Slow Forums: PF Under DDOS Attack

  • Thread starter Borek
  • Start date
In summary: I'm not getting the 503 errors I was getting last night.It's Tuesday morning, March 6th, about 7:30 am EST.In summary, the Physics Forums website has been experiencing slow loading times and errors, particularly the "MySQL server has gone away" error. This is attributed to a DOS attack that occurred on March 5th and is still ongoing. The site moderators are working on fixing the issue and have contacted their data center for assistance. The attack is believed to be from a disgruntled individual or group, and the site is currently being monitored for any further attacks. The site's speed has improved since last night, but it is not yet back to
  • #106


still terrible.
 
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  • #107


Greg Bernhardt said:
How are things now?

better.

What did you do?

Call Obama?
 
  • #108


Ahhh!

The connection has timed out
The server at www.physicsforums.com is taking too long to respond.

* The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few
moments.

* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.

* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

Who the heck invented this darned Internet thingy...

Is this why they didn't let Gore be President?
 
  • #109


Dickfore said:
still terrible.

Ditto.
 
  • #110


working perfectly for me atm.
 
  • #111


I get the occasional delay but it's (at the moment) MUCH better. I always got delays before anyway so it could be pretty much back to normal for me.
 
  • #112


things have gone from completely useless, to barely useful.

very slow but kind of working.
 
  • #113


Nope, still happening, just maybe about half the time. I still get timeouts.
 
  • #114


Something funny happens for me. I can't go back to the forum I was in after reading a post, but if I click the physicsforums.com link, it takes me back pretty quick like normal. I'm not really sure what this means...
 
  • #115


Seems to be back up to speed now. Sorta.
 
  • #116


Delays for me couple of seconds or better.

Edit: Currently normal speeds appears to be back. (8:09 UTC)
 
Last edited:
  • #117


Seems better now. Still acts funky on occasion.

EDIT: damn. looks like I broke the forums by saying that... :frown:
 
Last edited:
  • #118


Meanwhile it looks from here that all is normal. Maybe the attackers are asleep?
 
  • #119


PF loads in about 1 to 3 minutes for me if it loads at all. Normally only takes a few seconds. Been this way now for the past 48 hours. :grumpy:
 
  • #120


OmCheeto said:
Where's Char...

He'd kick some Ninja butt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KVf49FkqHo

Sorry about that. I've been too busy kicking IRL butt to kick online butt.
 
  • #121


This is a test, let's see how it goes

edit: Not greased lightning, but MUCH better, maybe even back to normal.

edit 2: MUCH faster, but I think you're still losing some packets.
 
  • #122


It's a lot better for me! Although the forum doesn't load in about 5% of the times. But the speed is almost back to normal!
 
  • #123


micromass said:
It's a lot better for me! Although the forum doesn't load in about 5% of the times. But the speed is almost back to normal!

OK, definitely just packet-loss then.
 
  • #124


Meanwhile, it slowed down considerably again at the moment
 
  • #125


Yes, it's going in waves. 15 minutes ago it was very fast. Now it goes slow again...
 
  • #126


Andre said:
Meanwhile, it slowed down considerably again at the moment

It's fast, you just need to click a few times if it's slow the first couple of times. Packet loss = even if the overall speed is good, sometimes your "signals" are not getting through; they're being dropped.
 
  • #127


the attack is still going strong. we have a couple more tricks up our sleeves, but the site won't be optimal until it stops completely.
 
Last edited:
  • #128
It's still very slow for me and pages sometimes fail to open - 7:30am PDT.
 
  • #129


Greg Bernhardt said:
the attack is still going strong. we have a couple more tricks up our sleeves, but the site won't be optimal until it stops completely.

If you've isolated even a few IPs that are part of a botnet... maybe you could post them here... not so that anyone would do anything active. Rather, we could configure our own firewalls to reject packets from that source, and then, if someone used that information unscrupulously... it's not on you.

"La shaiq' waqee mutlak bl kollin moumkin"(AC)
 
  • #130


nismaratwork said:
If you've isolated even a few IPs that are part of a botnet... maybe you could post them here... not so that anyone would do anything active. Rather, we could configure our own firewalls to reject packets from that source, and then, if someone used that information unscrupulously... it's not on you.

"La shaiq' waqee mutlak bl kollin moumkin"(AC)

They are spoofing thousands
 
  • #132
PF is very responsive right now.
 
  • #133
I'm having no trouble right now.
 
  • #134
Definitely a lot better in the last few minutes. Feels like it's back to normal for me now.
 
  • #135
PF is very quick at the moment. Whatever you did, keep it up!
 
  • #136
It's working very well now as opposed to about an hour ago.
 
  • #137


Greg Bernhardt said:
They are spoofing thousands

Of course they are, but in theory only one or two are needed for... um... "reasonable self defense".


Anyway, PF is now smooth as butter.
 
  • #138
Seems to be running normally for me for the first time since saturday!
 
  • #139
"Here we are again, happy as can be. All good friends in good company..." :wink:
 
  • #140
Thank you Greg for all of your hard work!
 

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