CNCNZ.com Downloads Temporarily Offline

[Sonic 296]

I've had to temporarily take our Downloads Section offline for maintenance. Over the past few days we have been experiencing some technical issues that have since been traced back to our massive collection of files. These technical issues caused the entire site, including our forums, to be inaccessible at various times. If you recall, early last month we moved our Downloads Section to a new download and tracking system that is part of our forums. Unfortunately our new downloads system has been maxing out our resources, so in order to keep the rest of the up and running it has been turned off until a solution is found. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

[Gben 20]

Aah at least I know why I was having problems. I was meaning to ask...

[Sonic 296]

The issue was already raised here http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?showtopic=11561.

[rEdaSbLood 1]

we still love u sonic BUT HURRY UP AND FIX IT

 

jk

Edited March 3, 2009 by rEdaSbLood

[Malevolence 6]

At least sonic found the root of the problem. Great job!

[Sonic 296]

When it does come back online only registered forum members will be able to download files unfortunately. I discovered that some Asian gaming sites were directly linking to the main script files that start a download, and since guest access was enabled it would start the download. Forcing registration to download files is something I didn't want to do, I hate it when sites make you do that, but it something that has to be done I guess.

 

If you notice these problems again though please post about it here http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?showtopic=11561.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Hmm, you can set download quotas for the guest group, after which they'd have to register.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

I'd block the IPs. They're usually drones anyway and not actual people. I've banned a few ranges of Chinese IPs to halt bots from getting in. ****ing annoying to have to do that.

[Luk3us 63]

Can't you introduce captcha verification on all downloads?

[Johnnyxp64 20]

i have the same issues in my cnc database also, lots of chines californias( fake) and korean Ip that were spamming all the way.

 

unfortunately implimenting a random captcha in the current engine is lots of works and i am allready building the new cnc Bug Tracker in ASP.net. with captcha.

so for now i have to block range of ips as Doctor Destiny said.

 

also about cncnz.com i have noticed many times, that either i get a 500 error or the right and left column menus are apearing ok, but the main content doesnt!?

hope this one will be fixed to.

Edited March 3, 2009 by Johnnyxp64

[Sonic 296]

You see the thing is people (bots or other site) have been directly linking to http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?autocom=...load&id=415, when the correct way to link to a download is http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?autocom=...mp;showfile=415. The simplest and easiest solution is stop guests from downloading and forcing them to register. I'll will look into what Mighty BOB! suggested as well.

 

Can't you introduce captcha verification on all downloads?

That's beyond my skills I'm afraid.

 

i have noticed many times, that i neither get a 500 error or the right and left column menus are apearing ok, but the main content doesnt!?

hope this one will be fixed to.

I have noticed that as well. And I think it was related to the Downloads script hogging resources. The news on the main site is pulled from the news forum.

 

I'll work something out.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

In your IP Downloads Manager, under Components in your AdminCP, if you click on the "Groups" category and edit the guests group, you can set all kinds of bandwidth doodads.

[PurpleGaga27 40]

Well as of right now, the downloads section is still not back up yet.

 

Was this site hacked before?

 

[Sonic 296]

Nothing was hacked.

 

I actually reopened the downloads section last night, but guess what, within 5 minutes of me opening it the forums slowed down while browsing them. Something's not right.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

You could try a support ticket. We had a guy from invision poke around our previous server and tweak a few things. Although it still seems to be on the resource-intensive side.

[Sonic 296]

Yeah I might contact IPS about this. I've paid them for it and their script is causing more problems when its meant to make things easier to manage.

[Koen 2]

If it really is the direct links that are causing problems, then I'd know how to "fix" it: right now, the parameters are in the URL (a GET-request); if we move them into a (hidden) form on the page http://forums.cncnz.com/index.php?autocom=...mp;showfile=415 , and let the user press a button to download, then the URL will not contain the required parameters to start a download, because they are not all in there. This would have to occur together with disabling the current GET-requests, to break the links everyone currently has (and turn them into a redirect or something).

My estimated complexity for such a change is 10-20 lines in the download manager code - and some markup/template changes for the download page.

 

Another option would be to include a "random" number in the URL (say the date), and the direct URL will only work if the date-field is correct; otherwise it redirects. That might be a simpler fix - and less changes.

[chickendippers 1]

I've been getting through 400Gb/month in data transfer over the past couple of months. All from unresolvable IP addys (ie suspicious). It's not causing me performance problems, but it is stopping me from announcing some cool downloads.

 

Most annoying!

[Sonic 296]

I figured something strange was happening simply based on the views/downloads count for each file. For example....

 

Red Alert 3 Map Generator

Views: 2927

Downloads: 8929

 

People are bypassing the download system completely. So the view is not counted, they use the direct link generated by the download system so still counts the downloads.

 

IPS Support have replied to me saying....

 

But we're thinking that there might be an issue with download manager programs, like flashget, where people are trying to download lots of files and basically DOSing the entire server.

This could take some time to sort out.

[Mighty BOB! 5]

Yeah we had a few IPs that were initiating lots of downloads as if from a download manager.