Forum server issues tonight

[Andyroo]

Hi,

I’m seeing a lot of error messages trying to browse the forums tonight. No idea who to report it to

Messages are:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /forums/viewtopic.php on this server.

Apache/2.4.25 (Debian) Server at www.raspberrypi.org Port 80

[DougieLawson]

I wonder if someone is doing a DDoS attack. It's been more flaky than usual.

Might ask @Mythic_Beasts on twitter.

[jamesh]

Yes, there was a DDoS attack from about 4pm (BST) yesterday from China.

[pcmanbob]

I assume this is still on going because the site is still some what slow and often returns the high traffic/busy page.

[jamesh]

I assume this is still on going because the site is still some what slow and often returns the high traffic/busy page.

I pressume so but will check.

[jamesh]

Yes, there are some DDoS like issues which we are monitoring closely.

[Andyroo]

Thank you for the update and work to keep this running.

Seems fine now.

[pcmanbob]

Thank you for the update and work to keep this running.

Seems fine now.

Well I am still seeing lots of the high traffic/busy page but when pages do load they load normally.

[LTolledo]

am seeing more and more of this lately, including just a moment ago.....

rpfheavytraffic.png (19.16 KiB) Viewed 4289 times

I guess "popularity" has its "downside"?

[n67]

I was seeing the "We're too busy" message a lot earlier today, but not recently.

Now, I'm getting:

Sorry but you are not permitted to use the search system.

Weird...

[gkreidl]

It looks like the search has been completely disabled. Which means, no menu to look for new posts. Which means (for me): forum not usable at the moment.

[DougieLawson]

It looks like the search has been completely disabled. Which means, no menu to look for new posts. Which means (for me): forum not usable at the moment.

I'd guess that the search URL was the vector the DDoS'ers from China were using to attack the forum. Looks like we have to work through each subforum in turn until Monday when the RPF folks and Mythic Beasts (their ISP) can introduce a permanent resolution. [My resolution would be to block every IP address block for the whole of China, but that's not possible with a worldwide audience.]

[jamesh]

Looking at it now I believe. Had to disable some stuff to prevent scrapers bringing site to it's knees.

Currently over 700 guest users (mostly scrapers?), with 11 registered, which is bonkers.

[BlackKnight_UK]

It looks like the search has been completely disabled. Which means, no menu to look for new posts. Which means (for me): forum not usable at the moment.

Same here

[tvjon]

RPi forum RSS feed is working fine fortunately,

app.php/feed

& will present you with the 15 most recent posts.

You can set your rss reader to check every n minutes, so you don't miss any.

I have no idea why the Foundation has a 15 post limit, but still very handy of course, particularly in situations like this...

[Paul Webster]

It looks like the search has been completely disabled. Which means, no menu to look for new posts. Which means (for me): forum not usable at the moment.

Argh

[jamesh]

For those who actually read what I wrote above, this will be repeating myself, but...

We have been encountering a huge amount of traffic, possible DDoS attack, but also lots of bots scraping the site. To reduce impact we have had to temporaily disable a few features.

I'd be cautious of sites that look this this but on different addresses, from my naive POV, appears someone is copying to site for nefarious purposes.

[k-pi]

Hope you get it sorted out quickly, as it's a bit of a pain not being able to just get the new posts.

Thanks for your efforts.

[beta-tester]

are there still issues?
when i do an "egosearch" (search.php?search_id=egosearch),
to get a list of my own comments, i get:

Information
Sorry but you are not permitted to use the search system.

...in the past that search was never be a problem.

[pcmanbob]

are there still issues?
when i do an "egosearch" (search.php?search_id=egosearch),
to get a list of my own comments, i get:

Information
Sorry but you are not permitted to use the search system.

...in the past that search was never be a problem.

As jamesh has stated several times some functions have been turned off while they sort out the problems resulting from the attack on the site, the most noticeable is the search function, it has be disabled for now, so no searches of any kind are possible right now.

[BlackKnight_UK]

OK so we cant' see new posts because of the lack of any searches - but that also means that new posts are probably going to be people asking what has already been answered because they can't search - so maybe we aren't missing much.

[DirkS]

OK so we cant' see new posts because of the lack of any searches - but that also means that new posts are probably going to be people asking what has already been answered because they can't search - so maybe we aren't missing much.

Of course you can see new posts. The normal indicators are still shown when you're on the normal forum pages.

[DougieLawson]

OK so we cant' see new posts because of the lack of any searches - but that also means that new posts are probably going to be people asking what has already been answered because they can't search - so maybe we aren't missing much.

Of course you can see new posts. The normal indicators are still shown when you're on the normal forum pages.

It does make it harder to use. I normally use the "unread posts" option then start reading from the oldest first.

Lets hope the folks at Raspberry Pi Towers can resolve the issue very early next week. Their short term fix - disabling search - was a good move to get the forum back to half way usable from totally dead.

[DirkS]

Their short term fix - disabling search - was a good move to get the forum back to half way usable from totally dead.

It's still almost completely dying at times, like yesterday afternoon / evening (and IIRC even early this morning)
I expect the same to happen today around 4 or 4.30

[DougieLawson]

It's still almost completely dying at times, like yesterday afternoon / evening (and IIRC even early this morning)
I expect the same to happen today around 4 or 4.30

It's likely to be an hour later than that since we've just gone back.

I was out all day yesterday. By 23:00, when I got a chance to catch up, it was usable.