Are you still going to the OLD server first?

We moved from the old server to the new dedicated server about noon EDT on Monday July 24. This changed our IP (internet address number) from 208.97.140.207 to 69.16.236.4. This change was entered into the internet domain name system at that time.

It takes a finite amount of time for this change to trickle its way down through the DNS system to get to all the name servers used by the internet providers all over the world. This update should have reached nearly all of your ISPs by now.

To see if your ISP has the up-to-date IP for tugbbs.com, Click here. If this link takes you to:

• the active TUG BBS (where you can actually read messages), you're all set.
  
• the "Good news" announcement with a temporary link to use to get to the bbs, then you're still going to the old site. In this case, when you use the temporary link to get you to the bbs, many normal links you find in the bbs (mostly in posts and announcements) to take you to other pages on the bbs will be inaccessible because they take you to the old, shut down, bbs with the "good news" announcement, instead of here as intended.

If you're still going to the old server and don't want to wait for your ISP to get updated, you can force your computer to direct [noparse]www.tugbbs.com[/noparse] links to go to the correct server via placing an entry in your hosts file, as follows:

1. Locate the file on your computer simply named hosts (with no filename extension). Note that this may be in a hidden directory on your computer, so you may have to search in hidden and system files to find it.
2. Open the hosts file in any plain text editor like Windows Notepad.
3. If you've never done anything with this file before, it will probably only have one line in it:
   
   127.0.0.1 localhost​
   although there may be some additional comment lines that begin with # above it. Directly under the localhost line, add the following in their own separate lines:
   
   69.16.236.4 [noparse]www.tugbbs.com[/noparse]
   69.16.236.4 [noparse]tugbbs.com[/noparse]
   (Updated for current server June 2006)​
4. Save the file back to its original location. IMPORTANT: If you're using an editor that gives you a choice of formats in which to save, be sure to save as plain text.

Now, when you try to go to any address on www.tugbbs.com, your computer will find the correct IP right there in the hosts file and won't even check with your internet provider's name server.

Note that, should our IP number ever change again, your hosts file will now be wrong. Should that ever happen, just delete the TUG lines from the file, or update them to the new IP.

Here's a link to an article about hosts files, including their default locations on various operating systems:
Hosts file - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia