Server and System Status

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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All servers: Company SSL/TLS certificates on all servers renewed and updated

14 January 2023 23:27:28 +0000

The *.niner.net wildcard SSL/TLS certificate has been renewed and updated across our entire infrastructure. This should be seamless for all our clients. However, should you run into a situation in the next 24 hours where you’re told that the certificate has expired, please log out and reload whatever it is you’re trying to do. You may need to reboot, but this would be very unusual. Simply forcing a reload should clear things up. Via FTPS you may need to re-trust our certificate depending on your FTP client.

This doesn’t affect certificates on your own domain on your website, just NinerNet services such as control panels and connecting to the mail and FTP servers.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do contact NinerNet support with any error messages you may be seeing. Thank-you.

Tags: ssl, ssl certificate, tls, tls certificate
Categories: Maintenance, NC031, NC033, NC035, NC036, NC040, NC041, Upgrades
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NC036: Messages to Outlook-/Microsoft-/Hotmail-hosted domains delayed

6 July 2022 09:12:00 +0000

Please note that we are seeing messages from NC036 destined for private domains hosted by Microsoft delayed at this time. The cause is not clear, but it’s clearly on Microsoft’s end.

This is not in any way related to the internal server issue that happened yesterday.

Tags: email, email delivery, mail, mail server, microsoft
Categories: Email, 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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NC033: Data centre maintenance

22 March 2022 09:31:57 +0000

The data centre at which server NC033 (our primary nameserver, ns1.niner.net) is housed will be undergoing some maintenance tomorrow, 23 March, between 05:00 and 08:00 UTC. The work is on the data centre’s network infrastructure, and not on this server itself. The data centre released this statement:

These upgrades are designed and tested to be seamless and we do not expect any impact to customer traffic due to this maintenance. Should an unexpected issue arise, a possible outcome would be temporary loss of connectivity …. We will endeavour to keep any such impact to a minimum.

The data centre managers have had a good reputation for reliability in the six years we have been using them, so we do not anticipate any issues. However, if there are, we expect they will be very brief.

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

Tags: dns, nameservers, network
Categories: Maintenance, NC033
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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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NC041: Primary web server back online

24 January 2022 05:51:20 +0000

The primary web server (NC041) is again online. It was down for 39 minutes between 05:05 and 05:44 UTC. We’re investigating why this incident happened, and will post further details here within the next 48 hours. Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Tags: connection issues, down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, Maintenance, NC041
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NC041: Primary web server is currently down

24 January 2022 05:11:56 +0000

The primary web server (NC041) is currently down following maintenance. We are investigating. This does not affect email.

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?