adminless.ovh web services to fpsclasico.de migration started

[adminless]

hello everybody

so as mentioned on other sections of the current board open here this thread to go documenting the migration of the adminless.ovh web services into the new fpsclasico.de domain for this season and counting. well, so much stuff that I don't even know where to start so by now just report that currently I started by migrating the ftp so now the former ftp server has been already replaced by the new ftp.fpsclasico.de server with more capacity and faster downloads and in addition it even comes with a web interface (yes now you can also browse it at https://ftp.fpsclasico.de) that was missing altogether on the adminless.ovh version and that it's important because not every device/operative system/browser (ex. most mid range android phones) has direct embedded support for passive anonymous ftp which means that these users couldn't access the downloads basically. that's now corrected so whoever wants and/or can't get the files via ftp can simply get them via regular https which also may serve if someone is fancy and want some "secure" (encrypted over the wire) downloads. to make the change really effective (not just a announce for the future, to start working right now) I sed'ed (automatically replaced) any occurrence of the former ftp.adminless.ovh with the new ftp.fpsclasico.de at the board so unless I missed something big I think that that should complete this initial task.

then please I would really appreciate if some of you could browse the new ftp site (both via ftp and https) and check a few posts and download links to ensure that everything is working for everybody. as issues so far the only problem is that there's a on-going bug with some security module of the new web server that breaks some pages, this is a really rare thing and is due to be patched on a new release of the web server (not by me, by the web server developers and then published by the server's operative system provider), well, that's the kind of things that happens when you deploy the very latest everything, if it happens for you rest assured it shouldn't persists for too long.

no need to say that obviously as with anything with the new domain is fully ipv6/ipv4 compliant (well, the web services already were for the most part). and that's all for now on the next days I'll go deploying more services at the new domain and documenting them here as it happens to let you know so people doesn't get lost.

finally as a bonus task to strengthen our internet presence and "guard" it (to some extend) from outside attacks I finally decide to let the former domains running (adminless.ovh and unfreeze.ga) contrary to my initial "fair" intention of simply dispose them as well as bring a third back domain to the table, fpsclasico.eu, which is the only one I could ever be interested in and that it actually make sense here (just as a curiosity here, my idea for the domain has always been some eu domain however be it for some reasons or another, i.e. money/conditions, I never got to deploy some eu domain, it's funny I ended up getting some eu under these specific circumstances. nevertheless, now that I set up the de domain I even prefer it over the eu one as it's more specific than just some eu domain that could be anywhere and just "generic"). so get that clear, those are the only supported domains here thus please make sure to note them right and add them to your favorites so you don't get mess up.

ah and also that I almost forgot just a remainder, due the strong security measures at the server as well as the server unavailability on some regions under some specific circumstances and at some specific networks it's possible that perhaps some dns resolutions fail, it that's the case then I simply inst you to use the google public dns servers for your names resolutions for example (i.e. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or any other well know american or European dns servers of your choice.

well and now yes, that's all to start with, I hope within this month, more or less, everything is properly set up and going.

[adminless]

ok guys job pretty much complete already, just reporting me here this time with the new status of the current adminless.ovh to fpsclasico.de migration. starting past week the domain server has been moved into the low latency south-weest spare route and know to be working without any mayor issues so far. also by that time the new mail server at fpsclasico.de has been already set up and know to be working without issues either for a couple of days already at the new host. in addition for this season a new inside irc ssl network has been deployed, you have the full post about it here as it was intended for like the past summer, more or less, but that I had failed to deliver, and also including a new cool and updated webchat. so you definitively should go checking out those things and report if you encounter any problems so far in order to try to minimize the risk that later occur bigger problems.

also on the new south-west host started to deploy the legacy adminless.ovh backup web infrastructure early this morning in order to keep both domains running and brought up a new fancy spare free domain for the renamed well know servers, the oclockservers.uk domain, in a effort to mitigate (not stop as that's unfortunately without a judicial order impossible but at least to mitigate to some extend) possible future attacks towards our name and hard earned reputation. also polished all the old links here at the current board and embedded the master/rank fpsclasico.de site on a new page here right on the board just this morning. you have it right on the navigation tab just after the WebChat link is the new servers page where you can now browse the servers and even access the rank sites just from the own board without needing to leave the site or open any more tabs/windows. I think it's a pretty cool addition and it should definitively serve to make the servers more accessible for everybody. I believe that you should definitively check it out.

