DDoS attack leads to 16 hours of Omnimaga downtime

[Juju]

Barrett is the guy who hosts the VPS Omni is hosted on, for anyone who doesn't know.

[aeTIos]

What is a VPS server? (sorry for being n00bish)

[Juju]

A VPS (Virtual Private Server) is basically a virtual machine. Someone can rent a physical server and create tons of virtual machines on it and sell each one of them as servers.

[aeTIos]

So that pretty much could eat ram and stuff if i get it right
Sounds like a good way to make money.

[Jim Bauwens]

VPS's can be very nice if well setup.

[Juju]

Indeed. Even Windows VPSes can be nice if well configured, but I think Windows is easier to misconfigure. (Not that I call Netham a n00b, or that I want to cause a OS war, but I think there's lot of what I (or any good sysadmin) consider bad practices he need to fix.)

[Netham45]

7.) Ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf? I can't count the number of times that you've assumed a problem on my end, only to have it be a problem on your end. It makes it very difficult for me to take things you say seriously--but I still do.

I've complained about one issue to you that was actually on my end. I only mistook it for an issue on your end because I've had issues on your end (the heavy Disk I/O lagging me) give the same result multiple times. That one time I contacted you wasn't the only time that it happened. It did for the most part stop afterwards, yes, but that wasn't the only time by a long shot.

As for the network outages, there were 45 minute or so periods DAILY around rougly 3-4 AM where I had no connectivity for months on end that I complained about numerous times.

As for complaining about the DDoS having issues on the network, I just looked and I had two e-mails sent to you, and I know I brought it up when I called you. Also, I'm not saying the hosts network is crashing entirely, I'm saying that the virtual NIC inside your hypervisor was crashing, rendering my VPS useless.

@Juju I would argue that Windows is harder to misconfigure, as it automatically configures stuff like networking and such for you. As far as bad practices, the only thing I can think of that was sub-optimal was having a bit too much running on there because I couldn't afford another server.

[Juju]

Oh ok. Hope stuff gets more stable on your side as on the hypervisor's side then.

[DJ Omnimaga]

Barrett is the guy who hosts the VPS Omni is hosted on, for anyone who doesn't know.

And Calcgames (calcg.org) founder.

That said I have an history of sending Netham45 PMs and never receiving a response back, so it's very possible that you replied to his e-mail(s) and he didn't notice. Or maybe the opposite happened, since Netham45 have just looked and he actually sent as many as he said.

@Netham45 about Windows the problem is that Micro$$$oft has a long history of producing buggy and bloated OSes that get more and more unstable as you fill them with random softwares and uninstall stuff. It was particularly bad around the Windows XP era, so while Windows may be easier to configure and use for most people, its unreliability at times could possibly explain why you have so much problems with it. When Omni was moved on Barrett's VPS and started having problems such as forcing you to change timestamp settings and other things on SMF, I thought the VPS was just misconfigured for SMF, but when I discovered that it ran IIS a few months ago, then I thought the issues were caused by IIS, directly or indirectly.

[Barrett]

I can't troubleshoot a problem when I don't get responses to questions, and when you don't follow good-practice suggestions (such as to not have your only DNS server on your VPS). It's not particularly important to me that you all know the details of what's gone on. That being said, I won't put up with someone exaggerating facts (and making them up) when I have gone out of my way time and time again to help this person (especially with huge discounts to be nice and for good PR (oops; that backfired!)), and even losing more money from his usage than he's paying me. In a month or two (preferably less; possibly by Monday at 12:01 am if he chooses not to renew), he will no longer be hosted with us. I don't mind criticism. I do mind slander/libel.

[DJ Omnimaga]

That said we should probably remain civil in this thread, since it is located on this forum, after all. Plus, it's your speech (and Andy's) versus Netham45, and given the history between both parties and Netham45, and to a lesser extent, Omnimaga (most notably the #omnimaga takeover by Calcgames botnet), the older users of us tend to take anything that comes from the #tcpa/#calcgames crowd (such as your messages above, along with Andy's) with a grain of salt.

[Barrett]

I have never been a part of any "channel wars" and do not have prejudice against omnimaga members in any way. I don't even know what reasons there would be for that to be the case. This isn't a debate, and I don't care who you believe. I've said my part (even allowing some of netham's exaggerations to go unchallenged).

[Netham45]

I haven't gotten any impressions that anyones affiliations with any groups have had any impact what-so-ever with anything.

[DJ Omnimaga]

I didn't before, until I learned that Andy was involved. That impression I had was mainly due to the history of bans on Netham45 in #tcpa/#calcgames and some not-so-positive remarks towards Omnimaga and to a lesser extent TI-BASIC programs (which was pretty much all Omnimaga was about until 5 years ago) and most people involved were CG staff or even admin. Of course I did not realize the botnet was not owned by Barrett, though, and that hosting payments were always late (in AspirationHosting case, the site would have closed immediately if I paid one single hour too late, and that until I send the payment ).

[Barrett]

The late payments were not an issue in my mind. Yes, they were late, but I didn't care until now.