7 ms·

Out of curiosity, done HN use any CDN or other way of DDOS protection? dang?

by blisseyGo 6y ago

AdamGibbins 6y ago
It's hosted on AWS, you don't need DDoS protection, just a big wallet.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Hacker News is self-hosted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767439. Let me see if I can find a better link where the specs are discussed.
- dijit 6y ago
  Thats not even slightly true. Their IP belongs to AS21581; which is registered with a company called 'M5 Computer hosting' out of west-coast USA. m5hosting.com The last hop is Santa Barbera. Definitely does not fall in the AWS ranges.
- gruez 6y ago
  Only if you use their "infinitely scaling" services. eg. s3. If the attacker is hammering you with expensive queries and your database is on 1 ec2 server, you're still going to go down.
- ivalm 6y ago
  The nameserver is aws but IP4 points to “m5 computer security”
snazz 6y ago
Don't think so. They used to use Cloudflare but stopped. To my knowledge, it's a single server without a database (using the filesystem as a database).
- ksec 6y ago
  So HN is serving 5.5M page view daily (excluding API access ) on a single server without CDN and without a database? Holy crap I am thinking either there is some magic or everything we are doing in the modern web are wrong. Edit: The number is from Dang [1] >These days around 5.5M page views daily and something like 5M unique readers a month, depending on how you try to count them. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808787
  - zaksoup 6y ago
    I had this same reaction. Definitely feels like most of what we’re doing with “the modern” web is probably wrong.
  - idlewords 6y ago
    You can serve a lot of flat files from a properly configured server in 2020. It's just that most people don't bother trying.
  - loeg 6y ago
    Well, it's not magic. So, the other one.
  - opqpo 6y ago
    I doubt this is physically possible. I think they have distributed edge caches for pages with short TTLs.
  - layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
    We've been telling this for a while now...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jyap 6y ago
    You don’t need a CDN if what you’re serving up in this case is mostly all text. Just need good stable code and server side caching.
ivalm 6y ago
Their dns record points to only one IP (209.216.230.240) that goes to M5 Computer Security
- kohtatsu 6y ago
  ówò
  - zackees 6y ago
    This was a coordinated attack that took down a bunch of services all at the same time: https://downdetector.com/ https://downdetector.com/ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1284240539437740033 https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1284240539437740033 Update: People are accusing me of using KEEMSTAR as a source and have somehow missed the link to downdetector.com, which keemstar is looking at.
    - brian-armstrong 6y ago
      This was a BGP/routing issue and has already been documented. Please don't spread misinformation and hysteria, especially on technical issues like this https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1284253034596331520 https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1284253034596331520
      - zackees 6y ago
        CEO's are notorious liars. I just had a discussion with John McAfee who said that all good CEO's are feeding misinformation to the press as standard business practice. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QWrzjKC9I&lc=UgyXzVtjVLbEs8C14f14AaABAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QWrzjKC9I&lc=UgyXzVtjVLbEs... The willingness that you believe a CEO who has every incentive to lie to the press, and the preposterous narrative that this was a simple "router issue" - as if half the USA internet system is dependent on a router not failing and there is not redundancy, is simply baffling. I don't care how many downvotes I get. I'm not buying this flimsy narrative. And neither should you. This was a coordinated attack.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Out of curiosity, done HN use any CDN or other way of DDOS protection? dang?

AdamGibbins 6y ago

It's hosted on AWS, you don't need DDoS protection, just a big wallet.

saagarjha 6y ago
Hacker News is self-hosted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767439 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22767439. Let me see if I can find a better link where the specs are discussed.
dijit 6y ago
Thats not even slightly true. Their IP belongs to AS21581; which is registered with a company called 'M5 Computer hosting' out of west-coast USA. m5hosting.com The last hop is Santa Barbera. Definitely does not fall in the AWS ranges.
gruez 6y ago
Only if you use their "infinitely scaling" services. eg. s3. If the attacker is hammering you with expensive queries and your database is on 1 ec2 server, you're still going to go down.
ivalm 6y ago
The nameserver is aws but IP4 points to “m5 computer security”

snazz 6y ago

Don't think so. They used to use Cloudflare but stopped. To my knowledge, it's a single server without a database (using the filesystem as a database).

ksec 6y ago
So HN is serving 5.5M page view daily (excluding API access ) on a single server without CDN and without a database? Holy crap I am thinking either there is some magic or everything we are doing in the modern web are wrong. Edit: The number is from Dang [1] >These days around 5.5M page views daily and something like 5M unique readers a month, depending on how you try to count them. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23808787
- zaksoup 6y ago
  I had this same reaction. Definitely feels like most of what we’re doing with “the modern” web is probably wrong.
- idlewords 6y ago
  You can serve a lot of flat files from a properly configured server in 2020. It's just that most people don't bother trying.
- loeg 6y ago
  Well, it's not magic. So, the other one.
- opqpo 6y ago
  I doubt this is physically possible. I think they have distributed edge caches for pages with short TTLs.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
  We've been telling this for a while now...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jyap 6y ago
  You don’t need a CDN if what you’re serving up in this case is mostly all text. Just need good stable code and server side caching.

ivalm 6y ago

Their dns record points to only one IP (209.216.230.240) that goes to M5 Computer Security

kohtatsu 6y ago
ówò
- zackees 6y ago
  This was a coordinated attack that took down a bunch of services all at the same time: https://downdetector.com/ https://downdetector.com/ https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1284240539437740033 https://twitter.com/KEEMSTAR/status/1284240539437740033 Update: People are accusing me of using KEEMSTAR as a source and have somehow missed the link to downdetector.com, which keemstar is looking at.
  - brian-armstrong 6y ago
    This was a BGP/routing issue and has already been documented. Please don't spread misinformation and hysteria, especially on technical issues like this https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1284253034596331520 https://twitter.com/eastdakota/status/1284253034596331520
    - zackees 6y ago
      CEO's are notorious liars. I just had a discussion with John McAfee who said that all good CEO's are feeding misinformation to the press as standard business practice. You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QWrzjKC9I&lc=UgyXzVtjVLbEs8C14f14AaABAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_QWrzjKC9I&lc=UgyXzVtjVLbEs... The willingness that you believe a CEO who has every incentive to lie to the press, and the preposterous narrative that this was a simple "router issue" - as if half the USA internet system is dependent on a router not failing and there is not redundancy, is simply baffling. I don't care how many downvotes I get. I'm not buying this flimsy narrative. And neither should you. This was a coordinated attack.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]