Well, the server was hacked. Since it's out in Dallas I can't do much about it at the moment.

I admit it, I haven't updated anything in a while and it seems like someone exploited something and used a root kit.

Anyway, I did all I could to remove the root kit until I just tried to reboot, and it never came back.

Sad, I know. I don't know what I am going to do at this moment. My options are to purchase another server and ship it over, or to get the current server shipped, I fix it, then ship it back.

I guess both options will take about the same amount of time.

What's your setup, you guys have your own dedicated server? Or do you mean the entire induktion server was rooted (I noticed that was down too.)

Induktion.com is my personal dedicated server.

Someone got root on the box, and it's pretty much out of commision until I do a full reinstall.

Now the box is located in Dallas, so it makes it a big hard for me to get to it. It makes me wonder if it's worth going to a local data center.

I guess it depends on how often you think this would happen. Can't you get some help from the place hosting it? Just curious but how do you handle backups? I have no idea what you have on the rest of the sites, I'm assuming some are unique/specific which is why you have your own box.

Sorry to hear about your problems though, that sucks.

Since I have no access to a tape drive or anything, I actually backup to a server here at home.

I setup an FTP here and upload daily incremental backups and weekly full.

I'm going to ask the people at the hosting place if I send them a hard drive if they would install it. This would be the easiest way.

Okay, an update.

I called my host and ordered some admin time for a HD install. I will purchase a HD tonight set it up and ship it overnight tomorrow.

The only problem is Oracle. It's a beast. It takes hours on hours to set that bastard up. I hate it. I may just skip on this and not install it.

Saddly since I learned SQL on Oracle, a lot of my early code is Oracle specific. I use =(+) for joins, etc. So some of my older code (njax.net, asktaco.com) must be updated, which isn't going to be fun.

Every other site uses mySQL so that's not a problem.

jorge you poor poor man

Oracle makes my teeth hurt

If you need any help you can always call me
I dont know anything about oracle anymore but i can laways listen to you as you rant and rave and swear and curse about it. Just dont call while im playing World of Warcraft.

:-P

I shipped the new HD this morning. Sent it overnight. So I hope they'll have it in my Friday, so I can finish setting it up on Sunday.

Anyway, if anything good comes out of this, at least we'll have a much more secure box now, and now we'll have over 300 gigs to play with.

I'm reading up on Oracle recovery, so I may give in and install that bastard.

I haven't lost any data at this point, so I may be able to recover everything, including email.

After dealing with the server people for a while they installed the new hard drive yesterday afternoon.

I started the recovery procress yesterday, it's taking forever.

I found the Oracle install files, which thank god I saved because:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/products/oracle8i/index.html

The version on there is 8i, so it's pretty old.

Anyway, I setup Apache/PHP/mySQL last night, but didn't import any data. Email is working fine, and now I'm trying to find a more paranoid way to FTP and email.

I guess I can sFTP, but that's always slow, but least it's secure. And it's about time I use POP w/SSL.

Anyway, I get an exciting night of installing Oracle when I get home. Oracle is a pain since it NEEDS to use the graphical install. And it takes hours on hours, so if the connection drops I'm screwed. How I usually do it is run it using VNC, since if my connection drops I can just reconnect and continue. Oh how I missed the console based install days.

Oh, and if everything goes well I should get the NJAX messageboard up by tomorrow.

The NJAX site may be gone for a little longer, since that uses Oracle.

Jorge, just to let you know all your work on NJAX board is appreciated. Thanks

k_enn

Thanks.

The board is up now.

Oracle is having this strange problem that the connections do not close, so over time they collect.

But every site that doesn't use it works fine.

Fixed it. It wasn't oracle. The Apache log for one of the domains was going to a script I wrote to parse and dump the data into the database. But the script was missing, so it wouldn't close the session.

Anyway, it works now.