EBA down?

[Agamemnon]

Looks like the EBA site has fallen over. Have been trying to access it most of the day without success. Anybody else noticed that? :confused:

[teonanacatl]

yeah me 2, i doubt eccles is doing the site revamp over christmas though so it prolly a server prob.

[hebrew]

i wonder how long it will be down for?

[planthelper]

i am worried, because now an "alpha something" web hosting page comes up instead.

so i asume the domain name is up for grabs?

[hebrew]

yeah, maybe eccles hasnt paid the next years subscription? this might sound lame but i miss it.

[maclicious]

I've been trying since Christmas to log in but cannot. There are some private messages that I can't read because I can't log in. If anyone on this forum sent me a private message through EBA can you resend it to me here? Thanks & all the best for the year.

maclicious

[Guest electro]

the domain name is still there

i vaguely remember eccles saying that he was moving the hosting to alpha though, so im guessing that the server has accidently deleted the site or they have stopped hosting it coz money for hosting has not been paid.

[ 04. January 2005, 09:51: Message edited by: electro ]

[planthelper]

i just went through my paper work and found eccles po box addy, maybe some of us can writte him and find out what's up.

j.r. ponza

po box 896

epping 2121

nsw

maybe donations would help,

c on let's find out.

edit; postcode

[ 02. January 2005, 10:01: Message edited by: planthelper ]

[Torsten]

eccles hosts EBA on an alpha server, so there is nothing sinister about the alpha homepage. He has also paid the domain name for several years after the problems he had last time which were caused by him forgetting to pay the registration bill.

So I presume alpha has for some reason deleted his domain or his files from their server. This can be due to a crash, a server problem, a hack, an upgrade or because he got kicked off. eccles has some association with alpha beyond just being a customer, so I am sure this isn't a politically motivated issue either.

Surely someone here must have eccles phone number. Please give him a call and let him know what's going on.

[maclicious]

thanks for the info torsten, any more info when known would be greatly appreciated.

[Torsten]

I haven't had any contact with eccles other than via email, and I would presume that this would be down too (in any case it takes him weeks to reply usually).

But didn't someone from the central coast visit him recently. Surely that person would have some personal contact details? Can't remember who that was though.

[hebrew]

i think it was visualfx?? i think they met up for a gift some people raised for the birth of his son.

[SaBReT00tH]

Arghh, I miss EBA. I'm having withdrawal symptoms!!

[gomaos]

yeah, I wonder what's happening....?

[Guest electro]

also the domain may be paid for for years but hosting (which is done by alpha, rather than by melbourne it or ozhosting [the two primary domain resellers in australia]) is a seperate cost which can be billed monthly .

the domain name is also still pointing at the right ip, which is why im blaming the isp (either deletion of files or more likely alpha suspending the account OR an ip aliasing problem. i say this because the ip address is not responding - removing the ip alias would be the easiest way to disable a site if someone didnt pay, it would also criple a site if some sysadmin accidently deleted the alias.

if the latter is the case the isp might not even know...

[ 04. January 2005, 09:52: Message edited by: electro ]

[tomtom]

afoaf tells me that the problem has been a virus/bug believed to have originated by google ..

i'm no computer geek so i dont know the details..

also if it gets back up he may need immediate finacial help to continue the site ..

previous requests for donations went unheard..

personally i didnt donate BUT now i realise that it is much missed and would be willing to help out as im sure many of you would judging by these posts ..fingers crossed.

[Torsten]

Originally posted by Tomtom:

also if it gets back up he may need immediate finacial help to continue the site ..

I would have thought it was either a tech problem or a financial problem. Now it seems to be both?

previous requests for donations went unheard..

personally i didnt donate

I donated and I seem to remember few others did too. It's just that after the initial request it was never mentioned again so most people probably forgot. The fact that eccles only pops into his forums like once a month or so probably doesn't help either.

I miss EA too. The SAB forums totally change whenever EA goes down....

[Chemakazi]

Hi everyone.

A few of you know i admin EBA for eccles as he isnt around much usually because he is busy with uni and his family. I sent him a email about 2 weeks ago letting him know the site was down but i havnt heard back from him, however this was to his EBA email address and the chances are that if the site isnt working then either is the email. Ive also tried calling him to no avail either. I think his hosting has been cancelled by alpha.net.au.

I dont think its due to the google exploit because it would effect other boxes on the network at alpha.net.au and they seem to be doing fine. The ip is dead for his domain and doesnt reply.

One good thing is i have a complete backup i took a few days before it happened so everyones posts and the forum itself is safe *note* weekly backups are a wise thing to do see

I have a few spare hosting accounts from the days when i was a webdesigner so I will register the domain name http://ethnobotany-australia.org and place the forums there until we can find out what is going on with eccles.

Later on when the problem can be rectified (hopefully), we can swap them back or if money is a issue i can donate the hosting+name to eccles to help support the site we all enjoy.

Regards.

[Rev]

So what kind of financial burden is a site like EA anyway? on a monthly basis?

[Darklight]

Chemakazi:

I have a few spare hosting accounts from the days when i was a webdesigner so I will register the domain name  http://ethnobotany-australia.org  and place the forums there until we can find out what is going on with eccles.

That's a really cool thing to do cob, good on you

[Guest electro]

if its a temporary thing dont register a paid one

use something like http://www.freedomain.co.nr/ to get "ETHNOBOTANY-AUSTRALIA.CO.NR" free

[mesq]

Yay I think its really good of you Chemakazi.... I miss eba..

[Chemakazi]

Ok i have setup a hosting account, it will take about 48 hours for the domain name to propgate through the dns servers before it will be available.

Electro: most paid hosting packages include the domain name for free so better to get it rather than let it go to waste, the name could always be used for some other good cause that someone might need it for later on down the track.

Regards.

[eccles]

Hi there!!

I'm so *so* sorry about all this! Tomtom got it absolutely spot on - the culprit was the internet worm that was using google to randomly find sites that use the phpBB software to exploit (it was actually a PHP security hole, but this forum software had a specific exploit written for it).

The site was in fact taken down by alpha.net.au - or rather, a redirect was put in so that it was inacessible, and I was called by them about it - he said it was for my own good so I wouldn't lose all my hard work - and he said I should just upgrade to the latest version of the software or apply the patches, and then I could put it back up again. Unfortunately it took some time. I had done it days and days ago, but there were several security checks I had to make to ensure the new version wouldn't be compromised.

Thanyou all for your support and concern - and to Chemakazi for his active role in keeping the site going.

[mesq]

Thanks guys.