Okay so the weekly outage is running long and still going strong as I write and post this missive. So be it. What's the deal? I'll tell you. Short story: we're trying to get a lot done today. We fully expected things to take a while, and our expectations are being realized.

As we continue pushing forward on the analysis code, we needed to build another index on the master science database (thumper). This takes many hours, during which the table in question is locked and therefore the parts of the back end that require science database access have to be shut down, which is why we time such events with the regular outages.

However, we're also finally tackling the nagging workunit space problem. Our workunit storage server (gowron) shares workunit storage space with various BOINC database archives, so the easiest/best solution is to move those archives elsewhere. Where's elsewhere? We currently have a lot of space in a volume established for science database archives on thumper.

So today we had the two BOINC backups and the index build all hitting the thumper disks pretty hard, thus slowing everything down. Seems kind of silly, but this is a special case as we're not normally doing index builds. Nevertheless we'll move the BOINC database archives elsewhere at some point down the line as time/disk space permits.

Meanwhile.. we broke the archive space on gowron and converted it all into a bunch of RAID1 pairs which are taking a long time to sync up. Actually, there's even more ex-archive space available but we'll do that at another time. My guess is the syncing should be done around 3:30pm Pacific Time. Are you getting all this? Warning: this entire chapter will be on the test.

By the way, while waiting for all the parts above to come together I burned a Fedora Core 8 DVD and installed it on our latest Intel donation (mentioned in an earlier post). We're going to call it "bane" - actually reusing a name/IP address of another potential server donation that didn't pan out so well. I don't believe in jinxes, and I'm all for recycling. Anyway, it's already up and configured and working a lot better than the old bane. Might have a new web server racked up by the end of the week!

And we got the mass mail pipeline finalized. Maybe I'll start those up today too. This is actually the highest priority but it's not very good form to start a mass mail while the project is down.

- Matt

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Be careful on the yum updates for Fedora. Sometimes they help, and sometimes it breaks things (e.g., smartmontools, wine, libXv). Anyway, good luck on the email blast. I hope many cheerful givers will find SETI. :)

....
And we got the mass mail pipeline finalized. Maybe I'll start those up today too. This is actually the highest priority but it's not very good form to start a mass mail while the project is down.

- Matt

I got my mail at 23:35 UTC, just an hour after your post - and 8 minutes before my first allocation of new WUs post-outage: they're still attempting to download through the traffic (though they are 8MB Astropulse Beta WUs, so it's hardly surprising they take a while!).

Doesn't worry me, but some might judge that sending the emails while the webserver is still sluggish during recovery is just a mite premature....

....while others would say that the sluggish server demonstrates exactly why the additional donations are needed, LOL.

I might add to the comments about the mass emailing for the donation push. It seems last the last time it was done, it turned out to be a bit of bad press when there were server problems following the 'big push'.
Please wait until you are satisfied the recent changes that were made to the servers and data storage etc. are stable before sending out the emails.
Nothing would leave a bad taste in someone's mouth who had kinda forgotten about the ol' Seti project than to come back with renewed interest only to have to deal with server problems and 'no work from project' messages.
With all due respect,
Mark.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

I might add to the comments about the mass emailing for the donation push. It seems last the last time it was done, it turned out to be a bit of bad press when there were server problems following the 'big push'.
Please wait until you are satisfied the recent changes that were made to the servers and data storage etc. are stable before sending out the emails.
Nothing would leave a bad taste in someone's mouth who had kinda forgotten about the ol' Seti project than to come back with renewed interest only to have to deal with server problems and 'no work from project' messages.
With all due respect,
Mark.

