long-term sustainability

maxal · 2022-09-16, 19:17

I'm sorry if this was discussed before, but I have a concern about long-term sustainability of factordb.com
Some time ago I tried to find an option to download the whose database and did not find any.
Are we in danger of loosing all the data (gathered over the years) if something awful happen with the server and/or its maintainers? (God forbids!)

a1call · 2022-09-16, 20:57

Assuming you mean "Whois Database",
I could find the entry easily at domaintools.com.
The registration is active.

ETA: Perhaps you are worried about the domain registrar, they must have been taken over by GoDaddy.

Quote:

Is Mesh Digital GoDaddy?
Who We Are. Domainbox.com is a brand of Mesh Digital Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GoDaddy Inc.

Stargate38 · 2022-09-16, 21:10

I think they meant to say "download the whole database". Maybe Syd could offer a weekly/monthly torrent as a backup option for those with enough disk space to store it (several TB). That way the DB won't be lost if something serious happens.

maxal · 2022-09-16, 22:14

Thanks for the correction. Yes, I worry mostly about the loss of data ("whole database") than about the domain or software. Although I'd not mind if the server software will go open source some day ;)

a1call · 2022-09-16, 22:25

The database would probably be not very useful without the query formats/syntax/exact-labels built into the web app.

R.D. Silverman · 2022-09-16, 23:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by maxal

Thanks for the correction. Yes, I worry mostly about the loss of data ("whole database") than about the domain or software. Although I'd not mind if the server software will go open source some day ;)

The discussion seems quite timely. I have been unable to access the database for the last day. Attempts
to access are now yielding "fixing database tables".

gd_barnes · 2022-09-17, 06:35

The FactorDB has been down for slightly over 2 days as of this post. The last time I remember being able to access it was around 12-12:30AM CDT U.S. (5-5:30AM GMT) on Sept. 15th. I believe it went down less than an hour after that.

I do not ever recall it being down this long before. I also am concerned about its long-term sustainability.

bur · 2022-09-17, 06:54

The initial error message was "power outage". I would think that would in the worst case result in the loss of a few entries, but who knows.

Generally, yes, there's a lot of unique data stored there. Especially the aliquot sequences, I assume the vast majority of contributors don't store the results for the individual terms. Basically loosing all aliquot data is not a nice prospect.

Quote:

The database would probably be not very useful without the query formats/syntax/exact-labels built into the web app.

I'm not so sure about that. The nature of the entries should be relatively easy to figure out. So at least the data wouldn't be loss, but of course someone would have to write a tool to extract it. I guess that'd happen pretty quickly though. :)

thyrex · 2022-09-17, 10:22

The most valuable things in the database is the set of P19+ primes.

Especially those n-digit numbers that exceed the download limit.

Happy5214 · 2022-09-17, 10:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

The FactorDB has been down for slightly over 2 days as of this post. The last time I remember being able to access it was around 12-12:30AM CDT U.S. (5-5:30AM GMT) on Sept. 15th. I believe it went down less than an hour after that.

I do not ever recall it being down this long before. I also am concerned about its long-term sustainability.

Regarding timing, I had an elf running at the time the server went down, and the last yafu SIQS save was timestamped at 12:56 AM CDT on September 15. I don't keep logs (it's a RAM drive on a box with no working hard drive), and there may have been a couple of non-SIQS numbers after that, but it probably went down within 5 or so minutes of that.

I think it was down for a lot longer than a few days a year or two ago. I concur that it would be useful to have another, off-site, copy of the site data and code, though the code itself is sub-optimal (no real API, formula parsing bugs, a limiter that's obviously really easy to get around, a user system that's literally just for show(ing credit), etc.). The code could easily go on GitHub, assuming Markus is willing and can remove any server secrets (i.e. IP addresses, database logins, absolute paths) from it. The database data would probably have to be split up in order to be distributed via torrent, and you'd probably need patch update torrents to prevent unwieldy full re-downloads of almost 3 TB (raw size, not text size) of data.

gd_barnes · 2022-09-17, 12:49

Site just came back up in the last hour. Officially around 7 AM CDT (noon GMT). Down just over 54 hours by my best estimate.

2022-09-16, 19:17	#1
maxal Feb 2005 2²·5·13 Posts	long-term sustainability I'm sorry if this was discussed before, but I have a concern about long-term sustainability of factordb.com Some time ago I tried to find an option to download the whose database and did not find any. Are we in danger of loosing all the data (gathered over the years) if something awful happen with the server and/or its maintainers? (God forbids!) Last fiddled with by maxal on 2022-09-16 at 19:19

2022-09-16, 22:14	#4
maxal Feb 2005 2²·5·13 Posts	Thanks for the correction. Yes, I worry mostly about the loss of data ("whole database") than about the domain or software. Although I'd not mind if the server software will go open source some day ;) Last fiddled with by maxal on 2022-09-16 at 22:14

2022-09-17, 06:35	#7
gd_barnes "Gary" May 2007 Overland Park, KS 2F0C₁₆ Posts	The FactorDB has been down for slightly over 2 days as of this post. The last time I remember being able to access it was around 12-12:30AM CDT U.S. (5-5:30AM GMT) on Sept. 15th. I believe it went down less than an hour after that. I do not ever recall it being down this long before. I also am concerned about its long-term sustainability. Last fiddled with by gd_barnes on 2022-09-17 at 06:39

2022-09-17, 10:22	#9
thyrex Jun 2021 30₁₀ Posts	The most valuable things in the database is the set of P19+ primes. Especially those n-digit numbers that exceed the download limit. Last fiddled with by thyrex on 2022-09-17 at 10:29

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2022-09-16, 21:10	#3
Stargate38 "Daniel Jackson" May 2011 14285714285714285714 2·3·127 Posts	I think they meant to say "download the whole database". Maybe Syd could offer a weekly/monthly torrent as a backup option for those with enough disk space to store it (several TB). That way the DB won't be lost if something serious happens.

2022-09-16, 22:25	#5
a1call "Rashid Naimi" Oct 2015 Remote to Here/There 2×7×13² Posts	The database would probably be not very useful without the query formats/syntax/exact-labels built into the web app.

2022-09-17, 12:49	#11
gd_barnes "Gary" May 2007 Overland Park, KS 27414₈ Posts	Site just came back up in the last hour. Officially around 7 AM CDT (noon GMT). Down just over 54 hours by my best estimate.