Network Status News & Information

We will be moving a primary node for spamexperts during this scheduled window.  During this time, the spamexperts interface will not be available -- which includes quarantine management.   During this time, mail is expected to flow through other nodes and deliver as normal.   Updates will be provided once work is completed. 

3/5 - 23:00 - this work continues within Spamexperts system admins' workflow.  The node is on our hardware, however, they require complete management of it. 

3/6 - 13:00 - We awaiting a wrap up email from spamexperts. 

3/6/ - 15:00 - this work has been completed. 

We are aware of a data center outage within our Atlanta location.   At this time, it appears to be a network issue that is data center wide.  Further updates will be provided as information is available. 

21:30 - the data center continues to work on this. 

23:00 - services have been restored .  Cause was a complete power outage at the building and it affected their redundant power switching equipment .  

This issue started with a power outage earlier in the day and the data center was on backup power.  When switching power back to mains, a surge happened and caused damages to different control boards for the power switching.   The surge also caused one of the generators to go in to emergency shutdown.  This event further caused Verizon and AT&T local outages.  They are working on repairs for the control board and generator. 

pk2-dal1 will have a few updates and likely a reboot during the scheduled window.  Downtime is expected to be 5 to 10 minutes but probably less. 

This work is in progress. 

21:40 This work is done.  A few minutes downtime.

The data center for our current Atlanta operations has inform us of maintenance that will happen during the scheduled window.  The building the data center is located within will be upgrading their power systems and during this time backup power within the data center will be used for 10 to 12 hours while the upgrades are done.   No issues are expected to occur and backup power for the data center is completely separate from the buildings power supply.   As this is work on critical systems, it is important to inform our clients that could be affected. 

Servers affected:

pk1-smy1

pve-smy1

Client VPSes

11/2/2020 -- Due to recovery efforts from tropical storm Zeta, Georgia Power has suspended projects until that recovery is completed.  As such, this work has been postponed and we will update this post once it is rescheduled. 

12/8/2020 - This work has been rescheduled to 12/19/2020 . 

We will be performing upgrades on the Zimbra mail cluster during this scheduled window.  This process will require the MTA service to be shutdown during this time.  The MTA service handles delivering mail to and from the system.  Any incoming mail will be queued at either spamexperts or the sending mail server and retried depending on that server's retry settings.  This upgrade will implement additional features to the Zimbra service, which will be detailed after the upgrade is done. 

If you have any questions on this work, please let us know. 

20:30 ET:  this work is starting.

21:00 ET: work is progressing as expected

22:00 ET: this work has been completed.  Services are operating normally and only a few minutes of MTA downtime happened .   

Updates will be applied to pk-win1 .  This will require a reboot or two.  Downtime is expected to be 15 to 30 minutes. 

9:06 PM ET - this work is starting.

9:10 PM ET -- server is rebooting for applying first run of updates 

9:16 PM ET - server is still going through reboot processes, applying update configs, etc and at this point services are still up. 

10:10 PM ET - server has rebooted and is going through second phase of updates. 

10:12 PM ET - services are responding at this point. Couple minutes downtime so far.  Second round of updates are being done now.

23:42 PM ET - this work has been completed.

During this scheduled window, this server will receive updates on OS packages as well as a memory upgrade.  As such, a shutdown of the server is required.  Downtime is expected to be 15 minutes, though likely less. 

10:30 PM ET -- This work is starting.

23:10 PM ET - Server is shutting down for memory upgrade.

23:20 PM ET - Server is back in operation at this time. 

We are aware of an issue with some connections to the data center and their network team is working on it at this time.

This issue has been resolved at this time.

We are currently aware of an outage of the network at the Dallas datacenter that we use.  The datacenter networks admins are actively working on this. 

This issue has been resolved. 

This server's disk requires expanding to provide it with more space.  Downtime is expected to be 30 minutes to an hour due to the process requirements. 

20:15 - updates are taking place currently

20:30 - updates are still applying at this time.

20:32 - server is shutting down at this time for the disk space increase process.  This is expected to be about 30 minutes. 

20:38 - current ETA on first part is 8 minutes

20:45 - first part has completed, second part has started and has an ETA of about 10 minutes

20:50 - server is booting at this time and will have further updates shortly

20:53 - services are operational at this time .  Further items are needed before closing this out.

