Server and System Status

NC036: Disk space increased

22 March 2024 23:58:26 +0000

We have increased the disk space available on server NC036 (our primary mail server) to accommodate more and the growing size of email accounts. Normally we would have done this during our weekend maintenance tomorrow, but earlier on Friday we had an unexpected spike in traffic that consumed the last of the disk space available on the server to store email messages. This was brought to our attention by a client who noticed anomalies in the webmail where messages were not being displayed.

Some incoming email may have bounced, but many incoming messages remained queued on a second hard drive on the server, and were delivered to email accounts once additional disk space was provided. The situation was resolved at 20:38 UTC on Friday, 22 March 2024.

We apologise for this miscalculation. If you have any questions please contact NinerNet support. Thank-you.

Tags: email, email delivery, mail, mail server
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036, Upgrades
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Issue with mail to domains with Mimecast filtering

19 March 2024 12:04:45 +0000

There is a significant number of messages on our mail server (NC036) queued up to be delivered to domains (mostly in South Africa) that use the Mimecast mail filtering service. These will be delivered when their service is back online again.

Tags: email delivery
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC036: Network issue at data centre

9 January 2024 04:55:27 +0000

Server NC036, our primary mail server, was apparently down for 34 minutes yesterday, 8 January. Our server itself was not down, but the data centre experienced what seems to have been a partial connectivity issue. In fact, you may not even have noticed it, as we didn’t receive any complaints about the downtime.

According to the data centre’s report, the issue was resolved and it is not expected to recur. We apologise to anyone who was affected.

Tags: connection issues, email, mail, mail server, network
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC041: Web server rebooted

19 June 2023 18:53:54 +0000

Server NC041 has been rebooted. This appears to have dealt with the database server issue. We will continue to look for the root cause to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Tags: connection issues, database, down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, NC041
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NC041: Web server having some database issues

19 June 2023 17:35:03 +0000

The database server on server NC041 appears to be having some issues. We are looking into it and will post an update about what we find shortly.

Tags: connection issues, database, down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, NC041
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NC036: Connectivity problems in Zambia

18 May 2023 19:54:44 +0000

Today we received a number of complaints of connectivity problems to our mail server. However, they were all from Zambia, from the Luangwa Valley to the Copperbelt to Lusaka; nobody else had any issues.

Below is a screenshot of NinerNet’s live status page that was taken moments ago that shows that the mail server (NC036) has been up for 100% of the last 90 days.

NinerNet live status screenshot, 2023-05-18.

In the absence of any other information we can only assume that there was some sort of widespread, country-wide connectivity problem in Zambia late today, for which NinerNet is clearly not responsible. The NinerNet mail servers continued to process inbound email during this time, so even if you couldn’t connect to the mail server, incoming email to you was still collecting on the mail server for your eventual collection.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact NinerNet support. Thank-you.

Update, 2023-05-19: One of our clients contacted a Zambian ISP and the problem was blamed on Zambia’s international gateway. Sorry for that!

Tags: connection issues, email, mail server
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC036: Issue resolved

5 July 2022 23:54:13 +0000

The issue now appears to be completely resolved. If you’re having any email issues, please do contact NinerNet support and we will look into them. Thank-you.

Tags: connection issues, email, imap, mail, mail server, performance, smtp, webmail
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC036: Server is up, but some issues

5 July 2022 23:09:28 +0000

We have been informed by the data centre where server NC036 is located that, due to “an effect from ongoing data centre maintenance”, there are connectivity issues. We have been noticing intermittent issues with both direct email connections and the webmail, notably slower transactions (e.g., deleting messages, scanning multiple folders, etc.). However, email is still flowing as usual, perhaps with minor delays.

We have opened a ticket with the data centre to determine why the issues are ongoing. We will update you as we receive more information.

Tags: connection issues, email, imap, mail, mail server, performance, smtp, webmail
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC036: Disk space issue resolved

8 May 2022 06:19:09 +0000

Briefly between Saturday and Sunday the disk storing emails on server NC036 became full. This was resolved immediately upon discovery, but some incoming emails were delayed. Some may also have bounced. However, this issue is now fully resolved.

If you have any questions, please contact NinerNet support.

Tags: bounce messages, email, email delivery, mail, mail server
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC041: Maintenance post-mortem

8 February 2022 07:39:37 +0000

Our apologies for not following up this issue within the promised 48 hours.

This issue was traced to a problem with a single website hosted on this server, and the modifications made to this website’s file system. What was done within one account’s file system should not have affected the whole server though, and as a result we have filed a bug report with the control panel vendor.

We do again apologise for this issue, and will endeavour to ensure that it does not become an issue again.

If you have any questions at all about this maintenance, please let us know by contacting NinerNet support. Thank-you for your patience, and continued patronage.

Tags: connection issues, down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, Maintenance, NC041
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System	Status	Ping
NC023	Internal	Up?
NC028	Internal	Up?
NC031	Internal	Up?
NC033	Operational	Up?
NC034	Internal	Up?
NC035	Operational	Up?
NC036	Operational	Up?
NC040	Internal	Up?
NC041	Operational	Up?
NC042	Operational	Up?