Server and System Status

I have not moved the niner.net email to a new server yet, because I have to leave our domain on the degraded server, NC036, so that I can communicate with those of you who have not moved yet.

And it turns out, there are a lot of you!

I am going to send an email to all of you, to an address on the NinerNet mail server — because if I send it to any other external address it won’t be delivered — to ask you how I can help you move your email hosting.

I am, as I have said, sorry that things have come to pass in this way. There was a plan, to be executed in May 2025, but this was not it, and the old plan can no longer be executed. NinerNet is … almost … dead.

As such, the old servers can no longer be kept running indefinitely. This means we will shut down the old mail server (NC036) on or after midnight UTC on 18 April 2026 (17:00 Pacific on Friday the 17th, 02:00 CAT, and 08:00 AWST). “On or after” means, quite clearly, that you can’t expect that server (NC036) to be operational after that date and time. We may (and probably will) not shut down the server at exactly 00:01, but every second the server is running after 00:00 on 18 April 2026 UTC will be bonus time for you to do whatever you need to do (such as make a back-up copy of your email) with your email on our server.

We do not have a date by which we will be shutting down our Web and DNS servers. They will continue to operate for the immediate future, but not forever. We also suggest that you do what is necessary to save your websites, but the urgency is less than is the case for the mail server.

We are currently renewing domain registrations as they come up for renewal at our own expense. This includes dot-zam.co and dot-zm domains. Once we have our own email on a new and working server, we will email domain registrants to assist them with transfers. We will, however, come up with a plan for dot-zam.co and dot-zm registrants, probably involving a new registrar.

Backing up your email

Please consult with your new host on how they might assist you to recover old email from the NinerNet server using IMAP to copy your old email to your new server. I did this just yesterday for a former client, and it took just about a minute to recover several hundred messages. IMAP stands for “Internet Message Access Protocol”; as such, there is no way for you to download some sort of file over the Web, since IMAP is an email protocol. Even if you have several thousand emails saved on our server, it will only take a few minutes to transfer them across.

You can also use a feature of a proper email program to download a copy of your old messages. Different email programs use different terminology, so look for the following features:

• Save to file,
• Back up,
• Offline usage,
• Etc.

It is IMPORTANT to note, that just because you are able to, and have been, opening your email program for the last month (or ten years) and seeing your messages as normal, that does NOT mean the messages are saved on your computer. What you are seeing is a window into what is on the server, and as long as the server is there, you will continue to see that. When we turn off the server, you will see nothing. Please make sure you take action now to save your part of the 2.9 TB saved on our server.

ONCE IT’S GONE, IT’S GONE. There’s no getting it back.

We will shortly be emailing all clients with email still on server NC036. It needs to be moved by this Friday, 18 April 2026.

I sent an email to a client which says a bit more than has been divulged here, so I’ve decided to post it to help you.

Thanks for your email. First, I want to assure you that your 2 GB of
mail on our server is safe, and won’t disappear.

To put it succinctly, our mail server has unexpectedly failed. I don’t
know why and the cursory investigation I did on the weekend did not
reveal why. Part of me is very curious and wants to learn why, but part
of me wonders the point of investing so much time in learning the
answer when it doesn’t turn back the clock.

In the middle of all this, and estimating it would take a week for me
to restore everything on a new server, one client in particular was
making demands I couldn’t meet *and* work on replacing the server at
the same time. While it might seem that I decided to stop providing
email to spite them, I did it because it seemed I was going to lose all
my clients anyway, so I’d finish the week with a very expensive server
and no clients to pay for it.

Following on from that, websites and DNS provide hardly any revenue in
the new rate system we implemented last year (because they require far
less work than email), meaning we were destined for a very low revenue
and high expense business, which would end in a very predictable way.

So NinerNet intends to continue provide website and DNS hosting and
domain renewals for a short time, to give everyone time to make the
adjustments they need to make. But, to be frank, NinerNet’s days are
numbered, and this is the first time I have taken time to put it down
in writing.

I assume the “instructions” you’re referring to are the six things you
need to do at https://status.niner.net/2026/03/24/nc036-update-12 , so
I’ll expand on them here:

1) Select a new host and open an account:

There are 1001 hosting companies out there. To put it simply, we
suggest you find one you like and open an account with one of them. At
https://status.niner.net/2026/03/23/ns036-update-9 we suggest Fastmail
( https://www.fastmail.com ), who host email. (Actually, although they
don’t host dynamic websites [like WordPress], your current website
probably can be hosted by them.)

2) Lower TTL on MX record to 300 seconds (5 minutes):

These instructions are written based on the assumption you will leave
your domain registered with us, but the fact is eventually it will need
to be transferred. However, there are good reasons to do it that way
for now, and not just the $19 I will charge you to renew it in June.
The log-in information I sent you earlier will allow you to log in and
make this change.

3) (Set up new server):

You won’t be doing this.

4) Set up email accounts and forwarders/aliases:

In the account you set up at the new email hosting provider, set up the
email addresses you need.

5) (Migrate old email):

Use your new host’s system to transfer the old email in your existing
accounts, approximately 4000 emails.

6) Point DNS to new server:

Log into the DNS server and enter the new host’s MX servers, and delete
mx.niner.net.

With any luck this information will also help everyone else.

We want to emphasise that the items in the list at Update 12 are in that order for a reason. No two-penny web designer, who is willfully ignorant of how email works, knows any better. We have no reason to mislead you. Yes, we want you to move, and yes, we want to help you move, but we don’t want you to do everything in a mad panic that you will regret later. Please keep that in mind.

Particularly be wary of someone who tells you that you have to register another domain. If someone tells you that, run away!

Additionally, unless you are willfully abandoning your saved email on our server, don’t skip step 5 thinking you can do it later!

You also need to suspend your domain in the mail server control panel after you have transferred your email. This is also vital to ensure all email goes to the right place.

Please also note that once your domain is operating on a new server, you won’t be able to communicate with the niner.net domain until we move our email. We are purposely not moving our domain yet for that reason.

Two things need to be noted at this time:

• We need to communicate with the designated contact for an account. If we communicate with your company at dave@example.com, we need to receive email requests from that account and we will only provide information to that account. We send invoices to that/those contacts, in case you’re not sure who your company’s contact is.
• Some clients have moved their email, but they have left the mx.niner.net DNS record in place. This won’t work. It has to be deleted, or your email will continue to fail.

It has always been vital that we communicate on important matters with only the designated contact. This avoids security issues and an account being taken over by malicious actors through phishing. At a time like this it is even more important.

We have not sent out an email update about this issue because, obviously, the mail server s not working. This is why we are relying on the supposed fact that everybody (all clients) views this blog (status.niner.net) to find out what’s going on when things are not working.