Linden Lab readdressing servers
by Tateru Nino 
Nov 16th 2007 at 8:30PM
Filed under: New titles, Second Life
Linden Lab have been restarting Second Life servers all day. Well, since about 1pm, at any rate. Suddenly, with not really any notice, all these servers need new IP-addresses. Linden Lab's operations team is working on assigning the new addresses and restarting the servers.
The very first thing that comes to mind is 'new network provider' - and given the network related problems in the last couple of weeks it's certainly not implausible. Linden Lab has told us that they have more than one interconnect provider - but a renumbering seems to change the overall cosmic scheme of things.
[Update: 10:00PM SLT: Linden Lab posts from the future (10:40PM) to tell us that the process has run into some snags and is still being worked on]
[Update: 4:40AM SLT: Linden Lab reports that the task is complete]
We're guessing that either a redundant provider has been made the primary (and vice-versa) or someone new is being brought into the mix. Approximately 2,000 sims are being restarted as a part of the process, whatever's going on.
We've asked Linden Lab for more information, but it is taking time to obtain. We'll update with any more information when we get it.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Prokofy said on 2:58AM 11-17-2007
Gosh, Tateru, the very first thing that comes to my mind isn't "new network provider" but "old griefers who announced -- and executed -- a grid-wide attack at 2:00 pm SLT".
Why can't the Lindens admit when the entire grid is under attack by griefers?
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Tateru Nino said on 3:09AM 11-17-2007
That doesn't seem to make any sense.
The announcement of the work took place some time before that, and would have no bearing either way on the attack.
As for your question, I don't know. All I can venture is that it was quite a fizzle? It felt more like the PN's last grasp for relevance and attention. Only a comparatively small percentage of users seem to even have been aware of it.
Prokofy Neva said on 4:44AM 11-17-2007
Tateru,
No. The announcement was made for the work to begin today, and the "intelligence" card about the attack distributed by security groups was also made and said the attacks were scheduled for 2:00 pm, an hour separated in time.
It seems to me you have to display more curiosity about these coincidences. First of all, even if these two events are entirely unrelated, because the Lindens announcement *was* public the griefers could have seized that time as a time when Lindens would be busy and the grid more vulnerable.
And you could also ask: why would the Lindens have to readdress IPs addresses? Perhaps this is a long-time unrelated project, but it could also be related to removing vulnerabilities through which griefers reached the grid. Given that we a) never got an explanation for why this sudden IP readdress (as you yourself reported) and b) never got an explanation of why these "unforeseen problems" it is right and reasonable to ask: well, is this related to griefing, Lindens? Hello?
I don't know where you could possibly gotten the idea that only a small percentage of users knew of this attack, or were *affected by it*. Through what keyhole are you looking? All you have to do is listen to the chat in the Concierge group -- hundreds of sim owners affected. Look at the list of communities even in the security notice -- they were all affected, and that's thousands of people. Fly around the mainland and see the particles flying -- everywhere. Everybody talking about it. What is it that you look at, that you cannot see this, Tateru?
Sure, there might be some "theoretical small percentage" if you think of some fake number like "out of 1.5 million who log on regularly" or "out of 10 million sign-ups". But we're talking about really 50,000 or even only 35,000 logged on at any one time. To have thousands of people out of *that* figure is a significant number then.
Landowners and their tenants, whether homes or businesses or non-profits or educational institutions, pay the tier that enables this company to have revenue to develop this software. They matter. When they are griefed, it matters, even if it doesn't matter to coders who live in a sandbox somewhere.
The fact is, until the Lindens will be honest about reporting the type, duration, and size of grid attacks, we cannot know, and you can speculate it into nothingness if you like but I prefer to keep asking questions about it as my customers and I are affected as are many, many others. It certainly isn't appropriate to minimize this griefing and pretend that it is somehow a "last gasp" when it's nothing of the kind -- there are more of the griefers, and more attacks, than ever before.
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Tateru Nino said on 5:01AM 11-17-2007
I don't see any plausibility in it at all. Considering that many of the more torturous grid problems recently have been tracked to network problems, and hardware failures, it seems considerably more plausible that a failed bearer - or similar is at fault. If it is, then the obvious ways to bypass the faulty would be changing the network addresses on the back-end network.
If, instead, you have believe that Linden Lab is actively lying to you, well, nothing anyone is going to say will alter that.
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Prokofy Neva said on 5:15AM 11-17-2007
Uh, no, what I have to believe is that Linden Lab is actively not telling the truth.
They are not telling the truth of the size, dimensions, duration, and damages (numbers affected, Linden hours spent) of these attacks. They are silent about them. And they are counting on people like you to help them minimize them. That's wrong.
The technical issues they are working on with this readdressing of IPs may well be entirely unrelated to griefing attacks, as I've already said two times and said from the beginning when I began questioning this. But the fact that they made a public announcement meant that griefers could seize this time to make their attack and maximize the damage. And we can't know that didn't make it harder to bring the grid up.
When a massive grid attack takes place, and a sudden maintenance move to readdress IPs take place nearly simultaneously, inquiring and open minds must ask: are these two events unrelated? If technically unrelated, did one worsen the other?
Even the Police Blotter has numerous cases of "prim litter" this evening on all kinds of sims, and we all know that the Police Blotter represents only an emblematic small percentage of all abuses reported.
Tateru Nino said on 5:16AM 11-17-2007
Then there's nothing more to be said.
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Voice of Reason said on 7:51AM 11-17-2007
What makes you think that a project like as this is something they can "suddenly" do whenever they want? Moreso, that they would spend the extra man hours necessary just to cover a silly grid attack? I think your tinfoil is really showing.
I suspect the reason they don't tell us "the type, duration, and size of grid attacks" is because most residents won't care as long as their little corner of the grid is okay anyway. The only people who will read it are you and the griefers who will use it as a scoreboard.
Why give them the satisfaction, not to mention the feedback on what works and what doesn't, just to satisfy your curiosity? Personally I think no amount of transparency is enough when people are determined to see conspiracies even where there is none.
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