...continued.

March 25th, 2007 (update)
The changes to the mail server planned for April 1st will take place as scheduled. However, the overall plan has changed. We will start adding anti-spam filters to the mail server immediately. Greylisting will be enabled on the morning of the 1st of April. Between the 1st and 15th of April, we will be adding more anti-spam filters and applying those filters to non-postini-served domains.

Please contact us if you have questions or concerns.

Maintenance Announcement:

March 18th, 2007
Last night, at 12:15 AM CDT March 18th, the mail server on mailhost.icompute.com was upgraded to the latest version of EIMS - 3.3. On the 1st of April, the new anti-spam features of EIMS 3.3 will be enabled, which will use "greylisting" and a very conservative filtering regimen to discourage spam. Over the following week, from April 1st through 7th, those domains that currently are not signed up for Postini coverage will see a substantial drop in their incoming spam as they are moved to take advantage of these anti-spam features.

The form of greylisting implemented in EIMS is very specific, and simply delays a given server IP once the first time it connects. This is very effective against the primary method of spam dissemination, which is "bots" - "infected" user machines that send out spam on behalf of those who infect them. In normal usage this greylisting technique should not have any noticeable impact on legitimate e-mail delivery because once a server successfully delivers the first e-mail to mailhost.icompute.com, the subsequent connections from that server will not be delayed. For details on the EIMS implementation, see: http://www.eudora.co.nz/documentation33.html

For more information about greylisting, visit: http://greylisting.org

Our primary concern is to maintain a reliable e-mail system. Spam effectively makes the e-mail system less usable by burying its users in unwanted solicitations. Our anti-spam efforts are intended to cut down on the most egregious and obvious of the spam inflow, while keeping confidence that legitimate mail gets through. Please contact us if you have comments or concerns.

Transition to T1 Line is Completed:

February 25th, 2007
During our planned downtime this morning, we made the switch from DSL to T1. Portions of our services were unavailable at various times between 6:00 and 7:30 AM CST. We're now up and running on the new, faster line, and a new range of IP addresses. (The transition required a change of IP addresses for all our services and equipment -- see the February 17th maintenance announcement below.)

Maintenance Announcement:

February 17th, 2007
To our customers: By the end of February, 2007, iCompute.com plans to migrate its primary upstream connectivity from a 1 MBit DSL to a T1 line. This will mean better bandwidth and latency to our customers, and a more reliabile connection to the internet. This change requires us to change the IP addresses of all of our services and equipment. Our current IP range is 209.46.8.64/27. The new range will be 72.1.155.192/27. For those of you who have their domains hosted and managed by iCompute, this change will be transparent to you. If you are a customer who has not given iCompute technical control of your domain, you will need up update your DNS on your domain(s). We will be taking system downtime on Sunday Feb 25th to make the switchover. We expect to be doing maintenance work between 6 AM and 9 AM CST on the 25th. We will be contacting you if we require your assistance in updating your DNS.

January 31st, 2007
At 10:30 PM CST this evening, mercy.icompute.com was rebooted to install a new kernel that should prove robust in the face of the recent panics. The reboot took less than a minute.

January 29th, 2007
At 9:28 PM CST this evening, mercy.icompute.com crashed with the same kernel panic that was seen on the 25th. Mercy was returned to service at 10:18 PM CST with a patched kernel that should prevent future panics. We apologize for the disruption of service.

January 25th, 2007
At 8 PM CST this evening, mercy.icompute.com crashed with a kernel panic. It was returned to service at 9:02 PM CST. We apologize for the disruption of service.

Maintenance update:

January 21st, 2007
The maintenance time this morning was successful. mercy was replaced with a faster machine, and upgraded to NetBSD 2.1, which hopefully will prove more stable than the current system. Mercy was down from 6 AM until 9 AM.

January 18th, 2007
As previously announced, this Sunday, January 21st, from 6-9 AM CST the web, shell and ftp server mercy.icompute.com will be replaced with a newer and more capable machine, with an upgraded OS (NetBSD 2.1). It is expected that mercy will be unavailable during this time.

