:: c0urier.net

Moved, sold PC lots of stuff going on

c0urier — Sun, 13 May 2012 10:35:04 +0000

Since the last post a lot has happened. Just to take a few of the most interesting topics, we have moved away from our apartment to a new low energy townhouse, feels good to move into something completely newly build. We have only lived there for a few weeks now, so we are still getting settled and getting things in place. One positive thing about moving into something new, is that they have drawn network/tv cables to every room inside the walls, so no need to put up cable-rails.

Secondly, I’ve sold my stationary PC, this means I am only on laptop from now on. The laptop of choice is a Asus K55VM, the specifications for this particular model is:
CPU: Intel Core i7 3610QM / 2.3 GHz
RAM: 2x 4GB (8GB) DDR3-1600MHz
HDD: 500 GB Hitachi
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M 2 GB & Intel HD4000
Screen: 15.6″ Widescreen
It’s not the most extreme laptop, and it might not perform as well as the stationary PC I just sold, but it’s easier to move around and take with me =).

So that probably covers the most interesting parts of what has been going on, hope you are all doing well. Ciao for now =).

Goodbye VoiceChatter, Welcome Mumble

c0urier — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:21:22 +0000

So it’s been some time since the last post, not much have been going on, honestly. This is probably the biggest change, we’ve decided to shutdown the VoiceChatter server and replace it with a Mumble servers. Why? – We got tired of the DB for VoiceChatter constantly got corrupted. We’ve tried many different things to avoid this, but for some reason it kept happening. VoiceChatter has in many ways won our hearts, just we have to face the fact it’s not that populated yet, but the voice quality is without doubt the best we’ve heard so far. Sad it had to end!

So for those interested in joining us in Mumble feel free to:
IP/HOST: voice.c0urier.net
Port: 64738

If you are interested in a Room let us know, make a forum post and we will figure something out.

Voice Chatter 1.5.0 – Released!!

c0urier — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:30:12 +0000

Has released a new version, we are now up to 1.5.0. This is both a client and server release – Due to this our server will be restarted within the next hour to apply the update.
It’s mandatory that you update the client software, since the server will be establishing secure connections between the client and server.

Thumps up for the guys developing VoiceChatter.org!

Click below to download:
Voice Chatter 1.5.0 - (2.27 MB - Hits: 94)

ChangeLog 1.5.0 VoiceChatter.org:
VoiceChatter 1.5.0 has been released! VoiceChatter is now fully secure!
The details:
All communication between client and server is now encrypted
Added the option to use the CELT audio codec
Moved GUI layouts to the wxWidgets’ XRC format, allowing users to customize their client if desired
Fixed an issue where assigning multiple users into/out-of groups could only be done 4 at a time
Fixed tab key traversing in main screen
Please note that old 1.4.x clients will not be able to connect to 1.5.x servers, HOWEVER, 1.5.x clients CAN connect to 1.4.x servers (but encryption will not be used)

View our guide Click here

New psychical server, soon!

c0urier — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 17:23:10 +0000

The last few month’s have been pretty turbulent. First several ISP issue, software issues, DDOS attacks and in the end a completely corrupted file system. We have survived them all.

As the first thing I would like to thank a dear friend of mine sci2tech for helping recover the corrupted file system, without him I would have had to recover all pages manually one by one and probably also lost all mails stored on the server. He worked some kind of black magic on the server and it is now fit for fight again.
As many probably have known for some time, I’ve been thinking about upgrading the server. Everything has finally settled, this means the old server will go on pension while a new will take over.
Hercules as the current psychical server is called has been running two virtual servers for the past 1½ years, hera (web/mail) and artemis (VoIP,bots,everything else). For those who haven’t looked at the old server specifications:
- CPU: Intel Xeon X3220 2.4GHz (Quad Core)
- Memory: 4x Kingston ValueR. DDR2 PC6400 – 2048MB (8192MB)
- Motherboard: Asus P5BV-C/4L, I3200, Socket-775, ATX
- HDD 1: 4x Western Digital RE4™ Enterprise 1TB (64MB Cache, 7200RPM) RAID 5 + Hotspare
- HDD 2: 2x Western Digital Caviar® GreenPower™ 1TB (32MB Cache, 7200RPM)
- PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W PSU
- Case: Cooler Master Elite 333 Black
- HDD Accessory: Chieftec 3 x 5.25” bays for 4 S-ATA HDD’s (Hot-Swap)
- Software/OS: Ubuntu Server 10.10 + Virtual machines (VirtualBox 4.0.4)

