Server and System Status

Server NC018 under attack again

24 August 2013 07:08:51 +0000

As the title says, it appears that server NC018 is again the target of an attack. We are working to address the issue as quickly as possible.

Tags: connection issues, dos attack, down time, email delivery, performance
Categories: Incidents, NC018
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Server NC018 denial of service attack

23 August 2013 20:55:10 +0000

Server NC018 suffered a denial of service attack beginning at approximately 07:40 on 23 August, UTC. This continued until the server succumbed under the load at about 12:40. This affected all functions of the server: websites, sending and receiving emails, databases, etc.

Unfortunately we did not respond to this situation in a timely manner. This was partially because automated monitoring of server functions had been turned off due to an increasing number of false alarms from the system.

Once the server was rebooted at 13:47 and the attack mitigated, the server then still had a backlog of several thousand emails to process. This took several hours, with the queue being cleared by about 18:35. While emails were “missing” for several hours, no emails should have been lost; they were just delivered several hours late.

We sincerely apologise for the disruption caused by this event. We will reinstate monitoring and the associated actions that are taken when monitoring alarms go off.

We will shortly be responding to all emails and phone messages regarding this incident. If you have any further questions about this event, please contact us.

Tags: connection issues, dos attack, down time, email delivery, performance, reboot
Categories: Incidents, NC018
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Email delays to some domains

9 June 2013 11:06:16 +0000

Over the last few days we have noticed that email to addresses on the zamtel.zm domain have been delayed. In fact, at this point it appears that the Zamtel mail server is down completely.

We also continue to see, as we have for a year or two or more, email to addresses on the iwayafrica.com delayed considerably, usually for as many as several days. This is due to issues with their mail server.

Tags: email delivery
Categories: Email
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Spam defences on server NC018

9 June 2013 10:58:16 +0000

Contrary to the last update on this topic, spam defences on server NC018 are indeed active most of the time. We monitor the server load and turn them off if the load gets too high. However, most of the time the spam defences are up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Tags: email delivery, spam
Categories: Email, NC018
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Spam defences on server NC018

20 May 2013 06:43:46 +0000

We have disabled the spam defences on server NC018. We re-enabled them over the weekend as server loads are down over the weekends.

Tags: email delivery, spam
Categories: Email, NC018
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Spam defences on server NC018

18 May 2013 02:46:22 +0000

We have re-enabled the most effective spam defences on server NC018.

Tags: email delivery, spam
Categories: Email, NC018
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Server NC023 maintenance complete

4 May 2013 19:38:02 +0000

Server NC023 went down for maintenance at 19:22 UTC and was back online at 19:32 after successful completion of its maintenance.

Thanks for your patience.

Tags: down time, email delivery, mail relay, reboot
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC023
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Server NC023 maintenance

3 May 2013 06:37:17 +0000

We will be performing maintenance on server NC023 (commonly known as the relay server) on Saturday, 4 May at 19:00 UTC. This maintenance will take approximately 10-15 minutes, during which time the server will not be accessible.

Tags: down time, email delivery, mail relay, reboot
Categories: Email, Maintenance, NC023
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Server NC018 replacement: Update 4

20 April 2013 22:55:35 +0000

On Thursday the 18th we set up a new server in a new data centre. We’re excited about the innovations in security that this new configuration will bring to your hosting account.

We are working diligently to configure and test this server, and test the migration process to minimise the time it will take. Due to issues on the old server, our priority is to get the migration done as soon as possible. While we had hoped to do this over this weekend, we may need to do it during the week. Either way we will ensure that any disruption will be kept to a minimum.

We will post further updates here over the course of the next few days.

Tags: email delivery, hardware, performance
Categories: Email, Incidents, Maintenance, NC018, NC026
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Server NC018 replacement: Update 3

21 March 2013 18:59:03 +0000

Contrary to previous information, the replacement server will not be ready until mid to late next week.

The good mews is that we have taken further steps to mitigate the performance issues, and we have seen no evidence of performance problems in the last 48 hours.

We’ll post another update here when we have firmer time lines to tell you about.

Tags: email delivery, hardware, performance
Categories: Email, Incidents, Maintenance, NC018
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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?