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#1 2012-01-02 17:10:23

JonClarke
Member
From: Canberra, Australia
Registered: 2005-07-08
Posts: 173

The great crash

Three questions:

1)  That's been done to stop this happening again?

2) What is being done gto assure good backups?

3) Any chance of posts later than 2008 ever coming back?

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#2 2012-01-02 22:58:19

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: The great crash

The have gone to a cloud rather than a single server....

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#3 2012-01-02 23:02:44

Mark Friedenbach
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2003-01-31
Posts: 325

Re: The great crash

It's easier to lose data in the cloud than an actual server. Is there a complete and reliable backup strategy?

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#4 2012-01-03 00:39:25

Adaptation
Member
Registered: 2011-11-22
Posts: 42

Re: The great crash

Any respectable cloud is far more reliable than a single server most have offsite redundant capabilities if any server or drive crashes it is automatically shifted to a different location and the end users rarely even know something happens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SCZzgfdTBo

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#5 2012-01-03 01:06:28

Mark Friedenbach
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2003-01-31
Posts: 325

Re: The great crash

I meant due to human error smile Which, by the way, is what brought down newmars, IIRC.

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#6 2012-01-05 04:30:07

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: The great crash

Nah. If you have a bunch of professionals, like a bank has, it's safer to store on your own server. If you just have amateurs on their free time, the cloud is thousands times safer. Not as safe as they claim, but at least they have professionals concerned with the safety of datas.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

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#7 2012-01-05 13:02:17

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: The great crash

It was my understanding that newmars crashed due to a lack of space on the server, which seems to be more a human error than a machine error.  That said, newmars was already hosted with some kind of professional hosting service, so I don't know where that puts us wrt the cloud.


-Josh

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#8 2012-01-05 21:43:47

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: The great crash

Nah, Josh, I don't think /var filling up was what caused it, that was just an ongoing issue, which I don't know the cause... it was a hardware failure, the hard drive specifically. I believe we are currently a free Dreamhost 501(3)c account, which does have backups.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#9 2012-01-05 23:30:12

JoshNH4H
Member
From: Pullman, WA
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2,564
Website

Re: The great crash

Well, that's good to know.  I can't believe they didn't have a backup, I would think that kind of thing would be standard practice.  Hope the new hosting is better.


-Josh

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#10 2012-01-06 00:09:47

Mark Friedenbach
Member
From: Mountain View, CA
Registered: 2003-01-31
Posts: 325

Re: The great crash

Maybe the backup was on the /var partition :\

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#11 2012-03-01 19:13:09

Marsman
Member
Registered: 2005-08-30
Posts: 146
Website

Re: The great crash

It's not the end guys, this data can be recovered : http://www.recovermyfiles.com/


welcome to [url=http://www.marsdrive.net]www.marsdrive.net[/url]

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#12 2012-08-16 23:13:02

James Burk
Executive Director
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2011-11-17
Posts: 155
Website

Re: The great crash

Just for the record.... I inherited a hard drive from the previous webmaster of Mars Society which has the data from 2008-crash.  We are in the process of recovering it.  It's on a CentOS partition with no file table, but the files are there.  I have gone a few rounds trying to get volunteer help to recover them, so I am probably just going to take it down to "Hard Drives Northwest" soon and pay the $ myself.

The new NewMars.com is hosted on the Mars Society's new Dreamhost account.  If you have never heard of Dreamhost, check them out.  I have been using them for 12+ years and they are amazing.  We have full backups and so the same event should never happen again.  Plus, we have backing from the Mars Society HQ (straight up to Dr. Robert Zubrin himself) to keep these forums running.  So that is what we are going to do smile


James L. Burk
Executive Director, The Mars Society
jburk@marssociety.org
+1 (206) 601-7143

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#13 2012-08-16 23:54:15

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: The great crash

CentOS, using FAT? :confused:

If you have a PayPal account for stuff like that, I'll gladly contribute some money, disk recovery is expensive (I know, don't ask sad  )

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#14 2012-08-17 00:52:11

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: The great crash

you got ( a little bit of ) money smile

(I sent this as a gift, so you don't have to pay costs , I paid 1% costs, now I have 26 cent left, on my account, heehee! lol )

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#15 2012-08-17 21:21:08

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,428

Re: The great crash

jburk nice to hear that the data is not gone but in a state that is less retrievable than expected. It may be that the FAT was on the master drive and that this was a slaved drive in the computer...

CentOS stands for Community ENTerprise Operating System, which is a freely distributed Linux-type operating system. NTFS is a file system originally created by Microsoft for use with Windows NT and subsequent versions; despite its not being a Linux file system, Red Hat has built-in support for accessing data stored on an NTFS volume. You can mount an NTFS file system resident on an external device using your Red Hat computer.

