We're Sorry...
From the desk of the System Administrator
Saturday, February 11, 2012, 1:32 PM Pacific
Due to a hard drive failure, the site is closed until this issue is resolved. I would like to kindly remind our members that we're an old site that has not done a server upgrade in 5+ years... Donations to help for a better site and upgrade would be greatly appreciated.
Saturday, February 11, 2012, 4:36 PM Pacific
Appropriate action has been raised with our hosting provider. Rest assured, the hard drive failure has not caused a total and complete data loss.
I have found out in the course of fixing this issue with our hosting provider, that we will have to move the server to another data center with a new server. So we will be migrating the data from one server to another. Sorry folks, but we'll be back online as soon as we can, but unfortunately that may take awhile.
Saturday, February 11, 2012, 9:29 PM Pacific
I am setting up the new server and copying the data over. Thanks for your patience.
Saturday, February 11, 2012, 10:38 PM Pacific
Data copy of 500 GB of the gallery is in progress. Data transfer is from Houston to Dallas. Also remaining: setting up the new server and testing if the old code will work on the new server. Sorry folks, I can't tell how much time that will take to copy the data over.
Sunday, February 12, 2012, 3:15 AM Pacific
Data copy is still in progress. 75GB / 500 GB so far. I'm off to bed now.
Remaining Tasks:
1. Upgrade new server from Ubuntu 10.04 to 10.10, then to 11.04 (and possibly to 11.10)
2. Install new software
3. Configure new software
4. Test the site
5. Change the DNS to new server
Sunday, February 12, 2012, 9:43 AM Pacific
Data copy is still in progress, 175 GB / 500 GB so far. I think part of the problem of this file copy is that we have a ton of little files (due to how the old site code stored everything)
Sunday, February 12, 2012, 11:30 AM Pacific
In response to recent Twitter posts made regarding the site, I would like to inform you of our current state of affairs. We recently suffered a catastrophic hard disk failure, which some of our users might not be familiar with. What this means for our userbase is that we're currently attempting to make sure that the digital versions of your artwork, stories, and accounts on the site have remained intact. Earlier precautions were made with the original server where two hard drives operate and mirror one another, but with one drive down it means we only have one copy left of the site. So we are working to ensure no further failures occur, thus ensuring the site can eventually return.
We're in the process of moving to another server, upgrading equipment, and running fixes on the site while it's down. We apologize for the inconvenience this is causing, but know that in the long run this will ensure a much more stable home for our flourishing community.
Thank you for your overwhelming generosity and well wishes.
Also, we are moving the site as "www.y-gallery.net". Please update your bookmarks accordingly.
Sunday, February 12, 2012, 9:26 PM Pacific
The files are still copying and I have work tomorrow. With due respect to our community, I need to go to bed as I have to wake up early. Trust me, I want the site back up too... so I can stare at the pretty artwork. But a healthy and happy system administrator makes me happy to properly be focused and fix the site right (and hopefully for good).
Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 1:04 AM Pacific
Data copy complete! Server upgrades in progress. Old server is now officially shutdown. There's no going back now... Temporary site moved to Amazon AWS for the time being.
Friday, February 17, 2012, 8:45 PM Pacific
Update: Working on to bringing up the server this weekend. If you were wondering what I was doing before this, it was work (the things that pay for my living expenses that allow me to work on Y!Gallery stuff free of charge) and no, I had no date for Valentine's Day. And yes, I'm in on a Friday to fix the site. Since this is a 3 day weekend, I hope to have the site running by the end of the 3 day weekend. Sorry for the wait, but I am doing the best I can to return service to the site.
Small update: Database import in progress @ 9:20 PM Pacific
Stats on Y!Gallery: 360 GB of gallery data, 6.6 GB of database data.
Friday, February 17, 2012, 11:22 PM Pacific
Database import still in progress. New server configuration for new web server software is still in progress.
Saturday, February 18, 2012, 1:40 AM Pacific
Not much testing can be done until database import completes. Going to bed now.
Saturday, February 18, 2012, 10:41 AM Pacific
Database was restored as of 1 hour ago, however I am having difficulty with the server configuration and the site code. The new server software is nginx and the new back end application software is php-fpm. I've reached out to our site coders for help, but if anyone is interested in helping, please free feel to email me at admin at y-gallery.net. Please also send me your relevant experience (like resume, projects you've coded or worked on, etc.) so I have a frame of reference whether your experience can assist in the situation. Thanks!
Saturday, February 18, 2012, 7:20 PM Pacific
Network was upgraded to 1000 MB! Also adding IPv6 to the server to make the server IPv6 ready. Will "BiOzZ" and "Sorin Kat" let me know the best form of Instant Message system to reach them? Thanks!
