AjaxLife Blog

Linden Lab has informed me that AjaxLife cannot be run as an openly available service (this is the first time any formal policy regarding it has been determined). It is not currently actually blocked; however, I will be terminating service effective immediately. Note that it is permissible for you to obtain the source and run a private server; however, I will not be maintaining the code, and you may not make your server publicly accessible either.

I have included below the pertinent portion of the communication from Linden Lab, which is the termination of several weeks of (intermittent) discussion:

I’m afraid we can’t reinstate access for AJAX Life as an
open service, even if L$ transactions are disabled. The problem
remains that the others have used the service for harassment and
fraud, and we don’t have engineers available to integrate the IP
address hash you’ve offered to forward on connection with the
governance tools. We also don’t have resources for oauth or another
third-party authentication system at this point – the user count
doesn’t justify it against larger issues.

There’s also the problem of the password being passed through AJAX
Life. This creates a security risk for Linden Lab and for the users,
and extends liability risks to you.

It is perhaps important to stress that this is not an unreasonable statement; merely an unfortunately one. I have no idea how many people used AjaxLife, but it was under 600/day, and concurrency was 50-60 at most.

If you’re wondering why this didn’t happen sooner: AjaxLife’s original architecture caused its IP to change extremely frequently, as a result of a combination of poor stability and frequent server reassignments. As part of the changes made to make AjaxLife stable (which it now is), it was given a fixed IP. As such, the issue of abuse from the IP became somewhat more prominent, resulting in whatever internal discussions lead to this.

It’s a shame, but it’s not surprising, and not really LL’s fault. It was nice for the last three years, at any rate.

As many of you have noticed, AjaxLife has been blocked by Linden Lab again. No word from them thus far regarding getting it unblocked…

Linden Lab has unbanned us again. Hurrah.

Log in!

Linden Lab has banned us. Again.

Anyone at LL feel like whitelisting app1.ajaxlife.net? :<

We’re back, and hopefully more reliable than before. As a bonus, you no longer get redirected to bizarre IPs! Development will be picking up again shortly.

Also, since we’re back, donations would be appreciated – since I’m on the main grid now (:D), please just send L$ to Katharine Berry in-world if you wish to donate, cover costs, etc.

(I don’t really have much to say here. Can you tell?)

AjaxLife service has been temporarily suspended, pending investigation into its intermittent but extremely frequent refusal to make any connections to anything for no entirely obvious reason. As long as it’s in this state, running it costs me money for no benefit to anyone whatsoever.

Hopefully it’ll be back soon.

This release contains no changes to 0.6.1 aside from restoring compatibility with IE.

As promised, some actual development has taken place and AjaxLife 0.6.1 has been released (AjaxLife 0.6 was released and lasted about ten hours due to an annoying bug related to S3 and textures).

So, changes!

• Group chats can now be created, listened and responded to
• The map actually displays a map
  • The map blocks are no longer requested in its entirety at the start. The upshot of this is that AjaxLife will not hang until 2MB of map data has been downloaded and processed, instead loading it as they become visible on the map.
  • SL’s region search has been implemented (it had to be, really, since we no longer know of every region in advance)
• Textures download correctly. This affects textures from inventory and 1st Life pictures (2nd Life pictures are pulled off the new SL search anyway)
• llOwnerSay now appears in yellow
• LSL highlighter is up to date (…I think)
• HTTPS links will be linked appropriately
• Links are clickable in the message of the day
• Newlines are displayed in login errors

Have a screenshot of a working map:

Additionally, it should now be somewhat simpler to run your own AjaxLife server; it no longer has any external dependencies. The 0.6.1 dependencies and source (no binaries right now; sorry) may be downloaded from the Downloads page. The new source may be browsed here.

AjaxLife is actually being actively developed again. Shocking, I know.

In any case, AjaxLife 0.6 is almost ready. This is mostly a maintenance release, with the following improvements:

• The map now works as expected
• Textures now display as expected
• Group chat now works as expected
• HTTPS links now work as expected
• Parcel tracking now works as expected
• llOwnerSay from objects is coloured appropriately
• LSL highlighter is up-to-date

Actual new features will materialise later on. Additionally, a rewritten iPhone client is in progress. Coinciding with this release, I will once again start requesting donations (For the last year or so I have not requested donations, as it didn’t feel fair to ask them for something not actively being developed).

Oh, and the source code is now at http://github.com/Katharine/AjaxLife.

Apparently, Linden Lab have removed the “hardware block” on AjaxLife (for some limited definition of “hardware”). As such, it has once again been enabled. Enjoy!

(And thanks for helping get it unblocked, too)