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Easyfind end of service

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MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

Hello everyone,

I post this here even if there's not been much traffic these past few months. As you know the current owner of the excito domains and the remaining stock of b3s (~40) (rodeus who has been bought and changed name to B2B Cyber Secure) has decided to stop the easyfind, hotfix and repository infrastructure as it requires dedicated VPS (and the associated cost). This does not concern this forum which is hosted on shared infrastructure.

I don't use easyfind myself anymore (nor any b3 for that matter) but from the logs some of you still are. If you wish for the service to remain active, we need to figure out a solution. I don't mind spending some time on it (migration and maintenance) but I don't own hosting infrastructure. Not much is needed, a couple of small VPS would be sufficient. Note that the domains will remain the property of B2BCS but they don't mind pointing the domains nameservers elsewhere.

The current infrastructure will be running until the end of june 2023 so we have until then to figure something. All ideas are welcome.

Thanks !

Charles
Gordon
Posts: 1461
Joined: 10 Aug 2011, 03:18

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by Gordon »

I guess that was coming for quite some time. I have a feeling though that many users only come to this forum whenever they encounter some issue, e.g. there were some posts when myownb3.com was seized last September. Might be an idea to bring it down for a week or so to prompt these users to come visit here for info on why it is not working?

Anyway, I'm not really using it myself either. The service still has a record pointing to me but I have a fixed IP and my own paid domain for external access. Just out of interest though, what kind of traffic and CPU does this service require? My guess would be that with the amount of Bubba machines still out there you could even host this reliably on a B3 and then all you would need is two users volunteering to have their B3 being co-used for this purpose?
MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

Gordon wrote: 09 Mar 2023, 10:01 Might be an idea to bring it down for a week or so to prompt these users to come visit here for info on why it is not working?
Yes I think about that too and it's a "good" idea, at least to get some feedback.
Gordon wrote: 09 Mar 2023, 10:01 Just out of interest though, what kind of traffic and CPU does this service require? My guess would be that with the amount of Bubba machines still out there you could even host this reliably on a B3 and then all you would need is two users volunteering to have their B3 being co-used for this purpose?
I think a couple b3 would definitely be sufficient. The question of reliability remains if they host it at home though.
fredrikj
Posts: 45
Joined: 27 Jul 2011, 12:31

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by fredrikj »

I'm not using easyfind so this is just a comment from the sidelines. However, there are plenty of other trustworthy dynamic dns providers. Free as well as commercial.

Of course, if actual easyfind users pipes up and are willing to fund continued maintenance of the service or take over the maintenance - sure keep it running. Else it seems reasonable to let it expire.

PS. MouettE, I hope to get your help with viewtopic.php?t=6543
MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

Well I'm going to shutdown easyfind (disable both myownb3.com and myownb2.com) and see if we get any reactions here.
stasheck
Posts: 126
Joined: 15 Jan 2014, 13:13

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by stasheck »

I can host the service on a VM at home, I have decent symmetrical connection (~250 Mbps). Interested?
Gordon
Posts: 1461
Joined: 10 Aug 2011, 03:18

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by Gordon »

Ping!

What is the status on this? Are you taking on the offer by @stashek (which is of course a single IP and you should have a secondary backup IP) or will the service be terminated?

Asking because I like to know whether I should start investigation on removing this feature from the Bubba interface.
stasheck
Posts: 126
Joined: 15 Jan 2014, 13:13

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by stasheck »

Noone contacted me, though the offer is still up. I can try to get another IP address, once I know how the service is supposed to run.
MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

Gordon wrote: 03 May 2023, 02:28 What is the status on this? Are you taking on the offer by @stashek (which is of course a single IP and you should have a secondary backup IP) or will the service be terminated?
Thruth it's off for more than 1 month now and no one complained. I saw stasheck's offer but I won't spend time migrating a service no one wishes to use any more. So I think the service will be terminated.
Gordon
Posts: 1461
Joined: 10 Aug 2011, 03:18

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by Gordon »

stasheck wrote: 03 May 2023, 06:35 Noone contacted me, though the offer is still up. I can try to get another IP address, once I know how the service is supposed to run.
DNS is fairly straight forward if you're only serving a single domain. Internet protocol is that you have at least two IPs for redundancy though I doubt that many domains will actually have those split to two different locations to counter possible power outages or physical disruptions. For dynamic DNS this needs to be extended with a web service that allows remote machines to update their DNS entry by sending their info in the correct format and with the right credentials.

The existing code I'm sure could even be served on a B3 though it might not be able to handle the actual amount of traffic from worldwide queries against it. The main problem you are likely to encounter if hosting it on an existing system is that you already have port 443 and/or 80 allocated for your own web server and certificate management could be an issue since Rodeus aims to continue owning the excito.org domain (i.e. you will not) and the web service uses a self signed certificate that cannot live beyond Apr 3, 2025 without a new authorizing certificate being pushed to users.
Gordon
Posts: 1461
Joined: 10 Aug 2011, 03:18

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by Gordon »

MouettE wrote: 03 May 2023, 17:05 Thruth it's off for more than 1 month now and no one complained. I saw stasheck's offer but I won't spend time migrating a service no one wishes to use any more. So I think the service will be terminated.
Yeah, during the last (noticed by me) back payment on the myownb3 domain I instated a daily direct NS query to my parent's B3 address to update my local DNS cache and prevent ending on a domain for sale page. I've had that script report an error state for as long as you said and it truly amazed me that there has not been a single reporter on it whereas there were multiple at the time. Then again, that script is 3+ years old as well and if there were later outages users may have given up and found different ways. Who knows?

Guess I have some work to perform on the GUI...
MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

Gordon wrote: 03 May 2023, 17:38 Guess I have some work to perform on the GUI...
Unfortunately yes, I think so. As for me I will not include the easyfind cli client I wrote in the debian 12 image and repository.
MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

The easyfind infrastructure has been retired and all data archived. This also include the old excito debian repository as well as the hotfix service. The last two could have been restarted but it's only useful for people reinstalling the old (10 years) excito 2.4 install and it's safe to say that it's unlikely.
Gordon
Posts: 1461
Joined: 10 Aug 2011, 03:18

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by Gordon »

Hmmm, I actually still reference b3.update.excito.org for a couple of packages:
- bubba-manual
- filetransferdaemon
- bubba-buttond
MouettE
Site admin
Posts: 341
Joined: 06 Oct 2011, 19:45

Re: Easyfind end of service

Post by MouettE »

Gordon wrote: 14 May 2023, 11:41 Hmmm, I actually still reference b3.update.excito.org for a couple of packages:
- bubba-manual
- filetransferdaemon
- bubba-buttond
I can put it back on no problem, let me know if it's needed.
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