Server and System Status

NC027: Migration update 1

12 May 2018 12:47:05 +0000

The migration later today of all mail from server NC027 to NC036 should take at least six hours, possibly more. For this reason we will try to start it a bit later than previously stated.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027, NC036
Comments Off

NC020: Reboot

8 May 2018 00:38:35 +0000

Due to an issue with the FTP server on NC020 we rebooted it at 00:27 UTC. It was back online at 00:28.

Tags: connection issues, down time, ftp, reboot
Categories: Incidents, NC020
Comments Off

NC027: Migration of mail server

4 May 2018 17:17:14 +0000

Server NC027 is being replaced by new mail server NC036. We will be migrating all email accounts to the new server during our regular weekly maintenance window next weekend, starting at 21:00 UTC on Saturday 12 May 2018.

We will be conducting tests over the next week to determine how long this should take, and will post an update here by the middle of next week with an estimate for how long your mail will be unavailable. Because this is a migration between servers running the same software, it’s much more straightforward that most migrations and should take less time than usual. Additionally, the configuration settings for your email will not change, making the process much smoother.

As mentioned last week, this is part of a two-phase plan — this is phase two — to significantly reduce downtime during migrations. Future migrations should be done in almost minutes rather than hours.

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

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027, NC036
2 Comments »

NC023: Maintenance complete

2 May 2018 21:03:31 +0000

Server NC023 was down between 20:06 and 20:23 UTC while a patch for the Spectre vulnerability was applied.

Tags: down time, hardware, mail relay, reboot
Categories: Maintenance, NC023
Comments Off

NC031: Maintenance complete

2 May 2018 06:08:55 +0000

Server NC031 was down between 05:03 and 05:17 UTC while a patch for the Spectre vulnerability was applied.

Tags: down time, hardware, reboot, web server
Categories: Maintenance, NC031
Comments Off

NC027: Maintenance complete

28 April 2018 22:53:20 +0000

The maintenance on server NC027 is complete, and it was brought back online at 22:17 UTC. Thank-you for your patience.

While we did this maintenance we also patched the server for the Spectre vulnerability. This means that the maintenance to do that on 1 May is no longer necessary, and has been cancelled.

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

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, reboot, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
Comments Off

NC027: Server maintenance

28 April 2018 21:08:46 +0000

Server NC027 went down for maintenance at 21:05 UTC. We will post updates here as the work progresses and when the server is back online again.

Tags: down time, email delivery, hardware, migration, reboot, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC027
Comments Off

NC023: Blacklist update

28 April 2018 20:46:12 +0000

We heard back from Microsoft/Outlook.com, and they have removed the relay server’s IP address from their blacklist. Thanks for your patience.

Tags: email delivery, mail relay
Categories: Email, NC023
Comments Off

NC027: Blacklist update

27 April 2018 12:53:35 +0000

Good news! NC027‘s IP address has been removed from the blacklist it was in, so at 12:41 UTC we switched mail processing back to the primary server. NC027 is in no blacklists of which we are aware.

Please note that the events of the last couple of days have pushed the notices we issued of upcoming scheduled maintenance on three of our servers down the page. If you have missed them please see:

NC027: Addition of disk space (Saturday)
NC023, NC027 and NC031: Spectre maintenance (Tuesday and Wednesday next week)

Thank-you for your patience over the last 24 hours. If you have any questions or concerns, please do let us know.

Tags: email delivery, smtp, spam
Categories: Email, NC027
Comments Off

NC023: More blacklist problems

27 April 2018 08:52:05 +0000

It has come to our attention that some email from the IP address of our secondary mail server (NC023) is being blocked at Outlook.com. It seems that only email sent to Outlook.com domains — e.g., outlook.com, hotmail.com, msn.com — is being blocked, but email sent to other domains hosted by Outlook.com is not being blocked. It’s unclear why the differentiation.

We do have an account with Microsoft for the purpose of monitoring reports about mail sent from our IP addresses to Outlook.com mail servers. However, although the account tells us that the IP address is blocked, it doesn’t tell us why or provide us with any statistics, as it does for our other IP addresses.

We have contacted Outlook.com to determine what is happening here, as this too is a situation we’ve never seen before.

Tags: email delivery, mail relay
Categories: Email, NC023
Comments Off

System	Status	Ping
NC023	Internal	Up?
NC028	Internal	Up?
NC031	Internal	Up?
NC033	Operational	Up?
NC034	Internal	Up?
NC035	Operational	Up?
NC036	Shut down	Up?
NC040	Internal	Up?
NC041	Operational	Up?
NC042	Operational	Up?