Www.largeformatphotography down for the count?

[thinkbrown]

I'd be happy to volunteer some time to help try and stabilize things. Adding a CDN with a web firewall attached is pretty inexpensive and would probably resolve a lot of the bigger issues.

 

[srardnec]

I can log in, but when I click on "New Posts" all I get is a server too busy message. Bern that way for a few days now.

the front page of the forum is there with login working, but no actual forum running for now several days in a row. First there was an SSL error displayed and the last three days the "server too busy" error.

This is too long delay. There is clearly nobody taking care of the site these recent days.

 

[srardnec]

I'd be happy to volunteer some time to help try and stabilize things. Adding a CDN with a web firewall attached is pretty inexpensive and would probably resolve a lot of the bigger issues.

the site is proxy CDN-ed by Cloudflare, but not the SSL.

 

[blee1996]

CDN is easier for static or semi-static sites. LFF needs of lots of database queries, which is probably the bottleneck. So Sean's suggestion of a combination of moving most Db queries to elasticsearch, as well as beefing up the server to grunt though high traffic, will help.

 

[thinkbrown]

CDN is easier for static or semi-static sites. LFF needs of lots of database queries, which is probably the bottleneck. So Sean's suggestion of a combination of moving most Db queries to elasticsearch, as well as beefing up the server to grunt though high traffic, will help.

More important in this case, CDNs offer the ability to absorb a ton of malicious traffic that doesn't get forwarded to the origin. AWS and cloudflare both offer WAFs and rate limiting to control malicious traffic before it even gets to the web server.

 

[blee1996]

More important in this case, CDNs offer the ability to absorb a ton of malicious traffic that doesn't get forwarded to the origin. AWS and cloudflare both offer WAFs and rate limiting to control malicious traffic before it even gets to the web server.

You are totally right about the importance of modern CDNs. I assume that LFF already did the CDN and WAF, and thought their current challenges are more on the database side.

 

[srardnec]

it is now back, after some instability with the SSL handshake, the chronic issue.

"We're currently working on moving the LF Forum software to Xenforo in the next month or two (exact timing TBD & will be announced separately). That should resolve most of the issues. Particularly, the Cloudflare SSL Handshake error should be resolved once we get the updates done.
But while we work on it, Forum activities might be a bit slower due to having to tweak some database and web server tune-ables to avoid overloading the current server. "

 

[Oren Grad]

We are indeed back up as of this moment. As Tom Westbrook has announced, we are now actively preparing for a migration to XenForo.

Questions and comments are welcome in our Feedback subforum.

 

[choiliefan]

Unfortunately, it down right now. Clicked on one of my email thread alerts and nada.

 

[Kino]

I just logged on and it seems to be working fine at the moment for me.

Thanks Oren!

 

[Oren Grad]

LFF has been up continuously for me this morning. Please note:

1. We have turned off "guest" viewing for now as part of our bot defense
2. To avoid involuntary logouts please check the "Remember me" box when you login
3. It is likely that we will continue to see some sluggishness in site response as Tom tinkers under the hood to keep the bots at bay while we prepare for the software migration

 

[Roger Thoms]

Oren, thank for the update.

 

[Bob Merlin]

It's up and running!

 

[Barlow]

As Nopo said, we are working on it, but we don't have the (human) bandwidth to get it done overnight. We will post updates as soon as we have something material to report.

Apologies for the ongoing hassles... we appreciate everyone's patience and understanding, and also the opportunity to post the occasional response or update here at times when we're down.

Oren,

I want to thank you for the out on the 12x20. It would've been too impractical, and my interest was too emotional.

 

[mshchem]

Thank goodness!
I don't want to try and understand exactly what is going on. But to my simpleton mind it's a bunch of Ai bot vampires that try and harvest every bit of knowledge all at once.

There's no complete defense, thanks for the extraordinary efforts!

 

[gbroadbridge]

Thank goodness!
I don't want to try and understand exactly what is going on. But to my simpleton mind it's a bunch of Ai bot vampires that try and harvest every bit of knowledge all at once.

There's no complete defense, thanks for the extraordinary efforts!

The overmind steals stuff to make the little minds obsolete.