geeky techie chat about the ticket sale

[incident]

Imagine if you connected to a server outside the normal load balancer and thought you had a sneaky advantage, bought all your tickets for friends and family, got called a hero......then no confirmation comes and it turns out you were connected to a test system and not the live system. That would be horrible.

Or during their debrief, they notice that a couple dozen tickets were sold via a particular unsanctioned route, and so they cancel them (which would be well within their rights).

[bennyhana22]

When are we expecting you IT geniuses to start noticing those important little suffix changes to the ticket page address(es)? I'm sure I used one last year!

 

Also, did I miss a memo or is there no extra early cyclists' ticket sale this year? I'm sure it was that that launched the 'more complete URL' obsession last year...

 

Come on Geeks! Where are you?!

 

 

Ben

Edited September 27, 2015 by bennyhana22

[parsonjack]

When are we expecting you IT geniuses to start noticing those important little suffix changes to the ticket page address(es)? I'm sure I used one last year!

Also, did I miss a memo or is there no extra early cyclists' ticket sale this year? I'm sure it was that that launched the 'more complete URL' obsession last year...

Come on Geeks! Where are you?!

Ben

Patience.

Rich ☺

[bennyhana22]

Patience.

Rich ☺

 

You're forgetting that I am no longer the overexcited newbie of last year, Rich!

 

This year I'm the ridiculously over-nervous non-newbie who now understands so much why I need to be there!

 

 

Ben

[stuartbert two hats]

When are we expecting you IT geniuses to start noticing those important little suffix changes to the ticket page address(es)? I'm sure I used one last year!

Also, did I miss a memo or is there no extra early cyclists' ticket sale this year? I'm sure it was that that launched the 'more complete URL' obsession last year...

Come on Geeks! Where are you?!

Ben

Suffixes (Suffices?)?? Tell me more!

[bennyhana22]

Suffixes (Suffices?)?? Tell me more!

 

Sorry, S2H, but I am pretty confident that it's suffixes!

 

Anyhoo, last year some eagle-eyed forumers were page monitoring as See were preparing for T Day and circulated the 'next step on' URLs that seemed to be being prepared; the 'next click on' page, if you will.

 

I seem to recall installing that URL in my browser and refreshing that one rather than the 'home' ticket page, imagining I was one step ahead of those who do not worship in this parish.

 

I could be talking bollocks, however...

 

Ben

[incident]

You're not talking bollocks, but the importance of that can be massively over-exaggerated at times.

The one you had was probably http://glastonbury.seetickets.com/Event/GLASTONBURY-2015-DEPOSITS/Worthy-Farm/850000

Using a link like that won't increase (or decrease) your chances of actually getting through to the server. The potential benefit from it is in saving a few seconds with one less click. For the vast majority of people that won't be the difference between getting tickets or not, but for the last few tickets sold it could be crucial.

Basically, if something is found in advance (and it probably will be), then great, if not then it's not a disaster. I'm sure we all hope that it won't come down to the last few seconds..

[stuartbert two hats]

You're not talking bollocks, but the importance of that can be massively over-exaggerated at times.

The one you had was probably http://glastonbury.seetickets.com/Event/GLASTONBURY-2015-DEPOSITS/Worthy-Farm/850000

Using a link like that won't increase (or decrease) your chances of actually getting through to the server. The potential benefit from it is in saving a few seconds with one less click. For the vast majority of people that won't be the difference between getting tickets or not, but for the last few tickets sold it could be crucial.

Basically, if something is found in advance (and it probably will be), then great, if not then it's not a disaster. I'm sure we all hope that it won't come down to the last few seconds..

Yeah, I remember that. Didn't help, that page was easy to get to.

[Mr.Tease]

or Firefox's "private window" feature.

 

Personally, I'm going for using all of the browsers i have installed on my PC each with one tab each.

 

The year I've had the least success was the year I went for the biggest set-up, of around ten devices on 6 different IP addresses (I've got a number of IP addresses as an extra to my broadband package).... and I didn't get a sniff. So I'm keeping it simple.

Yep, I think people make things overly difficult- the more tabs and computers you have going, the more thinly spread you are and the more fiddley things get. I usually have one or two tabs and two main browsers, and once in a while will try a third browser. Different browsers seem to perform differently- I have no idea why. I think last year one kept timing out, while the other at least regularly got to the holding page.

[gizmoman]

Ah good old See wanting to make it as fair as possible for everyone. Pretty sure there's no way that anyone in See's tech dept would exploit any kind of admin access to gain any kind of advantage either....yhey're all round good guys there you know....

It's ironic though, perhaps hypocritical even, that the very kind of 'backdoor' they speak of was last created by their own hands, and some speculate deliberately too, and those that exploited it did so using publicly available information and pretty simple tech knowledge to do so. They hint at gaining such an advantage being in some way underhand or wrong but it's actually no different to anyone listening to the traffic news and figuring out a different route to avoid a jam to get to work on time.

As for other servers I know of at least 2 IP'S for See servers that are outside the advertised DNS pool that will load a page and service a ticket booking even today,and I successfully used one of them to buy a ticket in the April 2014 resale. Both of these 'servers' however were blocked for use during the 2015 main sale and resale - I suspect by simply closing the Web service to requests but leaving the devices available to use for DR etc if needed at any point.

I'm all for things being 'fair' but since when did having freely gained knowledge to get an advantage in life become 'un-fair'?

Is there any way of telling which of the 3 official IPs get the most traffic and if they have the same capacity?

[GlastoSimon]

I find its all very hit and miss, and now I've taken Neil's ideology of opening each browser with one tab.