20:55 - This work is now completed.  Work was done without error or unexpected events. 

During the maintenance window, pk2-dal1 will be rebooted to apply updates and other related items.  Downtime expected to be less than 10 minutes. 

9:15 PM Updates are taking place currently.

9:30 PM - server is rebooting at this time

9:33 PM - server rebooted and services are already back up . This work is finished.  Downtime was less than 5 minutes. 

During the scheduled maintenance window, the datacenter will be performing maintenance on their power switching systems (ATS).  This maintenance is to inspect and correct above normal thermal scans of the switching equipment.  During this window, power will be switched to UPS (power backups) so that the power feed can be  de-energized to safely work on the equipment.   Their power is expected to be out for at least two different times during the window for 45 minutes.   No service impact is expected from this work, however, there is a higher than normal risk of unexpected issues due to the nature of the work. 

During the scheduled window, this server will be rebooted to resolve a backup agent issue and apply some system updates. 

9:25 - server is going down for reboot

9:30 - server is rebooted and services are coming back online.   Downtime about 3 minutes.   This finishes this work. 

During the scheduled window, pk-win1 will be receiving system updates and an increase in RAM.   A reboot is required.    Downtime is expeced to be 15 minutes.

During the schedule window, mysql3-dal1 will be updated to the latest version of MariaDB as well as any other system updates.  A reboot is required for system updates.  Downtime is expected to be about 10 to 15 minutes for mysql services.

We are aware of an outage at the datacenter that is afecting multiple services.  This is being investigated and this notice will be updated as more info is available.

Due to an issue with the PayPal billing module in use in our billing system, the paypal payments options are currently not available.  This notice will be updated once this has been resolved.

During the scheduled window, we will be moving the client area (https://u2-web.com/clientarea/ ) to a new sub domain and separating our site from the client area / support pages.  During this time, updates to the client area system will also be applied.  Those updates include a new design for the client area.   The updates are also needed for upcoming services and other scheduled improvements. 

During this switch over, the client area will be in maintenace mode.  As such, if you require support, please use email or phone to contact us.

During this update window, mysql3-dal1 will hae the following updates done:

• System updates
• MariaDB update from 5.5 to MariaDB 10 .
  
  • This effectively gives MySQL 5.6 functionality .
  • Most scripts used should not be affected

Downtime: 20 to 30 minutes for database services

Update: 20:30 this work is starting. 
Update: 20:45: MariaDB (Mysql) is updated and back in service.  Downtime was about 10 minutes.  Several sites checked to confirm operations. .  Sysmte updates are appying at this time.

During the scheduled window, the spamexperts appliances will be rebooted for updates to be applied.  They will be rebooted one at a ttime until all finished and no impact should happen to mail delivery as they are setup in a failover setup.  If you have any questions regarding this, please let us know.

Due to a network issue on mail1, services are currently disrupted.  The issue is being investiaged at this time.

We are aware of service disruption with mail7-net, used by windows only accounts.   Further updates will be posted once more info is available.

As previosuly announced, we will be removing PHP 5.2 from our shared linux servers and the default PHP version for the near future will be PHP 5.3 with that planned to be removed later this year or next as well. 

This should not affect most sites, however, if you are using a database and after the removal you receive a database connection error, please make sure to update the database user's password using the long hash option.   Please see https://u2-web.com/knowledgebase/146/Update-MySQL-User-Password-To-Use-Long-Hash.html for more information.

During the scheduled window, services for mail1 will be moved to newly deployed hardware node and running new version of the operating system.  This move is required to keep servcices updated and a in place upgrade is not possible.

Due to the volume of mail, mail files will be migrated eariy on the day of the window and then a resync afterwards.  Due to this, you may see mail that was deleted / moved during this period come back. 

Actual downtime is expected to be about 30 minutes or less, however, we have reserved an extended period in case of any issues. 

Further updates will be provided as work begins.

During the scheduled window we will be migrating mail2 to a new operating system install in order to keep it updated .  A in place update to the new system is not possible due to the operating system version differences.   During this process mail will be sync'd from the old / current system to the new one.  Once the switch is done a furthe sync will be done to grab any mail that came in during the first sync.  As such, you may see mail that you deleted on 10/18/2016 come back once the switch has been completed. Unfortunately there is no around that.

