Only 4 years since the last major site update! I guess that says a lot of about the site stability.

We were utlizing a CDN service to serve file downloads as the bandwidth was becoming pretty intensive for our existing file server. We had a minor issue the other month that resulted in the hosted files there becoming unavailable. Rather then risk this happening again, I have taken the liberty of upgrading the server infrastructure.

The site once again has all files on one centralized server, which will allow me to better stay on top of backups and updates. As this would increase the load on the server, I have also taken the chance to upgrade the hardware which should result in significantly improved download speeds and reduced load times.

I had to migrate all the file links manually, so if anything isn’t working please let me know.

Just because I like to show off performance increases, I will continue the tradition of posting a speedtest result after the upgrade.

 

There was a temporary issue with the file server which prevented files from downloading correctly. This issue has been resolved and downloads should now work as normal. Thanks to everyone who reported the issues.

On February 2nd at 3:13am EST gruntmods.com and its respective file server was the victim of a DDOS attack. Although we have measures in place to prevent automated attacks against our service there is no such thing as a perfect defense and as such the site was taken offline by our hosting provider until the attack subsided.

Several hours after service was restored at 8am, we again saw an increase in traffic matching the profile of the original DDOS attack. We have taken the following measures to ensure the server is as secure and functional as possible:

• Increased Security: We have raised the protection level with our partners at Cloudflare, bots and other automated systems will have a significantly harder time visiting the site and utilizing any services we offer
• New Server Instances: We have deployed additional server instances and reconfigured these with tighter security settings, to cover us against further attacks through other avenues.
• Server Monitoring: We have implemented file level server monitoring to notify us of suspicious activity on the file server. Going forward, additional monitoring will be put into place on both servers to notify us of any issues that occur before they impact performance.
• Server Redundancy: The Web Server is now located in a Toronto data center, and the file server is located in Montreal. This provides additional protection against issues with specific regional data centers. We are also working with our providers to establish load balancing, which will both improve speeds and availability between different regions, even during peak usage or through similar size DDOS attacks.

We are always working at providing the best possible service and apologize for any interruptions. Transparency is the best policy when it comes to these issues and I hope you continue to enjoy what GruntMods has to offer.

The migration is complete, if any issues arise (dead links etc), please let us know as soon as possible so we can resolve them quickly.

As for the upgrade itself, I will let the numbers speak for themselves 🙂

If you see this message it means our new server upgrade is complete. I’d like to thank our donors for supporting the site and making the long term hosting plan a viable option for us.
So here’s a shout out to each donor (in no specific order):

• Dale Coakley
• Ty Larsen
• Sebastian Maywald
• Ahmed Suliman
• Thomas Kuchel

And to any other donors who have donated to us in the past.

 

We also updated the site for D2K+, check it out.

The server went down at approximately 12:00pm EST due to a database corruption. Luckily, we have an comprehensive backup and disaster recovery plan which resulted in minimal downtime for the site and CnCNet. If any issues arise please feel free to let me know so I can correct them.

MVI has announced that due to personal commitments, he will no longer be able to operate D2K+.com. Upon hearing this, I offered to host and maintain the site. If you are reading this, it means we have successfully transitioned to the new server infrastructure. There may be a few hiccups for the first few days, but I plan on updating and modernizing D2K+ to make it better and more accessible than ever before! Keep your eyes peeled for news to come.

I’d like to thank MVI for his contribution and welcome him to return when he finds the time. In the 6 years we have been working together we had a lot of fun, I couldn’t ask for a better partner in running the site.

If you have never visited the site, feel free to check it out now: d2kplus.com

A server issue caused unexpected downtime for the site and CnCNet Tunnel for approximately two hours. The issue has now been resolved. We are sorry for any inconvenience.