PrimeGrid asks: Is PSP dead?

AG5BPilot · 2014-12-31, 21:39

The title says it all, and it's more than idle curiosity.

The PSP servers have been down, and we've been unable to contact either Citrix or ltd. In less than three days we're starting a challenge that includes PSP and we may exhaust our allocated n=17M range of PSP tasks.

While the last thing we want to do is ignore other people's reservations, there seem to be no servers or people still operating the original PSP project. As such, we plan on loading the entire n=18 PSP range if we continue to be unable to contact anyone.

This is not ideal. Although we can always pull candidates out, I'd much rather coordinate the reservations with PSP, but that appears to be impossible.

If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Michael Goetz
PrimeGrid

pinhodecarlos · 2014-12-31, 22:31

So is this an ultimate? Is PrimeGrid going to still another mersenneforum effort? PrimeGrid stoled RieselSieve and Riesel/S Base 5. I think you guys should say to your community that you come here as a thieves and grab projects. At least that would be humble. Don't you have a bunch of projects to take care off? I don't think PrimeGrid has the sufficient CPU power to hundle all projects you are involved in. PrimeGrid is biting off much more than it can chew.

AG5BPilot · 2014-12-31, 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinhodecarlos

So is this an ultimate? Is PrimeGrid going to still another mersenneforum effort? PrimeGrid stoled RieselSieve and Riesel Base 5. I think you guys should say to your community that you come here as a thieves and grab projects. At least that would be humble. Don't you have a bunch of projects to take care off? I don't think PrimeGrid has the sufficient CPU power to hundle all projects you are involved in. PrimeGrid is biting off much more than it can chew.

There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding here. For many years, PrimeGrid and the Prime Sierpinski Project have been collaborating by sharing the work and coordinating reservations. We're not trying to steal anything. We're trying to reserve the next range of candidates -- and PSP seems to have vanished.

Perhaps it's a language problem, but we're not issuing an ultimatum in any sense. We're asking for your help!

We've been trying to contact Citrix and/or ltd for a while have have gotten no response. The PSP servers are down. Time is running short. If anyone has any info, or is able to contact them, we'd really appreciate your assistance.

If it turns out that PSP is down permanently, we'll continue the project on our own -- but we all hope that's not what happens.

Thanks again,
Mike

Batalov · 2014-12-31, 23:04

Carlos,

Criticism has to be constructive. What do you suggest instead? Do nothing? Michael is trying to reach admins of a dead server; what is wrong with that?

Michael,

They seem to come here very rarely. ltd last visited 7 weeks ago, Citrix - more than a week. You may want to try to send them PM - they will get an email notification (if they didn't disable it). Otherwise, it sounds like the proverbial voice of one calling in the wilderness. They are not here to hear it.

AG5BPilot · 2014-12-31, 23:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batalov

Michael,

They seem to come here very rarely. ltd last visited 7 weeks ago, Citrix - more than a week. You may want to try to send them PM - they will get an email notification (if they didn't disable it). Otherwise, it sounds like the proverbial voice of one calling in the wilderness. They are not here to hear it.

Unfortunately, we've PM'd and emailed them and have received no response. Posting here is a last ditch attempt to reach them.

Mike

Batalov · 2014-12-31, 23:24

I'll attempt to email them.

AG5BPilot · 2014-12-31, 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batalov

I'll attempt to email them.

Thank you!

AG5BPilot · 2015-01-01, 00:42

Okay, we've heard from lars (ltd).

It's unclear right now when the PSP server can be turned back on. Hopefully it won't be long. According to Lars, it may be anywhere from a couple of days to never. I'm hoping for "a couple of days". :)

If I get any more information I'll let you know.

If it's not possible to get at the reservation information before we have to load more work, does anyone know where the leading edge of PSP was before the server went down? If we're going to be crunching PSP "blind", I'd prefer to do it above where anyone else has a reservation. Right now we're crunching n=17M to n=18M.

Mike

P.S., If this is a worst case scenario and there's no way to recover the PSP server, we do have all the sieve information (the sieving was done at PrimeGrid.) It will therefore be possible to continue the PSP project without creating new sieve files. However, we don't have any record of which numbers were crunched at PSP -- only those that were crunched at PrimeGrid. That would be a problem.

ltd · 2015-01-01, 08:27

Sorry for not answering earlier.
The PSP server at the moment is locked by the service provider and I fear this means that it was hacked again and therefore locked out of the internet by the provider after noticing.
As soon as possible hopefully early next week but from my workload I fear more to the end of it I will see what can be done. There should be at least a way to recover all the results from that machine even if it was hacked.

What I know is that there were no tests handed out to the PSP server above the tests done by primegrid so far. So there will not be any duplication if primegrid continues above 18M.

Other known facts:
Everything below 8.5M has validated results that means there are two tests with identical residues.
Below 11M everything is double checked but there are around 100 tests which have no matching residues and will need a triple check.
Tests above 11M which are not done by primegrid only have a first pass test so far.
I hope we can recover everything so that we will not have any wasted work.

If the machine was really hacked I will do everything I can to recover all the data.
But as I will have not enough time to handle setting up a new clean server (and maintain it to stay secure) during 2015 (far too much work and travel around the world) I will give all results to primegrid and stop the PSP project server if it was really hacked.

ltd · 2015-01-01, 08:50

I found out that the machine is really compromised in a way that can only be fixed by a complete reinstall.
So the next step will be to discuss with the service provider how and when I can get the machine back online for some days to extract all the data.

