This is a followup to: SoylentNews Site Certificates Expiring... We ARE Working on It, But... [Updated]
and: Site Services Restored
Certs (Not Just a Breath Mint):
Thanks to the efforts of The Mighty Buzzard and NCommander we now have valid certs, issued by LetsEncrypt installed on all of our servers. Except that the IRC server needs to be bounced to make its cert active on the backup daemon, all should now be in effect. As in our original story, you can check our certificate status with these links:
https://crt.sh/?q=soylentnews.org
https://crt.sh/?q=%%25soylentnews.org
https://crt.sh/?q=sylnt.us
https://crt.sh/?q=%%25sylnt.us
Developers:
The past few days have brought into focus a situation that has been building for several months: We really only have a single person who is working on developing features for the site, The Mighty Buzzard. As with any large and on-going undertaking, this burden is taking its toll. I try to help out as I can, but as I am the primary QA/Test guy who is much better at the user-facing things than what all happens "under the covers", my abilities and assistance are limited. If you have any spare time and would like to lend a hand (and every bit helps), please reply in the comments or contact The Might Buzzard directly on IRC.
Community:
I recall in the early days of this site when things would fall over several times a day. That has largely become a thing of the past... to the point where it is unusual for any issues to appear on the site and the support services we maintain (email, wiki, IRC, etc.) The baseline code on which this site was founded (open-sourced, out-of-date, back-level, and non-functional) was not promising, but the staff managed to bludgeon it into shape and we now have a solid foundation. That it continues to run as smoothly as it has is a testament to our SysOps folk who toil largely in the background and just keep things working... as well as the continued care-and-feeding that TMB so generously provides. To all of you, please accept my heartfelt thanks and appreciation!
Some numbers: we are approaching the 23,000th story posted; have recently passed 700,000 comments submitted; have had over 3,300 journal articles posted; and are on the cusp of having our 120th Poll!
Though all numbers are approximate and unofficial, it appears we surpassed our funding goal for the first half of the year ($3,000) with a net subscription tally of just over $3,250! I'll leave it to our treasurer to collate and post the official numbers. I'll leave the "Funding Goal" side bar as is for a week or so to commemorate this accomplishment. Do note that subscriptions are still being accepted and will count towards the second half of the year's funding needs.
Folding@Home: Not all of you may be aware, but our soylentnews team for Folding@Home is currently at 240th place... in the world! It started with a single story posted to this site. Just over four years ago, we were at 230,319th place! If you have any spare computes you would like to contribute, especially GPU-based, we'd love to have you sign up! Just reply in the comments and I'm sure someone will get back to you.
Whenever I write one of these stories, I always fear I'll have omitted someone or something important. Please accept my humble apologies if I have done so as there is no intent to slight any contributor.
To the community, I offer my thanks for your contributions to the site as well as your patience and understanding during the challenges of the past few days. Contributions are not just financial (though we wouldn't be here without them -- Thank You!), but also submitting stories and comments, and moderating comments, too! The community continues to impress me with your wide-ranging knowledge and expertise; I have learned much from the exchanges in the story comments!
Lastly, please keep janrinok (our Editor-in-Chief) in your thoughts and wishes while he undergoes a medical procedure and attendant recovery period. Best of luck JR!
--martyb
Related Stories
I've taken the liberty of setting up an official folding@home team for Soylent News. In case you aren't familiar with folding@home, it's a distributed computing project that simulates protein folding in an attempt to better understand diseases such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's.
There is more information on the project here, which explains it much better than I could.
Clients are available for Linux, OSX, and even Windows (if you swing that way), so come join our botnet!
That Other Site's team is ranked at 1817, so we've got some catching up to do.
On a personal note, my Dad carries the gene markers for Huntington's disease, and will eventually succumb to it. Research like this is very helpful for understanding, and hopefully developing treatments for it.
tl;dr Our Soylent News team ID is 230319
[Updated 2018/06/30 15:19:00 UTC. I've received word that "certificate renewed, but hasn't been issued" and that it will be installed as soon as we receive the new cert. Original story follows. --martyb]
We've been up front with the community right from the start... and intend to keep doing so in the future.
Where we are at:
We have encountered an issue with Lets Encrypt (LE), the certificate issuer for the majority of our [sub]domains. Even though we can 'see' these domains from any number of different servers... for some unknown reason, LE fails to see them. So, at the moment, we are unable to get them to generate certs for us.