There is no action needed on customers part.   Accounts can have a mix of the mail servers we have due to the clustering nature.

This process may require an hour downtime for a final sync.  If that is required, any incoming mail will be queued at the sending mail server and attempted again per the sending mail server's settings (which can vary). 

During the scheduled window, updates will be applied to the shared linux servers.  A reboot of the server may be needed.  Downtime is expected to be about 10 to 20 minutes per server.

During the scheduled window, updates for Windows and other software will be installed.   A reboot or two is expected to be needed due to the updates. 

• Update Windows packages
• Update control panel packages
• Update Anti-virus software

The hsphere control panel is currently offline due to a database issue with it.  It is currently running through a "garabage" collection process that requires the database to be offline.  This process usually runs automatically, however, it appears to have not done so for some time.   This process has been stalling all day and we have had to restart it multiple times.  The process is required as to prevent data loss.   Unfortunately, the process does not provide any progress report and so we can not provide an ETA on this.  

Account services are not affected, beyond not being able to manage their settings. 

We are looking at ways to either bypass this or speed it up. 

We are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause.

Updates will be applied during the scheduled window for PHP and any system updates for our shared web servers.  A couple minutes downtime is expected while updates apply at the final stages.

During the scheduled window, win1 will have updates applied to it and rebooted in order to apply those updates.   This process may require up to 15 minutes downtime, however, could extend more depending on the updates.   

We will be doing updates on all shared linux web servers.  Web services will need to be restarted and as such you may see errors connecting to sites one second and not the next  A reboot of the server should not be needed. 

Updates include:

• System updates
• Internal script updates

We are aware of mail service issues on mail server "mail1".    If you are having timeout or connection errors when checking mail, you are likely on this mail server.

For comcast internet subscribers only:

Comcast is currently experiencing outages across the country that is affecting routes to our systems as well as others around the internet.  The behavior affects different services differently where one service works and one does not.  The reason being that one address or even connection will take a different route.   As such, if you are noticing any slowness in services and are using comcast, then most likely their outage is the reason. 

Unfortunately this issue is related to comcast's systems and not our systems and as such we do not have any further information.

The base domain (which is a our new whilte label domain) that our spamexperts uses will be switched to a new set of nameservers.  This switch should be seamless, however, we wanted to let you know of the change.  Beyond your information, no action is needed.

During the scheduled window, updates will be applied to the following servers:

web1-dal1
ns1
ns2
ns3

Work to include:

OS package updates
Control panel package updates
Configuration updates

Reboot of ns1, ns2, ns3 is expected.  5 to 20 minutes of downtime is expected for this work per server.

During the scheduled window, updates will be done on win1.   This includes OS, configuration changes for PCI, and other such changes.   A reboot will be needed to complete and as such 5 to 15 minutes is expected as downtime.   If you have any questions, please let us know.

We are aware of issues with mail1, ns1, the control panel.  Due to a hardware issue with the node that runs those services along with others, they may respond slowly or timeout.   Techs are currently looking at the hardware and updates will be given here once more information is available.  Unfortunately this will take time to evaluate.

Investigations of repeated high loads and high input/output wait times on mail1 has shown that mail1 needs to have a file system check and repair done.  This will require services to be stopped and/or the system to be rebooted in to a mode that allows a clean check and repair to be done.  Unfortunately this will cause some downtime.  This is required in order to prevent data corruption and to prevent further high load and IO waits, which effects performance of mail services.  As such, this is scheduled as a critical / emergency maintenance window. 

During this check, any mail sent in will be queued up at the sending mail servers and delivered at their next scheduled attempt. 

If you have any questions, please let us know.

We are aware of issues on mail1 with services giving either slow connections or timeouts.

Hello,

During the scheduled window, we will be updating the following servers.

Update:

System packages
control panel packages

Recompiling of FTP for PCI reasons

Enabling pagespeed module by default, can be disabled per site by customers.

Misc updates

Downtime should be about 5 minutes, no reboot is needed at this time.

Windows admins are currently looking in to an issue with win16 that is causing a service outage.

