System Updates Thread ...7/21/20 . Security and Pictures

[Leon]

There has been another attack a little while ago.....

We are addressing it. It is not just at us.....it is widespread.....

and ways are being investigated to fix these attacks for good too.. Wish me luck

[cubman1941]

Dang, Leon, this is just rubbish. I certainly do appreciate all your efforts in keeping us up and running!!!

[Seven]

Originally Posted by Leon

There has been another attack a little while ago.....

We are addressing it. It is not just at us.....it is widespread.....

and ways are being investigated to fix these attacks for good too.. Wish me luck

Thanks for all you do, Leon. Sorry to hear this has been such a headache!

[Leon]

Quick update

Still looking into fixing the current issues. As far as I am aware the issues are only some pictures (maybe quite a few) and the community tab, photo album pictures. if there are other things that are missing please PM me or post it here.

With the help of a few members quite a few database issues have been fixed. The system seems quite a bit faster today.
There was a conference call today with the hosting company for some more more reliable and secure solutions. Probably our own private physical server and more secure firewall. And we are still looking at minimally upgrading our current s/w version ..or maybe go a whole two iterations newer to the most current s/w. The look of the forum should stay the same. That is the goal.
Thanks for everyone's patience.


ps...so when the page reloaded for this particular post it was sketchy. Needless to say everything is still being looked at and worked on as we go..... (fingers crossed)
.

[bnorth]

Originally Posted by Leon

Quick update

Still looking into fixing the current issues. As far as I am aware the issues are only some pictures (maybe quite a few) and the community tab, photo album pictures. if there are other things that are missing please PM me or post it here.

With the help of a few members quite a few database issues have been fixed. The system seems quite a bit faster and today.
There was a conference call today, with the hosting company. for some more more reliable and secure solutions. Probably our own private physical server and more secure firewall. And we are still looking at minimally upgrading our current s/w version ..or maybe go a whole two iterations newer to the most current s/w. The look of the forum should stay the same. that is the goal.
Thanks for everyone's patience.


ps...so when the page reloaded for this particular post it was sketchy. Needless to say everything is still being looked at and worked on as we go..... (fingers crossed)
.

It was a few days ago. I had some PMs disappear and didn't get email notifications on a few. Been working good for me since.

[steve B]

It's a bit surprising the ISP isn't more helpful. But then failure to keep hosted data secure as an upsell opportunity is sooo software industry.

[Leon]

Had a conference call with the hosting company yesterday. We will most likely be moving to our own physical server. That should make us almost immune from the Brute force and other attacks.

We are trying to retrieve pictures between 7/6/2020 and 7/12?/2020.

The Community photo album might have been damaged beyond repair or erased altogether. It is still being looked at and by Monday or Tuesday we should know for sure.

That said, the Community photo album does look like it is working correctly at the moment, as far as loading new pics. I just loaded one and it worked. I don't want to promise anything but that is it for now.

And of course right after this post the system went down for a few minutes. I was back on the phone with them .

[cubman1941]

Gosh. Leon, I sure do thank you for all your efforts in getting this right.

[Ronnie73]

Originally Posted by steve B

It's a bit surprising the ISP isn't more helpful. But then failure to keep hosted data secure as an upsell opportunity is sooo software industry.

It usually depends on the hosting company and the package you sign up for. I was so unhappy with the service and costs that back in 2003 I started buying my own servers. So basically I only paid for a cable and DSL connection each month. For what I was doing at the time, I saved a lot of money and learned a lot too. Biggest issue was nearly every three months, a better faster server would be released. There's just no way to keep up. Currently I have a dedicated server with GoDaddy running Windows and Microsoft SQL because I've always had issues with jet databases or mySQL because they couldn't handle large amounts of data and would usually timeout before a read/write could happen. Service with GoDaddy is not much different than how it used to be many years ago. A few months ago I had a problem with my database password expiring but didn't know that it was set on a timer. So I would literally get an error as if the server wasn't even plugged in. It was like Microsoft SQL was deleted. They refused to even say one word to me or even say something like, maybe your password expired lol. The way I felt at the time was disappointing, especially for how much I was paying per month. It also made me feel like if I was paying the extra $200 per month for a support team, that it would be questionable if they would even know anything. Plus after they would tell me to try something, I'm still the one applying fixes on the server. That's why I stayed away from that package. All they do is apply Microsoft updates, which technically can be set up to automatically run on it's own. I think it was only $10 lol.

I wish I knew of a place with reasonable pricing, knowledge, and unlimited options. This is probably the exact same thing Leon needs too.

Leon, thank you for everything you do. You never get enough recognition running this site. There's noting worse than failed hardware. Which seems like was the original issue, which then corrupted database files. There should always be a hardware Raid configuration when working with large databases. Having the right configuration will alert a hardware failure and a hot swap hard drive replacement can be done with no data loss and no down time. I like to use Raid 5 or Raid 6. The only difference is Raid 5 only allows one hard drive failure at a time, while Raid 6 allows 2 hard drive failures at the same time. Raid 6 cost more because more hard drives are involved. Frequent off-site backups are always recommended for catastrophic events such as fire, theft, or natural disaster. I just wanted to mention these few things because I read that you were looking into a more advanced hosting package.

[AddieJoss]

Leon, like everyone else, I appreciate what you provide on Net54. I’m not sure if it’s related, but when I logon, in the URL area, it’s says “not secure”. I believe a security certificate makes it secure. I know that doesn’t solve everything but an easy fix and will definitely help. Just a quick thought.