January 12th, 2007
This system maintenance time on Sunday January 14th is cancelled. The system time on January 21st is still planned to upgrade the main web server - mercy.icompute.com. It is expected that mercy will be unavailable for most of the period from 6AM to 9 AM CST on January 21st.

January 7th, 2007
This morning, the update of Hope was successful. Hope - the mail and DNS server - was unavailable between 6:20 AM and 7:22 AM CST. All services are now back on line.

January 4th, 2007
This coming Sunday, January 7th, from 6-9 AM CST - the first of the three upcoming maintenance periods announced recently - the mail and DNS server mailhost.icompute.com will be replaced with a newer and more capable machine, with an upgraded OS (Mac OS X 10.3.9). The DNS server will also be switched from a "custom" build, to use the built-in 9.2.2 BIND that is part of Mac OS X. This server will be unavailable intermittently during this time period.

Happy New Year 2007!

Dececmber 31th, 2006
At approximately 2:59 AM CST mercy.icompute.com, our web, ftp, and ssh server, hung. (crashed) A reboot completed at 3:21 AM CDT. During the 22 minutes of downtime, the web server, ftp service, and ssh login were unavailable. We apologize for the interruption of service.

Maintenance Announcement:

December 30th, 2006
There will be three planned system times taken on Sundays in Janyary. The first of these will be on the 7th of January, 2007. This time will be used to perform preventive maintenance and HW and SW upgrades. The outages will be between 6 and 9 AM CST. This will be followed by interruptions of service on the 14th, and the 21st of January, also between 6 AM and 9 AM CST. During these times, service will be unreliable, but should generally be available. To the extent that details can be available in advance, they will be posted on this web page. The service interruption on the 7th is planned to involve only the mail server and DNS. (mailhost.icompute.com) E-mail service will be unavailable for some portion of this time on the 7th. Please contact us if this outage is problematic.

Dececmber 12th, 2006
At approximately 3:07 AM CDT mercy.icompute.com, our web, ftp, and ssh server, hung. (crashed) A reboot completed at 3:22 AM CDT. The web server was returned to service at 3:50 AM CDT. During the 47 minutes of downtime, the web server, ftp service, and ssh login were unavailable. We apologize for the interruption of service.

November 10th, 2006
Between 12:14 PM CST and 3:09 PM CST today our upstream internet connection was unavailable. Our upstream provider had a hardware failure in a core router, and it took 3 hours to get it back on line. All iCompute.com services were unavailable for this period of downtime. We apologize for the interruption of service.

Maintenance Announcement:

Nov 4th 2006 - System time on Nov 12th
We will be taking system time this coming Sunday morning, Nov 12th from 6 AM CST to 9 AM CST. During this time, we will be doing significant work on the web and ftp server "mercy", which will be unavailable. We plan to take advantage of this downtime to do other preventive maintenance on other servers as appropriate. We will minimize the disruption to your service, but you can expect at least intermittent service during this time period. Please contact us if this outage is problematic. [This system time was cancelled on Nov 11]

October 24th, 2006
Between 11:50 AM CDT and 1:03 PM CDT today our upstream internet connection was disconnected due to operator error. All iCompute.com services were unavailable for this hour of downtime. We apologize for the interruption of service.

October 20th, 2006
At approximately 5:30 PM CDT mercy.icompute.com, our web, ftp, and ssh server, hit a "panic" and crashed. A reboot completed at 5:53 PM CDT. During the 23 minutes of downtime, the web server, ftp service, and ssh login were unavailable. We apologize for the interruption of service.

October 19th, 2006
At approximately 3:00 AM CDT mercy.icompute.com, our web, ftp, and ssh server, hung. (crashed) A reboot completed at 3:27 AM CDT. During the 27 minutes of downtime, the web server, ftp service, and ssh login were unavailable. We apologize for the interruption of service.

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Any significant downtimes will be posted on this page.

If the downtime is unplanned, it will be posted here as soon as possible after the fact.

If the downtime is planned, it will be posted here at least one week in advance. Downtimes will be planned on Sunday morning between 6 and 8 AM whenver possible. Urgent, significant planned downtimes that cannot be scheduled a week in advance will still be posted here. If we deem it necessary, we will also send out e-mail to our customers with notification for the downtime as far in advance as possible.

-sysadmin