NinerNet System Status

Relay/secondary mail server operating smoothly

NinerNet — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:34:14 +0000

Based on monitoring over the last three hours or so, the reconfigured relay/secondary mail server on server NC020 is running smoothly. We’ve sent email to the administrative contacts of all clients using this server for these purposes requesting feedback.

As always, if you have any concerns or problems, please contact NinerNet support for assistance. Thanks for your patience as we improve the configuration of this server to better serve you.

Relay/secondary mail server on NC020 running with new configuration

NinerNet — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:30:14 +0000

The relay/secondary mail server on server NC020 is running with a new configuration. We are monitoring it to make sure it’s working. There are some issues that we are addressing right now. Please contact NinerNet support if you have any issues or concerns.

Update on server NC018

NinerNet — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:57:51 +0000

Our investigation of recent performance issues with server NC018 over the last few days indicates that the database server is working very hard. We’ve identified a contributing factor and are working to address it within the next 24 hours.

Attack on server NC018

NinerNet — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:21:17 +0000

Server NC018 experienced a sustained denial-of-service attack on 26 August for a while during the early to mid-evening UTC. The server is currently online and fully functional, and we’re investigating the details to determine what happened and how we can prevent such attacks in the future.

We’ll post more details here as they become available. If you have any questions, please contact NinerNet support.

Issues with some .com.zm domains explained

NinerNet — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:18:52 +0000

It turns out that this is not a technical problem, but a billing issue. When the reports started to roll in we naturally suspected a technical problem, but then we realised that not all .com.zm domains were down. We contacted Coppernet about the domains that are down, and were informed that some of these clients have apparently not paid for their domain registrations since as far back as 2004! As a result, their sleepy accounts receivable department woke up for the first time in the better part of a decade, and cancelled these domains today.

Of course, this is clearly a Coppernet billing issue, not delinquency on the part of the clients, and this much was admitted by the customer service manager at Coppernet. However, until the millions of kwachas owing on these domains have been paid to Coppernet by the domain owners, these domains will remain offline.

This is a very interesting turn of events, because we have very recently started to offer an alternative Zambian top-level domain (TLD) for those clients who would like to use a domain that identifies them as Zambian, but who are sick and tired of the problems from both Zamnet and Coppernet with .co.zm, .com.zm and other dot-zm domains. The alternative TLD is .zam.co — i.e., you can register yourname.zam.co. Because we haven’t officially launched it yet we don’t have a website developed yet. However, you may check on the availability of and order .zam.co domains by contacting support, and it will be up and running immediately.

Pricing for .zam.co domains is a lot more palatable at only US$12 per annum too.

Problems with .com.zm domains

NinerNet — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 08:26:17 +0000

We are receiving reports that multiple .com.zm domains are down today. This problem is traceable to Coppernet, who are ultimately responsible for .com.zm domains. All of our systems are operating normally.

We’re looking into this and will post updates here as we learn what is going on.

Update for domains still using the virgodesign.ca nameservers

NinerNet — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 22:11:15 +0000

We’ve contacted all clients still using the virgodesign.ca nameservers. While all domains still using these old nameservers are working again, it is imperative that, if your domain is not using ns1.niner.net and ns2.niner.net, you update your domain through your domain registrar to use these nameservers.

Please contact support if you need help with this. Thank-you.

Situation with former VirgoDesign.ca domains partially resolved

NinerNet — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:59:32 +0000

We’ve found and fixed the cause of the problem with the domains that are still using the ns1.virgodesign.ca and ns2.virgodesign.ca nameservers. However, due to DNS caching, most of these domains will still be down to most people who have tried to load them in the last 24 hours or so. We’re continuing to work on this and will post more here within the next two hours.

Some former VirgoDesign.ca domains down

NinerNet — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:13:23 +0000

Domains formerly hosted by VirgoDesign.ca who had not changed their nameservers in response to our email of about six weeks ago are down at this moment. We’re looking into the cause and will report back here within the hour.

Relay server back online

NinerNet — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 02:13:28 +0000

The relay server is back online. We have blocked the source of the spam and are continuing our investigation.

Just to be clear, server NC020 has been online at all times. Only the mail server was taken offline. It was taken offline at 01:32 UTC and put back online at 02:08 UTC.

If you have any questions or concerns about this incident, please contact support. Thank-you.