so long story short, lot of stuff still going but it seems that finally after like a month of dedicated hard work already things are starting to come together and going, so with all this, I believe that all the preparations to move board are currently done, in fact for the most part all that it's currently left, is just that, move the board, which to me it seems almost imminent, probably expect it between this Thursday or Friday if there's no any notable issue/s in between and that should more than complete this task here.

after all that what will come next will be some small nice client gamemod update for the Quake III Arena mod and also relocate the former adminless.ovh servers at the new host and that should be it. in addition I'll also be looking forward to push some new game server/s (as we have already talked) to replace the death adminless.ovh Wolfenstein Enemy Territory server that I announce here that unfortunately it won't make it for another season (let's face it, it didn't work out), it will be replaced by another game (the others two will stick, the openarena ctf server will be moved "as-is" and the urbanterror one will be reworked and updated from the current legacy version).

so that's it, I'm going to take a few time to give a final think to the tasks at hand and ensure that everything is in place, then see you for now, have fun.

[adminless]

ok guys after two days of testing and use I believe that it's time to drop the report here, so as of Friday 19 of October of 2018 I think that finally the adminless.ovh/fpsclasico.de migration has finished all that it's left to do is just move the secondary adminless.ovh game servers and a few migrations of data between the old host and the new backup host (the low latency south west host) and that should be it which after all the work those are more like minor/regular maintenance things so job complete. afterward I'll move into a small revision of the Quake III Arena client game mod for this new season and probably will be looking forward bring some other fresh projects so stay tune as usual.

then coming to the update I believe that it has been totally awesome and it definitively seems like a mayor improvement to me and it should serve to ensure that the project remains relevant at least for another couple of years if not more, all the services deployed at the new host are very latest versions released just now so they should go a very long way (~2020). so far I've just been testing the forum for a couple of days on six different browsers and on three different devices and it even has been known and reported to be working on other platforms and I tested just basically everything I could think of about it without any known issues thus I think that it's fair to call the migration at hand as done.

other than all the already mentioned significant additions this time there has not been many mayor changes for the forum (i.e. basically all that could be done with it has already be done) for the most part it just has been updated to the very latest everything, sorted out a bit some of the dirt from previous changes, and to keep in line with the "clasico" (clasico meaning just classic in Spanish which I chose it not because of the Spanish if not because I think it sounds less "cliche") style I renamed it from the actual board sub domain into a regular old school forum sub domain. additionally as minor additions I added a extra Naruto Shippuden forum style which looks like you can see at the screenshot just for fun (you can change the forum style at your user control panel if someone is interested) and added finish language support at the forum and that should be it. like I mentioned there's no pretty much to do with this board beside all that has already be done (leveling, webchat, servers/ranking integration etc etc) if so on future revisions I'll go adding more styles and languages as they are available because this stuff is so new that most things weren't even available yet.

also I seded (automatically replaced) the whole database from the former adminless.ovh domain into the new fpsclasico.de one and hand modified the few remained ones that couldn't be automatically catch and so far no issues has been found either so I believe that things should pick up from now on. and that's it remember that for a full summary of services and their addresses you have the links page here at the board so make sure to check that out too and actually take good note/favorite the most relevant ones so later you do not miss all the fun.

and remember that for security/convenience reasons most of the old domains/stuff will still remain to work at least for a long time however the current relevant one is the one you see at your browser address bar and that due the domain change all previous sessions had to be dropped therefore in order to use the forum again you need to re-login again. if you encounter any problems with that (that you shouldn't but if it's the case) just clear the cookies for the site.

see you for now

[adminless]

ok, hello everyone, I'm back this time with another little update here for the forum

this time finally I got a new decent minimalist forum style, ProLight, that you can select at your user control panel. overall it's probably not as polished as the default (standard) one but I've been trying it now (posting this with it) and it's at least fully working. this forum style is specially handy for mobile/lightweight devices, it's really a neat and clean cut forum style so I think that you should definitively check it out. on the attached screens you have some sample screenshots to get you a idea of how it looks like.

