We met yesterday with Leonid and discussed all current circumstances.
There are facts:
Somebody marked this server for close attention and destroyed it in less than one day of full operation with new passwords. We do not have very big knowledge in LINUX world to research who did it, and how to prevent it from happening again.
What we are doing, we are trying, first, to create some easier methods to restore the server (the buildup required about 10 hours), and to rearrange some security arrangements we have.
Second, we are trying to learn as quickly as possible what security measures should be used to upgrade the security of this server.
It will require time.
Now, about possibility of creating alternative site. I still need to think about it. Even with me being out of work, there is tremendous number of things to do. The biggest hurdle is licensing. We do not want to lose the license
on Vbulletin, and it is not possible to use it in two places at the same time. Also, with me volunteering on maintenance duties, still there is matter of paying monthly expenses for hosting in other places than Leonid's production servers. We probably should share these expenses somehow.
The third hurdle is technically using software like Vbulletin written in PHP and MySQL on hosts which do not give access to users on root level. This one is possible to overcome withchoosing the host which already is familiar with other Vbulletin forum on it. And I know already about such hosts.
I'll try to research this third technical question today or tomorrow and share with you what I have found.
