Maybe this will cause Skype to take Linux and Mac more seriously. If you've used the Windows version, you know almost all development has occurred there, whereas the Mac and Linux clients have looked the same for the last four or five years. The Linux client did have a major version bump about a year ago iirc, and that brought some needed features, but it was mostly the same.<p>Also, hopefully this will teach Skype to do more with open-source. I really hope they open the client up. This bug may have been caught, and things would definitely have turned out differently if Skype ran freely on other platforms. Maybe someone could even factor out a "Skype server" instead of an exclusive policy of client supernodes. Even serious torrenters rent a server somewhere to host their torrents -- P2P doesn't have to be strictly consumer-level connection, and really shouldn't be.
Just checked my Windows event logs... as I also run a supernode and yup, one Application Error at 2010-12-22 15:51:10 from Skype.<p>Tech data shows version 5:<p><pre><code> Faulting application name: Skype.exe, version: 5.0.0.152, time stamp: 0x4cb31516
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdbdf
Exception code: 0xe0fafafa
Fault offset: 0x0000b727
Faulting process id: 0xd20
Faulting application start time: 0x01cba1ea3b70b5ef
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\syswow64\KERNELBASE.dll
Report Id: 4b2781d7-0de3-11e0-bbdc-005056c00008
</code></pre>
I didn't upgrade voluntarily.
Nice to see the CEO of a large company that knows how to walk the talk. I've also seen him post on HN. Does Steve Ballmer know the difference between a micro and monolithic kernel?
Well, the big question is not if Skype went down becase lots of supernodes crashed. The question is <i>why</i> they crashed, and if the trigger was external. There are messages on p2p-hackers list arguing just that:<p><pre><code> I have evidence that suggests this is being done
by a ddos attack on the supernodes' object list
cmd parameter.</code></pre>
I had the same issue: Shortly before Skype went completely offline, my Windows Skype client suddenly started crashing every few minutes. The Mac client didn't have that problem.<p>Some bug in the new version is probably the likeliest explanation, but if someone deliberately attacked the Skype network, it would probably look similar, right?
Nice write up, pretty interesting that Skype has not come out and said anything about WTF happened. Also ironic that their security blog's last posting it titled "The importance of updating" :) ( <a href="http://blogs.skype.com/garage/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.skype.com/garage/</a> )<p>-John
A wonderful reason to have pre-release testers for <i>every</i> piece of software that communicates with other software, any time you plan to <i>push</i> updates. With pulls, your early updaters are your test beds; with push, you have to <i>create</i> your testing groups.
I, too, run a Skype supernode - completely unvoluntarily, barring the possibility of something hidden behind an asterisk in the EULA. Does anyone know if there is a way to "opt out" of this? Everytime I start skype up it makes a million connections to everywhere and without even having a call on the line my measly 2.5 mbps upstream is permanently choked.
I seriously doubt the Skype supernodes actually run in regular clients on people's desktops. I'm pretty sure these are special servers placed strategically on the net.<p>If you see thousands of connections on your Skype at home then there probably is some weird P2P problem going on.