:: 30-Dec-1999 09:09 (Thursday) ::

It would appear that csc stats are up-to-date, although I admit I haven’t
thoroughly audited the numbers. We had to do quite a bit of “by hand”
data massaging during the recovery process, so I will take some time
tomorrow to sanity check the numbers. Stats had to be re-run from 27-Dec
to current.

rc5-64 stats are running now, and barring any problems will be on auto-pilot
for the next several hours. I’m going to take the opportunity to get
a bit of sleep and rest my eyes.

If there are any problems they will likely be related to team joining/team
changing during the previous three days. If you joined a team or change
teams recently, you might see some differences. (if you changed teams
on 28-Dec, the freshly-run stats will actually look like you changed teams
on 27-Dec). We should be able to correct these discrepancies tomorrow.

More info as we wrap up the repair. Thanks for your patience.

:: 30-Dec-1999 04:04 (Thursday) ::

blerg. Some days I wish I dug ditches for a living. :)

Still banging on stats, looking promising, but progressing slowly.

More info as the situation evolves.

Moo

:: 29-Dec-1999 23:54 (Wednesday) ::

Stats will be down for a while while I fix the participant ID overrun
that happened a few days ago. Anyone with a participant ID >= 500,000
will end up with a new ID as a result. This should only affect participants
who started Dec. 20th or later. All of your blocks and team affiliation will
be saved, the only change will be to your ID number.

I’ll post more info once everything is back online.

:: 28-Dec-1999 18:46 (Tuesday) ::

The following clients have been updated/added:

– dnetc-os2-x86.zip OS/2 [MMX-CSC] v2.8004.451

Changes:

2.8000
——

2.8004.451 fix: OS/2: Fixed crash in -config by using different API calls
fix: OS/2: included the forgotten CSC-MMX core.
fix: solaris x86: multithreading works correctly now (uses
native threads bound to LWPs instead of pthreads)

Enjoy
Moose

:: 23-Dec-1999 20:14 (Thursday) ::

Tracked down and squashed a particularly obscure authentication bug that
has been preventing some people from joining teams and/or editing their
participant information. As near as I can tell, the problem is completely
resolved now.

If you’ve been having troubles lately in authenticating yourself with
the stats server, give it a try now. Should work just fine.

As always, if there’s a problem, feel free to fill my mailbox. :)

:: 23-Dec-1999 07:01 (Thursday) ::

The following clients have been updated/added:

– dnetc-solaris26-x86.tar.gz Solaris 2.x [x86/MT/MMX-CSC]

The following proxies have been updated:

-proxyper311-solaris26-x86.tar.gz Solaris 2.x [311]

Enjoy!
Moose

:: 22-Dec-1999 18:38 (Wednesday) ::

I’ve just uploaded a new x86/Solaris client, which has the MMX CSC core, as
well as being multithreaded (fixes bug #450). I also uploaded a v311 x86/
Solaris personal proxy, which is CSC compatible.

Hopefully they’ll become available soon.

:: 22-Dec-1999 02:41 (Wednesday) ::

Some users have reported a perceived CSC speed drop between b2 and the
-450 release of the Mac client. Michael Feiri, the client’s author,
clarifies that this decrease is only perceived, and that there is no
actual decrease in crunching speed.

“AFAIR in the b2 version we didnt do any yielding during a benchmark,
but rather hogged the entire CPU. Now we do yield during benchmarks,
which is likely the cause for the performance decrease you have seen.
The actual CSC crunchers were left untouched between b2 and b9. So the
normal cracking in the release should be as fast as in b2 because even
in b2 we already yielded during normal crunching.”

:: 21-Dec-1999 21:21 (Tuesday) ::

Looks like things on statsbox are healthy. We had to re-create some
indexes, but everything else checks out ok. Thanks for your patience
as we hammered on the bits.

So, stats are up. Far more importantly, though, the mac client is out! :)

http://n0cgi.distributed.net/cgi/dnet-finger.cgi?user=moose

:: 21-Dec-1999 05:39 (Tuesday) ::

During tonight’s stats run things got extremely unhealthy during the
creation of the rc5-64 overall email rankings table. Sybase consumed
all it’s locks and several processes became deadlocked and refused to
die gracefully. (Heck, they wouldn’t even die screaming).

We spent a few hours poking and prodding, trying to convince the blocking
process to go away to no avail. Unfortunately, the only recourse at that
point was to down the whole server in a rather indelicate manner. (not
quite a kill-9, but pretty close).

Right now we’re sifting through the data now that the server is back
online. We’re trying to determine the scope of the damage (if any)
and get a feel for the situation.

More info as the situation progresses…