likely be inaccessible starting Saturday and back up on Sunday. For some it might take an extra day though.

 

Buckle up!

[Funkilicious 1]

Ahh thanks for the heads up Schot, I have been experiencing problems the last two days, at least he is keen

[gogoblender 3,068]

It's very tricky this thing with updating the firefox profile...I'll take a hunt for that too..it's a bit of a hunt and peck thing. And I'll send a pm to Myles asking him about it.

 

gogo

[myles 2]

The supporting article from Firefox, on profile:

 

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Profiles

 

Don't make me sound like an expert that I'm not, I just google like everyone else.

 

Oh and the original topic here

 

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=7227

[gogoblender 3,068]

Thanks Myles, you're an angel.

And data migration is starting tonight folks... be prepared for some slowdowns as Booyah Hosting packs and transfers data.

 

 

gogo

[Timotheus 416]

Seeing the state of the forum (BLAZING SPEED) I guess the transfer has taken place. Note to everyone: there was an inevitable loss of posts.

Edited May 31, 2008 by Timotheus

[Arilaftia 0]

aaackkkkkk Schots bday card is goooooooooone!! Ill repost as soon as im back from the hospital...

[gogoblender 3,068]

zomg...lol, it is!

And,we lost two members because of the rollback. Hmmm, I hope they know to re-register again

 

gogo

 

p.s. and, the forum is fast...blazing, for me imo... everyone else okay?

[Schot 407]

Yaaaay! I'm back to being 33 then right? lol. Awh mah Bday topic went poof.

 

 

It was a really wonderful card Ari. I was hoping to comment on it today but... Thank you! It was so nice and wonderful with my name placed among the breaking clouds and sunshine.

 

P.s.

Oh wait... gogo told me my Bday topic is gone but I still see it. Am I in limbo land:)

[Spock 271]

... DarkMatters Servers... Stronger, Faster!

 

Wow, the 6-million dollar forum!

[gogoblender 3,068]

lol

glad someone got the reference

 

gogo

[enci 0]

Seems that Im stuck on the old? forum. Tried different browsers, flushing my DNS on ganto’s advice, nothing. I can see this page, which is I suppose the new or good one, if Im behind a proxy. Any proxy.

 

Advice?

 

edit

 

Issue has been resolved thanks to ganto

Edited June 3, 2008 by enci

[Lord of the North 10]

Hi all, for some reason mom can't see the forum. As you might be able to guess I can. She tried first at work and couldn't and then at home. she found a back way in and is posting now.

[Genenut 8]

I havent been able to get in all day today both from here at home and at work. So two diff computers and 2 different isps.

 

Fixed problem by loading darkmatters.org and re-signing in. all my bookmarks are for www.darkmatters.org (and they all worked as of last night)

 

www.darkmatters.org gets you a booyah suspended page notice about the upgrade - nothing about darkmatters or any links to get in. and www.darkmatters.org/forums/ gets you into the directory listings.

 

This is the way the google link is so alot of people are going to have problems I think.

 

this just started today so its something new as from what I gather the upgrade is supposed to be over for us.

 

might be something to mention to your host or check thier support forums about..

[Spock 271]

... www.darkmatters.org/forums/ gets you into the directory listings. ...

 

You might try forcing it by typing in:

 

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php

 

Which should take you directly to the main forum program.

[Genenut 8]

I had issues again today at work where no version of the url worked after 12 noon. and right now I'm in and lord cant get it to load.

 

the url it shows is atlas.booyahhosting.net/suspended.php (I think, it could be htm though)

 

something is very very wrong I think at booyah at the moment....

[Spock 271]

Hmm, I'm in with no problems. Perhaps your employer is blocking non-business sites ...

[Genenut 8]

if that was the case todd at home wouldnt have the same problems

[Schot 407]

Hey there Genenut. Sorry about your troubles in accessing the forum. I'm looking into it now.

 

I've just read that FireFox caches DNS so there's a chance that this may be whats happening to you. From what I've read so far I have the impression that DNS caching does/will expire on various cached DNS so it's possible FireFox has yet to expire our old DNS for darkmatters. You can however turn off the caching.

 

• In the address bar type about:config and push Enter. A list will appear.
  
• Right click anywhere on the list and choose New-->Integer
  
• For the first field that pops up type in network.dnsCacheExpiration and for the second type 0 (Zero)
  
• Again right click and choose New-->Integer
  
• First field type network.dnsCacheEntries and for the second type 0 (Zero)
  

I imagine this would resolve the problem for you but since I'm not experiencing any trouble I have no way to test.

 

Keep in mind though that a change in DNS could mean that for some people it may take much longer than others to gain normal access. Give the suggestion above a try though. If it doesn't help you could always delete the entries.

 

Something else you could try is the tip from Myles about FireFox profiles which did help Ari the last time we changed DNS. I wouldn't suggest deleting your present profile but rather create a new one and try browsing darkmatters using a new profile to see if it resolves things.

Creating a new FireFox Profile

 

Let me know how that goes Genenut.

[Genenut 8]

except I actually have both fire fox and MSIE at work and got the same results as lord at home on firefox. Im sure the dns cache plays a part but unless MSIE 7 does it too it still tells me the DNS for booyah is a bit unstable at the moment.

 

I'll do some playing with it at work. But I was able to post from work this morning, but int he afternoon I wasnt. if my work system was being blocked from darkmatters by IT there is a special screen that comes up and lets you know its blocked and not just the cant find the page site.

[Schot 407]

Ah ok Genenut. Hang tight. It appears as though its a matter of DNS propogation. It can take several days for some ISPs to get updated. I would suggest you wait before making any configuration changes. This will likely resolve itself.

 

DNS Propagation and the Reasons for its Delay

 

During this time if you have changed your DNS setting, it may take up to 3 - 4 days to see this new DNS setting being effected and till then it will show the contents from the old server rather than the new server. Sometimes there maybe occurrences where you are able to view the site with updated setting from office but not from home, this maybe because the office ISP have updated their local DNS but the home ISP has not updated its DNS. There may also be weird cases where your site is swinging between old server and new server in the same ISP; this means that the ISP cache is getting updated.

 

I had actually experienced this for myself as well during the last DNS change. One hour things would be fine the next it was just gone. It should settle down soon.

[ganto 0]

Enci had the same issues and while she waits for her DNS to update we just overrided the ip returned from the DNS server in the local host file.

 

First try clearing the local windows DNS cache:

 

Do this from a command promt and type ipconfig /flushdns

 

If that didnt work (like for enci) we temporary fixed it like this:

 

1. Edit C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in notepad and add the following line at the bottom:

69.80.244.203 darkmatters.org www.darkmatters.org

2. Close all open browsers to get rid of any local session cache and start a new browser.

 

Worked for enci atleast

[Genenut 8]

And this monring I can again see the site from work with no changes .. *lol* its just trying to drive me crazy I guess ...