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[MrObvious]

You had mentioned that FTP is on the same server and that it lags a lot when people use it. I know you got some bloody script that you wanna keep it on the same server but I think it's time to move FTP to another server.

Do you run the server itself in a co-lo place or is it managed by a hosting company? What you could do is buy yourself a server motherboard with support for dual sockets then quad core processors, 16 or 32GB of RAM, and some damn fast SSDs or RAID or something and get a fast running system that way. I know it's a lot but as big as this site is I'm sure the community would pinch in and donate.

[mindfrost82]

Its at a hosting company, dedicated server where we pretty much manage it ourselves but their support team is there where we can open trouble tickets.

I got some good suggestions from vBulletin. Mike has another server that we could move the FTP stuff too. The script is just to log deletes in case someone goes crazy and deletes a bunch of stuff.

We have a Xeon Quad Core processor and 4gb of RAM right now. If we could get a dual Quad Core processor and increase the RAM, I think we would be good to go, but I would still look into moving the FTP since it can suck up bandwidth.

[Perasite]

I will pipe in on the FTP issue. I took a pre-written script and did a LOT of modification to it to make it work for our situation. Basically, we've had trouble in the past with users getting pissy with one another and maliciously deleting someone else's files. By forcing all deletes to go through that script, we can log who did what and be able to ban someone who acts maliciously (we've had to do so in the past.)

If we moved to a truly open anonymous FTP on another server, we'd have 3 options. The first option would be giving everyone in the world the ability to add and delete anything they wish. Obviously, that can lead to some problems.
The second option would be having everyone be able to upload anything they want, but they would need to request a login in order to delete anything. This has the benefit of allowing logging of deletes, but means that anytime someone wanted something deleted for the first time, a staff member would have to create a login for them and the user would have to wait to delete until that had been done.
The third option would be that no one can delete anything unless they send a PM to a staff member and have that staff member remove it.

As you can see, there are problems with all three options, and that is why we moved the FTP to this box to begin with. On this box, we have none of those issues, but we do have issues with it taking bandwidth. It is just up to Mike which issue he feels most comfortable with dealing with and then any necessary changes could be made.

[MrObvious]

Hmm interesting. I'm sure the script could be modified for a new server just fine and that would work out there.

As far as the server goes, tweak vBullitin a bit and it should back off. I read you were swapping a lot so get more RAM right away and see how that does for you.

[mindfrost82]

The script actually doesn't work right now anyway. I'm not sure when it broke, but nobody has reported it.

I might be switching us to lighthttpd instead of Apache and upgrade MySQL. Those should help, plus if we can get more RAM.

[Perasite]

Originally Posted by MrObvious

Hmm interesting. I'm sure the script could be modified for a new server just fine and that would work out there.

As far as the server goes, tweak vBullitin a bit and it should back off. I read you were swapping a lot so get more RAM right away and see how that does for you.

The script actually can be modified to work on a new server, but not using your vBulletin login name and password. It would work fine to log deletes, but in order for it to use your existing name and password, it has to be on the same server as vBulletin.

As far as it being broken, that hasn't been the case for long. I was just messing around with it a couple of weeks ago...

[Perasite]

I fixed the script for the deletes. When you guys changed the forum to the new folder, that broke it. I had to just tell the script where the new folder was located.

[mindfrost82]

Originally Posted by Perasite

I fixed the script for the deletes. When you guys changed the forum to the new folder, that broke it. I had to just tell the script where the new folder was located.

Ahh, thanks Yuma, errr Perasite