The new psychical server will be called Asgaard and the first two virtual servers are the once that will replace hera and artemis their names will be Freja and Loki.
- CPU(s): 2x ~~Intel Xeon E5345 Quadcore 2.13 GHz 8MB Cache (8 Cores)~~
- CPU(s): 2x Intel Xeon E5420 Quadcore 2.5 GHz 12MB Cache (8 Cores)
- CPU fan(s): 2x Noctua NH-U9DX
- Memory: 16GB (4X4GB) DDR2 memory PC2-5300 ECC FBDIMM
- Motherboard: Supermicro X7DBN, Intel 5000P + (Supermicro AOC-SIMLC IPMI 2.0)
- Raid Controller: 3ware 9550SX – 12P
- HDD set 1: 2x 500GB in Raid1 2,5″(Sys) – (Seagate Momentus 7200.4)
- HDD set 2: 6x 500GB in Raid5 2,5″(VMs) – (Seagate Momentus 7200.4)
- HDD set 3: 4x 1TB in Raid5 3,5″(VMs) – (WD RE4 Edition)
- HDD Accessory: 2x Internal case for 4×2,5″ SAS/SATA-hard-drives (1x 5,25″ each)
- PSU: OCZ Z Series 850W power supply (80 Plus, Gold)
- Software/OS: Proxmox VE 2.0

The primary advantage will be easier VM administration, and of course the extra server power does not hurt. Hopefully we will get some speed improvements during busy hours .

Sorry for the instability lately

c0urier — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:04:10 +0000

As you might have noticed there has been a lot of errors since yesterday evening mainly those famous “Internal server error 500″ on most web-pages hosted on hera. It started yesterday evening as mentioned when we switched from fcgid to fastCGI as a test to be able to enable a php caching module (php-apc) that only seems to be compatible with fastCGI. It all went very well for the first 2-3 hours (22.xx-01.xx) all pages had a decreased load time especially the WordPress installations.

Then the trouble started with the Internal server error 500. Around 02.00 all pages were running stable except c0urier.net, so I thought I’d go and get some rest since I could live with only our page being affected. When I woke up I saw that all pages were still running except of course c0urier.net, though there was still some random 500 errors on some pages. 09.45 I decided to switch back to fcgid to get all pages running stable again while I investigate why fastCGI keeps acting up like it did.
For those interested and those that might recognize the problem, this is the error that occur.
[ error ] [client XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] (104)Connection reset by peer: FastCGI: comm with server "php5-fcgi-starter" aborted: read failed [ error ] [client XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX] FastCGI: incomplete headers (0 bytes) received from server "php5-fcgi-starter"

I’ve been googling around to see if anyone else had experienced this error and it seems like Google is flooded people having exactly the same problem. But it seems like no one has a solution for it.

Network: Downtime due to fault at ViaEuropa.se

c0urier — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:45:40 +0000

Lately it has become a bad habit with network faults at ViaEuropa.se. Not only do they do false marketing, but they have no idea on how to manage their network. I know this has been said several times before but it can’t be said enough. Monitoring of their network is an unknown word. I got kicked off the network Saturday morning at 1.41am 01-10-2011, 1 minute after I received an alarm from Pingdom that our sites were down.

Frustrating as this might be, it is impossible for our ISP (Bredband2) to revile any information about this breakdown. All I know is that ViaEuropa has a defect switch somewhere.
I can only recommened all future City-net/BRF’s communities in Sweden to avoid doing fiber/network deals with ViaEuropa.se, 2 breakdown’s within 10 days, first lasted 8.35AM – 11.24AM close to 3 hours and the second one, the one we are experiencing now is still ongoing after 35 hours.

The worst part about this breakdown is that there is no updated information. www.viaeuropa.se seems to have closed in the weekends, so we are not even sure they are working on a solution before Monday. Bredband2 our ISP, are not writing it on their page either. This might be because it’s not their fault but they do inform about the breakdown if you call them, but only when the support is open and you are willing to hold in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes. Bahnhof.se is actually the only ISP that has dared to write something about it, Alltele, T3, Connect2IP etc have no information out what so ever.