unfortunately without mods (that for several reasons we're not interested in) it's not possible for guest users to select (directly, by clicking somewhere) the forum style, however there's a trick for that, you can force the forum style even as a guest by adding the 'style=<styleID>' code to the url, just like this:

• Prosilver: forum.fpsclassico.com/indexbb.php?style=1 (legacy/fail-safe)
• Prosilver SE: forum.fpsclassico.com/indexbb.php?style=2 (this is the default)
• Naruto Shippuden style: forum.fpsclassico.com/indexbb.php?style=19 (just for the fans and for fun)
• proflat: forum.fpsclassico.com/indexbb.php?style=26 (the actual recommended for mobile/lightweight devices probably)

note that registered users do not need to go trough these links to change the forum style, they can change their style just at the user control panel and the changes will stick. so if you're just a guest make sure to simply favorite your preferred one. if so on the future it's possible that I add a couple of links for them somewhere else, however for usability reasons I don't feel like flooding the site with nothing just above the necessary.

then, in addition to that, I also added this time a new language, Turkce, that I had unceremoniously overlooked. although there's currently no really know frequent users (either registered or guest) from Turkiye after digging the UnFreeZe server network map I came to realize that this's definitively a key/major region so now, even if late, at least I amended for this horrible mistake and added support at the forum for it, my most sincere apologies about that. hopefully this time I found a way to change the language as a guest (although this is gonna be in vain as this message is in English meaning the people it targets won't be able to understand it which is plain non sense but anyways) which is just at the language popup of the register page, there you can change the forum language (that of the buttons/interface not that of the post themselves obviously) as a guest to browse the forum on your native language for easier convenience.

finally, following the new adminless YouTube channel (link) I noticed that according to this the YouTube field at the forum was already outdated with that of the old usernames url's thus I replaced it with the new 'channel' (plus channelID) url's in order to support any "modern" (probably above 2010 and something I guess) channel then know that in case someone is interested in adding his YouTube channel at the forum, you need to stick your channelID at the appropriate field as explained here.

and that should be it with this minor update here this time, I'm still pending to add a couple of more notable languages but as they become available, but for the most part with this new lightweight responsive forum style this should mostly complete this forum thing for this season. coming to the adminless services, unfortunately I didn't go all the way and I missed to decommission the old server altogether as I had planned to have done already, unfortunately work flow led me other more important ways already (like a side server and tournament) but anyways as mentioned earlier here, that's more like routine tasks, it's not much of a deal.

see you for now.

[adminless]

ok, to finish this off yesterday I finally went much more thoroughly through the languages thing here and basically added what was missing already, so now in addition to the languages currently available there's also support for Cestina, Slovencina and Ukrayinska that were notably missing as well as peripheral languages Ellinika and Portugues that are just as important as the rest (I mean, Ellinika for example is the oldest know language on the continent and it virtually invented the writing as we know it today). as mentioned some of these last added languages are still not validated versions but early versions however I tested them (just basically as I could, I don't speak those languages) and all of them seemed fully working so far. then with this, this finally complete the forum migration and revision for this season for real, I'm still missing a few languages and I obviously know for a fact that there's many more languages largely missing (notably from the Balkan region) but I hope that now with all these additions nobody should definitively feel left out, understand that I don't speak every single language on the continent and that it's not even possible (reasonably possible to some extend) to add support for every single language. so, that's it, job complete here too

[adminless]

as issues so far the only problem is that there's a on-going bug with some security module of the new web server that breaks some pages, this is a really rare thing and is due to be patched on a new release of the web server (not by me, by the web server developers and then published by the server's operative system provider), well, that's the kind of things that happens when you deploy the very latest everything, if it happens for you rest assured it shouldn't persists for too long.

