Server and System Status

NC027: Yet another spam outbreak

27 December 2017 22:41:47 +0000

We have temporarily shut down the mail server (NC027) while we clean up tens of thousands of spams from another compromised email account. We will have it back online as soon as possible.

Tags: email delivery, smtp, spam
Categories: Email, NC027
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NC027: Spam and delayed delivery

23 December 2017 03:11:45 +0000

Two email accounts on two separate domains on the mail server (NC027) were compromised in the last 24 hours and were used to send out thousands of spam emails. This has resulted in the mail server being blacklisted by at least one large mail provider and restrictions put in place by others. The two email accounts in question have been disabled pending resolution of the root cause of this issue, and we are diverting outgoing email to major mail providers via our relay server until restrictions on our primary mail server’s IP address expire. However, it may still be a few hours more until some outgoing mail is delivered normally without delay.

These incidents usually arise after a client’s computer has been infected with a virus. The virus then sends the email password back to the person or organisation controlling the virus, and they then use that information to compromise that email account on the mail server, using it to send thousands of spams from the account. Please ensure that you install, use and update an anti-virus program on your computers and any other devices to ensure that this doesn’t happen to your email account.

At this time NC027’s IP address is not listed in any of the major blacklists (which operate on an automated basis to remove blacklisted IP addresses once no spam is seen from them), but we will (as always) monitor this and, where necessary, make manual submissions to the smaller, niche blacklists and to ISPs and other mail providers to have our IP address de-listed where that is possible. Manual processes like these can take a couple of days, however.

Tags: email delivery, mail relay, smtp, spam
Categories: Email, NC027
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NC027: Server migration complete

9 December 2017 22:31:31 +0000

The migration of the primary mail server (NC027) to new hardware has been completed. The server was offline between 20:13 and 22:15 UTC.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
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NC027: Migration complete, but server offline

9 December 2017 21:29:59 +0000

The migration of NC027 is complete, but the server is currently inaccessible to the Internet. We’re looking into it.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
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NC027: Server migration in progress

9 December 2017 20:30:49 +0000

The migration of the mail server (NC027) to new hardware is in progress. Estimated completion of this maintenance is approximately 21:20 UTC. We will post further updates here as necessary, or when the maintenance is complete.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
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NC027: Server migration starting now

9 December 2017 20:11:17 +0000

The mail server migration will be starting within the next few minutes.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
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NC027: Migration of main mail server to new hardware

1 December 2017 08:13:12 +0000

Server NC027 (the primary mail server) will be migrated to new hardware during our regular weekly maintenance window next weekend. This maintenance will start at 20:00 UTC on Saturday 9 December 2017, and should conclude within one to two hours. During this time the mail server will be offline. This means that all incoming mail to domains hosted on this server will be queued on the sending servers, and delivered to this server when it comes back online. It also means that you will not be able to send email during this period.

We will post an update here shortly before, at the start of and following the maintenance.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact support to let us know. Thank-you.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
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All servers: SSL certificates updated

23 October 2017 18:45:48 +0000

The *.niner.net SSL certificate was updated over the weekend on all servers, as the old one has just expired.

If you get any certificate errors in either your web browser or email program, please close down all programs, restart your computer, and try again. This should clear the cache of the programs in question and force them to download the new certificate information.

If you have any problems, please contact us.

Tags: ssl, ssl certificate, tls, tls certificate
Categories: Maintenance, NC020, NC023, NC027, NC031, NC033
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NC018: Server to shut down

8 September 2017 01:19:46 +0000

We will be shutting down server NC018 within the next 24-72 hours. Normally the closure of a server would not be an event we’d dwell on, but server NC018 has been around for a long time and the migrations off of it have been dragged out for longer than they should have been.

We want to assure all hosting clients that the email that used to be hosted on this server has long since been moved to server NC027, and all websites that used to be hosted on NC018 have been moved to servers NC020 and NC031. No email or websites remain on server NC018.

What does remain on this server at the moment is the DNS (domain name system) service. A new server (NC033) has been commissioned and configured to take over this service, and the DNS information for all domains has been transferred to the new server.

All that said, completely removing NC018 from the NinerNet ecosystem at the flick of a switch will probably reveal one function or another still connected to and relying on a server that has been around for as long as it has. While this is possible, any such function will be of minor significance — it won’t be anything vital to the operation of your email or website — and we’re doing this at the start of a weekend so that we can quickly address any issues that may arise outside of your business hours. We will, of course, post any necessary updates here on our status page (status.niner.net), to which you can subscribe.

One long-standing item that we will address after NC018 has been removed is the matter of control panels. The reason we have multiple control panels will be the subject of a future blog post, but there is a reason we don’t have one grand, unifying control panel … besides the fact that we’ve been there and done that and don’t want to do it again. We have three main servers (with control panels) providing our three main hosting services:

NC027: Mail server (email hosting)
NC031: Web server (website hosting)
NC033: Name server (DNS hosting)

Once server NC018 has been shut down we’ll redirect cp.niner.net to a page that explains the above. (You’re reading it now.) In the future we’ll implement a more elegant way of unifying (to a certain extent) the way you access the three control panels.

We thank you for your patience as we work very hard to improve our infrastructure to serve you better. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Craig

Tags: migration, nameservers
Categories: Maintenance, NC018, NC020, NC027, NC031, NC033
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NC027: Spam cleaned up

7 September 2017 13:23:50 +0000

We have cleaned up the spam on server NC027 and managed to funnel most of the delayed email through our relay server. Although the primary mail server’s IP address is not in a couple of the major blacklists, we are still in some niche ones with major ISPs and mail providers. We have been working to have the IP address de-listed where that is possible, but manual processes like these can take a couple of days.

In the meantime, at the moment most email is flowing normally, but email to most domains will still be delayed for the next few hours.

Tags: email delivery, mail relay, spam
Categories: Email, NC027
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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?