# Is it my connection or is the forum access dreadful today?



## gary (Feb 4, 2003)

Title says it all.

It has sucked for weeks but today is really exceptional.


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## belliott (Jul 11, 2003)

Haven't had any problems today. Problems in previous days/weeks, however.


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## JohnM (Jan 21, 2008)

I have been getting "server is too busy" messages or something like that quite a bit for the past week.


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## milandro (Dec 22, 2006)

it has been going increasingly bad the last few days while the speed of my connection was at its peak really, so must be the forum server


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## Laurel Moore (Aug 11, 2008)

My problem is logging in. I have to keep on and on logging in. It keeps cancelling itself out. Any suggestions? I've cleared all my cookies. Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing?


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## milandro (Dec 22, 2006)

must be something your browser does. I have this with a version of firefox I use on an old computer (never bothered too much to find out why because it isn't my main computer), by the way in the version of firefox that works well I do accept cookies.


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## Dave Wright (Jun 20, 2005)

Laurel Moore said:


> My problem is logging in. I have to keep on and on logging in. It keeps cancelling itself out. Any suggestions? I've cleared all my cookies. Is there something else I'm supposed to be doing?


Do you tick the ' remember me ' box?


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## milandro (Dec 22, 2006)

Dave Wright said:


> Do you tick the ' remember me ' box?


yes on both and one, the modern firefox with cookies enabled remembers me, the other with no cookies (I think to remember it is set like this ), doesn't


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## patchmo (May 9, 2008)

gary, go back to bed:twisted:
(sent from my iPhone/from a moving train)


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## Laurel Moore (Aug 11, 2008)

Dave Wright said:


> Do you tick the ' remember me ' box?


Hey, I never thought of that! It's a huge improvement already. Oh........to be remembered Thanks Dave.


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

I have been looking into various ways to tweaking the performance. 
Looks like there is a simple solution left, rent a more powerful server. Our usage has really grown since the last upgrade.
I will get the SOTW tech guy to do the transfer next week. Hang in there until that.

BTW, we are open again for your kind donations. Look for the yellow button above the navigation bar.


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## TJS (May 3, 2003)

Harri,

Just curious what kind of disk space and bandwidth requirements the site would need.


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## jazzbluescat (Feb 2, 2003)

Harri Rautiainen said:


> .....the SOTW tech guy ......


Maybe we need another "tech guy?" No offense but he hasn't exactly done wonders, so far.


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

*server CPUs and memory*



TJS said:


> Harri,
> 
> Just curious what kind of disk space and bandwidth requirements the site would need.


Currently having an Intel Core™ 2 Duo dedicated server:

Processor: Core 2 Duo @ 1.80GHz
L2 Cache: 2MB
RAM: 1GB
Drive: 250GB SATA2
Bandwidth: 1300GB (100Mbps port)
 The next step from www.cari.net would be:

Processor: 2x Xeon Irwindale
L2 Cache: 4MB (2x2MB)
RAM: 2GB
Drive: 160GB SATA
Bandwidth: 2000GB (100Mbps port)


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## magical pig (Dec 15, 2005)

Wouldn't it be more economical to buy the required parts to make a server machine and upgrade them when the forum needs extra power rather than paying a monthly rent? Just asking...

Victor.


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

magical pig said:


> Wouldn't it be more economical to buy the required parts to make a server machine and upgrade them when the forum needs extra power rather than paying a monthly rent? Just asking...
> 
> Victor.


Victor,
frankly I do not fully comprehend your point?


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## Mal 2 (Mar 1, 2008)

magical pig said:


> Wouldn't it be more economical to buy the required parts to make a server machine and upgrade them when the forum needs extra power rather than paying a monthly rent? Just asking...
> 
> Victor.


If it's a box in a colo, it's probably a major PITA to get out there and upgrade it, even if it's possible. There are times when it makes a lot more sense to just swap the whole box at once.

What, you think he's running this out of his house?


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## Enviroguy (Sep 1, 2006)

magical pig said:


> Wouldn't it be more economical to buy the required parts to make a server machine and upgrade them when the forum needs extra power rather than paying a monthly rent? Just asking...
> 
> Victor.


I tried some of this back in the early days of the internet. Running your own servers and buying bandwidth yourself is a big hassle and very expensive. Companies that host this as a service are able to take advantage of economy of scale. The forum owner still has to upload the forum, configure and maintain it. But the hosting company takes care of the hardware. This is a much better and more efficient system in my way of thinking.


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## magical pig (Dec 15, 2005)

Enviroguy said:


> magical pig said:
> 
> 
> > Wouldn't it be more economical to buy the required parts to make a server machine and upgrade them when the forum needs extra power rather than paying a monthly rent? Just asking...
> ...


This is what I meant.

Victor.


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## Maarten (May 30, 2009)

yeah, and forum is offline sometimes. it 'd be good if the connection was improved.
And yes, my internet works fine


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## jazzbluescat (Feb 2, 2003)

Enviroguy said:


> ......
> ....Companies that host this as a service are able to take advantage of economy of scale. The forum owner still has to upload the forum, configure and maintain it. But the hosting company takes care of the hardware. This is a much better and more efficient system in my way of thinking.


Whatever, if that's the case with SOTW, it sure as heck ain't working here. Last Sunday was a horrid day. I got frozen out, at random times, three or four times, EVERY time I visited.


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## al9672 (Jan 6, 2008)

Haven't had any problems at all and thats even with only being on a slow wireless internet service.