We will be peforming updates on the folowing servesr during scheduled window. 

• web1-dal1
• mail2

• Control panel packages
• System packages
• Adding KernelCare
• Web server specific: Updating nginx via a recompile in order to implement TLS 1.2
  • During the nginx recompile, we will also add in pagespeed module

We will be peforming updates on the web server web2-dal1 during the set scheduled window.  Updates will include:

• Control panel packages
• System packages
• Adding KernelCare
• Updating nginx via a recompile in order to implement TLS 1.2
• During the nginx recompile, we will also add in pagespeed module

We will be performing updates on the mail1 server during the set window.  Updates will include:

• Any control panel packages
• System packages
• Adding KernelCare
• Adding additional RAM to server
• Adding additional CPU resources to server
• Other misc changes for our side of things

We are currently aware of a network routing issue going on at the dallas datacenter .  it is being investigated by network admins.  Some routes are working while others are not.  You may see timeouts and the like when connecting to services.

Any further further info will be posted here .

UPDATE:  it appears this is isolated to level3 routing.

UPDATE:  Routes have been switched to another backbone and that should reoslve any timeouts .  The issue is still being investigated by network admins at the datacenter.

Maintenance on Sunday night (1/25/2015) will be done on the mailstrainer anti-spam system.  This will include any updates needed and database optimizations.   Expected downtime will be 20 minutes for each node in the mailstrainer system.  Any mail that is sent to a node that is unreachable during that time will be queued at the sending mail server for redelivery to the available node.

Over the next month, we will be migrating the following servers for our Linux customers to newly provisioned hardware:

web servers - web6 and web7-us mixed in among 2 new web servers -- COMPLETED
database servers - mysql3 mysql2-5 -- COMPLETED
mail servers - mail1 and mail2 - COMPLETED
nameservers: ns1, ns2, ns3 -- COMPLETED

We will also be moving Linux VPS servers and will be creating support tickets for each customer . 

Customers using third party DNS servers will be contacted to make sure their IPs are updated.

All work done will be handled by us and the migration should be seamless for the most part and there is nothing on your side to do. 

This migration starts other project offerings for us including a new anti-spam system to replace spamexperts as well as provide outgoing filtering to prevent spam from being sent from our servers and potentially causing them to be blacklisted.

10/6/2014: Mail1, ns2, ns3, and cp have been moved successfully.  

10/6/2014 (night): ns1 has been migrated.

10/16/2014:  accounts on web7-us have been migrated.

10/18/2014: mysql3 has been migrated.

11/13/2014: mysql2-5 is completed to new servers -- either mysql2-dal1 or mysql1-dal1 .   mail2 is still in process of moving. 

11/17/2014: web6 is completed. 

11/18/2014:  mail2 migration is completed.

We would like to highlight a few things that have come up during this migration.

• FTP:  If you are receiving errors when connecting to FTP via a ftp client, dreamweaver, web expressions, or other web designer:

  • Please make sure that the server address you're using is ftp.example.com where example.com is your domain name. 

  • Make sure the server address is not "web6.u2-web.com" or "web7-us.u2-web.com".

• Webmail: If you are receiving errors on connecting to the webmail interface:

  • Please make sure the address bar says "mail1.u2-web.com" or "mail2.u2-web.com" and not 96.125.178.57 or 96.125.178.55 .  If the address bar says other numbers, then they should be fine.

  • If you have bookmarks, please make sure to update them to use "mail.example.com" where example.com is your domain name .  Some bookmarks may use the IPs (a bunch of numbers) instead of the address and those numbers will not be updated automatically.

• MySQL (databases):  Most scripts were updated to the new database server names.  If you are seeing connection errors in your scripts, please check the configuration for your script and update them to what is shown on the mysql page in the control panel.

• SSLv3 - PODDLE: During this migration, the PODDLE SSLv3 vulnerability came out.  The new servers were configured with SSLv3 disabled and as such this was not a concern.  SSLv3 on the web browser side should not cause any problems with browsing of your SSL protected sites.  Some very old browsers that go back to the early 2000s, may have problems.  However, those browsers simply should not be used anyway.   Most websites and services are or have turned off SSLv3 on their servers.  If you are not using SSL on your site, this is not a concern for you.

