from the reboots-are-like-getting-new-shoes dept.
We recently received notifications that Linode, our hosting provider, will be performing "Emergency Security Maintenance" as a result of the recently Disclosed Meltdown and Spectre security issues.
So far, we have been informed of maintenance windows for two of our servers: magnesium and fluorine.
There is a two hour window for these reboots starting on Friday January 12th at 10:00AM UTC. Reboots should take on the order of about 10 minutes per server.
The reboot of magnesium should cause no service disruption as it is one of our redundant front-end servers. The same cannot be said for fluorine as TheMightyBuzzard so succinctly summed it up: "slashd and site payments won't work while fluorine's down".
We have not yet received any information as to when our other systems will be rebooted -- we will keep you advised as we learn more.
Related Stories
[Update: Reboot of beryllium was successful and our IRC services were restored without issue. Hat tip to our sysops who made this happen so smoothly! --martyb]
Linode, which hosts our servers, is rolling out fixes for the Meltdown/Spectre bugs. This necessitates a hard reboot of their servers, and that means any guest servers will be down while this happens. beryllium is scheduled for a reboot with a two-hour window starting at 2018-01-17 07:00 AM UTC (02:00 AM EST). The outage should be relatively brief — a matter of just a few minutes.
We expect this will cause our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) service to be unavailable. We do not anticipate any problems, but if things go sideways, I'm sure the community will find a way to let us know via the comments.
Planning ahead, we have learned that lithium, sodium, and boron are all scheduled for a reboot at on 2018-01-18 at 09:00 AM UTC.
We appreciate your understanding and patience as we strive to keep the impact to the site to a minimum.
[TMB Note]: Sodium is our currently configured load balancer and we weren't given enough notice to switch to Magnesium (DNS propagation can take a while), so expect ten minutes or less of site downtime. Or temporarily add 23.239.29.31 to your hosts file if ten minutes is more than you can wait.
Previously: Scheduled SN Reboots Due to Meltdown and Spectre; 2-Hour Window Starts: Fri 2018-01-12 @ 10:00:00UTC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:17PM (12 children)
Why in the world would it take that long to reboot?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:22PM (2 children)
Does this mean Soylent is going to be 10% slower?
(Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:38PM (1 child)
Given our database load, almost certainly. I'm not especially concerned though. I mean we cut comment rendering time by like 75% with the last big update, so we're still damned fast even with a 10% hit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:54PM
O Mightie Uzzard, let me pay you what you deserve in compensation for your self-serving work: one ass-nugget, fresh and hot, dropped out of my inflamed anus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:24PM
It requires work to compromise systems, I mean really you expect the NSA to work through lunch??!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:26PM (2 children)
failure to read...
> There is a two hour window for these reboots starting on Friday January 12th at 10:00AM UTC.
> Reboots should take on the order of about 10 minutes per server.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:33PM (1 child)
Why in the world would it take that long to reboot?!
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:06PM
From the parent comment:
FTFS:
The key part of that sentence is "on the order of" as in order-of-magnitude (i.e. power of 10):
Not only does the operating system of our server get rebooted, but all of the attendant processes that rehash (the code that runs the site) depends on, such as mysql, apache, nginx, etc.
Does that help?
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:33PM
That's just the window when it'll be happening. It should only take a few minutes for the actual reboot. And I'll go in and tweak the load balancer so that all traffic goes to hydrogen before it happens so everyone can still get to and make use of the site though.
What won't be working during the actual reboot: comment counts will not update, messages will not be delivered, the rss/atom feeds will not update, and we won't be able to find out a payment was processed if one gets made. That's all the relevant stuff I can think of off the top of my head since most of our slashd (run on a schedule) stuff is daily and runs shortly after midnight UTC. Everything that didn't get done while fluorine is rebooting should happen shortly after it comes back up though, including payment processing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:57PM (3 children)
It happens in the middle of TheMightyBuzzard's nap time so we have to wait for him to bring it back up.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:06PM (2 children)
s/nap time/fishing time
FTFY
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:08PM (1 child)
s/fishing/fisting/
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:34PM
No, fisting time is much later in the day. Usually around shower time to avoid having to spend more time washing than strictly necessary.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Justin Case on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:41PM
You Stewards of Soylentry keep doing a great job. It is noticed and appreciated, though probably not enough said.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @09:45PM (14 children)
Just take ShitStainN down permanently and never come back.
(Score: 4, Touché) by maxwell demon on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:04PM (3 children)
You first.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:12PM (2 children)
But if I never come back, how will I see the glorious domain-parking page that will replace it when ShitStain is gone?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:27PM (1 child)
Let's see if Slashdot reports our death or we report their death first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @01:27PM
I'll only believe it when Netcraft confirms it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:36PM (9 children)
One has to wonder about a poster who, saying the site is so bad it should never come back up, returns — again and again — to that same site.
When I dine at a restaurant and have a poor experience, I ask for the manager and politely explain what I experienced so that they have an opportunity to (1) be made aware of it and (2) to have an opportunity to make amends for the experience. After all, we are all human and occasionally things just go wrong, or happen in unexpected ways. If they make a satisfactory response, I will return there. Otherwise, I do something really outlandish... I go someplace else.
If there is something genuinely amiss with the site's operation, please explain it so the staff may have an opportunity to address it (NB: "I want a pony" ain't gonna happen). If it is unacceptable, you are free to read and comment on other sites.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday January 11 2018, @11:31PM (2 children)
Everyone needs a hobby.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Friday January 12 2018, @12:34AM (1 child)
So, Tilting at
WindmillsSoylentNews!Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @12:42AM
Onward, noble Rocinante!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday January 12 2018, @02:14AM (3 children)
What an asshole, you must be a retired baby-boomer. What, you like to be the big man at the Wednesday-night singles romp at the local Black Angus?
People like you are the reason why cooks piss in the jars of bulk pickles and scratch their nuts before plating your food.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @04:43AM (1 child)
If they don't want me to bitch to the manger, all they have to do is not fuck up in the first place.
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Friday January 12 2018, @04:52AM
I'd love to see you in a nativity play with that language...
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 12 2018, @05:16AM
To paraphrase Freud: sometimes a nut scratch is just a nut scratch. The boys are gonna itch whether you hold malice towards someone or not. They're balls. That's what balls do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Friday January 12 2018, @11:11AM (1 child)
NB: "I want a pony" ain't gonna happen
Go to https://soylentnews.org/my/homepage [soylentnews.org]
Change theme to "OMG PWNIES"
(Score: 2) by AssCork on Friday January 12 2018, @10:24PM
Me: follows link, changes theme
Me: MY EYES!!! THE PINK...IT BURNS!!!
Me: reviews themes
Me: Oh neat a nighttime theme!
Me: click, clicks 'save'
Me: *F5* [ strange feeling begins. ]
Me: Strange, that typically only emerges on other sites ending in 'Hub', 'Tube', and 'Hamster'
Me: *F5* on all SN tabs
Me: [feeling intensifies]
Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Friday January 12 2018, @02:12PM
Too late to inject my exploit into your front end servers now...
Hopefully I'll get it on to your back end servers before they're fixed 😜
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 12 2018, @05:20PM (1 child)
Just possibly, instead of rebooting, they also have to correct the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 12 2018, @08:45PM
Usually franchises reboot first only further down the line, perhaps after a hiatus. And the second movie is never as good as the first.