New Server for VWWatercooled

[The_Hawk]

As some of you may have noticed we have been having a few issues with forum of late with the servers just not coping for one reason or another. As with all things, the simplest solution is "MORE POWAAAAA!"

To that end I'm gearing up to move the forums to a shiny new server with more resources, more bandwidth, more speed (and less issues). All things going well that will mean we can turn attachments back on and have images hosted locally and maybe a few other nice toys for our members to play with too.

The change over could be as early as this weekend (assuming the server passes all preliminary testing) but I will confirm before it's cut over both here and on our Facebook page.

So, what does it mean for you?

Phase 1. The forum will be shut down to new users.
Phase 2. The forum will be temporarily shut down for a current snapshot/backup.
Phase 2.9. **TBA** The forum will come back online as read only. (if possible).
Phase 3. The actual cut over. Cross fingers, knock on wood and pray the various car gods that it all goes to plan.
Phase 4. Checking and real world testing.
Phase 5. Beers.

Wish me luck and I hope to see you all on the other side.

Aaron.

[Jarred]

Good Work Aaron.

Keep it up

[dylan8]

Awesome. Have noticed it struggling a fair bit.
you will deserve many beers after

[Ryan_R]

Was wondering if I should renew my gold user title, no doubt you'll deserve it after this

[MountainBikeMike]

Great! It almost brought me to tears the other night when I was trying to get a load of stuff done. But I havn't been here long enough and would say overall its great

[team_v]

Would it be possible to change the captcha for new forum members to something more able to block spammers?
Maybe something more autmotive focused (pick the odd symbol out) instead of the standard captcha phrases which seem to be working but obviously have flaws as we get a bunch of spam bots through.

[kamold]

Happy to join in at phase 5

Good luck hope it goes smoothly.

[Ryan_R]

Would it be possible to change the captcha for new forum members to something more able to block spammers?
Maybe something more autmotive focused (pick the odd symbol out) instead of the standard captcha phrases which seem to be working but obviously have flaws as we get a bunch of spam bots through.

Also make use of the SFS (StopForumSpam) plugin for vB if you aren't already.

[The_Hawk]

This whole process is starting to do my head in a little, at almost 1am the first test load of the data is almost complete after about 16 hours of tinkering and kicking. And to think, this is just preliminary testing to make sure things work!

On the upside, all this work *should* mean the actual transfer will be much much smoother... fingers crossed anyway.

At this stage nothing is planned further than testing, it's just late and I'm tired so I'm checking out until tomorrow night after my day job (again)

[sVWatt]

Count me in for phase 5

As some of you may have noticed we have been having a few issues with forum of late with the servers just not coping for one reason or another. As with all things, the simplest solution is "MORE POWAAAAA!"

To that end I'm gearing up to move the forums to a shiny new server with more resources, more bandwidth, more speed (and less issues). All things going well that will mean we can turn attachments back on and have images hosted locally and maybe a few other nice toys for our members to play with too.

The change over could be as early as this weekend (assuming the server passes all preliminary testing) but I will confirm before it's cut over both here and on our Facebook page.

So, what does it mean for you?

Phase 1. The forum will be shut down to new users.
Phase 2. The forum will be temporarily shut down for a current snapshot/backup.
Phase 2.9. **TBA** The forum will come back online as read only. (if possible).
Phase 3. The actual cut over. Cross fingers, knock on wood and pray the various car gods that it all goes to plan.
Phase 4. Checking and real world testing.
Phase 5. Beers.

Wish me luck and I hope to see you all on the other side.

Aaron.