Harddisk Drive replaced

• Posted by Namsahaz Team on November 12th, 2008 filed in Announcement

The past 3 days have been a very tiring day for all Namsahaz Support Staffs as we have been busy trying to get one of our busiest server (124.217.231.44) up and running again - due to the Harddisk bad sectors which made the whole Linux filesystem became Read-Only, hence, causing Internal Server Error on all websites a few hours before the server went down

The server went down because we had to replace the HDD to a new one, so the server had to be shutdown. We are sorry for our inability to inform our customers about what is happening and how long will the downtime be since we also couldn’t reach our email server at the time. When we replace a new HDD, we had to reinstall everything back, including Cpanel, Apache, MySQL and all other bunch of stuffs into the server. On top of that we also had to copy all web accounts from the damaged Harddisk into the new Harddisk one by one. That is almost around 70GB of data we had to copy over to the new Harddisk which explains why the downtime took so long.

What you need to be informed

1. Accounts with outdated data

The server went down on the 9th of November. Our latest backup files for each accounts was on 8th November. When we restored back each of your accounts, we used the latest backup file which was on 8th November. However, there are some unfortunate accounts which has the latest backup on 2nd November instead of the 8th November (this is because the server haven’t yet do the backup for your account when the downtime happened), thus when the server went up again, these accounts appears to be using old data. If you are one of the affected account, please inform us and we will copy the latest database and file from the old harddisk into your new harddisk so that you have an up-to-date data.

2. Empty accounts / accounts not up yet

Between 2nd November and 8th November, some new accounts has been created. Therefore, those accounts which has been created within this two dates doesn’t actually have any backup files created by the server yet. So you might see your account empty because we had to re-create your account again. If you have uploaded or created your website within this timeframe, do inform us so that we can copy out your files and databases out from the old harddisk.

3. Fantastico not being installed yet

We are postponing Fantastico at the moment because we need to focus on getting all accounts up without anymore problem. Once everything is ok, we will proceed to install Fantastico into the server. For the time being, please try to survive without Fantastico.

4. Server might not be fully stable yet

The server can sometimes be pretty slow at one point, and very fast at another. This is because account restoration is still on-going and it takes high CPU at certain times. We will try to ensure that this process will be done off peak hours to minimize effect on existing accounts. It may also appear to be slow during Fantastico installation which we anticipate to start tomorrow evening.

What we will do to ensure better service next time

1. Namsahaz application re-location

We will move out our Namsahaz website and ordering system to a different server, independent from the customer’s server. This way, if the customer server went down, our website will not go down with it and customers will still have a means of contacting us through our website. We sill also be able to send email informing customers about what is happening and when will the fix be done. We anticipate to move out within the next couple of days. Our application engineer is preparing to move us out to a different server at this moment.

2. We will introduce Yahoo Messenger support channel

We will now add another support channel which is through Yahoo Messenger. Please add us in YM with the ID called “namsahaz”. Please be informed though, that this ID will not be 24 hours online, and by all means we still recommend sending e-mails at support [at] namsahaz [dot] com or tickets because it will be easier for us to follow up with issues and problems on a later date. However, from time to time and especially during uncontactable conditions, our support YM will be online to offer help. It is also important to note that abusive chats will not be entertained

If you have any other suggestions, please do inform us at support [at] namsahaz [dot] com or leave a comment below.

We’d also like to extend our deepest apologies for all of those affected by this downtime