Month: March 2004

Thu Mar 4 01:38:05 PST 2004 — SR2 T1 Drop: One of the two T1s serving our SR2 POP stopped passing traffic around 10:45pm. The problem was quickly identified and a CSU/DSU reboot fixed the issue. Customers served out of SR2 experienced only 45 seconds of downtime due to this outage, as the second T1 to SR2 was able to sustain the load without incident. -Nathan and Kelsey

Wed Mar 3 12:08:11 PST 2004 — Update On Virus Alert: Since approximately 10:00AM this morning we’ve been blocking every known copy of the Beagle virus including the password protected zip file variant that poses as a message from your ISP. Additionally, we are working to remove all copies of this (and other viruses as well) from our user’s message stores. So far over 900 individual viruses have been removed.

We are also working hard on integrating our virus scanning software into our POP3 server as our last line of defense for our user’s inboxes. This final scan as messages leave our network, often hours or even days after it’s been received, eliminates the effects of the window between a virus’ release into the wild and its inclusion into filter definitions as best as possible. We hope to have the updated POP3 server in operation later today. -Kelsey and Nathan

Wed Mar 3 09:17:51 PST 2004 — VIRUS ALERT. A new variant of the Beagle virus was released yesterday. The virus spreads through an email attachment and is hidden in an attached zip file. UPDATE – This virus has been mutating extensively, and we are unable to block it’s many variants at this time. In addition, most PC anti-virus software is not blocking this virus.

That said, it requires quite a bit of user interaction for the PC to be infected. Uses must open the encrypted ZIP using the password, then run the enclosed program. Needless to say, DON’T DO THIS. The virus may pose as a communication from your ISP or mail service provider, and may include text which indicates that a security or virus problem requires that you open and execute the file. Don’t be fooled!

For more information on the virus and how to remove it, please visit:

www.sonic.net/support/beagle

-Sonic.net Support

Wed Mar 3 20:06:51 PST 2004 — SMS Reboot: As expected, we need to perform one last reboot of the SMS in Santa Rosa. We hope that the reboot will clear any lingering performance related problems. The SMS will be rebooted at 1:00AM tomorrow morning, downtime is expected to be a few minutes. -Kelsey and Nathan

Wed Mar 3 17:58:18 PST 2004 — Virus Filtering Update: At this time, all POP3 sessions are being handled by our new POP3 server which enabled virus, worm and trojan filtering when a message is retrieved from our server. If a virus is encountered, the infected message is replaced with an brief message explaining what was caught along with other details about the message. We’ve already caught a fair number of infected messages that would have otherwise been delivered to customers. This feature required significant modifications to our POP3 servers. The new software passed thorough internal testing and we are not aware of any bugs or other problems. However, please be sure to report any abnormal behavior to support as soon as possible. -Kelsey and Nathan

Tue Mar 2 09:02:19 PST 2004 — Customer sql failure. Our customer sql server rebooted this morning and sql services were down for 10 minutes. We’re investigating the cause of the failure. -Geoff

Tue Mar 2 16:26:14 PST 2004 — DSL Speed Update: We’ve done some additional work on the DSL speed profiling on the Santa Rosa SMS. At this time, results of the updated configuration look very promising and we believe that the problem is more or less resolved. We’ll continue to monitor and update as needed. -Kelsey, Nathan, John and Dane

Mon Mar 1 11:55:09 PST 2004 — SSL Key Change: We’ve just changed the SSL certificate for our POP3 server, the old one was expiring in a few days. The new certificate is installed and fully functional however, it will take some additional testing in our side to assure that the certificate signing chain is properly configured. At this time, some users may get errors stating that the client is unable to verify the certificate. It is perfectly acceptable to use the certificate as it stands, we should have this resolved shortly. -Kelsey

Mon Mar 1 11:08:30 PST 2004 — Shared webserver failure. This morning all of the servers that support the shared web services stopped responding. We restarted them and are investigating the failure. -John, Geoff and Kelsey

Mon Mar 1 22:18:21 PST 2004 — Update on DSL speed issues. Due to an inadvertent application of system-wide speed profiles this afternoon, we’re back to a situation where many customers are not getting optimal DSL performance.

To recap, we’ve run into buffering issues on the DSL equipment which is causing deliver of about 30% below maximum performance. The performance is still well above allowable minimums, but we’re committed to delivering full performance as quickly as possible. We’ll continue to work to resolve the situation! -Dane (for John, Nathan, Kelsey and Eli)