[Tslat]

So those of you who have been reading the forums lately or play on the Minecraft server would know that the server has been down for a little over a week.

The reason for this is that the hosting company with which we have the server running from has supposedly been under a sustained DDOS attack.

This raises suspicions with us for a couple reasons:
1. DDOS attacks capable of taking down proper servers require attacks quite large (1Gb/s+)
2. Sustained DDOS attacks of this size are generally required to be performed via a botnet -- most often by paid services. These services charge by 10-15 minute intervals.
3. This is not the first, nor second time we have had "DDOS" issues with this host.

The reason we have persisted with this host is because they are relatively cheap (compared to everywhere else), and the server is either run directly out of Clay's pocket, and/or the support of donations.

Therefore, we have made the decision to shut down.

Just kidding, we've found a much better place to host the server. This new setup should actually give us around 4x the performance of our original server, with persistent up-time and quality.
The main issue we are having at the current time is that we need to download all the world files from the current host to upload to the new one.
This is proving very difficult when the current host is constantly disconnecting and going down.

We are persisting though, and we will continue to do until the server is back up and running.

Regardless of whether the server is up or down, I am personally working on improvements and modifications for the server which should make it far more interesting to play on. I'm looking at things like:

- New, special enchantments for tools, weapons, and armour
- New, more powerful mobs
- Proper, custom bosses with my very own AI
- Rare, valuable loot and obtainable items
- An optional hard-mode; work your levels up in a much harsher and more dangerous environment

We do apologize for the downtime, and as always your patience is much appreciated

[Zito]

Sounds good Tslat, thanks for the update!

[Clay]

We are very sorry for the down time.

Tslat and myself have been talking with each other daily working on a permanent solution to our problem and after hours or researching hosting companies we have found a winner. 
We are making a huge  improvement with our new hosting company as they offer DDoS protection and much better hardware. We will have 100% control of the server after the migration and downtime/lag will be a thing of the past. I will be going on a massive advertising push again once the server is up and running to help repopulate the server. I will need your help in making the new people feel welcome when they join the server (say "hello welcome to the server" to new people) so they will continue to play with us.

For those of you who are sticking around and reading all these forum posts and anxiously awaiting the return of the server we thank you!

[em_marie]

And we all thank you both for your constant hard work and all the effort you put into the server! You're both incredible and we appreciate all you do   

[Marshall_Maz]

Thank you for the feedback and the hard work.

Much appreciated 

[schuminator85]

Good work you two and thanks again for the pitting in the time and effort!

[GlossyEyedGnome]

Any update since yesterday, my minecraft gland is dying.

[Clay]

we are waiting to get our files from our host. the ftp server was up for an hour the other day but the 20gb+ takes a long time to download and we didnt get it all done before the server shut down again.

[Zito]

Patience is a virtue.

[Clay]

Patience is a virtue.

im running out of it!

this is ridiculous. over a week of downtime now!

[Clay]

Files are being transferred!!!!!!

As long as the ftp server stays up long enough to download them all we should be able to upload to new host tomorrow!

[Marshall_Maz]

How's the download/upload going ? Host staying up this time ?

[Clay]

they are going.. it has gone down once since the last post.
its a bunch of small files so the download is only going at around 50Kb/s ....
The new host is paid for and is almost ready to receive the world files.
IF...IF....IF everything goes well we should be up and running sometime today but more than likely something will go wrong so tomorrow is more realistic. 

[schuminator85]

Sounds good Clay, its about time that I get my survival fix!

[Clay]

The new server is configured. Some of the files are being uploaded right now. It is ~25gb worth of data to UPLOAD so its going to take a while.
The dns records have been updated so by the time I have all the files uploaded the changes should have propagated for everyone.
Im still downloading from the original host so cross your fingers that their ftp server stay live for another few hours...
We are getting close!

[Clay]

I want to say thank you again for those of you who have stayed with us through this downtime.
To keep everyone in the loop here is a situation report:
The upload is going a lot slower than anticipated. It is scheduled to finish early tomorrow morning (-5 GMT) and we still need to test it before opening it to the community. Its looking like we should be back online sometime late tomorrow.

[Marshall_Maz]

Thanx for the updates and keeping us informed.

[Tesla]

I found something you might wanna check out it is called invisiblocks i couldn't find much about it but it is worth a try to look up


Tesla

[Tslat]

Yeah not really what I was looking for, thanks though.

[Tesla]

Alright sorry i couldn't find anything for ya!

[GlossyEyedGnome]

Dude my life is like over, all my animals are all probably dead. My horses have probably taken over my house and learned to play cards, and all of my blocks will be everywhere from endermen.

All kidding aside can we counter attack the DDoS hackers?

