Server - potential for break of service over the next few days

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Advanced notice - I will be putting in an extra layer of security in front of our server soon - to be switched on overnight probably by the end of the month.   The theory is that the server will not be available for a few seconds, but there is a low risk that I get something wrong and loose access to the (virtual) machine.  Should that happen, full service may not be restored for up to 24 hours ... if you loose us (just get a holding page), in the words of Corporal Jones, please don't panic.

As background, the new tools I have been writing to help admin on the new server have helped me get a far better handle on what's going on.   The server has stood up remarkably well to the various pressures put on it - better than the old one did, but still worth analysing and looking to cut off unwelcome traffic earlier rather than later, and to do so automatically too.

To give you an idea ... we typically get 2 or 3 requests per second, but when a "naughty" is requesting attention it can do so much more - at times were have been receiving nearly 200 requests per second, sometimes that rate going on for quite a while.   Yesterday, a quiet day for this sort of thing, we got 3,000 bad requests in the 24 hours (to 03:30); in the first 9 hours today (to 12:30), we have had 60,000.  I will ... admit ... to getting a sort of perverse pleasure in watching, tracking and countering these things.

Once I have put the extra layer in place, I will follow up here to let you know.

[bobm]

Lance Corporal Jones

[grahame]

Lance Corporal Jones

They don't like it up 'em!

[bobm]

In the interests of fairness I owe Graham an apology.

Just been watching the Dad?s Army episode ?Turkey Dinner? and Air Raid Warden Hodges refers to Corporal Jones - so he isn?t alone!