Because the servers seem to be under an ever-increasing load, I decided to disable TRM statistics updates. So far it seems to have had the desired effect – the server load is down, and responsiveness is up.
Author: Rachel Evans
Server Updated (barely)
Just now the server was updated to the latest release. However the changes from the previous release are just about zero – really it’s just to keep CVS tidy.
Just now the server was updated to the latest release. However the changes from the previous release are just about zero – really it’s just to keep CVS tidy.
Server Updates
The server has been updated once again, bringing you Album Languages, completely rewritten Guess Case functionality, fancy-looking input forms and a few bug fixes. Read on for the full change log…
The server has been updated once again, bringing you Album Languages,
completely rewritten Guess Case functionality, fancy-looking input forms
and a few bug fixes.
Read on for the full change log…
Server Made Simple
In the past, installing a MusicBrainz server has always been a testing and lengthy task, without any clear-cut set of instructions to follow. Over the last few days I’ve been putting together a method of installing mb_server, starting from scratch, using Debian. Installing the server just got a lot easier.
In the past, installing a MusicBrainz server has always been a testing and lengthy task, without any clear-cut set of instructions to follow. Over the last few days I’ve been putting together a method of installing mb_server, starting from scratch, using Debian. Installing the server just got a lot easier.
Server Troubles
Recently the server has been hit by patches of instability – large load spikes, running out of memory, and processes getting killed here and there. When the most recent out-of-memory condition occurred (last night) the SSH server was one of the processes which got killed, which is why the server had to be rebooted a … Continue reading “Server Troubles”
Recently the server has been hit by patches of instability – large load spikes, running out of memory, and processes getting killed here and there. When the most recent out-of-memory condition occurred (last night) the SSH server was one of the processes which got killed, which is why the server had to be rebooted a little while ago.
I’m fairly sure I more or less know what’s been causing the problems, and have made a few changes to try to reduce the chance of it happening again.
One of the worst causes of the problem is looking up a TRM with a large number of tracks. The worst TRM by far for this is the “silence” TRM, with (currently) over 900 tracks. As a result I’ve had to, for now at least, disallow lookups on this TRM – doing so will now simply return an error. Sorry 😦 Maybe it can be made to do something more helpful in future.
The other change is that if you do a lookup on any TRM which has more than 100 tracks then only 100 of those tracks will be returned. However so far there are no TRMs (except “silence”) with over 100 tracks, so this won’t affect anyone, yet. As the data grows, it will though.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused (hey, I’m apologising again. This is getting to be a habit). But I’m sure you’d rather have a server which doesn’t keep crashing and locking us all out. Hey ho.
Blog comments disabled
Sorry, but I’ve got better things to do with my time than continually delete spam comment runs from this blog (and the administrative UI doesn’t make it very easy to delete large numbers of comments). So, pending some effective method of protection against the spammers being found, I’ve disabled comments on this blog. For now, … Continue reading “Blog comments disabled”
Sorry, but I’ve got better things to do with my time than continually delete spam comment runs from this blog (and the administrative UI doesn’t make it very easy to delete large numbers of comments). So, pending some effective method of protection against the spammers being found, I’ve disabled comments on this blog.
For now, if you want to discuss any of the entries here, you can use the mb-users mailing list. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Mopping Up the Pink Stuff
Over the last few days we’ve had something like 200 spam comments posted to this blog, so I’ve been forced to invest a few hours of my time deleting those comments, and trying to find a way to solve the problem in a more permanent, automated way in the future. We’ve got some comment filtering … Continue reading “Mopping Up the Pink Stuff”
Over the last few days we’ve had something like 200 spam comments posted to this blog, so I’ve been forced to invest a few hours of my time deleting those comments, and trying to find a way to solve the problem in a more permanent, automated way in the future.
We’ve got some comment filtering in place now, which should mean that the spam comments at least only get seen by the blog admins (thus they don’t get spidered by Google et al, which is presumably the reason for spamming in the first place; and it also means that you, dear reader, aren’t bothered by them either).
The blog software does have provision for blocking by IP address, but like e-mail spam it tends to arrive not from one or two sources, but from a multitude of machines, so having a simple list of banned IPs is never likely to be practical. However I took the list of IP address seen in the last couple of runs of comment spamming, and cross-checked them against some well-known DNS blacklisting services, traditionally used to protect against e-mail spam. About half of the blog spamming IPs were listed in those blacklists, so if anyone happens to know of a MoveableType plugin which can do DNSBL lookups, please let me know!
Without going into any detail, I’ve taken a few other measures to protect against this problem; it shouldn’t have broken anything, but if it has, please let me know about that too 🙂
Try out the latest server features
I’ve opened my development box up to the world – you can see what I’m working on at http://dev-mb.djce.org.uk/. The mb_server I have running at the moment, for example, implements “Add Disc ID” moderations. Play nicely!
I’ve opened my development box up to the world – you can see what I’m working on at http://dev-mb.djce.org.uk/. The mb_server I have running at the moment, for example, implements “Add Disc ID” moderations. Play nicely!
Saturday Morning News
Wow, that’s a lame title. I couldn’t think of anything better This is a general-purpose update as to what I’ve been doing of late, so no single title seemed appropriate, except “What Dave’s Been Doing Lately” (and I think the title I finally went with is more punchy). Read on for general babble about … Continue reading “Saturday Morning News”
Wow, that’s a lame title. I couldn’t think of anything better 
This is a general-purpose update as to what I’ve been doing of late, so no single title seemed appropriate, except “What Dave’s Been Doing Lately” (and I think the title I finally went with is more punchy).
Read on for general babble about what I’ve been doing lately, and a random thought about the best way of getting feedback about server development.
Annotations – final testing?
I’ve made what I hope will be the final series of changes to the annotations work (at least, for its first release) – please see this posting on mb-users for details. Please test it, and let me know what you think. Thanks!
I’ve made what I hope will be the final series of changes to the annotations work (at least, for its first release) – please see this posting on mb-users for details. Please test it, and let me know what you think. Thanks!
MetaBrainz Blog 