914world is showing its age Options

[NARP74]

Do something before it's too late, see my previous post...

[rick 918-S]

Is it an option to migrate the current server and historical data is it currently operates to a cloud-based VM(s) to preserve the historical data, and allow it to be accessed as we're doing so now...

Yes, hard stop. Invision Power Board (this forum) uses a MySQL back end which can be migrated to any current forum software (we use XENForo). No loss of data, and no need to create an "archive" location.

The forum will look and feel differently, but all the data will be there. You just keep using it as-is (after we stop waving our canes at the sky about how things are in a different place).

It all depends on what Andy wants/needs to do. - GA

Wow! That sounds like an option. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif) I have zero computer knowledge but I would be more than happy to contribute to the cost to keep our World live. It would be a sad day to loose everything in the depths of a asteroid belt.

[densible1]

Seems to me it's important to sustain an independent community forum for posterity. Perhaps Sir Andy could calculate how much funding would it take to archive the entire data base and migrate it to powerful new servers and operating system and maintain it going forward. if we knew what that amount is a go fund me , or crowdsource launch could raise that amount.. We could see , in real time, progress towards that amount in a given amount of time. We should all chip in to help Sir

mark

[Jack Standz]

Two votes here for keeping 914world a stand-alone forum.

Another forum that i had spent way too much time on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) slowly died due to The Facebook. Definitely don't want that to happen here. The value here are all the knowledgeable members that are willing to share and help others. And the valuable historical information (if you can find it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) !).

[dr914@autoatlanta.com]

If the site would accept larger sized pictures and automatically straighten them that would be fine with me

914world is showing its age (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

The recent outage was not due to some cyber attack or malicious plotting from the darkest depths of the interwebs.

It was simply due to the forum software being overwhelmed by the amount of data stored here combined with the amount of traffic we're receiving.

Fact is, the software we're running on is more than 20 years old, written at a time when the internet was a much different place.
It was never meant to run for this long or handle the amount of data we have accumulated.


So what are our options?

- Keep going until everything crashes and burns into a pile.

- Start over fresh with a new server with new forum software. We'd be losing everything we have.

- Try to fix some of the issues by re-writing parts of the software, reworking the database and changing the way uploaded images are stored. Maybe even update the server itself while we're in there.


While the last choice seems the obvious one, the problem is that i do have a day-job that needs my attention and my time is limited.
It would also mean i'd probably have to shut down the site for a longer period of time, maybe a week or two, and maybe more than once.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

[ClayPerrine]

Two votes here for keeping 914world a stand-alone forum.

Another forum that i had spent way too much time on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) slowly died due to The Facebook. Definitely don't want that to happen here. The value here are all the knowledgeable members that are willing to share and help others. And the valuable historical information (if you can find it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) !).

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/agree.gif)


Just an FYI... I don't do Facebook, TickTock, or any other "social media". The only thing I use like that is LinkedIn. And that is for business.

Let's not go to Facebook.

[Root_Werks]

Being an IT person myself, start over. Get the forum on current platform and SW.

I use 914 World a lot and would be happy to contribute $ where I could.

[NARP74]

I have seen sites go the fb route, it's easy. Turned into a mostly younger group that lost the experienced contributors. It was never the same. I have also seen some sites that sold out. There is a big corporate group that goes around buying and converting popular sites. Then they start selling ads to pay for the site. None of those sites are ever the same again, look and feel gone, people leave in droves. Offshoots spring up but never match the old experience. It's not an age or ease of use thing for me, I have worked in IT most of my life, I make different choices.

[ClayPerrine]

How about we keep the existing site as an archive, as it is. No mods and completely read only.

We setup a new site with new software and port all the logins over from the old site. Once we cut over to the new site, we can have a search link to search the old archived site, and be able to link back to it.

I am a professional sysadmin, and I will donate all the time it takes for server setup and installation. I can even help with the software setup.

I definitely don't want to lose all of the contributions of Howard, Slits, Lapuwalli, and all of our friends that have passed.

And @gregamy , I think IPB is setup to use MSSQL for this board not MySql. Ether way, we can port the data over.



XENForo charges 195 for the license. I for one don't expect Andy to pay for the software license out of his pocket. And I don't know what the hardware requirements are for XENForo. So we may end up paying for new hardware too.

I do migrations and server capacity planning for a living. So I know this stuff. We have to CAREFULLY plan it out or we are going to be suffering withdrawls from 914World while the server is down.

[SirAndy]

Is it an option to migrate the current server and historical data is it currently operates to a cloud-based VM(s) to preserve the historical data, and allow it to be accessed as we're doing so now...

Yes, hard stop. Invision Power Board (this forum) uses a MySQL back end which can be migrated to any current forum software (we use XENForo). No loss of data, and no need to create an "archive" location.

The forum will look and feel differently, but all the data will be there. You just keep using it as-is (after we stop waving our canes at the sky about how things are in a different place).

It all depends on what Andy wants/needs to do. - GA

Wow! That sounds like an option. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

I'm afraid a migration won't be that simple. I've looked into this before.


There are several problems:

- The current forum software is the last version of IPB before they went to a subscription model. Which means it *literally* is from 2006(!). Any migration effort would need to support an IPB version that old.

- Any new forum software needs to have a way to store uploaded images on the hard-drive in a way that is scalable (Preferably a date based folder tree). Simply putting all images into one uploads folder is going to cause one of the issues we're having right now. We have over 1,300,000 images and counting in a single folder. They take up 360GB of space. I have yet to see an OS that won't balk at having that many images in a single folder.

- Any new forum software needs an option to suck down any linked images from 3rd party websites and store a copy of them locally. Otherwise you'll end up with older threads with broken and lost images.

