Asstr

[HeidiManshankVA]

Does anyone know what happened to ASSTR?

Gawd, I miss it!

 

[Liar]

Haven't been there for years. When did it go titsup?

 

[Guest]

I didn't realise it was no more. I went there a few weeks ago.

Lou

 

[Weird Harold]

Does anyone know what happened to ASSTR?

Gawd, I miss it!

I suspect they're having problems with their new server and the after-effects of the recent move.

They went down Friday morning and stayed down over the weekend. I'll give them a couple of working days before I get concerned that they're not back up.

 

[fifty5]

Does anyone know what happened to ASSTR?

Gawd, I miss it!

You probably know, but it's back up.

<lascivious grin>

f5

 

[HeidiManshankVA]

I just tried it and it's still giving me the finger (haha).

What address are you using?

Asstr.org?

Or has the addy changed as well?


I noticed it was down over the weekend and couldn't help but panic. It's like going cold turkey!

I'm about ready to bite all my nails off! hahaha

 

[Pookie]

Re: Re: Asstr

I suspect they're having problems with their new server and the after-effects of the recent move.

They went down Friday morning and stayed down over the weekend. I'll give them a couple of working days before I get concerned that they're not back up.

Here is the latest info I've seen on the status of ASSTR ...

The firewall's conked out again. Rey & Mike may or may not get it into halfassedly functional mode again, but if they do, it'll no doubt roll over again.

Mike has the replacement firewall(a box *known* by Mike to work nicely with their distro of Linux), and is setting it up, configuring, etc. Then it'll be shipped to the data center and installed. This will take at least a couple of weeks. Meanwhile:

Access to ASSTR will be spotty at best. ASSM likely will remain devoid of stories, since the fw really doesn't like incoming email, even when it is more or less working.

All involved apologize--but also note that all involved are more frustrated and generally po'd about this than anyone else. ASSTR/ASSM *will* be back up and working properly, have no doubts about that. It's just a bad transition period. "This too shall pass."

(I'm posting this 'cos Rey's Usenet laptop is in the shop)

If you really really need something passed to Rey--something that just can't wait--you can email me and I'll pass it on. But if I get 'Rey I need to know when the site'll be back up' I won't bother passing that on. He doesn't know. Mike doesn't know. The answer to that one is ASAP.

 

[HeidiManshankVA]

Pookie (great name by the way),

Beyond thank you for posting that information.

I love the site (sites) and can't wait till its back up.

Pass a long a thanks from an avid asstr visitor if you like.

Thanks

 

[Pookie]

Thanks ... and you're welcome.

I'll posts any updates as I see/get them. It's been very frustrating as an author because of the downtime as a result of this transition. But the future looks bright because of the new isp.

 

[WalkingTaco]

Originally posted by HeidiManshankVA
I noticed it was down over the weekend and couldn't help but panic. It's like going cold turkey!

Yes, we may all have to go out and have ACTUAL SEX! LOL

 

[bigcityboy]

thanks pookie- i was wondering what was going on- the search option hadnt been working since they moved isps and then the whole site went down!

"you dont know what you got till its gone"

 

[Pookie]

thanks pookie- i was wondering what was going on- the search option hadnt been working since they moved isps and then the whole site went down!

"you dont know what you got till its gone"

You're welcome.

 

[Pookie]

I just saw this ...

On Tue, 30 Mar 2004 12:26:30 -0800, Denny Wheeler wrote:

<denny crosses his fingers, toes, and just about everything else>
>
>The replacement firewall is on its way to the data center, overnighted
>so it'll be there tomorrow. Ghu willing and FedEx don't f*ck up, the
>site will come back up sometime [Wednesday]. Late tomorrow, likely.


Obviously, things didn't go quite as well as hoped. I recommend just checking every day at this point.

 

[lewdandlicentious]

OK, so what is ASSTR????

 

[Guest]

OK, so what is ASSTR????

It's a bit like Lit, but different. A free site that hosts stories, in other words.

Lou

 

[lewdandlicentious]

Oh.

Address???

 

[Guest]

Edited, had second thoughts about posting the URL. Might have broken Lit's rules.



