Saturday, January 3, 2015

ISFDB began experiencing intermittent DNS problems on January 1, 2015. Some users have been unaffected, some have experienced sporadic outages and some have been unable to connect at all. We are currently looking into the problem and hope to have it resolved ASAP. Sorry about the inconvenience!

12 comments:

Michael Hutchins said...

It's been down for me for the past two days. And according to isitdownrightnow, it's down for everyone. Strange.

http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/isfdb.org.html

Michael Hutchins said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marc Kupper said...

Odd, I did not get notified of the initial post but did get Michael Hutchins' post.

It's been down for me this evening.

Whois reports that the name servers are ns1.fhdomains.com, ns2.fhdomains.com, ns3.fhdomains.com, ns4.fhdomains.com, and ns5.fhdomains.com

All five name of those addresses point to 69.64.147.243 which is a bad practice. That name server is down.

I'm assuming those that see isfdb.org as up are using a cached DNS record.

A little Google hunting finds the web server is at 208.100.59.10.

I added two lines to my etc/hosts file and can get on the site.

208.100.59.10 isfdb.org
208.100.59.10 www.isfdb.org

Marc

aymar said...

host file fix works
do it yourself instructions too
Thanks Marc

Michael Hutchins said...

I didn't get notified of Ahasuerus' post either, Mark. (I think you have to change your preferences to get email notification of changes to this blog.) It's just that I've been checking here for the past few days hoping someone would let us know what's going on. That was the reason this blog was created in the first place.

Michael Hutchins said...

I tried the address that Mark provided (208.100.59.10) and got the following Internal Server Error "The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request."

Anonymous said...

It worked, briefly. Now I get a:
- Cannot connect to the MySQL database - error.

Michael Hutchins said...

Learned how to add etc/hosts files and am now connected. But how does that help the average user?

Ahasuerus said...

I received the first report from Darrah on 01/01. However, he was able to access the site by using a different PC, so we figured it had to be a problem on his end. It wasn't until 01/02 that multiple users began reporting issues. BTW, Michael, did you get the e-mail that I sent to isfdb.moderators on 01/02?

Ahasuerus said...

The DNS settings have been adjusted and things are looking up -- Google's DNS servers and other sites can see ISFDB now. There are a few sites that still can't see us, but it's just a matter of time until the new information is propagated everywhere.

Marc Kupper said...

Michael Hutchins wrote:
> I think you have to change your preferences to get email notification of changes to this blog.

I don't see where I can set preferences. The puzzle is, I am getting e-mail notification for all the replies but did not get e-mailed when Ahasuerus made the initial post. I checked my spam folder and it's not there either.

> Learned how to add etc/hosts files and am now connected. But how does that help the average user?

It doesn't help the average user but was a workaround so that those that were cut off could use the site.

Now that Ahasuerus has switched to another DNS provider those that added the etc/hosts file entries should remove them. If you forget, and leave those entries in place then you won't be able to access ISFDB if we move the server to another IP address.



Ahasuerus wrote on January 3, 2015 at 1:02 PM:
> The DNS settings have been adjusted and things are looking up

The DNS TTL setting is 3600 seconds meaning everyone should have the new settings within one hour after you made the update

I reviewed the new DNS server setup and it's much better. There are two name servers, one in Dallas and the other in Chicago meaning it's unlikely a single failure will take ISFDB's DNS down. I have used the data center in Dallas. It's a decent place and the years I had a colo there I don't think I ever had a network outage. They had a bad power outage once when the equipment that's supposed to switch electrical power between the utility power and their on-site generators got fused up by a lightning strike.

Unknown said...

I'm trying to reach Michael Hutchins, he had helped me post items on the ISFDB site a few years ago. I'm Priscilla Lowell, writer. My privately published book: Julie Winsome, M.D., Medical Detective, Science Fiction Mysteries, Volume 1, has just been published by Xlibris, and is now available thru them, and is on Amazon and e books. I'd like to get the book listed on my ISFDB site. Also, my e mail address is changed and should be corrected on my ISFDB page. It is now: winsomepl44@gmail.com all help appreciated.