I am not going to name names, but I have it on good authority that late this week a large hosting provider went out of business abruptly. So far, the news that it did so has not been discussed anywhere, that I can tell, which is starting to disturb me. There have been some significant dislocations related to this shutdown, obviously, and this sort of event seems to me to be something that involved parties should be at least sending warnings out on nanog or other appropriate discussion lists. I and a third party ISP executive discussed this lack of discussion some yesterday; their opinion is that businesses and ISPs formerly hosted at the now defunct site are loath to admit their connecitvity is down lest their customers defect en masse causing a snowball of business failures, when they will be up and stable via new providers shortly and are not themselves fundamentally unsound. I understand that logic but cannot entirely agree with it. I would like to see the issue discussed in general terms at least; what is appropriate for notifications, what are fair responsibilities to customers, the public, other ISPs etc. in terms of this sort of event. -george william herbert gherbert@crl.com I am not employed by, and do not speak for, CRL.
I am not going to name names, but I have it on good authority that late this week a large hosting provider went out of business abruptly. So far, the news that it did so has not been discussed anywhere, that I can tell, which is starting to disturb me. There have been some significant dislocations related to this shutdown, obviously, and this sort of event seems to me to be something that involved parties should be at least sending warnings out on nanog or other appropriate discussion lists.
So far, the lack of anyone named George identifying this failing business is starting to disturb me.
I and a third party ISP executive discussed this lack of discussion some yesterday; their opinion is that businesses and ISPs formerly hosted at the now defunct site are loath to admit their connecitvity is down lest their customers defect en masse causing a snowball of business failures, when they will be up and stable via new providers shortly and are not themselves fundamentally unsound. I understand that logic but cannot entirely agree with it.
Some will discover the outage and some will not because they do not go there during the visit. Maybe the worry is that if it becomes well known, those who did not know will now know.
I would like to see the issue discussed in general terms at least; what is appropriate for notifications, what are fair responsibilities to customers, the public, other ISPs etc. in terms of this sort of event.
How about starting by saying all that you know. -- -- *-----------------------------* Phil Howard KA9WGN * -- -- | Inturnet, Inc. | Director of Internet Services | -- -- | Business Internet Solutions | eng at intur.net | -- -- *-----------------------------* phil at intur.net * --
At 11:06 PM 2/6/99 -0800, George Herbert wrote: [SNIP]
I would like to see the issue discussed in general terms at least; what is appropriate for notifications, what are fair responsibilities to customers, the public, other ISPs etc. in terms of this sort of event.
Having gone through this myself (as all of you here probably remember), this can be a Most Difficult Time for everyone involved. Creditors threatening to shut you down, and leaks only exacerbating the problem. Customers worried about loosing their connectivity. Customers worried about loosing their customers. Employees worried about their paychecks - or worse, know there isn't one but trying to keep things going anyway. Etc., etc., etc. It's really the bad side of this business that a lot of people never see - thank god. When a business goes under, the technical contacts of that business should communicate with the technical contacts of the businesses *directly* impacted by the possible failure. The business contacts of that business should communicate with their creditors and customers regarding business issues. Mailing lists and the like should only be notified after no more damage can be done. There really isn't an operational issue here. If a network is off-line, and you are trying to get to a downstream, you should contact the downstream. Just as if the network were having a normal outage, not going out of business. Since the network will have notified the downstream (as per my previous paragraph :), then the downstream can decide what is in their best interests to tell you - IN PRIVATE. Not blasted out onto a mailing list with a few hundred readers. Don't get me wrong, I would really like to know about outages, etc., but I can say from personal experience that "leaking" information can *serious* endanger customers and employees - we're talking about PEOPLE here - that had nothing to do with the failure. Sometimes a day or two can make the difference, and posting to a mailing list only makes vendors want to cut their losses immediately. Ruining some random person's livelihood, someone who has worked hard and does not deserve to be put out of business, because you were pissed at their upstream's NOC guy 6 months ago is bordering on sadistic. (No, I don't know if that's why someone anonymously posted about Priori. And yes, I'm still trying to find out what piece of sadistic shit did that to my [ex]customers. You can insult, backstab and try to bring me down, and all may be forgiven - or at least forgotten. But don't fuck with my friends, because that I will never forget.) So, if a network, hosting house, dial-up shop, or anyone else is going down in flames, I do not think the list should be notified until #1) everyone involved is notified and #2) everyone involved agrees no more harm can be done. (We can discuss an addition to #2 like: "or everyone is shut down and moved" or something like that.) Please note I said "everyone involved", not "everyone on NANOG". Just because you run a network does not mean you are automagically "involved" in the death of someone else's business on the 'Net. All IMHO, of course. ;)
-george william herbert
TTFN, patrick I Am Not An Isp www.ianai.net ISPF, The Forum for ISPs by ISPs, <http://www.ispf.com> "Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle
In a utopian world, the upstream of whoever had to close doors would pickup the circuit keeping the affected customers "in business" and extend them circuit offers wil the install waived or something. A somewhat similar case like this, someone I know who was providing a slew of services had to finally close shop. He's keeping his circuir up for 30 days and giving his customers several options of places to go who can give them a quick turn-around. But alas, we live in a REAL world... -r -- finger ravi@happy.cow.org for pgp key Why can't you make another word using all the letters in "anagram"?