I've PM'd it to you.

Lou

 

[Pookie]

OK, so what is ASSTR????

It's a website run by volunteers, paid for by donations only. It contains no banner advertisements. The website's name stands for "alt.sex.stories.text.repository". The website allows authors to setup and manage their own personal websites at no charge. The site also is responsible for the alt.sex.stories.moderated newsgroup. They have fewer rules (if any) for posting fictional erotic literature. No one has to review a story before it can be posted on their website.

A big difference with Lit is that ASSTR doesn't have a bulletin board/discussion forum like this one at Lit.

I have a link in my sig line to my personal website at asstr.org. Unfortunately, the server is still down.

 

[Pookie]

Actually, I just checked ... and it is back up.

Hopefully it will stay up this time.

 

[Lou Nuttick]

A big difference with Lit is that ASSTR doesn't have a bulletin board/discussion forum like this one at Lit.

There is a discussion group, alt.sex.stories.d for discussion of the stories. You're right that it is not a forum like Lit: there's just the one discussion group, so it's not as wide-ranging, and there's a tendency for posts to stray off topic, since it's not moderated. Since it's not moderated, there's also the issue of spam to deal with.

 

[Weird Harold]

Actually, I just checked ... and it is back up.

Hopefully it will stay up this time.

Wee need to hope harder I guess. It was up until about 20 minutes ago, but I just tried to refreshit agaon and got"

Service Unavailable
This server is temporarily unable to service requests.(Internal-Reason: 132)

 

[Pookie]

It appears that ASSTR is finally back up and running.

Here is some info that I received about the problems they were having ...

Posted to ASSD

I know many of you are probably wondering what in the world is going on with ASSTR and why there has not been any word from us in several weeks.

My lack of presence in ASSD has been due to hardware issues with my laptop that conveniently started happening right before our trip to relocate our servers. The problems got progressively worse, and still aren't completely fixed. But at least I can use it enough to read and post to Usenet. For those of you who have seen Office Space, you might recall the scene where the guys finally are able to get some pay-back time with the problematic fax machine... I feel the same way about my laptop.

Anyway, as far as ASSTR is concerned, we are 99% of the way there, believe it or not. We continue to fight hardware/software issues with the firewall. The problems all started with the original firewall we set up, a problem caused by Linux's flaky support for the IDE interface on the system's motherboard. We thought we had the problem licked before leaving CA, but alas what we really had was a time bomb waiting until we got home to detonate. After the firewall we originally took out with us to California died, we were able to secure a used replacement machine for a very good price. We purchased it, configured it, and overnighted it for $150 + $40 packaging to the data center.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to test the machine as thoroughly as we would have liked due to time pressures and lack of test equipment. So the bottom line is the firewall has three network interfaces, one of which we're having a software driver problem with. The good news is we might be able to fix it, and if not, we don't absolutely need the third one right now. So if we can't get it working, we just need the guys in the data center to switch some wires and we should be set. This is a software problem once again due to flaky hardware support in Linux, so a fix may or may not be available. All of this is complicated by the fact that we're still not on the data center's access list, so we have to get all our support through a round-about, inefficient manner.

The site should be back up soon - within the next day or two at the most. Rest assure we are doing everything we can to get these problems ironed out. We have also learned some valuable lessons on the way, and some good has come out of all this mess. We now have a spare machine we can put to use, and unlike the original, the new firewall has a SCSI RAID 5 hard drive array, meaning that the server can tolerate a drive failure without crashing. The firewall is a Dell Poweredge rack mount system, known in the industry to be rock solid in Linux as far as stability goes. The original firewall was a home-built system and, while it has/had the potential to be just as stable, it doesn't have the same track record as the Dell.

So that's the news for now. Again, things *should* be back to normal very soon. We appreciate everyone's continued patience.

- Rey del Sexo

 

[fifty5]

I have a link in my sig line to my personal website at asstr.org. Unfortunately, the server is still down.

It's up now - and so am I after reading Melissa's Secrets! That's one hot story, told so silky smooth!

Can't wait for the next chapter...

Soon, I hope, f5