Help You Help Us Help You

[Nuljones]

Hey all,

tonight we've experienced a major crash during prime time, and unfortunately there are no mods on. I'm not criticising mods for not logging on I'm just saying this is one of those times when there are none. In Mumble we've been talking about the situation and how we might effect server restarts or other remedies in these times.

The solution I propose is to appoint more mods. Not only does this ease the load for existing mods but would improve coverage. I don't think it's fair to demand that we always have a mod present but I think it's good if there can be a good representation over a given day - especially given current server performance. I'm suggesting this believing that we have a number of suitable candidates for the role. I'm currently in Mumble with at least 3 people who could be easy choices. And yes I would suggest being on Mumble is a criterion. Some members of the community are on very frequently and this could be a valuable asset for providing some basic facility around the clock.

[Sorontar]

More moderators would not have helped. In this case the autoscript tried to restart the server, but that failed too. This is meant that only an administrator could fix it and we certainly aren't radically increasing the number of admins in the near future. This is Linux on a commercial machine, not Windows on a home PC.

The forum is reasonably regularly watched by the Admin team. If it crashes and isn't back up in 5 minutes time, post an alert to the forum and you will often get attention within 30 minutes.

Overall, remember that you are getting this service for free run by volunteers. We are not Blizzard or its like. You should never presume that the server will be working every second of the day. And remember, it is just a game. It should not be a vital part of your life.

Sorontar

ps. Being a mod is much more than being able to wield the banstick or type /stop

[DaedalusAlpha]

You should see how it is during non-primetime, we're happy if it's up again within 5 hours

[Deweyoxberg]

<3 Daed.


Also...

<3 mods and <3 admins. I know it's thankless. But thanks for all of your efforts.

[Akira Doe]

Would it help if our "nightly restart" for us in Australia was mirrored 12 hours later so there were 2 per day? If it's a matter of the server being online too long, perhaps another restart might help?

Over the years there have been some servers under my watch that even after the best of efforts put to those upstairs in the emerald tower were not replaced past their operating cycle but were very critical (a DC, Exchange and File Server AND SQL all in one, I inherited a nightmare) so restarting that beast was always scary because it had a bad habit of dropping the RAID during a power cycle, plus the programmers at one point had access to the server (again before I started) so there were... well it was a mess so sometimes Windows 2k3 would randomly say "No, just No... Not this time, reboot me again".

My point being I understand that restarts aren't always the solution and can cause more problems than you're trying to resolve in some cases. Just a thought

[Sorontar]

Yes, sometimes the lag is caused by Minecraft, TF2 and DODS divisions all playing at once, but after a couple of hours it goes back to just us.

From an administration point of view, the reason that Henri and Misnik were made Admins was to make it so more people understood the division's system (and to lessen the load on the existing Admins). It may not be perfect but we have tried to keep things simple and universal for all our Minecraft servers. Since it is Linux command-line stuff, we have to.

While it may not seem like it, the servers have been better behaved in the last few weeks. Most of the time, the cpu usage is lower than it was when we started, but it is still higher than I would like.

Sorontar

[HenriDeacon]

Mods only do in-game assistance as they don't have access to restart the server.

The setup we have now is fine for social play, and downtime during weekdays would be expected.

The TOG server is designed for casual players.

[Akira Doe]

I think the problem is you guys have done such a good job with the server and keeping it Online that we really notice it when it's down.

Just to be clear, that's a great thing and you have my thanks

[DaedalusAlpha]

Originally Posted by Sorontar

While it may not seem like it, the servers have been better behaved in the last few weeks. Most of the time, the cpu usage is lower than it was when we started, but it is still higher than I would like.

Was this due to something being done behind the scenes, or is it essentially just something that happened? Like fewer players online or the players being better at reducing their CPU footprint?

[Sorontar]

I think various things may have helped it. Some of it may have been changes behind the scene, like not saving the world as often. There are still 10+ players on often, but you might have become better players as you better understood the machines etc. Also, there is less and less of the world that needs to be generated as the world map is completed. So I wouldn't put it down to any one thing, but I certainly think every bit helps.

Sorontar