Saturday, February 18, 2012, 7:53 PM Pacific
IPv6 ready! Contining to work on the site...
Saturday, February 18, 2012, 11:49 PM Pacific
Sadly, the site is still broken. If you have experience with Apache redirects, lighttpd configuration and/or nginx configuration, please email me right away. A technical mind to bounce off ideas is what I need currently. Thanks!
Sunday, February 20, 2012, 12:16 AM Pacific
Hurray! Facsimilnym to the rescue! Still working on some issues, but the site appears to be kind of working. Also a special thanks to Snover who sent me sample configuration files.
Sunday, February 20, 2012, 3:19 AM Pacific
Facsimilnym and I have been working tirelessly on this issue. There is some funny magic happening in PHP code that we're trying to figure out.
Sunday, February 20, 2012, 5:00 AM Pacific
I'm tired, and cranky. We got, I presume, a semi-working site that will go under testing from our site admins/site moderators before we change everything over and release to the public. I've been working on this issue since 6 PM Pacific on Friday, and nearly two days of my 3 day weekend getting this site up. I will remind everyone I spend 8 hours or more in front of the computer fixing computer problems at work, and I didn't really want to fix the site this weekend but, here we are. I'm going to go muddle out my frustration by doing something other than computer work for the rest of the weekend before I irrationally decide something either I or all of you regret.
Let me put this in context of my frustration so you can understand... imagine when you were little. Christmas songs didn't bother you too much. In fact, you liked some of them and sang to them at school. Now, imagine yourself to be older, say, a college student working at a retail store at a local mall. December comes around, and guess what they play every day? Christmas music. What is the last thing you do not want to hear when you get home? Christmas music.
Yes folks, your system administrator is a little loopy right now. Spending 8+ hours a day, 5 days in a row, doing computer work for someone who is asking for impossible deadlines (for project deadlines by the end of the month). I haven't had any fun (sexual or otherwise) for awhile or a break from all this computer work. I haven't gone to the gym either... yes, I'm self sacrificing my body to get this done. My typical routine during the work week is make breakfast, go to work, go home, make dinner, eat, get ready for bed, sleep and repeat. From the log entries above, I spent my last weekend fixing the site, and 2 days of my work week fixing the site, my Friday night, my entire Saturday of my three day weekend, and my Sunday morning. I realize there is an very eager public waiting for the return of the site to get their Yaoi fix, trust me, I do. But I don't get paid for this... so at the least, I've spent ~50 hours working on this, Facsimilnym has spent at least 8 hours. Standard Medium Average Linux System Salary is $70,000/yr in the US. That's about 33 dollars per hour, folks. If I was paid to do this work, that would be $1650 dollars pre-taxed, on the low end. Based on Facsimilnym's experience, he'd make around the same if not more... which is $264 dollars pre-tax. Essentially, the two of us have generously donated $2000 of our time into the site, give or take a few hundred bucks.
So I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my weekend, and maybe we'll have a beta version of the site released on Monday for the general public... no promises on that though. We're trying everything in our power to get the site working as soon as possible for everyone, but with the above figures in mind, please don't ask the impossible from either of us. We both have our lives to attend to and our stress level to keep us sane and happy. I do appreciate those who have been donating to the site and those who have been emailing if they can help.
For those geeks out there, here is details on our old server specifications:
Motherboard Dell Single Socket 800FSB - Quad Core Capable PowerEdge R200
Processor Intel 2.83 GHz 1333FSB Xeon 3360 Quad Core
RAM slot 1 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [1024MB]
RAM slot 2 OEM Standard DDR2 667 ECC [1024MB]
RAM slot 3 OEM Standard DDR2 800 ECC [1024MB]
RAM slot 4 OEM Standard DDR2 800 ECC [1024MB]
Drive Controller Generic \ Onboard \ SATA
Hard Drive 1 Seagate 500GB:SATA:7200rpm ST3500630AS [500GB]
Hard Drive 2 Seagate 500GB:SATA:7200rpm ST3500630AS [500GB]
Our new server:
Motherboard SuperMicro X9SCI-LN4F Intel Xeon SingleProc SATA [1Proc]
Processor Intel Xeon-SandyBridge E3-1270-Quadcore [3.4GHz]
RAM slot 1 Hynix DDR3 2GB DDR3 x8 [2GB]
RAM slot 2 Hynix DDR3 2GB DDR3 x8 [2GB]
RAM slot 3 Empty
RAM slot 4 Empty
Now, there's a surprise with the hard drives... we'll reveal when the site comes back online.
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All donations go directly to paying for Web hosting bills and server upgrades.
Thank you for your support!