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Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:56 pm
by Unas
Development news
AAOkube migration incoming
What is AAOkube ?

As you may have noticed, I've not been very active on AAO in the last few years, and as a result, I've left the technical architecture of the site get severely outdated.
This causes stability issues, and potential security issues, as most of the underlying software has not been updated for a while.
In addition, the server that has been hosting AAO since 2017 is reaching end of life soon, and I have to migrate to a new server before it all goes offline.

This is why I've been working since August on a new architecture called AAOkube.
It is a much more modern and modular architecture, based on the most current technologies in the cloud computing world, Docker and Kubernetes.

What does it change ?

This change is really technical : most users won't see the difference at first. (if it goes well, at least)
That being said, it's a radical change behind the scenes, so you might encounter issues shortly after the migration - please report them in the forums as always.

Among the benefits of this move, I expect :
  • Simpler software upgrades for me,
  • More stability, hopefully no more blackouts like those that have plagued the site regularly for a few years (Kubernetes brings a lot of tools to detect and recover from failures automatically)
  • A lot more simplicity if I ever need to move the website somewhere else in the future.
  • For developers who want to contribute to AAO, a simple way to run AAO on their own computer to test their changes.
When does it happen, and what should I do ?

I am planning the migration early next week, probably on Monday Oct 5th. (This might change, depending on my busy schedule.)

Expect several hours of downtime, while I freeze the database here and transfer to the new environment.

You don't have anything specific to do, but avoid planning important work on your trials on Monday, as you might lose it if I shut the site down while you're working.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 1:03 am
by mars0id
hey, how long will construction take? yes it starts on the 5th, but should we expect to come back tuesday, or will the whole week be patchy?

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 1:47 am
by Unas
The transition will take no more than a few hours, if everything goes well.
So on the 5th in the evening it should be back.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:57 am
by Enthalpy
Based on the details you sent me, I'm looking forward to said "simple way to run AAO on their own computer to test their changes." Though I guess this means that I'll finally need to learn how to use Docker.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:39 pm
by Unas
I'll publish the new dev env a few days later, I still have a little bit of cleaning to do before making it public.
But ideally, developers shouldn't have to go too much in depth with how Docker works, as I'll be providing a few scripts that basically do everything that is needed.

The only difficulty is that I'm working in a linux environment, and I haven't tested all this in Windows. In theory, if you have GitBash + Docker installed, if should be enough, but there may be some quirks I haven't noticed :-)

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2020 4:37 pm
by Unas
The move is finally complete.
It took a lot longer than planned, as I uncovered some issues with the forum after migrating the data, and it took time to resolve those.

As mentioned in the announvement, you might still see errors here and there while browsing, especially the forums : please let me know.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 4:18 am
by Enthalpy
clcman hasn't been able to save one of his trials. The PHP returns the error "Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 413 (Request Entity Too Large)". The trial file he's attempting to save is 817 KB large.

I can give you any additional details you want, including the trial file.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:43 am
by Unas
I've done a small config update that should help with that.

But yes, if it still doesn't work, I'd need to know which trial it is in order to get the file and test locally.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 1:56 pm
by Tiagofvarela
I think this is likely to be a widespread issue for larger trials, so here's mine in which I get a similar error:
trial_id=105940

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:00 pm
by Awsome2464
I've been having this save issue, as well. I don't get a specific error code, only this:
Failed to save for an unknown reason. Please retry.
If the problem persists, please report this bug in the forums.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 3:08 pm
by clcman
Awsome2464 wrote:I've been having this save issue, as well. I don't get a specific error code, only this:
Failed to save for an unknown reason. Please retry.
If the problem persists, please report this bug in the forums.
Awesome, that's also the report I got, but Enthalpy was able to dig a more specific error code out of it. From what I tested so far, my 500 frame trial saved fine, but my 1600 and 2100 frame trials would not.

Speaking of which, my 1600-frame trial (which has some changes I would like to be able to save) is this one: trial_id=113018
And my 2100-frame trial (which has no real changes, I just opened it up, changed a letter and tried to save it) is this one: trial_id=106431

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 6:43 pm
by Awsome2464
Well, the project I'm working on for the current case competition is currently at around 1500, so I guess it really is just bigger cases.

That case in particular's ID is this: trial_id=117133

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:15 pm
by Tiagofvarela
I've furthermore achieved the following error:
[phpBB Debug] PHP Warning: in file [ROOT]/includes/functions_messenger.php on line 212: Illegal string offset 'enforum_notify'
When I posted:

Since it sent me to a blank page with the error message I originally thought it did not post, but it actually did.
I posted it on Windows 10, Firefox 81.0.1 (64-bit).

Edit: Also got the error posting this.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:18 pm
by Enthalpy
clcman wrote:
Awsome2464 wrote:I've been having this save issue, as well. I don't get a specific error code, only this:
Failed to save for an unknown reason. Please retry.
If the problem persists, please report this bug in the forums.
Awesome, that's also the report I got, but Enthalpy was able to dig a more specific error code out of it.
In case it matters, I was able to see the error code only because I used save.php.

Re: Development news: AAOkube migration incoming

Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2020 12:08 am
by Unas
Thanks all for providing trial IDs, it does make it easier to test on my end to make sure it is correct :-)

The config change I did earlier was the correct one, but I did it in the wrong place xD
Now it's updated again, and hopefully it should be fixed.
Let me know if the issue is solved for you all !