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MeatballWikiRecovery
MeatballWiki | RecentChanges | Random Page | Indices | CategoriesMeatballWiki, UseModWiki, and the DesignBibliography experienced a massive file system crash on August 14th, 2006. While the other sites were recoverable, the MeatballWiki Postgres Database had to be recovered from a tape backup (along with the entire UNIX install) dated August 2.
Using Google and MSN caches, we have obtained more recent copies of pages, available from http://usemod.com/MB-Recovery. ChristopheDucamp has also organised some more recoveries at http://www.communitywiki.org/odd/Xtof/MeatballWikiParTerre. A more thorough analysis needs to be done. Currently, we are missing the latest copies of:
- CommunicationRole
- WikiSchool?
- CommunityWiki
- DesignBibliography
- plus a couple of others...
We would also be greatly aided by copies of pages more recent than 12 August, which is the time of the last pass of Google's cache through RecentChanges, and any which list changes made between the 2nd and 5th of August, which is not covered by either cached copy of RecentChanges found so far.
We have yet to go through the Apache logs to find edit/POST pairs to see which pages were edited.
- 1. Sunir speaking
- 2. Chris speaking
- 3. Recovery
- 3.1. How to access Cache in your browser ?
- 3.1.1. Other Languages
- 3.3. Still to recover
1. Sunir speaking
I'm in Copenhagen now on route to WikiSym. Now that I have a free high speed connection at the hostel (and I am being a bastard monopolizing it), I've recovered the system from the full tape backup of the server from August 2. I'll go through the Apache logs tomorrow (Saturday), I guess.I am going to look into a more resilient backup system. While our ISP's system backup is actually fine for the system as a whole, we should go back to the nightly backups that were happening a year ago (or more).
I would like to discuss this at WikiSym and perhaps move towards a governance committee. Some things that are necessary and obvious to do just cannot get done with only two people.
P.S. You can SMS me at +91 (98) 6779-1832 if you want to meet up. I won't accept calls as I only have 150 rupees left on the phone.
2. Chris speaking
Just in case anyone gets the wrong end of the stick (e.g. concluding that PostgreSQL? must be at fault if it broke while the other sites were fine), the symptoms of the file system crash were as follows:
- Many files were corrupted or deleted
- Many directories were corrupted, turning (bizarrely) into files, coincidentally erasing the enclosing files
- Only files that had been accessed recently appeared to have been corrupted
- Of those that were accessed recently, corruption was endemic
Meatball was probably the hardest hit damage-wise because it is the most frequently hit visitor-wise. Aside from the PostgreSQL? database, which actually vanished completely, we also suffered massive corruption to Perl (which no longer booted), and many of the tools used by the server hosts. Swathes of shared libraries vanished, or turned into directories. Eventually, we gave up trying to restore damaged files manually, and simply reverted the entire filesystem to an earlier revision, saving only the pagebases of the still-viable sites.
If anyone knowledgeable in UNIX can tell us what went wrong, we would be most grateful. As far as I can tell, the only triggering actions were the server's disk allocation being filled up, and a subsequent run of fsck. -- ChrisPurcell
3. Recovery
3.1. How to access Cache in your browser ?
- MozillaFirefox? : just type "about:cache" in the command line
- Internet-Explorer : Tools -> Options -> Parameters -> Show files
How do you read the files in these folders? What application?
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/*Sunir's%20Trawl%20Of%20Google/
- This contains plain-text files with (oddly) .html suffices. Choose view source in any browser; the output is from lynx. These should all be duplicated in the root directory anyway.
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/*Clustered/
- .webarchive is a Safari suffix.
3.1.1. Other Languages
Some instructions in LangueFrançaise are dropped on CraoWiki:SosMeatballWiki.3.2. Recovered
| Page name | Cached (date) | Source | Person recovering | |
| AcademicalVillage | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| CategoryLearningCommunity? -> CategoryEducation | -- | -- | JS | |
| CommunicationRole | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| CommunityWiki | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| DesignBibliography | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| DiscourseAnalysis | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| DougSchuler | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| GlobalOnlineCommunity | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| GreenCheese | 10 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| HoneyBee | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| LinkingWithoutIndexing | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| MeatballForWikiResearchers | 12 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| MeatballOutreachDiscussion | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| ModeAccord | 16 July 2006 | CD | ||
| OpenALUtilityToolkit | 10 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| OpenLeader | 10 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| OperatingSystemSecurityForCommunitySecurity | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| OutingMode | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| PeerToPeerWiki | 10 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| PublicationsWiki | 11 Aug 2006 | CD | ||
| RecentChangesCamp | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| ReinventingTheWheel | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| RotThirteen | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| SisterSitesImplementationGuide | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| TourBus | 14 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| UseRealNamesForWomenDiscussion | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WhatIsaCommunity | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WhatIsCulture | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WikiInTheNews | 14 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WikiNet | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WikiPublications | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WikiResearch | 13 Aug 2006 | JS | ||
| WikiSchool? | 11 Aug 2006 | JS | Refactored as WikiInEducation | |
| WikiVersity | 14 Aug 2006 | JS |
3.3. Still to recover
English pages in the following directories:
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/
- Recovered by JS
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/*Clustered/
- Who uses Safari?
French page translations in the following directories:
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/*Sunir's%20Trawl%20Of%20Google/
- http://www.usemod.com/MB-Recovery/*Clustered/
RecentChanges:
All of the RecentChanges from August 9-13 have been recovered except the following pages:- Great news. I've dropped here some complete new translations (impossible to find any cache pages and cannont find a way to find any content in URIs mentioned in the section above ? -- ChristopheDucamp
CategoryMeatballWiki