The biggest realisation for me came in the years of 2009 and 2010. 2009 sale took a minute or two to get in, 2010 sale I didn't get in for either sale (so approx 7 hours of F5ing). Same device, location and browser!

I've relied on others a few times, others have relied on me. My biggest advice is seek help if you can, people in other locations etc. If that's not possible, plenty of nice people on here willing to help! Especially in re-sales etc.

[parsonjack]

Is there any way of telling which of the 3 official IPs get the most traffic and if they have the same capacity?

Not that I'm aware of as a Customer. The load balancer can be configured to favour some backend servers more than others, but as a Customer that kind of weighting is pretty much invisible.

You could do some basic tests by pinging glastonbury.seetickets.com multiple times to determine which of the 3 IP'S you get directed to the least, and then make a judgement that it's the least favoured. That doesn't mean it's the least used or loaded though - it may be the least favoured because it has less capacity or greater overheads than the others. and directing requests to it by Hosts mapping may not give you any advantage at all. Remember that See are in the business of selling tickets, not setting up un-sophisticated 'backdoors' for their mates that can be publicly exploited, so any lightly used server found is more than likely configured that way for a genuine reason.

It's possible you could gain a miniscule advantage by having three devices, with each one configured via Hosts to point to a different server IP, and a different person using each one going at F5 like mad. This would essentially bypass the load-balancing and ensure that all 3 servers were simultaneously queried for a session. The advantage to be gained would be miniscule though and any success would likely be down to luck rather than technical gains.

[tweed1981]

As suggested you can have too many devices etc so your attention is divided but I think you definitely need more than one. Last year I can't remember the exact set up I had,but I know for a fact via my home broadband through my MacBook with a couple of different browsers I didn't even get a holding page, just a white screen, whereas on my phone I had the holding page with seemed more encouraging and ultimately I gave up on the Mac and focuses on my phone and got through. I have know idea of the geeky techie reason behind it but if you've got just one access point (whatever that may be) and you just have a white screen, with tickets potentially selling in <20 mins, you're kind of screwed...

[whisty]

 tickets potentially selling in <20 mins, you're kind of screwed...

 

20 Mins, oh my, it took longer last year didn't it? Surely they'll leave people with a bit of hope as opposed to "we sold them in 15 mins".

[wirralchris]

Am I right in thinking that if you manage to get a link to the coach ticket page on Thursday and enter the reg numbers, then those numbers will be stored for auto-fill on Sunday morning? Obviously I'd only do this after coach tix had sold out so that I didnt clog the system. If it worked then it would save abit of time on the sunday sale.

[tweed1981]

I'd like to think it would take longer, but what was it last year, something like 26 minutes? I can't see them having any inclination for it taking any longer, it's all about publicity, there are always headlines about tickets selling out in record time, or in an hour, or 25 minutes but if they take longer than last year then that could lead to negative headlines, so unfortunately you would assume the inclination will be to make the sale even quicker than last year.

[tweed1981]

Am I right in thinking that if you manage to get a link to the coach ticket page on Thursday and enter the reg numbers, then those numbers will be stored for auto-fill on Sunday morning? Obviously I'd only do this after coach tix had sold out so that I didnt clog the system. If it worked then it would save abit of time on the sunday sale.

You won't get to that screen once they are sold out, you'll just get a sold out page.

[The Nal]

Can you buy coach tickets and a campervan pass?

[eFestivals]

Can you buy coach tickets and a campervan pass?

 

 

I doubt it, with the new system. Hopefully it's sensible enough to match up the fact that someone with a coach ticket can't be arriving in a campervan.

[Pinhead]

Not that I'm aware of as a Customer. The load balancer can be configured to favour some backend servers more than others, but as a Customer that kind of weighting is pretty much invisible.

You could do some basic tests by pinging glastonbury.seetickets.com multiple times to determine which of the 3 IP'S you get directed to the least, and then make a judgement that it's the least favoured. That doesn't mean it's the least used or loaded though - it may be the least favoured because it has less capacity or greater overheads than the others. and directing requests to it by Hosts mapping may not give you any advantage at all. Remember that See are in the business of selling tickets, not setting up un-sophisticated 'backdoors' for their mates that can be publicly exploited, so any lightly used server found is more than likely configured that way for a genuine reason.

 

 

The only public IP's you would be able to ping would be the front end load balanced cluster IP's. You would have no visibility of the back-end servers responding behind them surely? Their responses (and performance) are dealt with internally and privately by the load balancer.

[stuartbert two hats]

The only public IP's you would be able to ping would be the front end load balanced cluster IP's. You would have no visibility of the back-end servers responding behind them surely? Their responses (and performance) are dealt with internally and privately by the load balancer.

That's what I thought.  The DNS is happening before you hit the load balancer isn't it?

 

EDIT:  This was part of the 'problem' that allowed the backdoor the other year, a server not added to the main server farm was left with a publicly facing IP.

EDIT, EDIT: Pinhead and parsonjack are better informed than me.

Edited September 28, 2015 by stuartbert two hats

[Pinhead]

I would imaging that the 3(?) public IP's that are in DNS are all NAT'ed to the cluster IP's of the load a balancers, which then forward the requests to how ever many actual private servers (probably VM's) there are at the back end to process requests.

[efcfanwirral]

I think there will be a lot more disappointed people on here this year, I agree it'll be very quick so the resale (and secret resale) is where its at.

[Pinhead]

My experience has been that the vast majority of people on here that are well prepared get successful in the end, even if it is through the resale. I think its the not knowing if you will have to wait until a resale that gets to people.

[Avalon_Fields]

Can you buy coach tickets and a campervan pass?

That's funny! You could hitch the CV on the back of the coach!