Like I am getting now? Status page shows 225000 available, but I get this:

12/12/2007 8:54:08 AM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user
12/12/2007 8:54:08 AM|SETI@home|Requesting 24170 seconds of new work, and reporting 1 completed tasks
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Message from server: No work sent
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Deferring communication for 1 min 0 sec
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Reason: no work from project
12/12/2007 8:55:13 AM|SETI@home|Fetching scheduler list
12/12/2007 8:55:18 AM|SETI@home|Master file download succeeded
12/12/2007 8:55:23 AM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: To fetch work
12/12/2007 8:55:23 AM|SETI@home|Requesting 24198 seconds of new work
12/12/2007 8:55:33 AM|SETI@home|Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
12/12/2007 8:55:33 AM|SETI@home|Deferring communication for 1 min 0 sec
12/12/2007 8:55:33 AM|SETI@home|Reason: no work from project

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Clk2HlpSetiCty:::PayIt4ward

I might add to the comments about the mass emailing for the donation push. It seems last the last time it was done, it turned out to be a bit of bad press when there were server problems following the 'big push'.
Please wait until you are satisfied the recent changes that were made to the servers and data storage etc. are stable before sending out the emails.
Nothing would leave a bad taste in someone's mouth who had kinda forgotten about the ol' Seti project than to come back with renewed interest only to have to deal with server problems and 'no work from project' messages.
With all due respect,
Mark.

Like I am getting now? Status page shows 225000 available, but I get this:

12/12/2007 8:54:08 AM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: Requested by user
12/12/2007 8:54:08 AM|SETI@home|Requesting 24170 seconds of new work, and reporting 1 completed tasks
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Message from server: No work sent
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Deferring communication for 1 min 0 sec
12/12/2007 8:54:12 AM|SETI@home|Reason: no work from project
12/12/2007 8:55:13 AM|SETI@home|Fetching scheduler list
12/12/2007 8:55:18 AM|SETI@home|Master file download succeeded
12/12/2007 8:55:23 AM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: To fetch work
12/12/2007 8:55:23 AM|SETI@home|Requesting 24198 seconds of new work
12/12/2007 8:55:33 AM|SETI@home|Scheduler RPC succeeded [server version 511]
12/12/2007 8:55:33 AM|SETI@home|Deferring communication for 1 min 0 sec
12/12/2007 8:55:33 AM|SETI@home|Reason: no work from project

Mmmm! The Cricket Graph looks like it's just taken a dive.

F.

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I think it's a little "hit or miss" right now. I just received one a couple hours ago:

12/12/2007 7:37:14 AM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: To fetch work. Requesting 2741 seconds of work, reporting 0 completed tasks
12/12/2007 7:37:20 AM|SETI@home|Scheduler request succeeded: got 0 new tasks
12/12/2007 7:37:20 AM|SETI@home|Message from server: No work sent
12/12/2007 7:39:44 AM|SETI@home|Sending scheduler request: To fetch work. Requesting 3946 seconds of work, reporting 0 completed tasks
12/12/2007 7:39:49 AM|SETI@home|Scheduler request succeeded: got 1 new tasks
12/12/2007 7:39:52 AM|SETI@home|Started download of 23mr07ad.1965.16841.7.6.8
12/12/2007 7:39:58 AM|SETI@home|Finished download of 23mr07ad.1965.16841.7.6.8

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Say Matt, I'm wondering where you got the title for this post. The reason I ask is because, as a proud Canadian, the very first instance of Broon's Bane that comes to mind is the short lead-in track that came right before The Trees on Rush's live album Exit...Stage Left. :)

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Be proud. Yes - it is of course a reference to the Rush tune, as is pretty much every title from the posts over the past month a reference to some other song in my bizarre record collection. I'm focusing on the prog/avant rock stuff now.. maybe it'll move to other genres soon.

- Matt

Say Matt, I'm wondering where you got the title for this post. The reason I ask is because, as a proud Canadian, the very first instance of Broon's Bane that comes to mind is the short lead-in track that came right before The Trees on Rush's live album Exit...Stage Left. :)

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-- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person
-- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude

Be proud. Yes - it is of course a reference to the Rush tune, as is pretty much every title from the posts over the past month a reference to some other song in my bizarre record collection. I'm focusing on the prog/avant rock stuff now.. maybe it'll move to other genres soon.

- Matt

Say Matt, I'm wondering where you got the title for this post. The reason I ask is because, as a proud Canadian, the very first instance of Broon's Bane that comes to mind is the short lead-in track that came right before The Trees on Rush's live album Exit...Stage Left. :)

and here was me thinking that you meant our very own Gordon Brown(Broon in the guid Scots venacular).☺

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Old enough to know better(but)still young enough not to care