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#16 2012-08-18 23:51:25

James Burk
Executive Director
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2011-11-17
Posts: 155
Website

Re: The great crash

Well, the hard drive is at the repair shop.  We'll see how it goes.  Thanks again Rxke!!!!


James L. Burk
Executive Director, The Mars Society
jburk@marssociety.org
+1 (206) 601-7143

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#17 2012-08-19 03:15:12

Rune
Banned
From: Madrid, Spain
Registered: 2008-05-22
Posts: 191

Re: The great crash

We are going to get those posts back? Cool! Thanks for the hard work! 'Cause a lot of hard work went into writing them, and there are many threads I miss greatly. Hopefully it will also help getting people back to the site.


Rune. Keep up the good work!


In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a "bad move"

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#18 2012-08-29 22:28:52

James Burk
Executive Director
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2011-11-17
Posts: 155
Website

Re: The great crash

We have recovered a set of MySQL files from the old server.  We are hopeful the NewMars.com forums data from 2007-2011 is in there.  I am working on this with Josh Cryer and we hope to have this data restored very soon.
-James


James L. Burk
Executive Director, The Mars Society
jburk@marssociety.org
+1 (206) 601-7143

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#19 2012-08-30 06:42:11

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: The great crash

good news, thanks.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

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#20 2012-10-01 21:50:58

Marsman
Member
Registered: 2005-08-30
Posts: 146
Website

Re: The great crash

How is the progress on recovering the files guys?


welcome to [url=http://www.marsdrive.net]www.marsdrive.net[/url]

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#21 2012-10-01 23:41:53

James Burk
Executive Director
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2011-11-17
Posts: 155
Website

Re: The great crash

Unfortunately it is not going well.  We have 90 GB of MySQL *.bin log files, but no database schema to restore them with.  We will need to reconstruct the original database schema, then play back the 90GB of log files into it.  It is going to take some time, and it is somewhat beyond both my & Josh's technical ability to make this happen.  We need somebody who is a real MySql geek to assist us.  Any takers?


James L. Burk
Executive Director, The Mars Society
jburk@marssociety.org
+1 (206) 601-7143

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#22 2012-10-13 04:00:11

falkor
Member
From: Surrey
Registered: 2004-08-21
Posts: 112

Re: The great crash

Webmaster I don't understand. you say "Unfortunately it is not going well.  We have 90 GB of MySQL *.bin log files, but no database schema to restore them with" what are you talking about? I am looking at the forums, they seem to be working fine

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#23 2012-10-16 02:31:53

Glandu
Member
From: France
Registered: 2011-11-23
Posts: 106

Re: The great crash

Well, there is nearly 2 years of post lost. I guess that's the part that they can't use. I know enough about databases to know it's not easy, & not enough to help.


[i]"I promise not to exclude from consideration any idea based on its source, but to consider ideas across schools and heritages in order to find the ones that best suit the current situation."[/i] (Alistair Cockburn, Oath of Non-Allegiance)

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#24 2013-02-11 16:39:30

James Burk
Executive Director
From: Seattle, WA
Registered: 2011-11-17
Posts: 155
Website

Re: The great crash

Hi Falkor,

I was referring to the restoration of the 2-3 years of posts when I said "Unfortunately it is not going well.  We have 90 GB of MySQL *.bin log files, but no database schema to restore them with."

That is still the case.  I have the files which I can share out but we need somebody with some mad SQL skills to reconstruct the DB from just these log files.  I have talked to a few people and they say it can be done, but I have not been able to do it myself and havent found anybody else who has been willing to try. 

"The gratitude of an entire Nation will be with you." if somebody (maybe somebody reading this) could successfully accomplish this task.


James L. Burk
Executive Director, The Mars Society
jburk@marssociety.org
+1 (206) 601-7143

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#25 2013-02-12 15:14:50

RGClark
Member
From: Philadelphia, PA
Registered: 2006-07-05
Posts: 763
Website

Re: The great crash

jburk wrote:

Hi Falkor,

I was referring to the restoration of the 2-3 years of posts when I said "Unfortunately it is not going well.  We have 90 GB of MySQL *.bin log files, but no database schema to restore them with."

That is still the case.  I have the files which I can share out but we need somebody with some mad SQL skills to reconstruct the DB from just these log files.  I have talked to a few people and they say it can be done, but I have not been able to do it myself and havent found anybody else who has been willing to try. 

"The gratitude of an entire Nation will be with you." if somebody (maybe somebody reading this) could successfully accomplish this task.


Perhaps you should put the request out on the Usenet compsci groups and the various user forums on the topic.

   Bob Clark


Old Space rule of acquisition (with a nod to Star Trek - the Next Generation):

      “Anything worth doing is worth doing for a billion dollars.”

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