Service outage January 1-2, 2016
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    Dear Forum Users,

    We had an unexpected service outage affecting this Musica Sacra Forum and some of the other CMAA web sites on New Year's Day.

    The outage took place when our hosting provider Linode came under a "denial of service" attack, in which an attacker tries to overwhelm a target system with useless queries. The attack was not aimed at CMAA's systems, but affected Linode at more than one of its data centers.

    The down time started at approximately 10 AM ET January 1 and continued the rest of the day; during the overnight period, service came back intermittently, starting around 1:30 AM January 2 (ET). I expect service will be restored more stably over the next few hours. We're sorry for any inconvenience you experienced.

    At your service,

    Richard Chonak
    webmaster, CMAA
    Thanked by 10Kathy BruceL CharlesW bonniebede Don9of11 Choirparts CHGiffen MBW eft94530 Chris Hebard
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    The forces of the dark side, surely this was.
    Thanked by 2madorganist CHGiffen
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,499
    And I thought that the down time had something to do with Ben's wedding.
    Thanked by 3CharlesW bkenney27 CHGiffen
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    I thought it was a day of penance.
    Thanked by 1Choirparts
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    Every few hours this site is still down (at least on my phone).
    Thanked by 3francis Spriggo Don9of11
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 684
    I agree CCooze. I tried logging in this morning from my tablet and I wasn't able to. Everything seems to be working now. Thanks to those behind the scenes who are working hard to restore things.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Lol @canadash
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    This attack on our hosting provider Linode started just after Christmas, and on December 31 an engineer told part of the "backstory":
    http://status.linode.com/incidents/mmdbljlglnfd

    The attack was massive and sophisticated, using methods that changed as Linode blocked one attack method after another.

    It's possible that the perpetrator was doing this in order to demand the payment of a ransom.

    It's possible that the attack is state-sponsored: in the past China has attacked internet services such as github because github was hosting software to bypass China's internet censorship.

    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • bhcordovabhcordova
    Posts: 1,152
    Thanks for letting us know what happened.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    By the way, while CMAA's site became reachable on the morning of January 3, the attacks have continued today.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,148
    Yes, the service has been spotty with occasional no-connections due to timeouts today.
    Thanked by 1francis
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    This happened not too long ago to my email provider when a group calling itself "armada collective" launched an attack to obtain a ransom. I hope the hosting service didn't pay any ransom.
  • SeasonPsaltSeasonPsalt
    Posts: 78
    Geee... and I thought it was because I was posting stuff again after all these months! ;-)
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
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