Area51 Informational

Master Server Cluster - Reboot/Hardware Upgrade

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:23:00 GMT

The system went down during our maintenance window tonight for a few minutes longer than a standard reboot as some hardware was upgraded on a Master Server Cluster.

The Outage was approximately 10 minutes and effected some mail and web services.

Maintenance (Brief Outages)

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:19:00 GMT

Network Grid Maintenance

Brief downtime on the main Switches while they are moved to new UPS system.
Brief downtime on main dns & dns management while they are moved to new UPS system.
Brief downtime for several web clusters as while they are moved to new USP system.

No system will be down for more then 5 minutes.

Brief Down time for main Web Server Cluster Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:59:00 GMT

Brief Down time for main Web Server Cluster Maintenance

12:00AM 11-04-2008

Server Upgrades

Shawn Hyde — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 07:53:00 GMT

Some Shared Servers within the Area51 Network have been upgraded to support the growing client base. These Upgrades were done between our normal maintenance periods this morning from 1:00am until 3:00am CST.

Upgrades Done:

Increased RAM on most servers
Faster HDD Arrays Implemented on some high traffic servers
Increased Disk Space on some servers nearing our designated maximum allocation.

Main Server Cluster Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:20:00 GMT

Possible partial outage of services"

From: 09-13-2008 12:00AM CST

until: 09-13-2008 1:00AM CST

Maintenance on Main Power Grid (Brief Outage)

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 07:33:00 GMT

This will affect all services for not more than 5 minutes while we do some work on the main power grid. All systems/servers will remain online however this grid down will affect some core routers causing unreachable errors for approximately 5 minutes.

Downtime: 5 minutes Time: 1:45AM CST

We are very sorry for any troubles this may cause you and thank you for your understanding.

-Area51 Team

Network Upgrades

Shawn Hyde — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:09:00 GMT

Between the hours of 1:00AM and 4:00AM we will be doing Some Network Upgrades, Some systems may go offline for as long as 10 minutes. If you have any questions or concerns about this please contact your personal account specialist.

Dates: 12/07/2007, 12/8/2007, 12/14/2007, 12/15/2007

Firmware Upgrade on a Core Switch - 1 to 5 minutes of downtime for some systems.

Shawn Hyde — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:09:00 GMT

Firmware Upgrade on a Core Switch - 1 to 5 minutes of downtime for some systems.

A core Switch is undergoing a Firmware upgrade that requires a full reboot of the switch, this reboot will affect many of our hosted services.

The downtime will be a maximum of 5 minutes.

The full reboot will be done at 7:30PM CST so it does not affect nightly maintenance and backups on the network.

Quick Security Patch 8:00PM

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 01:16:00 GMT

Some reports of being disconnected from the mail services at 8:00PM today when a small security patch was done. Users may have had to close outlook or similar mail client and reopen it again in order to see email.

Sorry for any troubles this may have caused.

Power Grid Falure

Shawn Hyde — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 03:58:00 GMT

Some Services will be down while we work on the grid.

10:59PM 08/18/2007

Community Server Drop Down Menu and Quick Navigation

Shawn Hyde — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 04:31:00 GMT

You'll notice this site has a drop down menu / Quick Navigation and is using Community Server.

After reading some about it I thought it best to write down the basics as it's currently not very easy to understand in the sources that I had found.

Here is all that has been done to make it look this way.

In SiteUrls.config within the "navigation" tag

<link name="cs-community" navigateUrl="#" text="Navagation" />



<link name="controlpanel" resourceUrl="controlpanel" resourceName="controlpanel" roles="SystemAdministrator,BlogAdministrator,ForumsAdministrator,Moderator,GalleryAdministrator,FileAdministrator,ReaderAdministrator,MembershipAdministrator" />

<link name="purchase" navigateUrl="/purchase" text="Purchase" />
<link name="emaillogin" navigateUrl="/mail/" text="SSL Email" />
<link name="calendar" resourceUrl="calendarhome" text="Calendar" />

In Master.Master

<script language="C#" runat="server">

protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e)
{
  switch (CSContext.Current.SiteThemeData.GetIntValue("columns", 2))
  {
   case -1:
    // one column, left (right content is rendered below left content)
    lc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarLeft\">"));
    lc.Controls.Add(rc);
    lc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    break;

   case 1:
    // one column, right (left content is rendered above right content)
    rc.Controls.AddAt(0, lc);
    rc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarRight\">"));
    rc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    break;

   default:
    // two columns
    lc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarLeft\">"));
    lc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    rc.Controls.AddAt(0, new LiteralControl("<div id=\"CommonSidebarRight\">"));
    rc.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl("</div>"));
    break;
  }