[Zito]

The DDoS is long over with dude... read the whole thread...

[Tslat]

Regardless, sufficiently large ddos attacks are mostly untraceable, as well as being categorically illegal

[GlossyEyedGnome]

Well can we send them envelopes full of glitter? Something. this is craziness. I guess playing minecraft is terrorism and we must be stopped.

[Tslat]

The DDOS isn't what takes down the server..
The ISP providing the network connection purposefully turns off the connection in order to prevent any server damage -- this is what causes it to go down.

The attack itself has been stopped for a few days now, and we are currently in the process of moving our files to our new setup -- A setup of which we have not tried before, but are confident should give us far more power.

It shouldn't be more than a day or two hopefully

[Clay]

The server is uploaded and the dns records work!!
I have been play testing the server and its plugins for the last hour or two and almost everything works!
Still some trouble shooting to do to get everything working.
Tslat now has the admin log in information and he will begin his testing (and fixing the things I cannot) as soon as possible.
We are getting really close!

[Zito]

Sounds good Clay! Thanks for the update!

[Tslat]

We are now... live!

[Marshall_Maz]

Awesome What's the new ip please ?

[Tslat]

There is none, use the same one you always have

[Marshall_Maz]

There is none, use the same one you always have

Ok copy that. Via DNS name I got in with no problem. Just though there will be ip also again as fallback

[Tslat]

We gave the DNS time to propagate, so it should be right to use that for now.. we can post the direct IP later if needed

[Clay]

[Blazed_N_Stoned]

i don't know who pissed off who but a string of large volume attacks are being taken against multiple server hosts a few microsoft servers have been hit as well as other minecraft hosts several servers i play on are down this is the first one that has recovered from an attack all others are still down

[Tslat]

=D We win!

We have DDOS protection now too, and we are running on an unusual setup that most minecraft hosts wouldn't be using ; )

[Clay]

i don't know who pissed off who but a string of large volume attacks are being taken against multiple server hosts a few microsoft servers have been hit as well as other minecraft hosts several servers i play on are down this is the first one that has recovered from an attack all others are still down

we have a slightly higher skill set than most people who run minecraft servers. (thanks to tslat) We also took drastic measures to make sure we solved the problem once and for all.

[Marshall_Maz]

Server seems to be down again ?

[GlossyEyedGnome]

The bastards got us again apparently

[Tslat]

Lol Calm down guys, we'll post something here shortly

[barrydk]

Not funny, come on tslat put the server on please.

[barrydk]

Come on Clay. Administrate something preferably the dead server. Please please

[Clay]

Come on Clay. Administrate something preferably the dead server. Please please

I administrate a lot of servers( not just game servers) but I only do it when I am awake. These forums posts are from 2-5 in the morning my time.
Not only that but It is posted a few different places that to get my attention quickly one should e-mail admin@claytonia.net as it goes directly to my mobile phone.

[Clay]

P.S. the server is up and running again. I will be spending the morning administering the server via going through log files figuring out what happened.

[Marshall_Maz]

I joined bout 3 minutes ago. Was stuck somewhere inisde rocks in an unknown location.
Died of suffocation cos I couldn't dig myself out. Lost everything , even the items that had death protection , and I bought revive a while back as a double protection.
None of that protected 

[Clay]

im on the server now, come back and ill get u your stuff back.
ill remind tslat to check out the minecraft side of things to see if we can fix this issue and the issue with your villagers

[Marshall_Maz]

Thanx Clay for the quick help.

@Tslat , note the protection plus revive that I had didn't keep any of my stuffs. Maybe want to look into that.
( Had single protection on some items , plus bought a full /eboost revive few days ago )

[barrydk]

Thanks clay, no harm intended in my comments, just joking.
Appreciate all of your work and quick response and thanks for the email, but i will never bother you for this through your email. It is only a game to me nothing serious.

[Clay]

The downtime today was due to our host having a freak incident that required the server to be migrated to new hardware. All our server side logs reflect the answers I have been given by the host company.  The migration fell into the time frame that both myself and tslat were unable to restart the server.
I say freak incident because I have used this hosting company many times before and have never had an issue. I currently have a server hosted by them that has been running for over 3 months with ZERO downtime. 

[Marshall_Maz]

The downtime today was due to our host having a freak incident that required the server to be migrated to new hardware. All our server side logs reflect the answers I have been given by the host company.  The migration fell into the time frame that both myself and tslat were unable to restart the server.
I say freak incident because I have used this hosting company many times before and have never had an issue. I currently have a server hosted by them that has been running for over 3 months with ZERO downtime.

Computers , just can't trust'em

[Blazed_N_Stoned]

is the server still down? or do i have the wrong ip? (Node36.Minecrafted.net:25842)