GDNet system

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Original post by Lode Gamedev pays money for Windows and ASP, but the result is a Gamedev that -displays an error page when trying to post or open something on a regular basis -is infected with virii

Neither of these things are factors of the OS.

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Original post by superpig Quote: Original post by Lode Gamedev pays money for Windows and ASP, but the result is a Gamedev that -displays an error page when trying to post or open something on a regular basis -is infected with virii Neither of these things are factors of the OS.

But they still are a factor of the system Gamedev uses. There exist websites that are as large and don't seem to have these problems, so it must be possible to improve. Is there hope for improvement?

Of course there's hope for improvement. Switching OSes or throwing away the site code and writing it in PHP instead is not improvement, though.

I should note that many of those websites have a full time staff, and people with regular physical access to the servers.

I have given up hope on GameDev ever becoming a professional website. The frequent error pages and a dedicated forum search function missing for over 3 years are one thing. Having your site infected with spyware, not one time but over and over again, and knowingly distributing rootkits to your visitors (Internet Gamebox ads) is unforgivable though.

*rolls eyes*

You know, you can always donate money to the site so that they can get better hosting, pay for fixes and improvements to the site, etc. Just because GDNet is colo'd doesn't make them non-professional.

I don't see how going from Windows, IIS, and ASP to *nix, Apache, and PHP will make things more professional or secure. To me it sounds like fanboism. It would be a waste of funds and resources to make such a switch rather than improve on what's available.

Just be patient, Superpig is back from The States and ready to save the day [cool]

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the option of *nix, Apache and PHP? It could be more secure.

It isn't.

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unix exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 1,210,000 windows exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 22,900,000

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apache exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 1,250,000 iis exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 1,190,000

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php exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 2,360,000 asp exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 1,370,000

Now, I'm not silly enough to claim that that means anything particularly conclusive, but they're working on a solution. Switching platforms isn't it, and if you actually put a bit of thought into it is a pretty bad idea, unless you particularly want a year or more of downtime.

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Original post by Kazgoroth Quote: the option of *nix, Apache and PHP? It could be more secure. It isn't. Quote: unix exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 1,210,000 Quote: apache exploit - Google Search Results 1 - 10 of about 1,250,000 Quote: php exploit Results 1 - 10 of about 2,360,000 They're working on a solution. Starting from scratch most certainly isn't it, unless you'd particularly like a year or more downtime.

Indeed. Also:
ASP exploit vs PHP exploit

IIS exploit vs Apache exploit

I'm not saying Windows systems are more secure, but there's certainly nothing to prove that *nix systems would be more secure.

I agree with the OP that GDNet is showing it's unprofessional nature by being compromised several times in really short time, including the latest IE history bug.

However, switching to PHP isn't an option: The site would have to be completely re-build(as mentioned before), and that would take quite some time. Alternatively, it would be BETTER that GDNet would port the current ASP codebase to ASP.NET 2.0.

ASP.NET 2.0 is much better scalable. In fact, GDNet would be able to get a 2nd server and load balance between them. Altho that wouldn't mean the current database issues are over.

People's claim that *nix is more secure/better than Windows are also utter bullcrap. *nix systems are usually much more secure out of the box, but that doesn't mean Windows can't be configured to be secure. Given a proper firewall, disabling unused services, etc. and Windows is secure as a *nix box would be.

What GDNet needs most at the moment is/are a staff member(s) that spend 1 or 2 days dedicated on GDNet, and actively resolve the issues at hand: Fix the security flaws, fix db issues and fix the site in general(ie, fix the code base and expand from there on).

Toolmaker

ASP Classic can be load-balanced across servers. Load balancing is more a function of the web server software (IIS) than the scripting language.

ASP.NET and ASP Classic share nothing but a name. Porting to ASP.NET would be just as much of a rewrite as porting to PHP.

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Original post by Toolmaker What GDNet needs most at the moment is/are a staff member(s) that spend 1 or 2 days dedicated on GDNet, and actively resolve the issues at hand: Fix the security flaws, fix db issues and fix the site in general(ie, fix the code base and expand from there on).