  • Message from PayPal / Merchant Providers: If you received a message from Paypal or another merchant gateway about SSLv3, this relates to their side of the connection and how your scripts connect to them.  Unless your script is specifically designed for SSL and not TLS usage, you should not have any problems.  The web servers support TLS.  You'll want to talk with your script developer to find out if there is a concern. 

• Dedicated IP usages:  due to ICANN / ARIN (the agencies that regulate IPs) policies, dedicated IPs require to have a valid SSL or dedicated service.  It has always been our policy to require an SSL in use with dedicated IPs, however, we have not enforced this unless it was an abuse of the IPs.  Due to the shortages of IPv4 IPs ICANN / ARIN / our datacenters require that IPs be used per their policies and they are doing audits of IP usages.  If they find our IP usages in violation, new IPs will not be provisioned to us.  Some hosting providers have had their IPs taken away because of this.

  • With the above in mind, we will be conducting audits of IP usages to ensure that:

    • Each site using a dedicated IP is using a valid SSL. 

    • That the site is actually hosted with us

  • Any site found not follow the dedicated IP requirements, will receive a support ticket (email) from us stating that we will be switching the IP to shared if an SSL is not used.

  • We will be offering SSLs to those that are required to switch at a discounted price

  • If you are unsure if about your IP usage type, you can check via the control panel (https://cp.u2-web.com/ ) ? Domain settings ? domain info ? the domain and it will say either “Dedicated IP” or shared IP and ask if you want to switch between them.

As always, if you have any questions on the above, please let us.

Hello,

Tomorrow we will be moving the following services to new servers.  Some downtime is expected, however, it should be short.

cp.u2-web.com (control panel linux) - done
mail1  - done
mail2 - done

Once the mail servers are moved, forwarding will be done to the new server locations.

Hello,

We will be migrating mail2 this weekend to its new home.  No downtime is expected.  No changes in mail clients are needed as long as you're using mail2.u2-web.com or mail.example.com where example.com is your domain.  Those using webmail should use mail2.u2-web.com and not the IP address . 

If you have any questions on this, please let us know.

Starting tomorrow and continuing until done, we will be migrating web service and mysql services for the following servers:

web6 -- COMPLETED
web7-us -- COMPLETED
mysql2-5 -- COMPLETED
mysql3 -- COMPLTED

MySQL configuration for scripts will be updated during the migration process. 

Customers using external DNS services will be contacted to ensure they update DNS records.  Customers using our nameservers do not need to take action on DNS records.

If you have questions regarding this or would like to start your move process before we do, please let us know.

During the scheduled window, maintenance on mail1 will be performed that will require a reboot and possible downtime of 30 minutes, however, any mail that is attempted to send to this server should queue at the sending server.   This work will include resizing the server's file storage and applying updates for server packages as well as control panel packages.

Hello,

We will be migrating ns2 to its new home during the scheduled time.  Again, this move will update nameserver IPs and only resellers / VPS customers need to worry about changings.  A few minutes downtime is expected, however, the other two nameservers will handle that. 

Further information will follow below.

We will be migrating ns1 tonight.   While ns1 is being migrated, ns2 and ns3 will functional and responding to any requests.  An update will be done once this migration is complete.

Hello,

We will be doing a migration on ns3 as well as our site and support (ticket) system tomorrow night (9/26/2014).  This will result in ns3's IP being changed.  As such, resellers will need to update the IP for ns3 to the one that will be provided after the migration is done.  The old IP will work for a couple weeks.

During this time, we will also migrate our site and internal items.  This may cause support / client support systems to be offline for a short amount of time.

Hello,

We are currently aware of a problem on web6 that is causing some service outages .  It is being worked on and should be resolved shortly.

UPDATE: 3 AM ET / 2 AM CT:  this has been resolved for about 20 minutes.  The server locked up unexpectedly and suddenly.  This required a reboot of the server after trying troubleshooting steps first.  The server is operation at this point and again has been for a while. 

Hello,

Mysql2-5 and mail2 services will be migrated during the alloted timeframe to net new hardware.  The new hardware has faster RAM, drives, and CPU and is rated as an upgrade of hardware.  This migration is required as the drives for this server is running low and if we do not migrate the services or take other action service reliability will be a concern.  This migration is different from a previous migration attempt done last year and will be easier to back out of if issues do come up.  Downtime is expected to be around 30 minutes for mysql and mail services.  Data will be migrated to the new hardware over network and then IPs will be switched.

