Connection issues (updated yet again)

[Staple Juice]

Maybe I am just stating the obvious...

I believe the people are asking when the server will be up and running again is because they dont wanna go to bed and 10 minutes later the server is up and there character is sitting there with there White Wrym for 10 hours. I would assume they would like to get to a safe place A.S.A.P.

Maybe the reason so many people are complaining (I am not complaining) is because they have devoted many many hours to this server and they may feel like they are spending there time on something that is un-available.

Dont get me wrong, I love it here and I am here to stay. I thank the staff very much for allowing me to extract so many bundles of pleasure from a video game. These just are possible explanations for what could be going through peoples mind right now.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I just hope that it either goes up very soon, or late tomorow, because if it goes up in between (like past my bed time) I won't be able to play, and I'll have to wait till I come back from college to play.

 

[ASayre]

updated main post

 

[Red Squirrel]

Wow they're still at it?

Any way these people can be tracked down? I guess its kind of hard if they're all spoofed. There's a couple legal... no wait, lethal actions I'd like to see done to these script kiddies.

 

[Dathras]

You would think there would be a way to prevent this.
Is OSI having the same issues with their servers as well?

 

[ASayre]

You would think there would be a way to prevent this.
Is OSI having the same issues with their servers as well?

Tell me when demise brings in a couple million a month and has dozens of servers all dedicated to UO spread across the globe and can afford their own lines from places that can handle a huge load and won't be null routing the servers whenever there's an attack. ;P

 

[Dathras]

Guess you didn't get the check??
heh

No I figured there must be some way of preventing this.
And since I'm in the aviation industry, not something I keep up on.
Just simply asking a question.

 

[pluch111]

osi gets that much cash per month??? man is alot of money for just playing games

 

[ASayre]

Guess you didn't get the check??
heh

No I figured there must be some way of preventing this.
And since I'm in the aviation industry, not something I keep up on.
Just simply asking a question.

There are 'ways' to help make it so they're not as effective, they require more moolah though, and even then they can still be harmful. There was something a while ago how some of the root servrs themselves got DDoS'ed I think and took a few of them down for a bit.. :\

 

[ASayre]

osi gets that much cash per month??? man is alot of money for just playing games

160,000 active subscriptions * $13/Month is just over two mil Plus sales of expansion and other things like items and such.

 

[Red Squirrel]

A good SPI firewall would probably work, but unless you have physical access to the server it's probably not possible to setup unless you pay extra per month, which means paying for the firewall 50+ times. And a typical SPI firewall ain't cheap to begin with.

If this becomes a huge issue though, I wonder if it could work to block all IPs and only allow valid ones, like there would be a place on the site where you validate your IP. Problem is, script kiddies would find a way around this and simply validate tons of IPs, though it would make their lives harder at least.
Not even sure if this would work since even if the IP is not validated, it's still a connection. DoS attacks are done at a low enough level, probably layer 2 or 3, while this system would work at layer 7. Just a random thought that popped by though, maybe it can be re-engenered out to work or something.

 

[DHTJelloBiafra]

Man this bums me out. I once played in a shard regularly, had all my characters built up and strong and played there all the time. They kept having attacks like this, and eventually just shut the shard down...

I just started playing this shard about 10 days ago and have been really excited about it. UOgamers Hybrid has been "my shard" for the last few months, but I really like Age of Shadows stuff so I have been really excited about playing in this shard. Just been building my chars up these last few days, I hope I get a chance to use them...

 

[Gordred]

Man this bums me out. I once played in a shard regularly, had all my characters built up and strong and played there all the time. They kept having attacks like this, and eventually just shut the shard down...

I just started playing this shard about 10 days ago and have been really excited about it. UOgamers Hybrid has been "my shard" for the last few months, but I really like Age of Shadows stuff so I have been really excited about playing in this shard. Just been building my chars up these last few days, I hope I get a chance to use them...

Dont worry, things will be back to normal soon. As for this shard shutting down completely, dont count on it. This person seems to be a weekend hacker. So relax, it will be back soon and have faith that all your work on your chars will not be in vain.

 

[The Mookington-demise]

While normally the type of person to laugh at people, this time im going to say something halfway useful.

Yeah, i can see where you're coming from. Ive experienced it many, MANY times, where a shard will have some sort of problem, be it connection, DDoS attacks, server hardware malfunctioning, etc. And the shard will be down for a day or so, and people throw a huge fit and leave.

This is definitely not something we want to happen. I mean, think of the reliability in the past. Every time there has ever been a problem, our staff has been working on it instantly and frying their brains trying to get the shit fixxed. We've already went past a few of these DDoS attacks, and we'll probably go through more. But it is just downright stupid to blame the staff for any of it, or even do the annoying "Not to be bitchy, but im going to bitch about..." type of post. If you have nothing better to do, post on the forums, or go look at newgrounds or something.

 

[[Drakull]]

Well... the fact is that we have a serious problem. It doesn't take much from the attacker to take out the shard for 12 hours (checking the stats it seems that the null routing lasts about 12 hours to be removed, that is a normal thing considering they need to keep the network working properly). That also is a problem because a stupid kid with a script sending some ddos attacks for a relatively short time can totally block the shard those 12 hours. What could be the solution? obtaining a line where you don't get null routed for that long, but that will be so expensive that it's an unviable solution in a free shard. So the only thing we can do is having be patient, relax and enjoy this "vacation" time doing other things, and, if you want to say something about the staff during this time, you can always thank them for their efforts and hard work.

 

[ASayre]

post updated

 

[Omnibus]

So the only thing we can do is having be patient, relax and enjoy this "vacation" time doing other things, and, if you want to say something about the staff during this time, you can always thank them for their efforts and hard work.

Amen

 

[cavalier67-demise]

If I am not mistaken ... and let me know if I am ... having a firewall block all IPs but a few is still vulnerable because the firewall will have to identify the incoming connection attempts and either allow or deny them which if enough invalid connection attempts are sent it accomplishes the same thing ... it blocks up the firewall with more than it can handle ...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah I thought the same thing after. Would have to be done at osi layer 2, and but the device would have to still be able to somehow interface with the software layer (when you validate an IP) so this would have to be custom... and expensive. And to be able to handle tons of attenpts it would have to be a very powerful device, just as powerful as the server itself. But still enough packets still take down bandwidth, so it's not only a question of if they make it to the server or not, since they're making it on the network no matter what. That's the thing with DDoS, they're very cheap, but yet efficient and hard to block. So script kiddies who know nothing about hacking can still manage to do a DoS attack only with a bit of research, if none.

 

[Blue Ice]

how about we get them back? like those ips asayer put
<******> applying upstream null routing to 67.15.136.122/32 on Cogent
<******> applying upstream null routing to 67.15.136.122/32 on Verio
<******> applying upstream null routing to 67.15.136.122/32 on MFN
sounds like alot of u guys know about computers so why not just send something to them!
make it a war!
DAMN TERRORIST