Hallo,
wie ihr sicherlich mitbekommen habt, war der gesamte Server (Forum, OCS, Teamspeak etc.) von gestern abend gegen 22 Uhr bis heute 16:45 offline. Dies lag daran, dass wir zur Forenzusammenführung eine Rundmail an alle verschicken und unser Provider den Server wegen einer versuchten Spamattacke komplett gesperrt hat.
Nach langem Hin und Her mit dem relativ trägen Support hat sich die Sache nun geklärt. Der Server läuft wieder und die Rundmail wird fertig verschickt.
Ich entschuldige mich für diese inakzeptabel lange Downtime und hoffe, dass es sich hierbei um eine einmalige Sache handelt.
So, nun noch zur zweiten Offlinezeit, welche vom 20. Oktober 21:30 bis zum 22. Oktober 4:20 ging:
Der Service wurde aufgrund des Mailversandts erneut gesperrt. Mir wurde nach dem ersten Mal zugesichert, dass das nicht passiert. Das habe ich dann mit dem Support auch abgeklärt. Die Länge der Downtime besteht schlicht aus Wartezeiten auf eine Antwort.
Bitte entschuldigt die Downtime! Soviel zur "einmaligen Sache"
Ich plane zu einem Anbieter zu wechseln, der u.a. einen besseren Standord und Support hat. Die Stabilitätstendenz des Forums/Servers kann also nurnoch nach oben gehen. Bis zum Umzug kann ich allerdings leider nichts versprechen. Das liegt außerhalb meiner Gewalt.
Hier noch der Supportverlauf zur persönlichen Belustigung:
obligatorische Hallos und Tschüsses sind weggelassen.
---19.10.---
22:31 Felk: my service just got suspended with the reason that I tried a spam attack. In fact I am sending out a one-time infomail to all people of a forum that just got freshly merged with another forum, giving them information on how things are now. I believe 300 out of ~2100 emails were already sent in the past hour. Can I get permission to send out the remaining emails?
If I don't, I guess I just have to cancel the infomail sending. I am sorry that I apparently horsed your spam-detection to take action. The mail sending was highly delayed though.
Anyway, please let me know of the next steps to get the service reactivated as soon as possible.
---20.10---
1:08 support guy 1: Your VPS is online now.
Sorry for the issue but it was looking like spam outbreak
1:17 Felk: Thank you very much!
Can I assume that the service will not be suspended if I continue with the mail sending (again, only about 350 of 2100 mails were sent yet), or do I have to cancel the infomail?
Also, I am unable to start the vps. Neither with virtualizor, nor with the vikinglayer interface.
1:18 russian support guy 1: Your VPS will remain online.
1:22 Felk: Awesome, thank you.
One last thing: Can you start my VPS? As I said when I try I get the error message "The VPS failed to start".
15:24 Felk: Are there any news on my VPS? Will it be up again soon? It's been a 17 hour downtime already and I don't even know what's the problem.
16:45 russian support guy 2: Hi. It should be up now.
16:55 Felk: Is there some way for me to get the server running faster than 16 hours later if this happens the next time? Long downtimes are really bad for my site, and it appeary to take way too long to just get an answer to a support ticket with high priority. I do not want to sound mad, but this is very serious, and it really shouldn't be this way.
18:43 indian support guy: We're currently short handed because of an important project but in 72 hours we'll have all operators available. Don't worry.
21:31 Felk: my VPS is down again, and as usual I get an error that the action cannot be performed when I try to start it myself.
Can you please start it? And maybe forward the issue that the start operation neither in virtualizor, nor with the vikinglayer interface work.
Thanks.
23:10 russian support guy 2: Hi. I am flagging this to somebody.
---21.10.---
14:43 indian support guy: This is the second time you've been suspended by our system, next time we'll have to look into the matter before un-suspending you. Please take care not abuse our network or else we have no choice but to ask you to leave.
16:40 Felk: my service was and is not marked as suspended, but as active. It looks like the server is simply down and I can't start it. The VPS is still not online. The long downtime is really damaging my site, and the very unresponsive and unhelpful support doesn't make this any better.
This is the second time this happened, yes, and I am not happy about that. The first time I cleared things up with the support pretty fast (even though it took 15 hours to just get the VPS running again) and explained what exactly I was doing and how far I was in the process. I EXPLICITLY ASKED if I could continue with the infomail sending under these conditions without risking another suspension and got a clear "Your VPS will remain online". Apparently that was either a lie or your service has some internal communication problems.
How am I abusing the network? I doubt sending an E-Mail every 20 seconds can be considered "Any kind of high/abusive CPU, IO and Network usage" in your Acceptable Use Policy. Keep in mind that I explicitly asked! I won't continue though, as it seems getting permission doesn't mean anything.
Actually looking into the matter sounds like a good idea. Getting a mail from the SMTP log and putting it in Google Translate would have been sufficient to know that I am not sending spam. Or asking me. I can assume you I would have answered faster to a high priority matter than 15 hours later.
You basically already asked me to leave your service with your actions. Please just boot the VPS so it is finally back online, at least until I could do some announcements and move the site.
20:02 russian support guy 2: Hi. Your service has been booted. I have also done some changes to the monitoring system, which by the looks of it was not done, thus causing it to boot off your VPS. You should be able to continue your infomail sending without any problems for it. I have also credited you an extra week due to this. I really would hope to keep you as a customer. I really apologize for the issues.
20:17 Felk: Hello, the server is still not available. Can you try again and ensure that the VPS is actually running?
---22.10.---
04:19 American support: Your VPS has been booted.
Ist ja einen Globale Service Hot-Line ;-) ...unglaublich
Die Antwort von dem Inder ist ja das Letzte. Hoffentlich wird er demnächst auch mal gebeten zu gehen, wenn er nochmal so eine Scheiße raussendet.
Kann ich verstehen, wenn du dich nach einer Alternative umsiehst.
Ist halt kalt in Schweden
.