Separately, the cert for soylentnews.org is handled by Gandhi. As far as I understand it (and I'm no sysadmin so take this with a healthy dose of salt) there are only two members of our staff who have the ability to update that cert. (We obviously don't want to let world+dog have access to that, right? My guess is that at that time, having a couple people seemed sufficiently redundant and secure).
What it means to you:
You may encounter a warning from your browser when trying to access the site that a certificate has expired. I cannot speak for all browsers, but I've generally seen that along with the warning is an option to trust the cert anyway. (Note: along with allowing that exception, I've sen at least one browser default a checkbox to make the exception permanent. It's entirely up to you, but I see no reason to make it a permanent exception at this point.)
We are working on it, and obviously hope to have things straightened out sooner than later! On the other hand, should things go sideways, I want to keep the community informed about what's up, what's happening, and what you can expect.
Checking status:
If you would like another means to check on the status of the certs, Comodo makes it easy with queries such as these:
https://crt.sh/?q=soylentnews.org
https://crt.sh/?q=%%25soylentnews.org
https://crt.sh/?q=sylnt.us
https://crt.sh/?q=%%25sylnt.us
tl;dr:
If the site becomes unavailable because of an expired cert, yeah, we know and we're working on it. Accept a temporary exception in your browser and we'll let you now when things are back to normal.
--martyb
P.S. Our Editor-in-Chief, janrinok, is currently undergoing preparations for a medical procedure... it's hard to say at this point, but it's likely he may be unavailable to help with the site for a couple weeks. Please join me in wishing him well for the procedure and for a speedy recovery!
Just a quick note, as previously noted, our SSL certificates were due to expire. Due to various headaches involving issues changing our DNS records, and my personal unavailability, we were unable to renew our certificates in time. Right now, soylentnews.org is running on a LetsEncrypt certificate that was issued after quite a bit of pain. We're still trying to fix the fundamental issues that prevented us from being issued a two year Gandi certificate. Currently, I'm unable to resolve this issue more in-depth, but I've granted access to TheMightyBuzzard to be able help handle the necessary issues that caused the downtime. I will try to get a full writeup of the situation, but for the time being, the main site is up. Secondary services remain down due to the same renewal issues.
Apologies for any inconvenience,
NCommander
As you might recall, in an earlier story we noted that SoylentNews' Editor-in-Chief, janrinok, was scheduled for a medical procedure.
I have just received word that there were some (not totally unanticipated, but thought to be a very unlikely) complications and the expected 3 day hospital stay has now lasted over a week. In his own words:
No idea what will happen next is anybody's guess. My first objective is to be well enough to get home again but that looks like being the end of the week at the earliest.
He seemed to be in good spirits. In his inimitable style of humor, he noted the internet connection available to him in Hospital would lie in the bottom-most tier of our current poll!
I am torn in revealing personal details that were shared with me, and wish to not sound overly alarmist. I'll just leave here that I am reminded of a saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson "You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late."
JR has tirelessly (and tiredly, too) gone over and above in support of this site -- please keep him in your thoughts and, if you are of a mind to, your prayers. --martyb
First the good news. I just received word that janrinok, our Editor-in-Chief, is finally out of the hospital and back in his own home! He is very tired and has severe restrictions on his activities but is otherwise in excellent spirits. He very much appreciated the kind thoughts and wishes expressed by the community in our prior stories. It will still be many weeks or months before he can resume his prior level of activities on SoylentNews, but hopes to pop in once in a while to "second" stories that are in the story queue. Please join me in welcoming him back home!
Next, the good news. In janrinok's absence, the other editors have stepped up to the challenge. I'd like to call out chromas, fnord666, mrpg, and takyon who have all freely given from their spare time to make sure we have a steady stream of stories appearing here. I even saw CoolHand pop in on occasion to second some stories! teamwork++
Then, I have to bring up the good news that our development and systems staff have kept this whole thing running so smoothly. Besides the site, there is e-mail, the wiki, our IRC server, and a goodly number of other processes and procedures that make this all happen. That they are largely invisible attests to how well they have things set up and running!
Lastly, the good news. This is what's known in the press as the "silly season". Summer in the Northern Hemisphere means most educational institutions are on break, so less research is done and reported. other ventures are closed or running on reduced staffing levels. In short, the amount of news to draw from is greatly diminished. Yet, even in that environment, the vast majority of the time finds us with a selection of stories in the submissions queue to draw from.