- Any new forum software needs to be able to handle over 3 million posts in a single database table that is almost 3GB in size. I know MySql itself can handle that, but if the forum software wasn't made to handle numbers like that (like our software never was) we'll end up spending all the time to migrate just to have the same issues again (or worse).

- Any new forum software needs to be owned outright. No subscription service. We need to be able to run our own copy on our own server. Running this as a service in AWS is way too expensive.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/popcorn[1].gif)

[emerygt350]

ZFS could probably handle a folder like that, but that is no reason to keep doing what is rather poor practice.

I preserve several websites for posterity (science stuff). Stuff running on cold fusion and other long dead technologies.

Having the old site there for history is critical to me. We lost Foureyedpride.com and there were decades of really important information from engineers that are no longer with us, stories from Ford employees, etc. All gone.

Definitely move to free and new but hopefully choose something with a sane backend (like mysql or whatever flavor you like). I wouldn't bother importing old info if you can preserve what we have like a museum piece (put it up on blocks?).

[Superhawk996]

- Any new forum software needs an option to suck down any linked images from 3rd party websites and store a copy of them locally. Otherwise you'll end up with older threads with broken and lost images.

- Any new forum software needs to be owned outright. No subscription service.

I have no IT expertise but SirAndy’s dedication to these principles is what makes this site so useful and unique.

Most sites and forums are so loaded with broken links it makes them useless and not worth revisiting.


I don’t know the answers to the problem at hand but trust SirAndy’s wisdom on these two points alone.

Here to help in anyway that a gearhead mechanical engineer can; even if that is only to chip in on costs to do what needs doing.

[mb911]

ZFS could probably handle a folder like that, but that is no reason to keep doing what is rather poor practice.

I preserve several websites for posterity (science stuff). Stuff running on cold fusion and other long dead technologies.

Having the old site there for history is critical to me. We lost Foureyedpride.com and there were decades of really important information from engineers that are no longer with us, stories from Ford employees, etc. All gone.

Definitely move to free and new but hopefully choose something with a sane backend (like mysql or whatever flavor you like). I wouldn't bother importing old info if you can preserve what we have like a museum piece (put it up on blocks?).

Man I was on foureyedpride for a few years. That was a great site

[SKL1]

Agree 1000% with Clay about facebook, etc. Proud to say I've never done facebook or tik tok etc. Hell, I spend enough time between here, rennlist, and autosport.

Just don't want to lose all the information we have here, a lot of which is probably 10-15 years old. I mean our cars are over 50 years old!!!!

[GregAmy]

I'm afraid a migration won't be that simple. I've looked into this before.

Our guy just did some miracles on some really old stuff. Like 2000 vintage VBulletin. If you want to talk to him, I can introduce you.

And we do run our own software. We buy a license and download and install it. We don’t have virtual servers that some are going to. It continues to run even if you don’t buy licenses for updates.

But...do whatcha gotta do. I'll hang out here until it all dies in a fire.

[Chris914n6]

Sounds like we need to put TC on a time out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) It's a fun thread to look thru but it's not the important stuff. That's 240,000 images.

I haven't done web design in 20 years either, so I don't have much to offer as a solution.

Anything is possible now that AI writes code.

[TK0130]

Is it an option to migrate the current server and historical data is it currently operates to a cloud-based VM(s) to preserve the historical data, and allow it to be accessed as we're doing so now...

Yes, hard stop. Invision Power Board (this forum) uses a MySQL back end which can be migrated to any current forum software (we use XENForo). No loss of data, and no need to create an "archive" location.

The forum will look and feel differently, but all the data will be there. You just keep using it as-is (after we stop waving our canes at the sky about how things are in a different place).

It all depends on what Andy wants/needs to do. - GA

Wow! That sounds like an option. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/idea.gif)

I'm afraid a migration won't be that simple. I've looked into this before.


There are several problems:

- The current forum software is the last version of IPB before they went to a subscription model. Which means it *literally* is from 2006(!). Any migration effort would need to support an IPB version that old.

- Any new forum software needs to have a way to store uploaded images on the hard-drive in a way that is scalable (Preferably a date based folder tree). Simply putting all images into one uploads folder is going to cause one of the issues we're having right now. We have over 1,300,000 images and counting in a single folder. They take up 360GB of space. I have yet to see an OS that won't balk at having that many images in a single folder.

- Any new forum software needs an option to suck down any linked images from 3rd party websites and store a copy of them locally. Otherwise you'll end up with older threads with broken and lost images.

- Any new forum software needs to be able to handle over 3 million posts in a single database table that is almost 3GB in size. I know MySql itself can handle that, but if the forum software wasn't made to handle numbers like that (like our software never was) we'll end up spending all the time to migrate just to have the same issues again (or worse).

- Any new forum software needs to be owned outright. No subscription service. We need to be able to run our own copy on our own server. Running this as a service in AWS is way too expensive.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/popcorn[1].gif)

Just thought I would chip in that it appears Discourse covers migration with their business plan (expensive... but they do it for you) https://discourse.org/pricing

Then once migration is over, you could switch to self hosting it maybe?

Edit: Found a topic from 8 years ago discussing a similar migration: https://meta.discourse.org/t/migrating-from...course/34639/16

I have no experience with running forums and no affiliation with them, just thought it interesting. I have 24TB of spare storage running on truenas scale if you want a redundant backup in cold storage during a migration (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[BillJ]

Would be happy to donate funds to the cause

[StratPlayer]

Would be happy to donate funds to the cause

Ditto, been on this board for 22 years do what it takes to keep it running.

[nivekdodge]

I'm In also

Kevin