WARNING !

[Uncle Al]

All members beware

The Cafe' may have been HACKED.
This might have occurred at the hosting site server.
I was able to log into the Cafe', but am unable to log in
on the Admin page. Our Master Barista is, somehow, locked out

Will update this post IF/WHEN a resolution is found.

(Nasty buggers )

Uncle Al

[crfriend]

Our Master Barista is, somehow, locked out

Will update this post IF/WHEN a resolution is found.

The situation seems to have self-resolved -- which as a old-school technician I hate -- but I'm logged in now and can access the administrative stuff.

It MAY be related to an overloaded server, or possibly a new version of PHP that got installed behind the scenes. The situation is still evolving.

[crfriend]

Note: There are still problems afoot, my latest attempt to update the ant-spam stuff failed with a "shell request failed on channel 0" error which points out that the server is still overloaded. I have no idea when (or if) this condition is going to clear properly.

This error is particularly damning: "-bash: fork: Resource temporarily unavailable".

[Uncle Al]

If you're logged in, DO NOT LOG OUT!
I logged out on my laptop and can't log back in.
I'm still logged in on my cellphone and I'm not
changing anything until this is cleared up.

At this point, indications are that the problem
is at the host site.


Uncle Al

[crfriend]

At this point, indications are that the problem is at the host site.

All available evidence points to that, and it's entirely likely system resource exhaustion, and we're seeing the result of that.

I was able to get into a command-line prompt this morning, and into the database, and reset everybody's login-attempt-counters that had essentially locked them out. I do not know whether the situation is corrected or will reoccur. I was able to grab a copy of the database image from yesterday and pull it into my lab. That won't give me the root cause, but it will allow me to try and develop evasion tactics so there's less damage done by this mess.

Ultimately, I think the answer is going to be the painful option of, "waiting it out".

If this keeps up, I'll contact the Barista Emeritus and seek guidance and leverage. I remain in close contact with the other US-based staff (but lack an international plan on my mobile, so haven't been in touch with Denimini).

[crfriend]

Well, it looks like we're out of the woods with our last upset. Web access seems normal, and I have seen restored shell-level access, which is a massive improvement. Thus, my conclusion is "resource starvation on the shared host, possibly by one of the containers thereon that got cracked, that the hosting company finally discovered and fixed".

If everything holds for the next 24 hours I'll release some of the "emergency tactics" I put in place temporarily.

If anybody still has login issues, please e-mail me directly at the address just below the masthead on each page. At last look (seconds ago) everyone listed as active users are OK from problems.