We recently hit a low spot where I combed the web for a couple quick stories I could submit, but that has been the exception rather than the rule. Generally, we look for stories that have some kind of tech-related angle to them. The community has spoken loud and clear that there are plenty of other sites to read about celebrities, politics, and religion. We make a slight nod to politics in so much as it affects technical areas or has large scale ramifications (e.g. a story about President Trump having a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin would fit that description). Even then we generally try to keep it down to one story per day.
That said, if you see a story on the 'net that catches your fancy, please send it in! Feel free to draw upon titles listed on our Storybot page, then pop onto IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and simply issue the command ~arthur $code where $code is taken from the second column on the Storybot page.
Community++
Whether you contribute by submitting a story, buying a subscription, writing in one's journal, moderating or making a comment, we continue to provide a place where people can discuss, share knowledge and perspectives, and maybe learn a thing or two, too!
--martyb
Don't worry; they'll make more.
[Editor's preface: SoylentNews has a Folding@Home team (#230319) As of this writing, SoylentNews.org is ranked at number 210 in the entire world! My current Core 2 Duo laptop would do little to support the effort compute-wise, so I assist as best I can by cheerleading, communicating our team's progress, and similar activities. We have a channel on our IRC (Internet Relay Chat) server "#folding" where there is sporadic discussion about progress. Check out the list of previous stories at the bottom of this story... to get involved, just mention it in the comments and come join our team!
If you are wondering what in the world F@H is, Wikipedia has a nice summary of Folding@Home . And, of course, there is F@H's "About" page, too. --martyb]
Intro:
If you are a Folding@Home (F@H) contributor, you may have noticed that you aren't getting your normal allotment of work units. It appears to have started some time Friday, March 13. The root cause? Schools shutting down around the United States.
Looking for Work [Units]:
Kids are scared (some more, some less) of the Coronavirus, they read something somewhere about efforts such as F@H that are working on curing various diseases. Those kid's gaming rigs are exactly what F@H and other similar research groups need. And, some of these kids have machines that most of us would envy! A well-built gaming machine is simply awesome!
https://foldingforum.org/viewforum.php?f=61
That forum is filled with "newbs" trying to figure out how to set up F@H on their machines, and then complaining that they can't get a work unit.
This post, specifically, explains that the huge influx of volunteers has depleted the available work units. https://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=32424 Apparently, on Friday, the staff filled the WU servers' caches with the normal weekend's amount of WU's and they were gone by early Saturday morning. Someone volunteered to work on Saturday to refill the caches, which were promptly emptied out again.
One of the posts on the F@H forum suggests that F@H has about 4 times the number of folders that it had a week ago.
What to do?
If you find yourself unable to download a WU, take a look at the log. You will probably find complaints,
"No WUs available for this configuration" and/or "Port 8080 unreachable, trying port 80" and/or "no http service available".
Those and more are all related to the fact that the servers are being hammered by half a zillion school kids who are looking for something useful to do with their time, and their computers.
Be patient, and just let your client work through it. It will eventually download a work unit, crunch it, and return it.
Official Statement:
Straight from the F@H project: Coronavirus – What we're doing and how you can help in simple terms – Folding@home
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @02:49PM (6 children)
What was there, who cared to make it begin?
Is it forever or will it all end?
Searching my past for the things that I've seen
Is it my life or just something I dreamed?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 02 2018, @03:50PM (4 children)
Let me tell you, Pat Nixon saw me on TV in 1987. On the Donahue show. She told her husband -- President Nixon -- that when I decided to go into politics I'd be a winner. Something he told me in a very nice letter. In 1987 I said, I don't want to be President. But I changed my mind. Obviously I changed my mind on that one.
When I ran in the 2016 election, some folks said "never Trump," do you remember that? November 8, 2016, was that a beautiful date? Do you remember that famous night on television where they said there is no path to victory for Donald Trump? I found that path. As everyone knows. And those "never Trump" folks are now "forever Trump," they're saying let's make Donald J. Trump our President for life. For family, for freedom, for country and for God.
