Server down?

[Maecius]

Try not to lose heart. These attacks appear to be designed to demotivate the server's players and staff, and if we give in to hopelessness then the bad guys have won.

The NWN2 community stands with us on this, as, unfortunately, many servers have been subject to these types of attacks over the past two years.

Don't waste your evening trying to get into the server while we're unplayable, but please don't give up on it either. NWN2 is a game kept alive by its fans, and we shouldn't let one or two people ruin it for the rest of us.

[Planehopper]

I am clueless when it comes to such things, but if it is something that can be added to the server (software wise) and its a money object, let us know. I would gladly donate.

[trogers2]

I am clueless when it comes to such things, but if it is something that can be added to the server (software wise) and its a money object, let us know. I would gladly donate.

I secound that, if any software or update can prevent this I am willing to help out too.

[Hawke]

If we put the server on a US Government server.... how awesome would it be for the FBI or some other alphabet soup agency, to track down this guy? I would love to see the footage of that.

[Thibbledwarf]

Ok, as to why Saturday, it's obvious, NWN and NWN 2 is a primarily adult played game, most adults are off weekends or I would think it is assumed they are. That is my guess as to why Saturdays.

As to the who, I have been around NWN and NWN 2 for many many MANY years under several mantle's and the reason for that is because of the vindictive nature of alot of the players in this game. I for one could think of at least 3 people who would do something like this just because they are bored, don't like a certain player or group of players that play here or just because BG has been the leader in NWN 2 as far as a community and player base for several years.

I think the question we have to ask is this.

Is there something that can stop DDOS attacks and can we afford to provide that for the server we all call home?

I've seen a few people suggest that they would willingly contribute towards this cause and I will throw my name in as one of them.

So back to the question at hand.

Is there something we can do? Can we move to a service provider (host) that protects against DDOS attacks? I am not sure but I believe there is such a thing. . .

[trogers2]

If we put the server on a US Government server.... how awesome would it be for the FBI or some other alphabet soup agency, to track down this guy? I would love to see the footage of that.

I would love this guy to be caught and put in prison a) for being a huge **** and b) for breaking the law - I do fear for the community though, these lag spikes are ruining the fun for everyone and I have had to delay a few events / RP sessions because of it.



Waiting this out, I fear - will not do us much good; my gut tells me the idiot who is behind this has a grudge agaist the BG community (banned?) It makes no sense for them to target such a low profile community server. And considering how easy it is to do a DDOS attack (so many services online will do it for you) All he has to do is keep spamming said services, some are very cheap.

I found a few services online who protect servers from DDS protection,

https://ddosdeflect.com/remote-ddos-protection.html
https://ddosdeflect.com
https://www.psychz.net/index.html

etc... etc... I believe there are also some 'changes' that can be done, e.g. put a responce limiter on the server so when the 'attacker' sends out the 'code' to his 'zombie machines' the limiter will only allow x attempts before the IP is blocked (for x hours/days), this should give us a good defence agaist the DDOS spam.

[Thibbledwarf]

Trogers2,

I totally agree. And truly BG is not a low profile server in the NWN community. It is the big dog in NWN 2. Anyone who might think that it is affecting their own server or past servers might do something like this. I am not sure how long you have been around. But take it from someone who has been here since the beginning. There are many MANY people who would do this just because BG gets more players than their own server, or even the server they call home.

I have seen what some people are capable of.

As for affecting the server. I hate to say it but it will, not due to lack of loyalty but because if it continues to effect the players game play they will go somewhere to offset their lost time here then become invested there. When that happens they will split their time, then if they find that they want to lean towards their new home, they will spend less and less time on BG.

I only say this becaause I have just come back to BG for the umpteenth time and to be honest. I hope to stay here and keep playing to forge a RP home. And I don't want anything bad to happen to the server.

[HazNpho]

Thibb's right, on a standard session BG is 2nd in the NWN2 Scry list, led by a social/adult server. And while you can pay for DDOS it is just as easy to set up or gain access to a bot network.

Many services do indeed exist that claims to help against DDOS, but we first have to know the type of DDOS and at what level they are attacking.

I can also say that during the times of our attack I was able to jump on a dozen of the other top listed servers in NWNSCRY. I stopped testing when I began hitting servers with less than 10. Even loaded up my old backup from NWN1 and tested a few servers. We do appear to be targeted for sure.

[Tsidkenu]

Nothing bad will happen to the server insofar as we, the players, agree to persevere through these kinds of issues. We've been through this before and we will go through it again this time too.

This is what makes community. Forging ahead through the naysayers, the mudslingers and the prophets of doom. The cavil can remain in the ravaged crevasse of insignificance while the rest of us look forward to the better days that lay ahead on the not-so-distant horizon. At least, that's what I'm going to do.

[Hoihe]

We've been through worse. This is not even a flesh wound.

[HazNpho]

I would love this guy to be caught and put in prison a) for being a huge **** and b) for breaking the law - I do fear for the community though, these lag spikes are ruining the fun for everyone and I have had to delay a few events / RP sessions because of it.

Seconded, died twice because of it, as have many others and lost out on RP sessions several times. Sadly this would only be a pipe dream.

As for persevering, BG is about the only real place to get my RP bug out. Hosting a PnP campaign I don't get to play a single character, and since NWN is the last real outlet, this seems the only 'real' server left.

I would really be interested in getting involved in a way to ensure this no longer happens and conserve the community, the question becomes a matter for the Dev's to look into and put forth to us the players.

Hell, I even have my old blade server I would donate as a temporary if it were possible.

[trogers2]

It might be worth investing in the DDOS protection services (see my last post) for 3 - 5 months, it'll give us solid protection and by this time the guy behind this will run out of funds or give up - should he start again we can always hire the DDOS protection service again; it works out at $15 - $30 a month which would cost around $90 - $150 (3 - 5 months) As I said, this does not need to be 24/7 but as a temp 'wall of defence' and can be taken off once the idiot behind this gives up. That way, no more lag, no more crashing - and we can all play; I would be willing to pay this bill fully should the head admin wish to go ahead with this.

[HazNpho]

It might be worth investing in the DDOS protection services (see my last post) for 3 - 5 months, it'll give us solid protection and by this time the guy behind this will run out of funds or give up - should he start again we can always hire the DDOS protection service again; it works out at $15 - $30 a month which would cost around $90 - $150 (3 - 5 months) As I said, this does not need to be 24/7 but as a temp 'wall of defence' and can be taken off once the idiot behind this gives up. That way, no more lag, no more crashing - and we can all play; I would be willing to pay this bill fully should the head admin wish to go ahead with this.

With the DDoS service there are 2 main ways to prevent it, by doing a packet read and detecting which are legit packets then passing to the server. Once that happens the server makes a Peer to Peer connection with the client. This may be possible and attainable through easier means than paying a company for it...

The second is the direct passthrough, which again requires packet reading on the part of the service but without knowing all the information may let a few slip through. Again, 5% of what is hitting us now may cause a slight hiccup in our play. However I imagine we are looking at the $40+ packages... I may be wrong but I assume we are between 10-15% bandwidth required?

One other possibility, and I am guessing the Dev's have already checked this but... Is it possible our attacker is exploiting the module upload path?

[Young Werther]

[NegInfinity]

This might be a stupid question, but have you guys tried periodically changing server IP address?

Either way I think usually ISP/host service should have some DDoS protection packages, and something like this is best handled by service provider.