The current BLF site engine has served us well for six years now. (Can you believe it? No, I don’t mean the “six years” part, I mean the “served us well” part. ) But the security updates window is drawing to a close for this version of the software that we’re running, forcing me to start planning and testing a non-trivial update to the next major version of the BLF site engine. I generally like the software that we use here, but I admit that its upgrade process could be qualified as “terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad”, which is why I’ve been putting it off until it was absolutely necessary.
We have a forum section dedicated to BLF site-related issues and comments, in which many of you have mentioned some very valid annoyances related to our current setup. Recently I haven’t made any attempts to improve it, given the looming end-of-life date. With this new major upgrade, I can’t guarantee that all of your requests and reports will all be immediately fixed, although some of them will be. But once the core of the site is refreshed and working at approximately the same level it’s at now, it will make a lot more sense to add additional improvements and fixes.
But as mentioned, the primary reason for this upgrade is to ensure continued security reviews and patches by the makers of the software. So I’ll try make it as smooth and non-disruptive as possible. Hopefully the final product will look and perform more or less like the current BLF you’ve come to know and hopefully love. I’ve been doing dry runs in a separate environment, and it looks like the upgrade of core functionality necessary to browse and post will go pretty smoothly. Even so, it will be necessary to break some eggs to make the proverbial omelet that is BLF. Some of the custom features and algorithms that I’ve configured here over the years will not cleanly upgrade to the next major version of the forum software, meaning I’ll have to redo them from scratch. I also want to take advantage of the opportunity to refresh and consolidate our underlying VPS (server) infrastructure and operating system. So all of this will require some downtime, and a period of reduced functionality after that. Here’s the approximate timeline I have planned:
Tuesday, 09-Feb-2016, 13:00 GMT: BLF goes offline
Tuesday, 09-Feb-2016, 18:00 GMT: New BLF server comes online with a different IP address. Those with faster DNS will already have the new address automatically; those with slower DNS will have to manually access the site via a temporary URL that will be posted on the old site’s location. At this point only basic browsing and posting will be possible.
Tuesday, 09-Feb-2016, 20:00 GMT: Re-enable new BLF account registrations and their corresponding notification emails, re-enable PM notification emails.
Tuesday, 09-Feb-2016, rest of the day: Handle users’ bug reports, tweak performance settings.
Later: Then as time permits I’ll re-create or implement the following items over the following days and weeks:
BLF community moderated spam control
Email notification of updates to subscribed threads
In my tests the PMs seem to remain intact. (Don’t be alarmed when you first go in to your PMs and see a blank slate— they’ll be under the “All messages” tab.) Also I maintain regular backups in several locations, plus the original server will still be operational.
So we may have another snow storm coming Monday night through Tuesday and you pick this time to take BLF offline?How am I supposed to implement rule #9 during this time?
Thanks sb. 4949 . I wish you all the best in the upgrade and hope theres not to many sleepless nights. I dont understand much of anything behind the scenes as its all Chinese to me.
It’s OK. Guess I’ll just have to go shovel to pass the time! Seriously though, thanks for all your hard work keeping this place up and running for us.BLF, still the best forum on the internet!
Tuesday, 09-Feb-2016, 18:00 GMT: New BLF server comes online with a different IP address. Those with faster DNS will already have the new address automatically; those with slower DNS will have to manually access the site via a temporary URL that will be posted on the old site’s location. At this point only basic browsing and posting will be possible.
Hi. Don’t know what DNS is, ‘hopefully’ my computer will already have the new address. In the event it doesn’t, we will be able to get the new URL for sure from Budgetlightforum.com? Sorry to repeat you here, just want to make sure. Withdrawls aren’t pleasant
I have no idea what it takes to operate a site like this, but THANK YOU!
DNS is the system that your Internet provider uses to know where exactly to find the server when you ask for “budgetlightforum.com”. For some users it will happen an hour or less after I make the change. For other it could take 24 - 36 hours. But yes, if you still get stuck with outdated DNS, you’ll see a page that says “the site offline, but it’s available at a temporary ABC.something address”.
) But the security updates window is drawing to a close for this version of the software that we’re running, forcing me to start planning and testing a non-trivial update to the next major version of the BLF site engine. I generally like the software that we use here, but I admit that its upgrade process could be qualified as “terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad”, which is why I’ve been putting it off until it was absolutely necessary.
. I wish you all the best in the upgrade and hope theres not to many sleepless nights. I dont understand much of anything behind the scenes as its all Chinese to me.
You’re welcome.
)