OK Jim and Mods, last night was a DOS Attack on FreeRepublic or was the server just slow...?!

12 Oct 2012 | US Navy Vet

[US Navy Vet]

Just Wondering?

[Paladin2]

Could be that we need larger pipes.

[Revolting cat!]

Actually, as I pointed out last night and was barely able to post my opinion, enraging one semi-literate (since 1998) in the process, it was the stupid vanities about the slow response that caused it!

[Liberty Valance]

I think we should paint flames on the servers.
That should help.

[Gargantua]

"...No, last night “was the a” against you specifically. Nobody likes you and you “was the a” ought to just bail out."

LMAO!!! You're still one of the funniest ____ers on FR.

;-\

[Cicero]

Maybe just some joking on this thread, but DOS stands for Denial of Service as well as MS DOS.

FWIW, Jim has always been reluctant to answer the question as to whether there has been a DOS attack. Presumably that’s to avoid encouraging hackers. It’s hard to believe that nasty lib hackers don’t do it from time to time, preferably when the site is most needed. But also, I imagine there were a ton of people showing up to discuss how the debate was going. This was about the only site that was available during the debate, since Drudge seems to hold back on evaluation until the debate is over, and few of the media sites can be trusted.

I was unable to get in several times, and then when I got in I could only get the first page of the debate discussion thread, but not the later ones, and then when I finally got that, I was unable to post anything. I imagine that that was one very busy thread.

As for the Forum format, personally I like it very much, and would be unhappy to see it changed. By contrast, Yahoo Groups FR2 is really clunky, as are most other discussion formats, IMHO. And FR stores and makes available huge amounts of information, unlike most sites which cut out all the older stuff to slim things down.

Certainly one solution would be for more people to donate. I know that times are very tough, but if more people gave at least a little, that would do the trick.

I don’t think Jim could use anyone else to host it, because the flying monkeys would put pressure on them to close it down, as they have done with other sites they dislike. And also because the identity of the users needs to be kept secret from outsiders, unless they choose to reveal it themselves for some reason, and I don’t think you can trust most hosts if, say, the FBI comes around to the back door and demands the data.

[Starstruck]

I blame it on blog pimps.

[humblegunner]

I blame it on blog pimps.

Damned straight.

[Madame Dufarge]

I think it's because I forgot to turn off my italics in 1999.

I've never forgiven myself for that.

[X-spurt]

Traffic flood, likely. Had a couple of “No server” pages, but same as 1st debate, lots of pingin goin on.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

LOL He did seem rather down on you.

[Jim Robinson]

Wish I knew.

[Roccus]

We used to call “swap ‘til it stops”...monkey repair.

[2nd Amendment]

All I know is that it was Hugh and Series, probably a stuned beeber!

[tomkat]

I think it's because I forgot to turn off my italics in 1999

That damned <marquee> still churning away on some long forgotten chat thread, eating all our bandwidth alive from the inside !

[blueunicorn6]

It was all those cat people, again.

[UltraV]

Exactly. A whole lot of people were trying to access last night at the same time. I waited on Twitter until late before I came here because I knew it would be like this.

[TigersEye]

FReeper Nation by Jim and the Mods

P-p-p-people try to put us d-d-d-down.

Chorus: T-t-t-talkin' 'bout our FReeper Nation.

Just because our site goes down.

Chorus: T-t-t-talkin' 'bout our FReeper Nation.

Hope I can post before I die.

Chorus: T-t-t-talkin' 'bout our FReeper Nation.

Got to expose another DemRat lie.

Chorus: T-t-t-talkin' 'bout our FReeper Nation.

Just talkin' 'bout our FReeper Nation.

It's our FReeper Nation, baby!

.

.

Some pathetic Limey band todally ripped them off.

[Revolting cat!]

A whole lot of people were trying to access last night at the same time.

Yes, even Captain Obvious was here!

[TigersEye]

A whole lot of people were trying to access last night at the same time.

Yes, even Captain Obvious was here!

You got it all figured out.

Thursday, October 11, 2012 10:32:09 PM · 1,169 of 1,267
Jim Robinson to CedarDave; RedMDer; bert; don-o; John Robinson; All

John was monitoring the system during tonight’s debate. Still has not specifically ID’d the bottleneck.

Here was his response when I asked what was happening:

“Database is nearly completely idle (0.25 load average) and web servers aren’t very busy. I don’t know why its screwed up. It doesn’t make sense. It must be a network problem.”

I saw myself that the load average was not high and that the cpu’s were mostly idle all night. I asked him if it could be a DOS attack or a configuration problem and he said could be. He’d look into it. Said the system was not overloaded and it would be a shame to buy a new database server and not solve the problem.

I’m in favor of swapping out the system a piece at a time until the bottleneck is found, but that’s just me. Don’t know what John’s going to do.

[UltraV]

Never discount Occam’s razor. More people wanted access and the servers couldn’t handle it. No need to add a boogeyman when a more logical explanation suffices.