At 11:22 AM 2/9/99 -0500, Ravi Pina wrote:
In a utopian world, the upstream of whoever had to close doors would pickup the circuit keeping the affected customers "in business" and extend them circuit offers wil the install waived or something.
What if it is the upstream who is closing the doors? Besides, that's not always possible. It is simple if we're talking about a single-homed hosting house who is only late on their transit bill, but it gets very complicated when multiple vendors, upstreams, utilities, landlords, lease payments, contracts, employees, insurance, etc., etc. are involved.
-r
TTFN, patrick I Am Not An Isp www.ianai.net ISPF, The Forum for ISPs by ISPs, <http://www.ispf.com> "Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle
So, if a network, hosting house, dial-up shop, or anyone else is going down in flames, I do not think the list should be notified until #1) everyone involved is notified and #2) everyone involved agrees no more harm can be done. (We can discuss an addition to #2 like: "or everyone is shut down and moved" or something like that.) Please note I said "everyone involved", not "everyone on NANOG". Just because you run a network does not mean you are automagically "involved" in the death of someone else's business on the 'Net.
All IMHO, of course. ;)
Of course. We each get our own MHO. Mine looks like this: If an ISP is so far gone that they have to actually turn off the equipment and thus they cease to function, then I believe that what more damage could be done _MAY_ be less than the need for the rest of us to know they have gone belly up. Now why would an ISP actually shut off the equipment before they would no longer be able to answer the phones? If this scenario is happening, my guess is their irate customers are not getting any answers at all, and most likely are going to be desperatly looking for an alternative, and probably not a temporary one. Any business that was so bad off that they had to shut off the equipment isn't going to find a miracle recovery if even 20% of their customers bail out or withhold payment. If I had megabucks to plunk down on failing ISPs, I would only be considering buying tangibles from any ISP that had shut things off. Their customer base is shark bait at that point. I don't think it is appropriate in an operational context like NANOG to be pointing out the business problems of an ISP aside from how that might directly affect network operations for the rest of us. But one that actually goes under and throws the big red switch, well, that _is_ an operational issue, AFAIC, regardless of the cause. -- -- *-----------------------------* Phil Howard KA9WGN * -- -- | Inturnet, Inc. | Director of Internet Services | -- -- | Business Internet Solutions | eng at intur.net | -- -- *-----------------------------* phil at intur.net * --
At 11:24 AM 2/9/99 -0600, Phil Howard wrote:
If an ISP is so far gone that they have to actually turn off the equipment and thus they cease to function, then I believe that what more damage could be done _MAY_ be less than the need for the rest of us to know they have gone belly up.
I guess that's where we differ. What "more damage" can be done cannot be accurately assessed by us. And yes, I agree that - from an operational standpoint - the rest of us have some "need" (if that is the right word) to know a network is about to be, or just has been shut down. However, since we cannot accurately assess the costs to that network's employees, creditors, customers, etc., the people *directly* involved have to assess that and decide when it is time to go public. Yes, they may keep it in longer than necessary, but our nebulous "need to know" how other networks on the 'Net are doing cannot possibly compare to their business, personal and other needs. IMHO. :p Oh, and you'd be surprised what can be done at the 11th hour. I know I was.
-- *-----------------------------* Phil Howard KA9WGN * --
TTFN, patrick I Am Not An Isp www.ianai.net ISPF, The Forum for ISPs by ISPs, <http://www.ispf.com> "Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle
Oh, and you'd be surprised what can be done at the 11th hour. I know I was.
I was not referring to before the shut off, but rather, after the shutoff. The shutoff is at "midnight" ... after all 11th hours attempts have failed to prevent it. The owners may not come forth, and perhaps even the employees won't either. But that's their choice. I do believe that if someone else reports (and names) some ISP as being actually shutdown (as opposed to just reporting they are in financial trouble and may shut down) then there is nothing wrong with it. -- -- *-----------------------------* Phil Howard KA9WGN * -- -- | Inturnet, Inc. | Director of Internet Services | -- -- | Business Internet Solutions | eng at intur.net | -- -- *-----------------------------* phil at intur.net * --
At 03:15 PM 2/9/99 -0600, Phil Howard wrote:
Oh, and you'd be surprised what can be done at the 11th hour. I know I was.
