Hi all, this week, our board decided to apply for bankruptcy. RIght now I don't know exactly what this will mean for continued sales (apparently card payments are not possible right now at least), but I am 99% sure that Excito will not be able continue to provide support or software updates. This is now in the hands of the community.
If you have ideas on how I can help transferring stuff to you guys let me know asap, the company is alive for a few weeks or so, but after that everything is very uncertain. All code is public on github.
Personally I will stick around this forum and try to do my best to help out.
with bubbalove,
/Johannes
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Excito in bankruptcy
Excito in bankruptcy
/Johannes (Excito co-founder a long time ago, but now I'm just Johannes)
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
Sad news! 
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RandomUsername
- Posts: 904
- Joined: 09 Oct 2009, 18:49
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
Sad indeed. I got the impression they were doing quite well with V1 or whatever it's called.
Some practical questions:
1. Can we expect Easyfind to stop working soon?
2. Obviously the forum domain has changed recently. Where is it being hosted, who owns the domain and who is paying for it all?
3. Same as question 1 for any other excito provided services (e.g. I think my B3 is currently syncing to their NTP server).
Some practical questions:
1. Can we expect Easyfind to stop working soon?
2. Obviously the forum domain has changed recently. Where is it being hosted, who owns the domain and who is paying for it all?
3. Same as question 1 for any other excito provided services (e.g. I think my B3 is currently syncing to their NTP server).
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
1) As for easyfind, there is no final verdict, but it may be difficult to maintain in the future due to the costs involved. More below.
2) The forum and soon the wiki are hosted in my network for no fee. Johannes owns the domain name 'mybubba.org' on personal title.
3) The excito ntp servers are not actually owned by excito but by ntp.org. However, a new pool name (mybubba.pool.ntp.org) as been acquired to replace it. You can use this new pool right now. The update service will also move to my network with the next few weeks.
As for easyfind, migration for this service requires some real IT work. I can support infrastructure and support, but I do not have the time to perform this migration by myself. Also I'm mot actually using easyfind myself. So anyone willing to chip in please step forward. If nobody is willing, then easyfind may very likely disappear.
2) The forum and soon the wiki are hosted in my network for no fee. Johannes owns the domain name 'mybubba.org' on personal title.
3) The excito ntp servers are not actually owned by excito but by ntp.org. However, a new pool name (mybubba.pool.ntp.org) as been acquired to replace it. You can use this new pool right now. The update service will also move to my network with the next few weeks.
As for easyfind, migration for this service requires some real IT work. I can support infrastructure and support, but I do not have the time to perform this migration by myself. Also I'm mot actually using easyfind myself. So anyone willing to chip in please step forward. If nobody is willing, then easyfind may very likely disappear.
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
So; a million thanks to Ubi for offering to host stuff for free for us.
/Johannes (Excito co-founder a long time ago, but now I'm just Johannes)
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RandomUsername
- Posts: 904
- Joined: 09 Oct 2009, 18:49
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
mybubba.pool.ntp.org doesn't appear to be working.
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
Let's hope that excito employees will not stay unemployed too long...
I was wondering about the software repositories (at least install files and excito debian repos). Where will they be hosted ? Ubi's too ? I have some disk space available hosted by ovh (where I already put some stuff), I can provide some for the community.
I was wondering about the software repositories (at least install files and excito debian repos). Where will they be hosted ? Ubi's too ? I have some disk space available hosted by ovh (where I already put some stuff), I can provide some for the community.
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
the addresses are
0.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
1.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
2.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
3.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
0.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
1.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
2.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
3.mybubba.pool.ntp.org
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
I'm fine with any solution. I run my own ISP so I have enough bandwith and disk space for nominal cost, but anyone volunteering to hosts these files is quite welcome to take over this function. I would prefer this host to be able to guarantee an uptime and presence for at least 1 year though.MouettE wrote:I was wondering about the software repositories (at least install files and excito debian repos). Where will they be hosted ? Ubi's too ? I have some disk space available hosted by ovh (where I already put some stuff), I can provide some for the community.
