Issues with site? Anyone else?

[SteveShannon]

Today I’ve been getting “access forbidden” errors when trying to reply to some posts. I also have seen an error that looks like a DNS error when the URL couldn’t be found and for the past few days I’ve seen a few instances where I received an error saying that there were too many connections. 
Another person has mentioned that he had gotten the “access forbidden” error. 
Have others seen these same errors?

[rdunajewski]

The forums have been under a DOS attack for the past week, so that's why you're seeing errors pop up here and there. Overall, the mitigation has being going well so hopefully the disruptions have been kept to a minimum. We're still running with >99.9% uptime for the month. 

The forbidden errors are from security software I added to help mitigate the attack, but it looks like it's catching some legitimate traffic too. I adjusted the rules so it should be good for everyone now, but please let me know if you still run into forbidden errors. 

[WRYZ926]

Ah that makes sense. I was getting the same "access forbidden" messages too.

I even tried using my iPad on cellular and got the same error message. I did that to see if my IP address or the IP address range was being blocked. Anyway, glad to see it fixed. 

[WRUU653]

56 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

Ah that makes sense. I was getting the same "access forbidden" messages too.

I even tried using my iPad on cellular and got the same error message. I did that to see if my IP address or the IP address range was being blocked. Anyway, glad to see it fixed. 

 I had the same problem the other day and tried changing devices. I thought it might have been due to an update on IOS. Thanks @rdunajewski for your efforts. 

[Willie]

I got the 'too many connections' error once, a few days ago but it resolved itself about a half-hour later.

[SteveShannon]

Thanks for your hard work, Rich!

[TrikeRadio]

4 hours ago, rdunajewski said:

I adjusted the rules so it should be good for everyone now, but please let me know if you still run into forbidden errors. 

Thanks for your work keeping the site working for us!

[RayDiddio]

A little strange that someone is attacking this site. It has to be someone looking for holes in security and with any luck, they aren't going to find anything.

I've been having trouble with slow response times but have not experienced any errors and I would like to share the sentiments with the thank you! I enjoy this site and feel it's a shame that someone has a hair across their backside to the point they want to DDoS it.

[OffRoaderX]

18 minutes ago, RayDiddio said:

strange that someone is attacking this site.

Of course, I know-not of any of the details, but it could just be a bot/scraper gone rogue/out of control - very common and often confuckulated as an attack - with the same end result.

OTOH, it could be the sad-H.A.M. cartel ....

SOURCE: Have run a dozen or so of my own websites and owned a small web-hosting company for 10+ years.

[RayDiddio]

38 minutes ago, OffRoaderX said:

Of course, I know-not of any of the details, but it could just be a bot/scraper gone rogue/out of control - very common and often confuckulated as an attack - with the same end result.

OTOH, it could be the sad-H.A.M. cartel ....

SOURCE: Have run a dozen or so of my own websites and owned a small web-hosting company for 10+ years.

This has been happening for a few days on my end. If it is a DDoS attack, it's likely looking for weaknesses in the system. Buffer overflows can reveal a lot of openings in a server if it isn't up to snuff.

But the sad h.A.m. cartels could also be a source, as you say, or even this rogue scraperbot. I have made lots of scrapers for different reasons and none has ever gone rogue on me. Then again, maybe I was just careful. Who knows?