If you have any questions on this work, please let us know.

Between 11:00 PM and 11:30 PM tonight we'll be upgrading web7-us resources.  This will take about 5 to 10 minutes downtime to complete.

Win11 requires some maintenance on the storage and backup systems for the server and as a result requirs a reboot.  This reboot will be done during the scheduled window.

During the scheduled window, mysql2-5 and mail2 will require maintenance on the server hardware that will result in around 20 minutes of downtime to accomdate a shutdown, work, and start up.  While mail2 is out, mail sent to the server will queue up at the sending server.

During the specified window, win11 will have maintenance on it which will require a restart of the server.  The expected downtime is less then 15 minutes.

During the scheduled window, network engineers will be migrating upstream network connections to larger connections.  Due to network redudancy, no impact should happen, however, less them opitium routing and/or packet loss may occur while routes are updated.  

We will be updating nginx, the frontline web server, on our linux servers to night to close off a zero day exploit that has been reported on security channels.   A couple minutes of downtime for web service may happen while the update is done.

Hello,

We have been working behind the scenes to switch backup systems and now it is at the stage of switching over main systems to it.  As such, if you try to restore files via the r1soft data restore, it may give an error.  If that does happen and you need to restore files, please contact us as we will need to restore them for you.  Once the migration is done, we can enable restoring via the control panel, however, we can't do that yet because it would bring in conflicts.  If you do need to contact us to restore the files, please let us know:

1. Which files
2. What date you would like restored from

The switch is for all customers currently.  It does not affect your hosting services, just restoring abilities for the time being.  There is nothing for you to do and we will let you know if that changes.

This process will take some time to complete and there is no ETA of completion due to the complexities involved. 

During the scheduled window, our linux servers will have updates applied to them.  This may require 10 to 15 minutes of downtime to reboot each server being updated.

Hello,

MSSQL5's MSSQL service will be updated to 2012 SP1 to address some issues in the current version.  MSSQL service will be functional for most of the window and will go out for a service restart.

Hello,

During the scheduled window, mysql2-5 and mail2 will be taken offline to start and complete hardware upgrades on the server.   It is not expected to use the whole scheduled time and overall downtime should be under an hour.

Hello,

At the scheduled time, we will be doing updates on web6 which may require a restart of the web service.  Though no downtime should happen, if it does it is expected to be less then 10 minutes.

Please let us know if you have any questions on this.

Hello,

Mail3-net (used by windows accounts) will be going under a migration starting in 24 hours or so to other servers in that cluster.  This migration is to reduce the legacy hardware in use.  Those using our nameservers will have their records updated automatically, however, customers using external DNS will need to update to the new addresses.

UPDATE: 1/17/2013:  This migration is complete.

Hello,

Admins are aware of intermittent connectivity problems with win4 and are working on it.  This post will be updated as needed to provide further information/resolutions.

Update:  this issue was resolved a bit ago.

Hello,

Happy holidays and new years.  During Christmas and new years, we are going to close the phone queues for support and sales/billing to allow for a relaxed schedule as is tradition here.  Tickets and alerts will be answered normally. 

Christmas Phone Closed Times:  December 24 5 PM - Dec. 26 at noon.
New Years Phone Closed Times: December 31 5 PM - Jan 2 at noon.

Hello,

To continue with service resource optimizations, we will be moving mail2 to another server hardware tomorrow night (1/4/2012) after 9 PM ET.   Some downtime may happen while the IPs are switched between servers.  No changes are needed by customers.

Hello,

CP/web1 (which holds just our sites) and MySQL1 will have maintenance this weekend to have A+B power placed on them.  Downtime will be 10 to 15 minutes per server.

January 7, 2012 between 23:00 ET and midnight.

Hello,

We are currently working with a customer on web6 that is causing some resource issues there.  We will update this thread once that is resolved.

The following servers will be rebooted in the next couple of hours.  A post was made earlier about this, however, it appears it was deleted by mistake. 

mssql1
mssql2
mssql3
mssql4

Other servers may be following tomorrow night.