Short information:
1: Lost internet connection at 1.41am 01-10-2011
2: Not possible to get any information. Support had closed at that time.
3: Called Bredband2 10.00AM when the support opened was Nr. 15 in Queue. 45 minutes later we got informed that LKF’s network is down due to a faulty switch at ViaEuropa.se.
4: Been browsing information on the different ISP’s web-pages in ViaEuropa’s network in Lund, only one that has written something is Bahnhof.se at 1.19pm (13.19) (12 hours after the breakdown)
5: Tried to call Bredband2 for an update at 5pm (17.00) got kicked off the line at 6pm (18.00) when the support closed.
6: 35hours later at 11.00AM (11.00), I’ve been in queue at Bredband2 for around 1 hours and 45 minutes to see if there is anything new. Nothing new.
7: Just been informed that they do NOT expect the network to come up today either. Earliest tomorrow morning. This means a downtime of over 48hours (2 days).
8: ViaEuropa.se just updated their page – 36hours after the breakdown. That’s what I call quick response when a few thousand users are without internet.

Problem resolved at 04.40 ViaEuropa says. So when can we expect the next breakdown, in 1 week or if we are lucky 10 days as last time. And of course it should be during a weekend where ViaEuropa does NOT work.

This means a complete downtime of a bit over 51 hours or over 2 days.

ViaEuropa.se FAILS again!

c0urier — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:46:25 +0000

ViaEuropa.se, my nemesis. You can always count on them to fail, and fail they do badly to often and then again. I have no words, other then if I was the CEO, CTO or whatever at ViaEuropa I would be ashamed. Honestly I think 85% of the employees should consider a career change, they should find something they were actually good at, because running/being a network carrier, is not one of them.

I have been sitting and following the lousy information on there page (ViaEuropa.se).
1) They wrote about the error at ~ 09.10. (Correct time of fault was 08.35)
2) They wrote the problem was solved at 10.00. (Correct time of solution was at 11.24)

I know it looks good to the public that they try to appear to be quick at fixing problems, but when the facts are not correct it really sucks they try to appear better then what they are.

So to just shortly sum things up.
c0urier.NET services was down from 08.35 – 11.24 due to a fault in ViaEuropa.se Network.
ViaEuropa claimed that the downtime only lasted til 10.00, false.

I’m sorry for the inconvenience this might have caused our users.

c0urier.NET gets a facelift

c0urier — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:07:13 +0000

So I thought it was about time to give c0urier.NET a facelift and to make it compatible with the different social media links.
As you can see I’ve tried to keep the same layout as the previous setup but the design itself has changed thereby also the post images. It was a pretty hard task to get all the post images changed since I’ve never followed any specific pattern. This time is different since I will link the images to the template.

I will try to keep the page more updated in the future. First I have to give the MRTG section an overhauling it has been down prioritized since I haven’t had time to update the mips for the router.

Before I forget I’d like to thank my better half for her help with the custom made design pieces all over the place.

Hope you’ll enjoy the new design.

Hardware monitoring

c0urier — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 17:53:33 +0000

I’ve always been a fan of open software no reason for hiding that. Recently I was sitting and browsing for an alternative for CPUID Hardware Monitor, it has really been troubling me that it wasn’t able to save my settings so I thought it was about time to look for something else.

I did a quick search on Google and fourth place on the ranking was OpenHardwareMonitor.org. Downloaded the lovely piece of software, ran it and got filled with joy. It looks exactly like CPUID Hardware monitor the free version, just with all the features of the pro version and it’s FREE. I tested if it would save my settings and of course it would. It even has a Widget feature to show information directly on your desktop. Furthermore you have the possibility to rename your sensors. This is probably the quickest search I’ve done so far and found excatly what I was looking for.

Big thumbs up for the guys at OpenHardwareMonitor.org.

Download: OpenHardwareMonitor 0.3.2 - (239.66 kB - Hits: 72)

Visit them at www.OpenHardwareMonitor.org

DDOS attacks

c0urier — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:23:43 +0000

We’ve recently been noticing an increase of DDOS attacks against some of our users hosted at c0urier.NET.
We haven’t really figured out the motive for why people feel the need to attack a Gaming site n3xt Gaming or DroidZONE a Mobile phone ROM developer, but unfortunately this is the case. It might be a sign of jelosy? Or something totally different.

What we can say is that we have done our best to avoid these attacks in the future and hopefully you’ll notice this in your page responding faster while an attack might occur.

Sorry for the inconvenience.