The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it? I am the answer to that question. And so, possibly, are you!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @04:16PM (3 children)
Pat Robertson said he was told by God Almighty that he should run for president.
yet for some reason, I don't believe Pat Robertson
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2, Informative) by realDonaldTrump on Monday July 02 2018, @04:23PM (2 children)
I find your lack of faith disturbing. pic.twitter.com/hICGWZL6MJ [t.co]
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @05:34PM (1 child)
Wrong evil overlord.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 04 2018, @12:52PM
Stop giving him ideas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @03:54PM
~20 years earlier this topped the charts for awhile,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N03Uoj6p9QA [youtube.com]
"In the year 2525"
Lots was going on before you joined us...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @02:59PM (2 children)
An important lesson: Don't have a single point of failure.
Microsoft does not believe in having a single point of failure.
Failure should be distributed throughout the entire system.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @05:36PM
What, you mean in case Azuma finally loses the very last of her cheese and booby traps my fishing boat?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @05:41PM
Have you seen the posts on this site? I'd say that there's been plenty of failure spread out amongst every one of us.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday July 02 2018, @04:43PM (15 children)
Impressive statistics. This site is awesome and an excellent example of the best of what the internet can be. I hope you guys are able to make some decent money from all of the hard work.
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @05:37PM (12 children)
We're saving up for a Caribbean island. We expect to be able to purchase it in the first quarter of 2730 going by current trends.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday July 02 2018, @06:47PM (9 children)
I'm very appreciate of what you do around here. I wish my life were in a better position to help. To that end though, can you describe what programming languages are in use, what platforms, etc.? Not sure I have the requisite skillsets anyways.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @06:58PM
Perl on top of perl on top of gentoo. Gangster shit
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @07:33PM (7 children)
Basically just perl5, though there's a templating system that's a weird-assed cross between html and perl and who the hell knows what as well. Oh, and Makefiles for the install. Unless you're looking to admin, in which case you'd be dealing with whatever you'd expect to deal with on Gentoo, Ubuntu, and whatever unholy spawn of the pit beryllium is; an old version of CentOS I think.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Monday July 02 2018, @07:52PM (1 child)
Well that's interesting. I dropped PHP/Linux for Perl and BSD. I'm starting to play around with Catalyst, but then decided to try the lighter version Mojolicious.
I'm developing the skillsets at least :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @10:53PM
Feel free to develop them here. Constructive criticism from old hands gives the learning curve a fair amount of straightening. We're not a broad use case for perl but we do have some interesting ways of doing things. Some of them are even the right or even best way to do them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:46AM (4 children)
I've been doing an unholy amount of CentOS adminning for 10 years. Which version?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:01PM (3 children)
Six possibly? I try to avoid thinking about that box when at all possible, so I don't remember.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:25PM (2 children)
Six is good. Seven not so good. How can I help?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 03 2018, @03:56PM (1 child)
Well, it's currently about nap time, so I can't really form coherent thoughts all that much. Let me talk to NCommander and the other admin types later and get back to you. Any objections to using the email you're registered with here to contact you?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 03 2018, @04:23PM
No, please write and thanks for all you all do here!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 02 2018, @07:04PM (1 child)
I see you've set the purchase date so that you can get a discount after it goes underwater.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @07:34PM
Always thinking ahead, that's us.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday July 02 2018, @05:42PM (1 child)
No ads, and the donated revenue looks to just cover operating costs. I can't imagine where they'd be making money.
I am concerned that there sounds like too much resting on one person.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @07:41PM
NCommander's still around, he's just not coding rehash at the moment. He still pitches in on the adminy stuff when it matters and takes care of the moneys. Not sure what happened to paulej72 though; I should probably text him and ask if the SJWs up at Princeton got him or something. Xyem was supposed to be on the dev team and getting some stuff ready for the July 1 feature freeze but he missed the deadline. That's okay though on account of so did I and I'd planned on moving it back to at least November because I've got a move going to happen a month or three from now and an insane amount of remodeling directly after.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday July 02 2018, @04:52PM (2 children)
Thank you TMB.
Feature idea: a link to a page showing next week's submission queue, so that some of those items can be moved into today's submission queue.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday July 02 2018, @05:39PM
Man, I'm good but that would take lots of tachyons. We only have the one and he's spelled wrong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 02 2018, @05:43PM
Hmm ... that gives me a thought ...
Feature idea: a "Funny - not" moderation option.
(Score: 1) by AlwaysNever on Monday July 02 2018, @08:45PM (1 child)
I have a question: why is NCommander less involved as of lately?
Also, The Mighty Whatever should take a full sabbatical year.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday July 13 2018, @07:32AM
Mostly due to real life. SN doesn't pay the bills sadly :(
Still always moving