   Telligent.Glow.PopupMenu communityMenu = CSControlUtility.Instance().FindControl(this, "CommunityPopup") as Telligent.Glow.PopupMenu;
   if (communityMenu != null)
  {
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" Introduction", SiteUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" Help Center", SiteUrls.Instance().ForumsHome, null, null));
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" Downloads Area", CommunityServer.Files.Components.FileGalleryUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
            communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" The Gallery", SiteUrls.Instance().GalleriesHome, null, null));
   communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem(" News Articles", SiteUrls.Instance().WeblogsHome, null, null));
   //communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem("Events", CommunityServer.Files.Components.FileGalleryUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
   //communityMenu.MenuItems.Add(new Telligent.Glow.PopupMenuItem("Fighters", CommunityServer.Files.Components.FileGalleryUrls.Instance().Home, null, null));
   Page.ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript(this.GetType(), "menus", @"
   <script type=""text/javascript"">
   // <![CDATA[
   var menu = document.getElementById('communityMenu');
   if (menu)
   menu.onmouseover= new Function('navigation_showPopup(" + communityMenu.ClientID + @", this);');
   // ]]>
   </" + "script>", false);
  }
base.OnInit(e);
}

</script>

and

  <TWC:PopupMenu ID="CommunityPopup" runat="server" MenuGroupCssClass="CommonContextMenuGroup" MenuItemCssClass="CommonContextMenuItem" MenuItemSelectedCssClass="CommonContextMenuItemHover" MenuItemExpandedCssClass="CommonContextMenuItemExpanded" MenuItemIconWidth="0" MenuItemIconHeight="0" MenuDirection="UpDown" />
  <script type="text/javascript">
  // <![CDATA[
  var navigation_popup = null;
  function navigation_showPopup(popup, element) { if (popup && !popup.IsOpen()) { navigation_hidePopup(); popup.OpenAtElement(element); navigation_popup = popup; } }
  function navigation_hidePopup() { if (navigation_popup) { navigation_popup.Close(); navigation_popup = null; } }
  // ]]>
  </script>
   <div id="CommonNavigation">
    <div class="Common">
     <CSControl:NavigationList runat="server">
     <HeaderTemplate><ul></HeaderTemplate>
     <ItemTemplate>
    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkCssClass="Selected" LinkTo="Link" Property="Text" onmouseover="navigation_hidePopup();">
        <DisplayConditions>
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            <CSControl:Conditions Operator="Not" runat="server">
                <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
            </CSControl:Conditions>
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>
    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkTo="Link" Property="Text" onmouseover="navigation_hidePopup();">
        <DisplayConditions Operator="Not">
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>

    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkCssClass="Selected" LinkTo="Link" ContainerId="communityMenu" Property="Text">
        <DisplayConditions>
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>
    <CSControl:CSLinkData runat="server" Tag="Li" LinkTo="Link" Property="Text" ContainerId="communityMenu">
        <DisplayConditions Operator="And">
            <CSControl:Conditions Operator="Not" runat="server">
                <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="IsSelected" Operator="IsSetOrTrue" />
            </CSControl:Conditions>
            <CSControl:CSLinkPropertyValueComparison runat="server" ComparisonProperty="Name" Operator="EqualTo" ComparisonValue="cs-community" />
        </DisplayConditions>
    </CSControl:CSLinkData>
</ItemTemplate>
<FooterTemplate></ul></FooterTemplate>
</CSControl:NavigationList>
</div>
</div>

Thats it, you can of course change the css and modify how the menu looks.

Information for this guide was derived mostly from Ben Tiedt on the http://communityserver.org/ forums.

Today's Average Screen Resolution?

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:44:00 GMT

As a developer we all want to tailor to as many clients without neglecting others so optimizing your designs for today's average screen resolution is a very good idea. Well their maybe an average overall you may want to consider checking on a per site basis, this can be done with scripts and logging. One application that offers such tools that is free is Aw-stats and open source logging application that works with most hosting platforms. An example of these logs can bee seen in our own web hosting statistics here at Area51. After you have determined the resolutions/screen size your clients use on this site you can design around those requirements.

Area51 Services Launches new Reseller/Data Center community area!

Shawn Hyde — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 02:45:00 GMT

In our continuing effort to provide better services to our clients we have revamped the reseller/data center community area at http://fusionzero.com.

Security Exploit - Patch/Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 01 May 2007 20:12:00 GMT

Normally we do not take down any services during daytime hours however do to a potentially large security risk some services where taken offline while we patched for the exploit between 13:36 CST & 14:42. The services will be taken down again between 01:00 & 03:00 CST tonight to update additional services for best performance. We are sorry if this cause you any inconveniences however we determined the risk with this exploit to supersede the need to wait until our nightly maintenance times.

This affected some web based interfaces on our servers. This did not affect the ability to use or send email via SMTP, POP3, IMAP services.

Automated Database Backups - Maintenance

Shawn Hyde — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:21:00 GMT

Every Sunday from 00:00 to 01:00 Area51 does a full backup of all databases on our systems, Services may seem a bit slow at this time. This does not affect custom database services (CDS) provided to some clients.