W e l c o m e t o t h e M e n a g e r i e - m e n a g e r i e . t f
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2003.01.12 15h38 - To bring everyone up to speed:
(GMT) Menagerie is now on its new provider/IP address.
All DNS propogation should now be completed, to restore a
more stable system then before. (Anything else is
therefore verizon's fault!).
We are hoping to have the records updated to bring the
secondardy DNS online too, which will speed up this in
the future if we have to go though it again.
All the vhosting systems (menagerie.tf and trrx.com)
are now reset and should be working as before.
Chloe. (so I'm not as good at words as the roo)
2002.05.18 03h37 - The brief outage experienced this morning can be summed up
in two parts. First, there was a storm which knocked out
the Precambrian power line to half of the apartment block
in which this server is housed. Second, the fool-proof
and fail-safe IBM-brand UPS on which the server runs turns
out to be worth exactly its weight in llama excrement. We
had no control over either of these, but you bet your
sweet bippy we're going to find out if there is a single
UPS on this planet that actually does what it says on the
tin; Supply Power, Uninterrupted.
2002.05.02 13h53 - Our server move, while not really announced in advance due
to very tight time requirements (as in, your humble admins
only knew the day of the move that it had to be moved) has
gone off with very few hitches, and while we're working
diligently to iron out the problems like the quirky IRC
server and name resolution, our users can sleep safe in
the knowledge that not one byte of data was lost in the
shuffle, nor have any other calamities befallen the
service. If anything seems terribly out of place, please
let us know, and we'll have it back up and running soon.
Many, many apologies for the suddenness of all this.
2002.01.14 10h19 - In retrospect, we realized here at Muppet Labs-- er,
Menagerie I.S., that some of your users may not even know
what SSH is. Given the fact that we not only encourage
the use of secure protocols, but are very soon shutting
down FTP services in favor of SCP, your humble siteadmin
has put together a page detailing what you need to know to
connect, especially where to get client software. The new
information can be found on our page about security.
2002.01.13 19h16 - Little safety tip for anyone who finds that our SSH host
key has changed; it has indeed, and on purpose. We've
installed the newest release of openssh and thus your SSH
client should give you a nice big warning about the key
change. (If it doesn't, then you're using the wrong
client!) Please e-mail to confirm the key you get.
2001.08.19 17h15 - This one wasn't our fault, folks. The DSL provider this
box is hosted on was using Rhythms for its backbone, which
went out of business. An emergency switch was made by the
provider to Covad, which is not yet out of business. Our
IP address was not supposed to change, but it did, so the
apparent outage has actually merely been the delay in DNS
propagation one would expect from a dubious registrar such
as our beloved AdamsNames. We were here the whole time,
but pretty well invisible. We cannot apologize enough for
the inconvenience.... Actually, we can't apologize at all
because it wasn't our fault. This sort of thing happens,
even to good people like us. At least it's fixed now. We
offer our sincerest wishes that no important e-mail
bounced irretrievably. In other news, there will be a
server upgrade to a newer, kinder, gentler Linux kernel in
about two weeks, and we'll give specifics as soon as we
have them (and the outage should only be three hours.)
2001.06.07 14h03 - The DSL provider for out co-lo spot has had some poor luck
lately, eh? Their backbone, L3, had a router failure at
their Philadelphia node, meaning brief outage. Of course,
they popped in their replacement and all was well, but one
still wonders if this was merely unfortunate coincidence
of outages, or if perhaps we have displeased the gods....
2001.05.24 18h48 - Connection Chopped? Menagerie Mangled? Backhoe Bloopers.
Looks like someone managed to cut some fiber way upstream,
leaving not only Menagerie but 250,000 other connections
completely hosed for a little under four hours. Though
we certainly didn't cause it, we apologize for any and all
inconvenience. Remember, though, if you contribute to the
Critters Against Errant Backhoes Fund (slogan: Fiber and
Construction Equipment Don't Mix), we can keep this kind
of senseless tragedy from reoccurring.
2001.03.15 12h15 - Sorry for the most recent downtime, a whopping four days,
but consider it an upgrade; the server, and its owner and
humble siteadmin, are now happily relocated in a small
town near Philadelphia, and the server itself is running
off what we in the business call "mad-phat pipe". Sure,
there's a new IP address, and there was that downtime, but
in the end we're all happier here, and more comfortable
with the bandwidth we've been loaned, courtesy of Bear-X
at lycanthrope.org. If anything is broken, please let us
know. Apologies for any inconvenience.
2000.11.21 11h49 - Dear friends, we have a winner. Joanne Hunter has been
the first person to admit to checking this page for the
occasional update, and it turns out she's been looking at
it regularly for quite some time. Hats off to you. Your
cookie is in the mail.
2000.07.20 06h30 - There once was an admin in Dallas
Who'd grown, about Windows, quite callous
He put Slackware on his box
And said "Verily, this rocks!"