I was not referring to before the shut off, but rather, after the shutoff. The shutoff is at "midnight" ... after all 11th hours attempts have failed to prevent it. The owners may not come forth, and perhaps even the employees won't either. But that's their choice. I do believe that if someone else reports (and names) some ISP as being actually shutdown (as opposed to just reporting they are in financial trouble and may shut down) then there is nothing wrong with it.
We'll just have to agree to disagree. You probably cannot know what is going on behind the scenes after the packets stop flowing any more (and in most cases even less so) than before the packets stop flowing. As an outsider, it is even more likely that you cannot know what damage will be done by making such knowledge public. And even if no damage is done, it's still someone else's network. Let them run it, and publicize it, as they please. Why do you get to know about it? Because you want to talk to their customers? Then call their customers and ask, just like you would with any other outage. Curiosity is not an excuse for invasion of privacy.
-- *-----------------------------* Phil Howard KA9WGN * --
TTFN, patrick I Am Not An Isp www.ianai.net ISPF, The Forum for ISPs by ISPs, <http://www.ispf.com> "Think of it as evolution in action." - Niven & Pournelle
How does one look up Japan domain registrations? Thanks, D.
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, William F. Maton wrote:
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Darin Divinia wrote:
How does one look up Japan domain registrations?
whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp help
Japanese required for reading the info in some cases.
Actually there should be no Japanese reading required if you attach a /e to the end of your request as follows: martini/martini/u1/jeremiah>whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp ad.jp/e [ JPNIC database provides information on network administration. Its use is ] [ restricted to network administration purposes. For further information, use ] [ 'whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp help'. To suppress Japanese output, add '/e' at ] [ the end of command, e.g. 'whois -h whois.nic.ad.jp xxx/e'. ] Domain Information: a. [Domain Name] AD.JP g. [Organization] Administrative Domain j. [Address] l. [Organization Type] m. [Administrative Contact] n. [Technical Contact] p. [Name Server] ns1.nic.ad.jp p. [Name Server] ns.wide.ad.jp p. [Name Server] ns0.iij.ad.jp p. [Name Server] dns0.spin.ad.jp p. [Name Server] ns-jp.sinet.ad.jp s. [Network Number] y. [Reply Mail] [State] Connected [Last Update] 96/11/05 10:34:29 (JST) bind-admin@nic.ad.jp martini/martini/u1/jeremiah> Jeremiah Jeremiah Kristal Qwest Internet Solutions Manager, Network Services 201-319-5764
The IP and AS allocations are at APNIC i.e. whois -h whois.apnic.net 202.217.191 The InterNIC appears to still contain the domain records, so something like: whois -h whois.internic.net iac.co.jp will work. On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Darin Divinia wrote: ]How does one look up Japan domain registrations? ] ]Thanks, ]D. ] ]
Darin Divinia wrote:
How does one look up Japan domain registrations?
Thanks, D.
I guess this is as good an opening as any (although a little premature I fear) to follow up a message I sent a while ago. We've built a website that is 'almost' non-embarassing, to serve as a jumping off stage for some useful tools. http://www.geektools.com has a smart whois interface, which will take either a fqdn, an ip address, or a domain name, from any tld, and will attempt to return an answer. It has taken some work to standardize the formats of some of the obscure registries, and will take more work. But it is useful now. It also has a a comprehensive (though not complete) compilation of publicly accessible traceroute gateways, categorized by country, with major network if known. Please be aware that some of these may not be designed for high useage, and may disappear. If you know of any others, please email them to us at complaints@centergate.com :-) We're still building the tools section. We're still building the software section, and the calculator section. We'll be providing a searchable rfc mirror. We'll be adding a wrapped aggis interface. If anyone has any additional suggestions for features, please let us know. Really. Finally, we designed it so that it should work with all the browsers, and Lynx. Text only if you want. Minimal colors. 640 x 480. No java/active x. No cookies. And no logging unless people start abusing it. Enjoy it, and feel free to volunteer additions. *Please remember*... this is an early work in progress. If you don't like it, ignore it. Don't bitch. /rlj Darin Divinia wrote:
How does one look up Japan domain registrations?
Thanks, D.
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Rodney Joffe wrote:
http://www.geektools.com has a smart whois interface, which will take either a fqdn, an ip address, or a domain name, from any tld, and will attempt to return an answer. It has taken some work to standardize the formats of some of the obscure registries, and will take more work. But it is useful now.
There are also TLDs without online whois registries, which is stupid IMHO. -Dan
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Rodney Joffe wrote:
We'll be providing a searchable rfc mirror.
There's one available at http://www.normos.org/ as well. wfms
participants (10)
-
Dan Hollis -
ddiviniaï¼ broadcast.com -
George Herbert -
I Am Not An Isp -
Jeremiah Kristal -
Phil Howard -
Ravi Pina -
Rodney Joffe -
Tony Torzillo -
William F. Maton