RealClimate.org – down

UPDATE: As of 10PM PST, RC is back up and running, no mention of the outage though – Anthony

I figured I’d better note this since a number of people have brought it to my attention. Trying to reach realclimate.org was giving a 502 error much of today, which is likely due to an internal problem with their database used to run WordPress. They run a custom version of wordpress code and theme on a LAMP configuration, and it appears the PHP code can no longer communicate with the MySQL database.

After several hours of that 502 error, realclimate.org is now giving a 503 error:

Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Here’s some background on these codes:

Error: 503 Service Unavailable

The server is currently unavailable (because it is overloaded or down for maintenance). Generally, this is a temporary state.

Error: 502 Bad Gateway

A 502 Bad Gateway error occurs when the front-end web server cannot communicate with the application responsible for responding to the request. To resolve this error:

• Confirm that the application is running. If the application crashed, was terminated, or has not yet started following a system reboot, the application must be restarted to respond to requests. If the application was terminated, you will receive a notification email with additional information.To restart the application manually, please see your application type’s documentation or control panel entry for instructions.Most stopped applications are automatically restarted during periodic cron jobs. Please see the application’s entry in the control panel for details.
• Confirm that the application is listening to the correct port. Check your application’s configuration to make sure that it is listening to the port assigned to the application in the control panel.

Gavin is probably pulling out what little hair he has about right now.

This is why I use wordpress.com – I don’t have to worry about maintenance, hacking, updates, or other server related issues.

Based on the return codes, the issues at RC today are likely due to internal code or maintenance problems, so I wouldn’t speculate beyond that.