Server Downtime: Power Outage

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Themicles
Game Server Admin and Web Monkey
Posts: 313
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:46 pm
Location: Michigan
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Server Downtime: Power Outage

Post by Themicles »

UPDATE:
Around 8:40pm Eastern, access to the servers has been returned. See reply for details.
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Somewhere around 8:00 pm Eastern, the network went down.

I was connected to the servers doing a BIC transfer when I lost connection to the servers. I tried reconnecting to no avail.

I attempted to ping the network, and all ping attempts failed initially. After 10-15 minutes, I was able to ping the network again, but not connect to Remote Desktop or VNC.

This means that the power was reset, the DSL modem started automatically when it got power, but the router did not. Our router is actually a computer running a Windows server OS and acts as our domain controller, router, DNS server, and more. This server is the one we often refer to as Zeus.

No one is home at this time to reset Zeus. They should be soon, and I'll post again when everything is working again.
World Leader: Tairis'nàdur
Administrator: Confederation of Planes and Planets
Server Host & Web Monkey: Hala The Heroic Domain of Ysgard
Themicles
Game Server Admin and Web Monkey
Posts: 313
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 1:46 pm
Location: Michigan
Contact:

Post by Themicles »

Okay, the servers are available again. Here are the details:

Somewhere around 8pm access to all servers that I host was lost. I was on VNC to Eostre (Tairis computer) at the time doing a manual BIC transfer. Just as I completed it, VNC lost connection. I tried to reconnect, and it failed. I tried to ping the network and that failed. At this point, either the internet connection, or the entire network was down.

After pinging for a while, I finally got a response. The modem had come back up, and retained the same IP instead of getting a new one. Great, just had to wait for things to settle and log into Zeus (network domain controller, and TairisTest). After a bit, logging into Zeus was still failing. At this point, it appeared that Zeus was down, and the modem had reset. These conditions suggested a power outage. I'm out of town, and no one was home, so it would have to wait for my stepfather to return home and restart Zeus.

Well, he called when he got home, and told me Zeus was on, and the DSL modem was on, but he couldn't get internet. I told him that if the DSL modem had locked up, the lights would appear normal. So I had him reset it. It restarted normally and got a new IP. I asked him for the new IP and used it to log into Zeus. Upon logging in, I received the Windows Server question box asking for a reason for the unexpected shutdown. Sure enough, Zeus had experienced some sort of power event (likely a minor brown out) that caused it to reset but not shut off.

Here's where things get a little strange. I logged into Poseidon (Hala/Ysgard and host of the UPS service) to check to see if the UPS program logged a power event. It hadn't. Not even so much as a noisy power line since the 24th.

At this time, I'll begin shopping for a UPS for Zeus and the DSL modem so that they aren't so prone to such minor power hiccups that an APC 1500VA UPS didn't even log as an issue.

I am out of town, but will be home some time during the day Tuesday. I'll see those of you in IRC then, if you hang out there.
World Leader: Tairis'nàdur
Administrator: Confederation of Planes and Planets
Server Host & Web Monkey: Hala The Heroic Domain of Ysgard
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