Duncan said the following on 2009-03-27 04:34:
Alan Meyer <amey...@yahoo.com> posted
733049.5736...@web110405.mail.gq1.yahoo.com, excerpted below, on Thu, 26
Mar 2009 15:46:45 -0700:
I think you just found the problem.
It sure looks like Motzarella dropped the group.
That's possible, but unlikely. Beartooth just started trying motzerella
a few days ago, so he just downloaded their list of groups a few days
ago. They'd have had to have quit carrying the group in that time, and I
don't find that likely.
The more likely case might be that the motzerella server is having
problems and is listing headers for messages it doesn't have and losing
its own groups.
<rant mode>
I don't know what news server software it's running,
200 news.motzarella.org InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.5.0 (rc1 version)
INN
but that sounds a
lot like some of the problems highwinds-media, the outsourced provider
Cox (my ISP) is using, has had.
Highwinds-media is running typhoon
http://www.highwinds-software.com/products/typhoon.php
And other ISPs and providers I've been
with over the years, running the same highwinds software, have had
similar problems. Apparently, when that software is configured and
running perfectly, it has some of the best performance numbers in the
business, but it's just terribly difficult to keep it configured just
right, and normal changes in usage patterns move even previously properly
configured and peak performing servers out of their zone within months,
to the point that my experience has been they typically spend perhaps two
months working and four months sort of working, cycling maybe twice a
year, so a site is lucky to get good service out of them for four months
out of the year. The rest of the time they kind of limp along, one bug
after another, tweaking this and that and replacing components here and
there, until a few months later everything clicks again and they're back
at peak performance for another month or two.
Other server software apparently has much lower peak bytes and articles
per hour served numbers, meaning on paper more servers are needed to
serve the same number of people, but it's easier to maintain at peak
performance so there's not quite the same ups and downs. Some of this
other software actually runs on commodity x86 hardware, not the "big
iron" Sun servers Highwinds software runs on, but it can take fifty or a
hundred such servers to handle the job 3-5 Highwinds servers can handle
with ease, but only when the Highwinds servers are at peak performance,
which as I said my experience as a user suggests they really aren't, more
of the time than they are. But there's a reason Google runs reasonably
off the shelf commodity hardware... and does so good at it, even if at
their size they're changing out several bad servers (out of tens of
thousands) a day.
The problem with that is that I hadn't thought motzerella was that big a
service, given the cost of big iron and highwinds software and the fact
that motzerella is free. So I just don't know.
</rant mode>
Meanwhile, I'm almost getting a hankerin' to sign up and check motzerella
out myself, if only just to see what behavior I see here, possibly trying
the same messages beartooth is having problems with. If necessary, I
could then run a telnet session, and see exactly what the transactions
are doing on the wire. Plus then I could see what servers they /are/
running.
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