Hi Marlen,

On 18 November 2013 15:18, Marlen Caemmerer <marlen.caemmerer@wikimedia.de> wrote:

Yes, this is an issue we thought about, too but had no real solution:
as far as I understood each tool has an own URL at tool labs.
Its quite hard to put this in a redirection monster - it might be possible to write a script for it but I guess its far more handy to change the URLs everywhere when people complain.

I discussed this with Marc Pelletier (Coren, cc'ed) on #wikimedia-labs this afternoon. The final 'best idea' was the following:

- Let users on the TS redirect their tools to whatever new location (which would probably be Tool Labs) using .htaccess,

- Expired accounts should then still be allowed to redirect using .htaccess,

- When the TS goes down, some other server, probably in the TL cluster, can take over the .htaccess files and keep providing redirects.

Would this (mainly the expired accounts part, which would require changes on the TS side) be acceptable? It would allow users that want redirects to put them in place (in a well-defined manner that will keep working after the TS goes down), without too much effort from the end of the admins of either the TS or TL.

Coren, if I missed/mis-summarized something, please correct me :-)

Merlijn