wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: WWP working again.
Yahoo Account 2009-Apr-08 06:54:00
Thanks for the info, Kathy!
Most of these symptoms sound like the infamous "Conficker" Windows worm/virus, since it's known to tweak the network settings of infected systems to lock out e.g. known anti-virus domains and to mess with the name resolving system. Of course, the last time large parts of the 'net were struck with congestion was when someone dropped an anchor on an undersea fiberglass wire in the Mediterranean sea - these things happen, too.
I'm currently in mail contact with the Dreamhost service team (who are puzzled, too). I think I found a difference between the "contribute" and "playback" configuration. It's one of those weird little things to do with how PHP is supposed to treat a "module" installation as compared to a "cgi" installation. Obviously, the way the "contribute" server script processes incoming requests is the more robust one, and I'll copy that approach to the "main" site, too. It should go unnoticed or with minimal downtime of a few seconds while I swap out the rug under the server's feet :)
-Markus
________________________________
From: Kathy Wheeler <#removed#>
To: #removed#
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2009 2:57:53 AM
Subject: Re: WWP working again.
On 08/04/2009, at 2:56 AM, Yahoo Account wrote:
> The WWP website is working again!
>
> And I have no clue as to why or how, in the same way that I've got
> no idea why it even failed in the first place...
Markus et al,
it *may not* be the web site failing at all.
In the last few days I've heard of a number of people from all over
the world (including myself) having intermittent problems loading web
sites. Some or all pictures missing, page not rendering properly, css
files missing, site not loading at all.
Yesterday I was blaming Firefox, but on talking to some other people
and finding similar experiences related from the USA, Canada, Asia
and Europe, all with different sites, browsers and applications, and
doing a little digging (or rather pinging) myself there's something
odd going on. Pinging sites when the problems manifest is bizarre -
normal ping times interspersed with ridiculously huge ping times!
Give it an hour or two and everything is back to "normal".
Go figure ....
KathyW.
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