Amibay is moving home!

Harrison

Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2007
Posts
10,153
Country
UK
Region
West Sussex
As some of you know we have experienced some issues with the current server we are hosting Amibay on. Some members have experienced slow access speeds at random times of the day, and others have had issues with the server's email system not sending them notifications. This is mainly due to the site's current hosting company now over subscribing its shared server hosting plans.

Therefore it has been decided to move Amibay to a new hosting server, which will hopefully fix these issues.

Where is Amibay moving to?

Amibay's new hosting server is part of the Classicamiga.com network, which consists of 2 dedicated servers I own in a German Data Centre. Amibay.com will be sharing one of these dedicated servers with classicamiga's forum and a couple of other sites classicamiga hosts for others in the Amiga community. Amibay.com once moved will therefore only be sharing server time and space with classicamiga and no other sites or hosting accounts. This ensures the site is given a lot more server time and also that complete control over the hosting of the site is under our control.

These dedicated servers also have a dual backup policy with mirrored harddrives for data security, and also a daily full server backup performed by the datacentre. In addition to these measures the same weekly database and file structure backups will still be performed by myself and stored offline away from the actual server in case of future hardware failure.

When will the move take place?

The server move is schedules to take place this evening at 11pm.

Preparation for the move

In preparation for this server move a couple of forum features are being disabled today. No attachments will be allowed to be posted by members from 12pm today. This is to allow time for the current attachments held on the existing Amibay.com server to be backed up and copied to the new server. This is quite a large backup of over 370MB so will take time to copy over to the new server. Disabling this forum feature will ensure that all existing attachments get safely moved over to the new server and no new attachments go missing.

The file structure of Amibay has already been backed up and uploaded to the new server, so that is already in place. A test copy of the site has also already been ported over to the new server and tested. It works perfectly and the site performs faster that it currently does on its existing server. I therefore know that Amibay works on the new server and the server is ready to receive it.

What will happen during the move?

At 11pm GMT tonight the existing Amibay.com site will be taken offline. A message will be placed on the site informing all members that we are currently moving to a new hosting server. Whilst the site is offline the current database will be backed up and copied over to the new server. The database will be the only part of the site that will actually need to be migrated over to the new server at 11pm as the rest of the site will already have been moved over ready for the move during today.

Once the database has been moved and the site successfully up and running the message on this existing version of Amibay will be updated to give all members a temporary redirection web address to continue accessing and using Amibay on the new server. This is because the Amibay.com url will need to have its DNS settings updated to point to the new server, and this can take up to 72 hours for the new settings to work for all members depending on their location.

The other 3 Amibay domains, Amibay.co.uk, Amibay.org and Amibay.net will also all be having their DNS settings updated at the same time, so expect some delay before you can successfully use them again to directly access the site on the new server.

Move notifications

During the server move I will update the notification displayed on this existing site to keep everyone up to date on how the server move is progressing. If there are any issues during the move I will post updates here for you to read. If something bad happens and the move doesn't go according to plan this existing copy of the site is still here and can be put back online if need be, so there is no danger of the site being down for too long.

Remember that if you have any business being conducted on Amibay at the moment that you won't be able to perform this or access any information on the site whilst it is offline from 11 PM tonight. So please make sure you complete any posts or PMs well before this time or you may lose your posts when the site goes offline.
 
Re: Amibay is moving home!

If you have any questions about the server move please post them in the Feedback forum topic specially created for this here.
 
Re: Amibay is moving home!

The server move is now complete and the site should be fully up and running on the new server. If you have any questions or spot something that doesn't look right or appears broken please let me know and I will investigate.

The 4 amibay domain names: amibay.com, amibay.org, amibay.co.uk and amibay.net have had their DNS entries updated to point to the new server's location. This can take up to 72 hours to fully propagate and work for everyone.

Whilst this is happening you may find one of the domain names works for a short time, and then doesn't again. This is normal because of the way information is sent around the internet in packets, routed through many different servers between its origin and destination.

I hope the site is now more responsive for everyone. I for one instantly noticed a speed increase in page load times as soon as it was moved over.
 
Re: Amibay is moving home!

https://www.amibay.com looks like its DNS has updated already and is pointing to the new server. However you might still not reach the site using the address all of the time in the next couple of days, while some DNS servers around the world catch up.

Once you can access using amibay.com successfully can you all please clear all board cookies using the link at the bottom left of the Board Index page. This will ensure that you are setting a new login cookie for the new server, and this should prevent login issues.

Again, please PM me if you have any questions, or post in the feedback topic.

The final stage of the move will be to fully test the email settings and make sure they are working for topic and pm notifications, and for site announcement emails.
 
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