Depends what the loading is like , to what would make the most difference.
Having extra ram and a dual cpu wouldn't hurt.

Don't forget a lot of isp's prioritise traffic i.e drop or slow down certain types of communications if their bandwidth gets high.


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## DavyRay (Dec 10, 2007)

The good hosting companies have operating system configurations which are tuned to deliver performance and security. I used to run servers out of my basement. I would not bother doing that when hosting services do such a good job of securing their servers. Try running sendmail out of your basement sometime. You will be overrun with spam unless you take sendmail security on as a full time job.

A co-located server is a smart way to go for SOTW.


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## al9672 (Jan 6, 2008)

Not to mention the expense of backup , power / backup power and cooling/airconditioning.


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

Following came form the service provider. I was asking for a solution to house Apache on current server and rent another one to run the forum database:



> Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to quote your server request. Following is my quote.
> 
> Core 2 Duo
> 2 GB
> ...


Any comments from database/hw gurus?


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## Sasquatch (Jan 10, 2004)

Harri Rautiainen said:


> Any comments from database/hw gurus?


Thanks for addressing this Harri! I work in a 4M hits/day environment and I can tell you all of our db servers are separate boxes from our web servers. Web servers are generally not resource hogs. It is the db that is slowing us down. Need for additional computing power sounds like a good reason to squeeze some funds out of the SOTW community.


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## harmonizerNJ (Jul 4, 2007)

Harri Rautiainen said:


> .......
> 
> 
> > ........Question:
> ...


Having separate servers to run the http server and the database server is probably a good idea. I noticed the text about Cari.net possibly hosting the database server, which sounded like someone might be suggesting the database server be hosted somewhere "far away" from the http server.

Whatever option you choose, I suggest that there be just one group that is responsible for both of these servers (the http server and database server), for maintaining the connection between those two servers, and for maintaining the security between those two servers. Splitting the workload onto an http server and a database server would be for performance reasons, and for any technical complexity that might result from this split you want this to be someone else's "problem", not yours.

From your point of view, you would want the new configuration to seem like one logical server which just happens to perform better, and for which you still have "one throat to choke".


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

harmonizerNJ said:


> Harri Rautiainen said:
> 
> 
> > .......
> ...


Harmonizer,
you've got good points. Certainly my plan is to have the two servers physically in the same rack.
I made a counter-proposal to cari.net because I felt that their price was quite high. On other hand, for past two years I have been happy with their performance. (I hope that their sales people won't read this, because I am giving away my negotiation position.)


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

*Improvements*

A few weeks ago someone suggested firing the "the SOTW tech guy". I cannot fire my son; like the SOTW mods and admins, he works for free for the forum. Yesterday night I got him to take five hours away from his own business and results are stunning. Adding another server went without a hitch, and the forum is shining now, as far as the performance goes.



Sasquatch said:


> Harri Rautiainen said:
> 
> 
> > Any comments from database/hw gurus?
> ...


I like that sentence. That is why I emphasized it.


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## harmonizerNJ (Jul 4, 2007)

Let's revisit the original question posed in this thread:
"......is the forum access dreadful today?"

*NO!*

Kiitos, Harri!


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## jazzbluescat (Feb 2, 2003)

*Re: Improvements*



Harri Rautiainen said:


> A few weeks ago someone suggested firing the "the SOTW tech guy". I cannot fire my son; like the SOTW mods and admins, he works for free for the forum. Yesterday night I got him to take five hours away from his own business and results are stunning. Adding another server went without a hitch, and the forum is shining now, as far as the performance goes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't get it. What's your point, Harri?


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## Harri Rautiainen (Jan 24, 2003)

*Re: Improvements*



jazzbluescat said:


> Harri Rautiainen said:
> 
> 
> > A few weeks ago someone suggested firing the "the SOTW tech guy". I cannot fire my son; like the SOTW mods and admins, he works for free for the forum. Yesterday night I got him to take five hours away from his own business and results are stunning. Adding another server went without a hitch, and the forum is shining now, as far as the performance goes.
> ...


I do not know what comes after *bolding*. Perhaps making the font larger.


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## Dr G (Feb 2, 2003)

*Re: Improvements*



Harri Rautiainen said:


> I do not know what comes after *bolding*. Perhaps making the font larger.


Well you could abuse *color*...


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## spartacus (Jan 2, 2007)

*Re: Improvements*



Harri Rautiainen said:


> A few weeks ago someone suggested firing the "the SOTW tech guy". I cannot fire my son; like the SOTW mods and admins, he works for free for the forum. Yesterday night I got him to take five hours away from his own business and results are stunning. Adding another server went without a hitch, and the forum is shining now, as far as the performance goes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


A few weeks ago I PM'd a mod about donating some mouthpieces to SOTW, what was the procedure and what did I have to do. Never heard back.

A year ago, or more, I PM'd a mod about donating my book (listed in signature) to SOTW as a free download by making a small donation to SOTW, and I was even willing to park the download and send email links to who ever made a donation... Never heard back...

My suggestion... if someone is offering you free money with no strings attached...follow up on it.


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## Laurel Moore (Aug 11, 2008)

*Re: Improvements*



Harri Rautiainen said:


> A few weeks ago someone suggested firing the "the SOTW tech guy". I cannot fire my son; like the SOTW mods and admins, he works for free for the forum. Yesterday night I got him to take five hours away from his own business and results are stunning. Adding another server went without a hitch, and the forum is shining now, as far as the performance goes.
> [/B].


Agreed, the running seems hugely improved


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