So primegrid shold continue above 18M for now and as soon as I have the data extracted the gaps below can be filled.

AG5BPilot · 2015-01-01, 15:59

Thanks, Lars. Anything you can provide will be helpful.

If you (or anyone) has the earliest residues from PSP work, prior to what was run on your PRPNet server, that would be helpful as well. It's nice to have all the results available in one place.

A large majority (but not all) of the tests above ~n=4M appear to have been done on PrimeGrid, and possibly above ~n=2M, so we have many of those results, but we have nothing below ~n=2m.

2014-12-31, 21:39	#1
AG5BPilot Dec 2011 New York, U.S.A. 141₈ Posts	PrimeGrid asks: Is PSP dead? The title says it all, and it's more than idle curiosity. The PSP servers have been down, and we've been unable to contact either Citrix or ltd. In less than three days we're starting a challenge that includes PSP and we may exhaust our allocated n=17M range of PSP tasks. While the last thing we want to do is ignore other people's reservations, there seem to be no servers or people still operating the original PSP project. As such, we plan on loading the entire n=18 PSP range if we continue to be unable to contact anyone. This is not ideal. Although we can always pull candidates out, I'd much rather coordinate the reservations with PSP, but that appears to be impossible. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, Michael Goetz PrimeGrid

2014-12-31, 22:31	#2
pinhodecarlos "Carlos Pinho" Oct 2011 Milton Keynes, UK 2³·641 Posts	So is this an ultimate? Is PrimeGrid going to still another mersenneforum effort? PrimeGrid stoled RieselSieve and Riesel/S Base 5. I think you guys should say to your community that you come here as a thieves and grab projects. At least that would be humble. Don't you have a bunch of projects to take care off? I don't think PrimeGrid has the sufficient CPU power to hundle all projects you are involved in. PrimeGrid is biting off much more than it can chew. Last fiddled with by pinhodecarlos on 2014-12-31 at 22:37

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2014-12-31, 23:04	#4
Batalov "Serge" Mar 2008 Phi(4,2^7658614+1)/2 10011101000011₂ Posts	Carlos, Criticism has to be constructive. What do you suggest instead? Do nothing? Michael is trying to reach admins of a dead server; what is wrong with that? Michael, They seem to come here very rarely. ltd last visited 7 weeks ago, Citrix - more than a week. You may want to try to send them PM - they will get an email notification (if they didn't disable it). Otherwise, it sounds like the proverbial voice of one calling in the wilderness. They are not here to hear it.

2014-12-31, 23:24	#6
Batalov "Serge" Mar 2008 Phi(4,2^7658614+1)/2 19·23² Posts	I'll attempt to email them.

2015-01-01, 00:42	#8
AG5BPilot Dec 2011 New York, U.S.A. 97 Posts	Okay, we've heard from lars (ltd). It's unclear right now when the PSP server can be turned back on. Hopefully it won't be long. According to Lars, it may be anywhere from a couple of days to never. I'm hoping for "a couple of days". :) If I get any more information I'll let you know. If it's not possible to get at the reservation information before we have to load more work, does anyone know where the leading edge of PSP was before the server went down? If we're going to be crunching PSP "blind", I'd prefer to do it above where anyone else has a reservation. Right now we're crunching n=17M to n=18M. Mike P.S., If this is a worst case scenario and there's no way to recover the PSP server, we do have all the sieve information (the sieving was done at PrimeGrid.) It will therefore be possible to continue the PSP project without creating new sieve files. However, we don't have any record of which numbers were crunched at PSP -- only those that were crunched at PrimeGrid. That would be a problem.

2015-01-01, 08:27	#9
ltd Apr 2003 2²·193 Posts	Sorry for not answering earlier. The PSP server at the moment is locked by the service provider and I fear this means that it was hacked again and therefore locked out of the internet by the provider after noticing. As soon as possible hopefully early next week but from my workload I fear more to the end of it I will see what can be done. There should be at least a way to recover all the results from that machine even if it was hacked. What I know is that there were no tests handed out to the PSP server above the tests done by primegrid so far. So there will not be any duplication if primegrid continues above 18M. Other known facts: Everything below 8.5M has validated results that means there are two tests with identical residues. Below 11M everything is double checked but there are around 100 tests which have no matching residues and will need a triple check. Tests above 11M which are not done by primegrid only have a first pass test so far. I hope we can recover everything so that we will not have any wasted work. If the machine was really hacked I will do everything I can to recover all the data. But as I will have not enough time to handle setting up a new clean server (and maintain it to stay secure) during 2015 (far too much work and travel around the world) I will give all results to primegrid and stop the PSP project server if it was really hacked.

2015-01-01, 08:50	#10
ltd Apr 2003 1100000100₂ Posts	I found out that the machine is really compromised in a way that can only be fixed by a complete reinstall. So the next step will be to discuss with the service provider how and when I can get the machine back online for some days to extract all the data. So primegrid shold continue above 18M for now and as soon as I have the data extracted the gaps below can be filled.

2015-01-01, 15:59	#11
AG5BPilot Dec 2011 New York, U.S.A. 97 Posts	Thanks, Lars. Anything you can provide will be helpful. If you (or anyone) has the earliest residues from PSP work, prior to what was run on your PRPNet server, that would be helpful as well. It's nice to have all the results available in one place. A large majority (but not all) of the tests above ~n=4M appear to have been done on PrimeGrid, and possibly above ~n=2M, so we have many of those results, but we have nothing below ~n=2m.