Sun Oct 24 15:36:07 PDT 1999 — Slow Usenet and mail server performance. Ultra has been having trouble accepting new posts intermittantly since Thursday. I’ve just restarted innd, and it’s performing well now. We’ve got a new news server on it’s way, so we’ll limp along for another week or few on Ultra as we deploy the new box. The new server, our fourth news server incarnation since Sonic.net’s inception has half a gigabyte of RAM and over 100 gigs of Usenet news spool space. It’s a huge, fire breathing, satellite linked super-fast powerhouse. Notably, it’s also our first non-Linux server, and our first non-INN based Usenet news server. The new system runs the Typhoon Usenet server under Solaris 7. Over 50,000 newsgroups will be available, and binaries will be quite complete. The new satellite downlink allows for two full T1s (3Mbps) worth of inbound bandwidth while freeing space on our terrestrial circuits for customer traffic. We are also expecting an upgrade from 3Mbps to 10Mbps in the next few months to handle expanding Usenet volume.

As a result of Ultra’s trouble receiving new posts, Buzz, our inbound mail server has had a backlog of inbound mail delivery. qmail on Buzz will deliver 10 local messages concurrently, and what was happening was that the news posting backlogs for spam@sonic.net were using up all 10 queue slots for many minutes as a time. We’ve deferred the spam mail to a local mailbox on Buzz for a time, and the queue backlog is clearing. Sorry for the inbound email delay this afternoon! -Dane

Wed Oct 20 23:18:04 PDT 1999 — Tonight a bit past midnight we’ll be replacing the makeshift fuse assembly in the the RedBack DSL router with the new fuse they delivered today. Downtime will be under five minutes. -Dane

Wed Oct 20 02:57:29 PDT 1999 — The trouble with the RedBack DSL router was found to be a blown fuse which serves the packet forwarding engine slot.

The 5 amp fuse had blown, and RedBack support reported that they had found that a 7.5 amp fuse was required. New chassis are shipping with the 7.5 amp fuse, but somehow we didn’t get any info on this, or a new fuse shipped to us.

I built a tiny new fuse assembly by rigging up a 6A configuration using a soldering iron, some wire and two other fuses, and the system is back online. RedBack is rushing us a full set of replacement fuses for this unit. Sorry about the downtime! -Dane

Tue Oct 19 23:37:00 PDT 1999 — The RedBack appears to have a failed packet forwarding engine. The FE is one of the two main CPU cards – the control engine and the forwarding engine work together as the core of the SMS500. I’m awaiting a call back from RedBack’s 24 hour support group for confirmation. If the hardware is toasted, they’ll have to drive a replacement card up here, or I’ll have to go pick it up in the South Bay. Either way, I hope to get back online by 5AM at the latest. Sorry about the downtime! The unit is configured with dual redundant power supplies, and we’ve invested in a 24x7x365x4hr response support contract, so we have done what we can to get very quick response from RedBack in case of this type of failure. I’ll make an update here in the MOTD when I have more information. -Dane

Tue Oct 19 22:56:34 PDT 1999 — The DSL gateway router that serves our PacBell DSL customers has gone off the network. It’s still on, and reachable via serial, but it’s Internetworking is down. I’m on my way to the office to reboot it now. It should be online by 23:10. I’ve got a call in to RedBack to see if they know what may have happened. The OS was upgraded a few days ago, so perhaps the new release has some bug that we haven’t seen yet. -Dane

Mon Oct 18 10:31:53 PDT 1999 — We are upgrading the OS in our RedBack DSL router right now to a new version. PacBell DSL customers may notice a 30 second pause in Internet connectivity while the machine reboots. This new release may address issues where some customers are having connectivity problems which are then resolved by Sonic.net clearing their session in the RedBack. -Dane, Eli, Dave

Mon Oct 18 14:51:36 PDT 1999 — SBC/PacBell has announced a major $6 billion broadband initiative. This will mean much greater availability of ADSL service for customers who are further from central offices and who are in cities which are not currently being served with DSL. We’re very excited about the expansion of availability of ADSL to many more of our Sonic.net customers.

For full info, see SBC/PacBell’s press release dated October 18th at the following URL:

www.sbc.com/News_Center/Home.html

Fri Oct 15 10:58:29 PDT 1999 — Pacific Bell has reported that their major issues have been resolved for most customers. There are a few customers however who continue to have problems, anyone still having problems at this point should now call 611 and open a trouble ticket. If you already have a ticket open, you should call maintenance directly at 800-809-6222. -Dave F & Dave J

Fri Oct 15 09:22:20 PDT 1999 — We had some dialup gear fall over on the 522-1003 hunt group this morning. This may have caused slow connections or disconnects. I rebooted the gear and all seems well. -Steve

Wed Oct 13 16:06:51 PDT 1999 — PacBell is reporting intermitant problems with DSL service from Redwood City to Santa Rosa. They are working towards resolving this issue, we will update the MOTD with status information as soon as its available. -Dave F & Dave J