Reboot

[Andreas]

Database server is being rebooted for emergency hardware replacement. The website will be up in about 5-10 minuttes.

The support part of the site is also available, and I'm online for live support inquiries:

http://www.ultraguest.com/support


Update: Seems like theplanet.com (the host) is doing something wrong and that this may take a bit longer....

Update 2: The planet has f*** up big time. They have lost track of the database server. I do not understand how that is even possible! The Planet has been very reliable for years now... The backup of the database is about 48 hours old and is being uploaded to this server as of right now (a very, very large file). I hope that the Planet will get things straight so that we do not loose two days worth of messages and new members

I applogize for this very unfortunate incident. A few months ago I purchased a second server so that the speed of the site would increase, but they were not designed to be load balanced/identical. One server provides the web pages / guestbooks, while the second server is dedicated to the database for increased speed.

I will post another update soon...

Update 3: I have uploaded the ~48 hours old database to this server. Unless the Planet contacts me with great news within a few minuttes I will start to restore the old database. The restore process takes about 10-15 minuttes.

Update: The appox. 48 hour old database has been restored on this server. UltraGuest should be working now (I will do some more error checking in the next hour), but the following is the case:

• New messages from the past 48 hours has been deleted
• New users signing up in the past 48 hours have been deleted and must sign up for a new guestbook.
• Changes made to your guestbook in the past 48 hours has been wiped out and needs to be redone.

This is totally unacceptable and I will look at solutions that will prevent this in the future.

The Planet has accidentally wiped out the entire content on the database server and they say they are very sorry.

I will post more information about what is being done to prevent this from happening again in the future.

I thank you for your patience, and appologize for what has happened.

Feel free to contact me if there is anything I can assit you with, but please understand that there is nothing I can do to recover data from the past 48 hours....

[Andreas]

A note about backup frequency:

All guestbooks have been backed up every 12 hours and stored on a second hard drive on the database server. Every 48 hours the data has been transferred using the SSL protocal to a different server in Europe. I figured it would be very unlikely for two SCSI drives to fail at the same time, and did not take in to consideration that someone would wipe out both HDDs on purpose (but due to an internal misunderstanding).

[Andreas]

The second database server has been restored and no data has been lost However, the data has not been imported into the system, and I'm not sure if that's a good ide since you may have deleted messages, changed the look of your guestbook and simply importing the data will overwrite changes that you have made since yesterday.

What I'll do is that I'll create a subdomain running the restored database so that you can take a look at your guestbook and see if any messages are missing. If that's the case I'll manually move the messages to the live server.

The recovered data will be available some time tomorrow afternoon (GMT).

[Andreas]

The "lost" database is now available here:

http://restore.ultraguest.com

You may access your guestbook directly at http://restore.ultraguest.com/view/[guestbook id].

If you take a look at your guestbook at the above domain and find messages there that are missing from your guestbook, please open a support ticket here:

http://www.ultraguest.com/support

Please include your guestbook ID or e-mail as well as which messages you would like to have moved to your guestbook.