Googlebot is back🙁
After I removed the link to anonymous FTP, I (finally) got rid of googlebot after August 1st. The location still exists, but the link is gone.
Much to my surprise, googlebot is back. As it turned out: since last Monday, as it shows up in Anonymous_ftp.log:
27-AUG-2007 05:13:32.66 User:anonymous logged in ident:googlebot@google.com from Host:crawl-66-249-66-2.googlebot.com
27-AUG-2007 05:13:33.29 User:anonymous ident:googlebot@google.com status:00010001 CWD dir:WEB_DISK2:[public.anonymous.perl]
27-AUG-2007 05:13:33.58 User:anonymous ident:googlebot@google.com logged out
In ftp_run.log, there a bit more information:
%TCPIP-I-FTP_SESCON, FTP SERVER: session connection from crawl-66-249-66-2.googlebot.com at 27-AUG-2007 05:13:32.32
%TCPIP-I-FTP_USER, user name: anonymous
%TCPIP-I-FTP_SESDCN, FTP SERVER: session disconnection from crawl-66-249-66-2.googlebot.com at 27-AUG-2007 05:13:33.61
That Monday afternoon, with some spare time, I decided to clean it up: No more Perl 5.8.4, since 5.8.6 is available on the the 8th edition of the OpenVMS Freeware CD’s, and what was more on the directory was outdated as well. I just copied the program I wrote for converting web access logs to t4 compatible files (counting the numbers of requests) to the location but did not restore the link on the static pages – nor on the blog.
That, of course, causes a problem for the crawler:
%TCPIP-I-FTP_SESCON, FTP SERVER: session connection from crawl-66-249-66-2.googlebot.com at 27-AUG-2007 17:14:55.04
%TCPIP-I-FTP_NODE, client host name: crawl-66-249-66-2.googlebot.com
%TCPIP-I-FTP_USER, user name: anonymous
%TCPIP-I-FTP_OBJ, object: perl
%TCPIP-I-FTP_CHINFO, TCPIP$FTPC00101: Failed to set default directory
%TCPIP-E-FTP_BADDIR, invalid directory
%TCPIP-I-FTP_USER, user name: anonymous
%TCPIP-I-FTP_SESDCN, FTP SERVER: session disconnection from crawl-66-249-66-2.googlebot.com at 27-AUG-2007 17:14:55.69
The program seems rather primitive since it continues to access a location I removed. That will be fun if the website changes structure!
Well, that’s Google’s problem.
Spam increases
The amount of fake email increases. Of all arriving mail, about 80% is filtered off due to unresolvable domain, non backtracable, or blacklisted addresses – and some from domains I explicitly lock out.
However, the spammers abuse either other peoples machines within otherwise good domains, or simply fake their address by using a geniune domain, or poison the world-wide DNS system with fake domains so there will be a resolution. The software from PROCESS hasn’t arrived yet – they may try to mail me a message but use an MX address, it’s filtered off…The sales person I contacted will be back next week, hopefully I’ll get the sofware soon.
Linux and Windows stuff
The preparation for the new web (content, mainly) takes most of the time.
I haven’t done much on the Linux box. I just moved the files to the (hopefully) right location but didn’t get any further. Chances are it still won’t build. Well, there is no hurry. Web content is a higher priority at the moment.
For Windows, just the regular updates. For the web content, I installed a new version of ExpertGPS, and GoogleEarth, because ExpertGPS can map tracks on Googlemap. It might be usable, it’s a nice feature, but the result is, well, not publishable. Not good enough, without paying Google a fistfull of dollars for something I cannot use. And publishing a screen dump might even be “illegal”.
So I decided: If people want to map the track on GoogleEarth, they’ll have to do it themselves. The tracks will be downloadable (don’t try it out now – they’re simply not available yet :)) and they can install (and pay) their own version of the requiered software.