l.e.o migration

Finally got around to migrating lists.evolt.org. This was a lot easier than I had expected. The plan was to set up postfix and mailman on the new server, migrate the lists, redirect all SMTP traffic using netcat from the old server to the new server, and then update the DNS. In preparation, I cleared out the SPF information and set up inetd to redirect the information.

Two problems. By default, inetd only allows 256 connections per minute before refusing to handle any more traffic. This is much too low for our SMTP server. I bumped it up to 2600 connections in a minute (nowait.2600) and that was enough, if not excessive. The second problem was that google and yahoo seem to cache the SPF information so the new server appeared to be an unsolicited bulk mail server. After updating the SPF information and waiting for it to propagate, mail started being accepted by them.

DNS information lists.evolt.org seems to have propagated to most places. Still waiting for css-discuss.org to do the same. After that, I'll cut off netcat and start up qmail on the old server to try to clear the queues. And then we're done.

happy new year

This year evolt.org is trying to leap into the new year rather then limp in like the past few. Rather than simply a new design for evolt.org (which never really happened), it's time for a re-thinking of the community. What should evolt.org be going into its 11th year?

being last to post doesn't mean you're right

I've been using the Internet for a while now and BBS's before that. You run into a lot of different types of people but one that you'll always find is the "troll". Some trolls are just out to have some fun by messing with people. Some like to de-rail any conversation that they think gets boring. Some just have to throw their two cents in related or unrelated. The worst that I've found are the ones that believe that they are right or have something relevant to say or that just can't let things go. These are the people that always have to have the last word on everything. I've learned long ago that being the last to post on a thread doesn't make you the winner. It's enough to state your opinion, your ideas, your reasoning, and then let it go. If you've been seriously misunderstood, go ahead and reply but only once. If you are still misunderstood, no amounting of shouting is going to change a perception, it's likely only to make it worse. That might seem like giving up and maybe it is, but it's not a game to be won. No one should be keeping score.

raising the titanic?

theforum has picked up a little and the community seems to be waking up. Of course this isn't the first time we've seen these brief flurries of activity. Time will tell if this effort will have staying power. I hope for evolt.org's sake that we can keep the momentum going and we can hit the tenth anniversary with a better site and a reinvigorated community.

Of course this is only the first part. The second part is getting more content--and I'm not talking about articles by the Indian spammers pimping ebooks and adsense gaming techniques. But first things first. Let's re-arrange some deck chairs.

drupal upgrade

With the 10th anniversary of evolt.org approaching, I thought that I would try to get Drupal upgraded so that we could take advantage of some of the newer features. As well, our old version was supposedly the reason for holding back the new design that won the contest many moons back.

With some problems (broken theme, modules), I've upgraded to 5.10 (not 6 as our version of mysql is too old) on test.evolt.org and announced it to theforum. Based on past behaviour, I wasn't expecting a flurry of activity--and theforum didn't disappoint. I didn't get a single response back. Which reinforces my belief that we're sitting on a sunken ship, just some of us aren't smart enough to realize it. At least we're popular with the Indian spammers.

sql injection

There's an old SQL-injection attack from Jan 2008 that's been floating around (see http://blog.modsecurity.org/2008/01/sql-injection-a.html) that the script kiddies have been using to attack evolt.org since Jul 17. It's gotten to the point where the site has become unusable. For evolt.org, each attempt would cause a hit on the database and would drive our CPU load into the 30s. I put in a mod_rewrite rule to catch these attempts so that they get a static page instead of the dynamically-grabbed article.

mysql cache

Devoted 50MB to mysql cache. I could have sworn that I, or someone else, had already done it. It seems to have made the site a little more peppy.