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
I use easyfind myself, and I'd hate to see it disappear.Ubi wrote:1) As for easyfind, there is no final verdict, but it may be difficult to maintain in the future due to the costs involved. More below.
As for easyfind, migration for this service requires some real IT work. I can support infrastructure and support, but I do not have the time to perform this migration by myself. Also I'm mot actually using easyfind myself. So anyone willing to chip in please step forward. If nobody is willing, then easyfind may very likely disappear.
Thus, I'm here to offer my services in anyway I can, to keep it going.
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
Great. I'll email you.
/Johannes (Excito co-founder a long time ago, but now I'm just Johannes)
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theWebalyst
- Posts: 96
- Joined: 27 May 2010, 14:53
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
An alternative to easyfind is ftpdns, something I hacked to perform this function for my Odroids which don't have an equivalent to easyfind.
It requires a basic web hosting service with ftp (about $65/year, but this could be shared, or it could be hosted on a B3 that has a fixed IP) because it uses an ftp server to receive and share IP address between machines. I did say it was a hack!
Get it from github: https://github.com/theWebalyst/ftpdns
Mark
It requires a basic web hosting service with ftp (about $65/year, but this could be shared, or it could be hosted on a B3 that has a fixed IP) because it uses an ftp server to receive and share IP address between machines. I did say it was a hack!
Get it from github: https://github.com/theWebalyst/ftpdns
Mark
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
so you're giving away a free FTP location with unlimited storage and bandwith to the whole world. Thanks for paying for all that! 
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
That ftp stuff is the weirdest scheme I've ever seen. And the bad thing about it is that you can't use it from e.g. an internet café. But why you'd want to use ftp instead of simply posting the values - like easyfind does - is beyond me.
And in essence the task is simple enough. You need a domain name and your name service provider should allow you to run your own authoritative nameserver for your domain. Next you'll need a web interface where users can post the changes in their IP address and you want some authentication scheme on this to prevent people stealing someone else's host name. In the case of easyfind, this means owning the Excito database that links the hardware key parameter and the value of mac0, and you want the interface to use ssl. Ideally you want these services to be separated on different servers and spread across the globe to prevent one bad line to cut them all off at the same time.
I don't have a clue though about how big these servers would need to be sized. For a simple domain that publishes a TTL of 24 hours, a B3 on a regular household connection could probably do the job. Running a dynamic DNS service with TTLs of 1 minute, upstream DNS servers are probably going to hit you silly with requests to synchronize their caches. Much could be learned from the current setup.
And in essence the task is simple enough. You need a domain name and your name service provider should allow you to run your own authoritative nameserver for your domain. Next you'll need a web interface where users can post the changes in their IP address and you want some authentication scheme on this to prevent people stealing someone else's host name. In the case of easyfind, this means owning the Excito database that links the hardware key parameter and the value of mac0, and you want the interface to use ssl. Ideally you want these services to be separated on different servers and spread across the globe to prevent one bad line to cut them all off at the same time.
I don't have a clue though about how big these servers would need to be sized. For a simple domain that publishes a TTL of 24 hours, a B3 on a regular household connection could probably do the job. Running a dynamic DNS service with TTLs of 1 minute, upstream DNS servers are probably going to hit you silly with requests to synchronize their caches. Much could be learned from the current setup.
Re: Excito in bankruptcy
good points I think the current interval is very short, like 1 min or so. I guess if we can reduce this to 1 hour the load already becomes bearable. Bottleneck here is that the server names and intervals are set in the B2/3s and need to change via an update.
I agree that these servers should be spread out. However at this stage I'd be happy if they survive the next few months on any kind of hardware =). Even more fun would be if the pool of bubbae would themselves provide the entire infrastructure for easyfind, but I won;t know how to code that.
I agree that these servers should be spread out. However at this stage I'd be happy if they survive the next few months on any kind of hardware =). Even more fun would be if the pool of bubbae would themselves provide the entire infrastructure for easyfind, but I won;t know how to code that.