Server and System Status

NC036: Possible resolution of issues with Cloudmark/Shaw

12 September 2021 16:13:55 +0000

At the end of August we heard from Cloudmark that, “Due to the IP [of server NC036] being located in the Netherlands, it was automatically put into a lower sending class. The sending class has been increased so deliverability will improve.” Since that time it appears that emails to shaw.ca and a few other domains using Cloudmark have been delivered without delay.

If this situation continues, it’s yet another example of what can be achieved if Internet companies work together, rather than ignoring each other.

Tags: cloudfilter, cloudmark, email delivery, shaw, shaw communications inc.
Categories: Email, NC036
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NC036: Emergency maintenance explanation

2 September 2021 09:23:31 +0000

The emergency maintenance on server NC036 earlier today was to add additional disk space for email storage. Normally this maintenance is scheduled in advance, but today a number of factors combined to require us to take action immediately. We will work to avoid this situation in the future, but the cause of the situation was one of the aforementioned factors.

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

Tags: down time, email, email delivery, imap, mail, mail server, pop, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC036
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NC036: Server back online

2 September 2021 02:59:34 +0000

Server NC036 is back online. It was down for 6 minutes between 02:31 and 02:37 UTC. We’ll be posting additional information about this shortly.

Tags: down time, email, email delivery, imap, mail, mail server, pop, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC036
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NC036: Emergency maintenance

2 September 2021 02:33:05 +0000

Server NC036 (our primary mail server) will be undergoing emergency maintenance within the next few minutes. The server will be down for approximately half an hour.

We will post an update when we are done.

Tags: down time, email, email delivery, imap, mail, mail server, pop, smtp
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC036
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NC041: Connectivity issue with the primary web server this afternoon

28 July 2021 23:54:28 +0000

Server NC041, the primary web server, experienced connectivity issues between 16:04 and 16:13 earlier today, 28 July, for those 9 minutes. The server was up, but the data centre and our external monitoring service reported a lack of connectivity during that time.

The data centre now reports that it has resolved the issue, and no more issues have been experienced since.

We apologise for this gap in connectivity. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact NinerNet support. Thank-you.

Tags: connection issues, down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, NC041
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NC036: Problems with shaw.ca again

13 July 2021 19:21:41 +0000

Shaw Communications Inc. and their mail filtering sub-contractor (Cloudfilter/Cloudmark) are again delaying, and now even bouncing, email sent to shaw.ca addresses. However, we have no way of communicating with Shaw mail server admins, so we cannot talk to them about how their filtering practices are non-standard and unpredictable.

Our mail server is still/again not in any of the 250 major blacklists that we monitor, so it is unclear why Shaw/Cloudfilter are causing this problem. If you are a Shaw customer, we strongly recommend that you contact Shaw and complain. We also recommend that you do not forward your email to any addresses on their domain.

Update, 2021-07-13 15:45 (PDT): Bounce messages will contain this line, or something very similar to it:

host shw-central.mx.a.cloudfilter.net[3.96.81.40] refused to talk to me: 421 shw-ibgw-4001a.ext.cloudfilter.net cmsmtp too many sessions from 178.62.195.26 AUP#CNCT

Normally bounce messages can be easily deciphered, but even we don’t know what this means or how it makes any sense.

Tags: email delivery, shaw, shaw communications inc.
Categories: Email, Incidents, NC036
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NC041: PHP upgrades complete

28 June 2021 03:41:51 +0000

We continued last weekend’s maintenance this weekend, and as a result the latest iterations of PHP versions 7.3, 7.4 and 8.0 have been installed on server NC041. This means that you can log into your account in the server’s control panel to upgrade your version of PHP to the version of your choice. We do recommend that you upgrade to the latest version (8.0.7), but it’s possible that your web application may have different requirements. If you have trouble with PHP 8, we suggest downgrading incrementally until you’re running a version that works for you. If you can’t run 8.0, you’re welcome to contact us if you think the issue is on our server, but generally you will need to contact the provider of the web application.

To effect the upgrade for a single website, please follow these instructions:

Log into the control panel.
If you have more than one website, select the domain from the drop-down list in the top, left-hand corner.
Navigate to Server Configuration -> PHP Options.
Leaving other PHP options as they are already set, click the drop-down list of PHP versions to the right of “Default HTML directory”.
Select the latest version (highest number) from the drop-down list. (This is also where you would select any other version if you so wish.)
Click the “Save” button underneath “PHP information”.
Let the following page load, and you’re done!

If you have any issues successfully carrying this out, please contact NinerNet support, and we will assist.

Thank-you.

Tags: control panel, performance, php, web server
Categories: Maintenance, NC041
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NC041: Primary web server back online

19 June 2021 01:55:39 +0000

The primary web server (NC041) is back online with a back-up copy of the corrupted configuration file. We will be analysing the cause of the problem so that we can complete this maintenance later. The server and all websites on it were down between 22:11 and 01:45 UTC. We apologise for this, and will be making adjustments for all web-hosting accounts on your next invoice.

We will not reintroduce a new configuration file until it has been tested first. A bug report has been filed with the control panel vendor.

We apologise sincerely for the down time. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact NinerNet support.

Tags: down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, Maintenance, NC041
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NC041: Progress update 1

19 June 2021 00:58:24 +0000

We are in the process of restoring a back-up. Once that is done we will assess what needs to be done to manually re-create the corrupted configuration file.

Tags: down time, web server
Categories: Incidents, Maintenance, NC041
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NC041: Server still down

18 June 2021 22:57:55 +0000

We apologise, but it seems that a configuration file has been corrupted, and will have to be rebuilt, so it’s going to take longer than “a few minutes”. We will post updates here as they become available.

Tags: down time, reboot, 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?