Hello,

Web6 and cp/web1's service packages will be updated this Monday (2/20/2012) at 11 PM ET.  Impact is expected to be 10 minutes or less for web services.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Hello,

We are currently experiencing an issue with our routing of phones to the departments.  Our PBX provider is checking on this, however, there currently isn't a ETA to resolution.  If you require support, please contact us via a ticket -- https://u2-web.com/contact/ .

Hello,

Win14 will have some updates placed on it that require a reboot of the server.  This will take place 3/15/2012 at 4 AM ET .

Hello,

To ensure encrypted connections to the control panel services, we have blocked access to port 80 and 8080 for our control panel.  This should not affect regular customers, however, legacy resellers and VPS clients with a reseller type control panel have had their CP addresses secured with self-signed certificate generated for them and configured for them.   As such, those customers may receive a untrusted SSL warning for their unique login addresses and that can be ignored for this one case.

If you notice any issues, please ensure you're using https connections to the control panel service.  If you still have issues with accessing the CP, please let us know. 

We will be adding a new nameserver to our linux hsphere cluster tonight to provide geographic redundancy on the DNS services on our linux hsphere cluster.  This work should not be service impacting, however, we wanted to let our customers know of ongoing work in case oddities are noticed.  

In order for customers to take advantage of the new nameserver, you will need to add the 3rd nameserver at your registrar.  If we are your registrar, you can change this at http:///domains.u2-web.com.  All nameservers that domains should be using are listed in the account portal --> domain settings --> domain info page.  If you do not want to take advantage of this nameserver, no changes are needed, however, DNS reports will show errors.

Resellers and VPS customers will need to register this nameserver like they did for the other nameservers.  

This new nameserver only affects linux plans.

Hello,

We have changed a good portion of our mail servers and shared servers to use a spamexperts appliance for outbound filtering.  We are now going to deploy this for incoming mail filtering now.  There should not be any downtime for this change over and this change over will happen over the next few weeks/months.  Customers do not need to do any changes on their side.

Hello,

We are aware of an outage with the mssql2 server and it is being worked on it to restore service.  We will let you know once this is resolved.

Hello,

Monitoring has detected errors in the memory modules of mysql1 server and as such the RAM module will need to be replaced.  This will be done tonight at midnight (12:00 am 4/16/2012) and will impact the server for less then 15 minutes.

This maintenance will only affect mysql services on mysql1.  Web and mail services will not be affected, however, scripts connecting to mysql1 service will be affected which can cause web sites to show errors.

Hello,

We will be moving our internal, mail, and site services to a new server tomorrow night.  This move should not impact customers in any way, however, we wanted to notify customers in case of any issues that do come up.  Services that customers use will not be moved, touched, or otherwise affected.  This move is to put our systems in a separate datacenter then our customers in order to maintain continuity of support services in case of a datacenter failure.  This has been an on going process for a while now and will be mostly completed once this is done.

Hello,

We are investigating an outage with mail4-net at this time.  This server is used primarily by windows accounts.

Hello,

Some updates to win4 will be completed tonight at 3 AM ET and will require a reboot, which will require about 5 minutes of downtime.

Hello,

The network components of MSSQL4 will be upgraded during this maintenance window.  This will require about 10 to 15 minutes of downtime.

Date: 6/13/2012
Time: 2 AM EST

Hello,

We are currently aware of a outage on win4 and it is worked on at this time to resolve the issue.  We'll update this thread once resolved.

Hello,

We are currently in the process of transferring phone providers, which should be seamless and should not impact customers in contacting our team.  However, we wanted to let our customers know that this was in process just in case something did happen.  Email support will not be affected of course and you can always contact us there via email or at  https://u2-web.com/contact/

Hello,

Maintenance on mail4-net will take place Friday/Saturday 12 AM ET .  Mail will be queued at the sending servers. This is expected to take 30 to 60 minutes.  Mail4-net is primarily used by windows accounts.

Please let us know if you have any questions on this.

Our building is having floor work being done and unfortunately there is unexpected noise from this work.  As such, phone support will be unavailable for the next few of hours due to the noise and poor call quality that could happen.  If you need us, please submit a ticket.

