Karma-Lab.com is DOWN

[StephenKay]

My entire website (karma-lab.com) has been shut down by the service provider due to "overuse of resources". I am on a shared server, although it's supposed to be one that provides "unlimited everything."

Some of you go to both of these sites/forums; this is to let you know what is going on.

It seems to me that my site was under some kind of attack last night, because I normally don't have this kind of problem, and I pay them for a large amount of resources as it is. There was a huge spike in activity last night, I was just sending them a ticket to ask them to look into it when they shut *me* down. I had only a few people on the site at that time as far as I can tell (and the usual web-bots/spiders, but I've set up limits for that in my robots.txt file.)

But of course, these companies don't give a s**t about anything; they just yank the plug, shut you down, and then when you try to get some support to figure out what the problem is, they are extremely slow to respond.

My website host: LunarPages.com = don't use them. I've had a number of issues with these people. They are very heavy-handed and I would not recommend this company. They advertise "unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage etc." (because they know most people won't actually use it), but then when you do start using large amounts, they want to boot you (and keep the money that you paid up front. I just paid last month (up front) for another 2 years of service.)

I've looked at moving to a dedicated server several times, it's way more than I can handle myself at this time, and I'm not putting it in the hands of any volunteers (so please don't volunteer ).

I just wanted to let you know why Karma-Lab is down, in case you were wondering. Hopefully this will be resolved in the next few days.

Thanks for your support.

[mf_blues]

That's bad news Stephen so I just emailed them and asked them to hurry up and get it fixed, maybe if enough users follow suite they'll get it sorted out quicker.

Just a side though, if you do email them via the WEB notice that comes up when trying to access Karma Labs, you end up getting registered with their help desk and they send you a user name and pasword. Exactly what for I don't know yet, probably just so you can track your questions I suppose.

Cheers

[mf_blues]

BTW Stephen

Just before the Karma Labs site went down I was asking a question about the KM3 software.

Just wanted to know if you need the M3 connected to use it or can it run stand alone?

Cheers

[Trinity2112]

I've noticed several of these companies "tightening their belts" over the last two years - along with everyone else in business. While I (we) can definitely relate to their hardship, there's still no excuse for lackluster support that YOU DO PAY FOR. I've ran into it myself and was shocked. Oh yeah, unlimited/unmetered bandwidth is anything but! The list of cost-cutting measures is growing every week and it's very disheartening to a webmaster.

Stephen, if members enjoy your site (and I know they do) they'll be more than willing to throw in a few bucks to keep it afloat. Don't be afraid to ask. Just think about the endless effort you put forth year after year to provide Karma users with support and information. And let's not forget you having to babysit adults every once in a while. You can't put a price tag on that shitty job.

[kid_nepro_2002]

Hi Stephen,

Yeah, there is nothing more frustrating then this type of stuff. You should definitely change servers. I highly recommend the company that I've been using for the past five years. There is very little downtime and when there is a problem they are quick to respond. They include over 45 apps that you can use to run your forum, blog or most anything else you need to do.

More info at:

http://www.hostm.com/

If you have any questions just e-mail me.

@mf_blues - you need the M3 connected to run the software.

Proton
www.kidnepro.com

[mf_blues]

Thanks Proton

I thought that may be the case but just wanted to be sure.

Cheers

[Synthoid]

Hope they're back soon.

[StephenKay]

We're back - for the moment.... I sweet talked them into reinstating the site - now I have to see if I can do anything about what happened last night...

[McHale]

Sorry to hear about your website troubles. Glad to hear it's up, even if temporarily. Keep us posted on what you find out.

-Mc

p.s. that robots.txt file is easily ignored. Take a look at HTTRACK and you'll see an option to ignore robots.txt rules.

[StephenKay]

p.s. that robots.txt file is easily ignored. Take a look at HTTRACK and you'll see an option to ignore robots.txt rules.

So it seems. Do you know anything about how to stop spiders then? For example, I just put up a robots.txt file with this in it:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /forum/
Disallow: /store/

That should keep them out of the forum folder and store folders entirely, if it worked. But I still have 27 spiders and web-bots indexing KLF last time I looked.

[kid_nepro_2002]

Do you know anything about how to stop spiders then? (

Looks like you have the robots.txt file set right, but you need to do some tweaking in your control panel to keep out the "bad bots".

Found this at: http://www.robotstxt.org/

If the robot operates from a single IP address, you can block its access to your web server through server configuration or with a network firewall.
If copies of the robot operate at lots of different IP addresses, such as hijacked PCs that are part of a large Botnet, then it becomes more difficult. The best option then is to use advanced firewall rules configuration that automatically block access to IP addresses that make many connections; but that can hit good robots as well your bad robots.

[McHale]

Do you know anything about how to stop spiders then?

unfortunately, nothing that you don't already know. I just have tools to get around them, such as HTTRACK above.

BUT I SWEAR IT'S NOT ME SNIPING YOUR SITE. I PROMISE.

-Mc

[thethirdapple]

too late? Those pesky humans are at it again…

https://zadzmo.org/code/nepenthes/

I don't suggest actually using this solution but... if properly done, a honeypot front end could lead them into a tarpit which a human knows how to bypass... just sayin wondering if its bot's and crawlers, re-indexing this "new" site, therefore causing an auto throttle, slowing things down?

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PEACE
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