Rust is flowing again after Topica's maintenance. They appeared to come back on-line at about 5:30am EST, about an hour and a half before their scheduled completion time. I haven't seen any obvious problems so far.
I was REALLY hoping that part of the upgrade might be the
digest size increase that they claim to be working on.
Unfortunately it wasn't. I suggest that everyone on Rust
who has registered with Topica, send them email expressing
your opinion on the small digests. If you don't like them,
make a suggestion that they AT LEAST offer a 25-posts-per-digest
option, too. If they get a lot of such requests from people
who are actually registered on their service, hopefully they'll
raise the priority of the work they're doing in this area.
. . . RE*AC*TOR
Topica will be doing maintenance tonight, which means that there will be no Rust deliveries, or access to Topica's web-based interfaces, during that period. All posts sent to Rust during the maintenance period will be queued. They'll be processed when operations resume afterward.
Note that this maintenance is SUPPOSED to fix the "YAUD" ("yet another unsent digest") problem. We shall see....
Here's the scheduled outage period:
SCHEDULED START | SCHEDULED END | |
Wed. Dec 13 | Thu. Dec 14 | |
6pm Pacific Time | 2am Pacific Time | |
9pm Eastern Time | 7am Eastern Time | |
2am GMT (really Dec 14) | Noon GMT |
If you're on AOL version 5, and have been thinking about upgrading, DON'T!
Once you upgrade you cannot post to Rust without garbaging up
the digests, because it doesn't let you do "Plain Text" mail.
This has already bitten a few regular Rust posters. And it's not
easy to revert to AOL 5 once you "upgrade" to AOL 6.
So if you intend to post to Rust (or send any plain text mail
anywhere): STAY AWAY FROM AOL Version 6.
. . . RE*AC*TOR
Okay, so Rust is now pretty well entrenched on Topica (for now). A few hickups, a few troublesome differences, but overall not much has changed. At this point it MOSTLY depends on YOU FOLKS to keep it going smoothly...
Yes, I hate the small digests as much as most everyone. Three times as much work for me in maintaining the Digest Archive. I (and some other Topica list owners) am pressing Topica to give at least one more option besides "every 10 messages". I felt that the old Rust set-up was ideal (usually about 700 lines, or a max of 25KB). If Topica would provide an "every 25 posts" option I'd be happy enough...
Anyone with any problems with your subscriptions, drop me a direct
line and I'll check into it...
. . . RE*AC*TOR
Rust is now running on Topica, and Rust List Volume 5 is history. On to Volume 6...
Again note: posts to Rust still go to "rust@rustlist.org".
Also again note: See the new instructions for Rust subscriptions.
And one last time note: Contact me with about any problems you see!
Fairwell to chicago.multipro.com -- you've been a pretty damn
reliable machine overall. Sorry to have to move on...
. . . RE*AC*TOR
I'm about to start setting the Topica subscriptions for the first batch of Rust subscribers (can't do them all at once). Some of you may have already been notified of your new subscription before you read this. EVERYONE should be notified of such by tomorrow (Sunday) some time.
Be aware that as long as everyone continues to send their posts to "rust@rustlist.org" as always, the cut-over to the new service should be transparent (except for the Topica look of the rust posts and digests you receive).
NOTE: There are new directions for subscription processing on Topica. Check them out!
Again, contact me with any problem reports!
. . . RE*AC*TOR
The Rust List is about to move onto Topica, at least temporarily. There are pros and cons to this... Pros:
The first current subscribers will see is a notification from Topica that a subscription has been entered for them. But for a short time afterward, posts will still be delivered from the old Rust server. Once I'm sure all of the new subscriptions are in place at Topica (could take a day for me to be sure) the "rust@rustlist.org" address will be switched to point to Topica and the old rust server will be sunset'ed.
The only significant thing Rusties must do differently has to do with subscription commands. A separate note will describe that.
Feel free to contact me about any problems you encounter.
. . . RE*AC*TOR
The server where Rust runs has been having an identity crises today. Mail sent to the alias "rustlist.org" (as is the standard way to send Rust posts, i.e., "rust@rustlist.org") is getting through fine. And outgoing mail is currently okay, EXCEPT for some systems that do a "reverse resolve" test for spam prevention on incoming mail. A subset of the Rust systems out there can't find the Rust server when they try to reverse-resolve the sender, and then they reject or hold off the incoming Rust mail.
Once this is fixed most systems will get a bunch of Rust mail in one fell swoop. But in the meantime the digest archive can be used to keep up.
Note that there's a possibility that problems for ALL Rust subscribers
could arise while trying to fix this. Hopefully not. But just in
case (e.g., if your Rust mail abruptly stops) check this news
page for status. Sorry about the hassles...
. . . RE*AC*TOR
A power hit zapped the server last night. We're now back online again, and deferred messages are arriving now. There will be some scrambling of the date sequence, since various senders' mail systems have different re-try rates. Hopefully within the next hour or so the backlog will be gone and we'll be flowing completely real-time again.
VERY sorry for this outage, and I am now seriously investigating a
new distribution stategy for Rust. Stay tuned for details...
. . . RE*AC*TOR
The Rust Server has disappeared from the internet. Troubleshooting
in progress. Please be patient... :-(
. . . RE*AC*TOR
Rust appears to be flowing cleanly again. Sorry about the outage!
. . . RE*AC*TOR
Well after a looooong time with no problems at all, the Rust Server's
mail system seems to be hosed at the moment. Investigation underway.
Will report back ASAP.
. . . RE*AC*TOR