For now, we'll just have to suck up the embarrassments and insults to our professionalism until we can come to a comprehensive solution. To think that one or two days would be sufficient to fix the problems, however, given that you don't know what the real problems are, just the symptoms, is overly optimistic.

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Original post by Oluseyi Quote: Original post by Toolmaker What GDNet needs most at the moment is/are a staff member(s) that spend 1 or 2 days dedicated on GDNet, and actively resolve the issues at hand: Fix the security flaws, fix db issues and fix the site in general(ie, fix the code base and expand from there on). For now, we'll just have to suck up the embarrassments and insults to our professionalism until we can come to a comprehensive solution. To think that one or two days would be sufficient to fix the problems, however, given that you don't know what the real problems are, just the symptoms, is overly optimistic.

I meant 1 or 2 days a week. I just forgot to mention that it's 1 or 2 days dedicated a week.

I, for one, like Gamedev.

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Original post by Toolmaker I meant 1 or 2 days a week. I just forgot to mention that it's 1 or 2 days dedicated a week.

Currently, we can't afford it. We'd like to, and it's what we're working toward.

This is a make or break year for us, and there are a lot of structural flaws in both the technology that powers this site and the organization that runs it. Change is not easy, and it's even harder when your organization is virtually all-volunteer and geographically dispersed (and then you have to contend with access limitations and operational bottlenecks).

I made a commitment to make GameDev more transparent to the team than ever before, so here we are. Our infrastructure is a problem, but we have plans in place to fix them. We're hoping to get to a really clean starting point within two weeks - hoping none of our operational bottlenecks occur in that interval. From there, we're going to be rebuilding the site software infrastructure in place, so we do not plan to turn the site off or reset.

Please bear with us.

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Original post by Oluseyi Quote: Original post by Toolmaker I meant 1 or 2 days a week. I just forgot to mention that it's 1 or 2 days dedicated a week. Currently, we can't afford it. We'd like to, and it's what we're working toward. This is a make or break year for us, and there are a lot of structural flaws in both the technology that powers this site and the organization that runs it. Change is not easy, and it's even harder when your organization is virtually all-volunteer and geographically dispersed (and then you have to contend with access limitations and operational bottlenecks). I made a commitment to make GameDev more transparent to the team than ever before, so here we are. Our infrastructure is a problem, but we have plans in place to fix them. We're hoping to get to a really clean starting point within two weeks - hoping none of our operational bottlenecks occur in that interval. From there, we're going to be rebuilding the site software infrastructure in place, so we do not plan to turn the site off or reset. Please bear with us.

I hope to be able to donate soon, personally. This place is too important to the development community to lose to some outside force.

I hope everyone who can donate, does so.

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Original post by coldacid *rolls eyes* You know, you can always donate money to the site so that they can get better hosting, pay for fixes and improvements to the site, etc.

I tried that and it didn't work. It didn't work at all. And every time I got a 500 error, I wondered where my money was going.

Washu was probably spending it on tentacle hentai.

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Original post by ApochPiQ ASP Classic can be load-balanced across servers. Load balancing is more a function of the web server software (IIS) than the scripting language.

Actually, it's not even that - it can be done at the network level, such that you have a bunch of machines to which the router just passes connections in sequence (effectively). I can confirm that we will be moving GDNet to run on multiple web servers in the future. (Possibly virtual ones, thanks to VMWare).

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ASP.NET and ASP Classic share nothing but a name. Porting to ASP.NET would be just as much of a rewrite as porting to PHP.

That's not entirely true... you can convert an ASP Classic page most of the way to an ASP.NET page by following some simple rules, but you do need to follow it up with an extensive bugfixing phase.

Why is seens as ASP Vs PHP? I'm working using JSP at the moment and it's pretty nice - you get the advantage of ASP.NET that you can write code in a real language (Java), and it's cross-platform too. It is very cool to write a standard Java class and be able to use it in a normal app or in a website.