well after several months of this on-going issue with no solution from the operative system provider finally yesterday I tackled this issue myself as this couldn't continue like that anymore. I'm not entirely happy as I finally ended making a custom installment which is not what I wanted but nevertheless at least this now fixed that issue and after testing it for almost a day already everything seems to be working fine and well at least now it's running the absolutely very latest everything so this now should finally complete for real the new server. there's still some minor migrations left (basically deploy a new updated Urban Terror server and a few minor other pages, the Open Arena one was already migrated with success like the past month) but what's important (and even more) have already been migrated and properly running from some time.

note that as the web server is completely new in order to avoid data conflicts/corruption is advisable to clear up your web browser cache, at least the one relative to the fpsclasico.de domain, as well as run an well known up-to-date browser, that you should always anyways not just because of this site, although it should works nevertheless in any of the cases I think. as usual in case some one got some issue with this web server update just let me know by any mean you want (answer this thread, open another thread, contact me, whatever).

and well that's all, overall as already stated I think this migration really made a difference for the community and overall I'm very pleased with it probably the only flaw/miscalculation I made was the cost (one of the reasons why I made this migration was to save costs well I ended up paying basically the same if not even some more) so without any intention to persuade you of anything I would strongly advise you to drop by the finnacial support thread here and if you feel like it contribute with any money you can and want, it will really make the difference in the long run.

have fun and enjoy.

[adminless]

ok, unfortunately after keep using the web server and test it a bit more thoroughly on the days after the new installment it was found that although that custom installment had fixed the initial issue only did so partially. while 99% of the time it was working just fine under most common circumstances at other times it was missing requests (which is something that should never under any circumstance take place no matter what) plus overall its performance was sub-par/inferior and it was even exhibiting some issues with not so "legacy" (ex. Windows 8.1 era) computers/installments. in few words although it was doing the job to some extend I wouldn't even call that a "solution" of any sort, in one way or another it was the same broken/partially broken stuff basically.

therefore I spent the last days testing and working around this (which unfortunately delayed me from the other tasks at hand here, sorry about that) and I deployed yet another new web server installment but basically from "scratch" this time that was about all that was left (the other would be to deploy my own web server, which is not a realistic option). hopefully at least this now I think that addressed every single issue and overall I believe that the result has been superb on almost any aspect (security, performance, compatibility, features, I mean, just about anything). I'm quite surprised to have had to go this lengths to get something as "basic" (common) as a web server like this going in 2019 but anyways that's it, I hope that this finally gets this site going and for a long time (this is almost like a 2020 installment so it should go a long way at least until near 2021 I'd say).

on a positive note at least one of the features I added on this new installment is automatic language selection for guests browsing the site at its "root" (both index.php as well as forum.unfreeze.xyz or oclockservers.uk) which given the international scope of the project I think it's a great feature to have that luckily let's hope that it will help improve the site performance/popularity

[adminless]

report for the last time on this thread that apparently six months after I started with this adminless.ovh to fpsclasico.de migration the last few remaining items still left to migrate have been finally migrated this past Easter, so now this finally more than completes the task at hand here for real. I still have to deploy a bunch of other services here and replace that extinct Wolfestein Enemy Territory server and a few other updates here and there but that's it, that's just new stuff to come, the migration/merge is finally 100% done.

overall I'm very happy and satisfied with the result, in fact, this time I'd go as far as say that although there's always some margin for improvement, this is it, this time this margin for improvement is very small, this is as close as it gets. in my opinion this season "re-work"/update definitively did it and moved the project from "pro" grade quality to "commercial" grade quality, I'd say. to me finally all the services converged and there's really no issue/bug of significance left in them. everything has been migrated already (even old "death" services and more) and finally all the pieces of this project came together in whole single place as it was "intended" (in reality hoped) from the beginning.

after all this work I'd expect this current setup to stay relevant at least for a season, this is, around late 2020 at least, so we'll see how it does. so that's it on my side here now as usual with any update let me know if someone still experiences some issue with the site/game servers and don't forget to refresh your caches. to finish this thread just as a remainder, if you're also with me on this and you love how this is going, don't forget to check the financial support thread and if you feel like it, make a contribution. any sort of contribution is really important and it definitively makes a difference in the long run.

see you and thanks for your patience and support during this time.