Hello,

MSSQL4 will have hardware maintenance performed on it on July 26/27, 2012 at 12 AM ET .  Expected outage is 15 to 30 minutes.

Hello,

We will be upgrading mysql2-5 to mysql 5.1 tomorrow, September 8 at 11 PM ET .  This will require a bit of downtime for mysql services provided on this server to allow for the databases themselves to be upgraded.  No other issues are expected.  This thread will be updated after the upgrade is done.

Hello,

Bind (named, the nameserver software) will be updated tonight to close off CVE-2012-4244 .  Each nameserver will have a few minutes downtime, however, sites should not be impacted due to the redundancy of DNS.

Hello,

The RAM will be replaced on 9/24/2012 in mail3-net (windows accounts only use this) to prevent RAM failure.  This will happen between 7 AM to 8 AM ET and will require about 15 minutes downtime for mail services to some accounts provided on this server.  No other services will be affected.

Hello,

Win15 will be rebooted later tonight to apply configuration settings within different systems on it.  This will require up to 15 minutes downtime for the reboot to complete.

Hello,

As MySQL 4 has been end of life for a few years, we have decided to migrate all databases on mysql1 (MySQL 4 server) to mysql2-5 (a MySQL 5 server) and decommission mysql1.  Most scripts should work with MySQL 5 without issue, though some really old scripts may not work, however, those should be upgraded in any case to get security fixes, bug fixes, and features.  If you are not sure which MySQL server you are using, please login to your account portal (https://cp.u2-web.com / ) and go to Databases --> MySQL --> MySQL DBs and it will list the server under the host name area.

This migration will start October 3rd and continue until October 20 and at that point, we will decommission mysql1. Tickets will be created for customers that will be migrated before the migration starts.  This migration only affects MySQL service and no other services will be moved during this migration.

The migration of MySQL services will be automated, ran at night (after 8 PM ET) and script configurations will be updated via that automated tool.  

If you have any questions, concerns, or would like to move your account at a specific date, please let us know via a support ticket.  If you are not sure if your script will work with MySQL 5 and would like our help to determine, please let us know.   (https://u2-web.com/contact/support/ )

EDIT: pgsql1, which is housed on mysql1 has been discontinued at this time as it was not being used.

Monitoring has detected a failing RAID backplane in the cp/mysql3 server.  A maintenance window to replace this has been scheduled for tomorrow (October 23) at 7:30 AM ET.  Downtime is expected to be 15 to 30 minutes to allow for replacement of the hardware.  The replacement is needed to prevent complete RAID failure and/or data corruption. 

Hello,

Currently mysql traffic travels over our public network card, which works fine and worked fine for a long time.  In order to reduce our public network footprint, we will be making changes to web6 so that mysql traffic goes over our private network.  No service impact will happen and no action is needed from customers.  Going over the private network has several benefits and leads to our optimization goals.

This change will happen tomorrow tonight at 10 PM eastern.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Hello,

On wednesday night at 10 PM eastern we will be switching web6's front end web server (the service that is first connected to when going to a site) from the usual apache to nginx.  Nginx will then connect to apache if it needs to for php and such, while getting static files directly.  (This is a reverse proxy setup)  During this switch, you may notice a reset connection error for a couple minutes, however, we're expecting it to be smooth.

Changing to nginx will help give optimization options such as browser caching, file caching server side of recent most accessed files, gzipping of css, javascript, and html too all sites without additional configuration needed.  This also helps with loading of static content (images, css, javascript files, etc) as nginx serves that content up faster then apache in most cases.

No changes are needed by customers for this to work.  It is a server wide change.

Between now and then, you can test your site running via nginx by going to http://Your_domain.tld:8080/ -- make sure to keep the :8080 in the url at all times during the testing phase so that you will go to nginx and not apache.    Some scripts, such as wordpress, may redirect you to a URL without the :8080 in the URL.  After the switch, the :8080 is not needed and the behavior will be normal.

Impact: reset connections for a minute or two
Time: 11/21/2012 at 10 PM ET

Hello,

Mail packages for mail3-net, which is used by our windows accounts, will be upgraded in a couple hours.  This may cause mail service interruptions for up to 15 minutes while the packages are being updated.  Any mail attempted to be delivered should be automatically retried later by the sending server.