And swore at Bill Gates with much malice.
- da 'Roo
2000.07.10 23h11 - Your ever-devoted site-admin was once an employee of the
ISP through which Menagerie is connected. When that ISP
was bought and the tech support moved, I was left without
exployment, but a couple bonus paychecks and a short time
of free service as a consolation prize. The free service
was supposed to last until 2000.07.15, but there was a
billing error and the service was disconnected during the
admins' trip to Chicago. We've got it all cleared up now,
sorry for the inconvenience. (Yes, this one was our fault.
SWBell still sucks, though.)
2000.06.12 16h27 - Torches and shotguns, folks. Your humble site-admin is
looking for large-scale providers of the aforementioned,
'cause I'm lookin' to mob Southwestern Bell. They screwed
around with our ISP's connection Wednesday evening, didn't
fix it until Saturday morning, and then we still weren't
up until this fine Monday afternoon, as a result of a tiny
glitch at the ISP (that wouldn't have been an issue, save
for more SWBell stupidity.) As a warning to all citizens,
do not, under any circumstances, trust SWBell for mission-
critical connectivity. They will fail you.
2000.05.03 18h24 - Your ever-vigilant site admin was watching the local
severe thunderstorm turn into punding hail when, rather
expectedly, the power went out. The system was down for a
few minutes while the power was out, and then another few
while it booted and ran fsck. All is well, now.
2000.04.16 12h57 - Our insanely devoted Pikachu-impersonating sysadmin has
finally gotten around to manually restarting the webserver
after the realization that it was not configured to start
automatically on boot properly. Feel free to throw any
available rotten tomatoes or Pokéballs at her. It
is back up now.
2000.04.16 12h22 - Apparently, we had a power outage last night, which
doesn't come as much of a surprise to anyone who may have
seen the massive electrical storm that lit up the sky as
your fearless admins were on their way to a midnight show
of Rocky Horror Picture Show. For about an hour, we were
completely disconnected, though we were too busy making
fun of Tim Curry in drag. I'll take this moment just to
mention that your devoted sysadmin does a very impressive
impression of Pikachu faking an orgasm. Thank you.
2000.04.10 11h41 - Southwestern Bell is evil, evil, evil. Last night, the
DS3 that goes to our beloved ISP (and my employer) started
to act weird, resulting in an inability to make any new
connections to or from us. This lasted for a half-hour or
so, and started around midnight last night. You know how
it is, your pipe acts funny and you don't go watching the
clock, you just reach for the phone and call SWB. Do not
restrict bandwidth of Happy Fun Admin. Do not subject
Happy Fun Admin to extreme heat or cold. Do not taunt
or abuse Happy Fun Admin! Happy Fun Admin, I choose you!
2000.03.21 16h59 - Remember, kids, when a friend asks you if he can run a
quick check for security holes and exploits on your box,
ask him to wait until there won't be any user online, and
someone there to watch it. About a half-hour of downtime
will remind us of that, you can be certain. (Good news?
It wasn't a security hole, just your average attack of
too-many-connections-at-once. Nothing to worry about,
citizens.)
2000.03.05 11h41 - Menagerie.tf experienced a temporary but thankfully brief
outage when Kristina got a burr up her tail to have her
speakers back, necessitating a move of the DSL modem off
of her desk and into the closet with the server, where it
will be fed nothing but a diet of stale UUNet packets and
water. Pity the poor DSL modems. For less than the
price of a cup of coffee a day, you can ensure that these
starving routers receive a full diet of fresh packets and
clean bandwidth. Save the routers.
2000.03.01 23h02 - Super hyper-ultra mad phat k-rad 31337 phase-hamsters have
attacked the backbone our ISP runs off of, meaning next to
nothing for normal bandwidth, but your humble site admin
cannot listen to streamed MP3 audio because of dropped
packets. This make site admin angry. Admin not like when
admin no have MP3! Do not feed the kangaroos. You have
been warned. (Oh, and there's a contest on. Does anybody
read this page? Be the first to send mail to the admin,
and you get a free return e-mail. Oh, and that means the
site admin, not the system admin.)
2000.02.26 18h35 - Electrical storms are the bane of those unfortunate
system operators who lack proper battery backups for their
computers. This would explain Menagerie's downtime last
night. Though only a few minutes in length, the outage
did knock out a seventeen-day uptime. No hardware was
destroyed in the making of this light-show.
2000.02.15 15h03 - Menagerie domain name finally resolves, thanks to the
valiant efforts of AdamsNames to quickly and efficiently
correct the errors that were keeping us from doing so.
(Also, tracerj finally gets around to setting up reverse
domain name resolution with the ISP. Hooray.)
2000.02.10 00h49 - Menagerie site goes online, with much effort by our staff,
and very little assistance from our domain name registrar,
AdamsNames. Record time for creation of ASCII logo.
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