ATTENTION: Possible Downtime (Resolved)

[Aaron Koehl]

Hello everyone-

Through lots of troubleshooting and searching around, it turns out that our service provider has changed our IP addresses without notifying us--rather, they've assigned several of our IP addresses other customers. This means there are going to be a few rocky days ahead as the server transitions to a new IP address.

This can take up to 3 days.

What to Expect

Your username and password will NOT stay logged in.

You may need to delete your SawmillCreek.org cookie. This is best achieved by clicking the LOG OUT link in the upper right hand corner sometime before the weekend. Unfortunately, if you forget your password, the server will not be able to send you any email on how to change it for the next few days.

EMAILS will not be sent out from the server for at least the next 3 days.

This means that Private Message notifications (via email), Password Requests, Subscription Notifications, and New Registrations will temporarily cease (as they have for the past 2 days).

New Users
Please bear with us while we go through this change. You will receive your registration information after email is again functioning properly.


NOTE: We won't be able to answer any emails, since the server is currently unable to send any mail due to the conflicting IP addresses. However, we will still be able to receive mail.


If you forget your password AFTER about Tuesday, please use the password recovery page.


(SEE UPDATE BELOW)

[Vaughn McMillan]

Courtesy bump...

- Vaughn

[Brian Hale]

Thank you Aaron!!!!

[Bruce Shiverdecker]

Thanks for letting us know.

Bruce

[Keith Outten]

Since we are still able to deliver web pages at this point we will most likely wait untill Sunday afternoon to change our IP addresses and have the DNS server changes take effect. The reason we are waiting is to make sure that as many of our Members get this information before the changes are made.

This is an administrative error that our bandwidth provider made without authorization from us and without any previous warning. We have been experiencing problems the last few days with our server being unable to send out email and notification types of services, now we know the reason why it was happening. Based on a conversation with the Cox Network Operations Center last night the reassignment of our IP addresses is irreversible and we have no choice other than to accept the new IP addresses and the resulting connectivity problems that will occur.

Those of you who have forgotten your passwords and are unable to use the password recovery page for any reason will need to be patient as we expect we will be receiving lots of email requests starting Monday morning to adjust your passwords manually. We will process your requests as fast as we can but it may take a few days to resolve everyone's problems.

[Terry Hatfield]

Aaron, Keith,

Thank you both for all you do for us. It's great that you folks care so much about this community.

Terry

[Stu Ablett in Tokyo Japan]

Good luck with this guys, thanks for the heads up.

I sure hope that these COX guys give you something in return for causing you this extra work and trouble.

Cheers!

[Tyler Howell]

When I think of the magnitude of this system and all the demands. It's amazing it works as well as it does.
Thanks guys.

[John Miliunas]

First, thanks much for all your efforts! I'm sure this is even more frustrating for you than it is for us and much more labor intense. Secondly, maybe you could post this is as a "Sticky" across all the Forums, just in case there are those folks who don't do the "new posts" or go directly to a specific forum? Lastly, I assume the Cox is the only game in town over there? Point being, if the NOC at Cox re-assigned our IP addy to someone else, this would indicate to me that their record-keeping leaves something to be desired. Also, it indicates that our IP address or range was assigned to a new customer and it would be up to Cox to make arrangements/changes with that customer rather than have an existing customer jump through the hoops! Sorry for the rant but, that's the way it would be handled at our NOC at the University where I work and trust me when I say that we handle an outrageous amount of ranges, subnets and VLANs! OK, rant mode "OFF". Good luck and thanks again!

[Jim O'Dell]

Thanks for the update Aaron and Keith! After this all plays out and you two are able to catch up with your normal activities, I'd be looking at Cox for some written assurances that they will NOT do this again. They need to know that this is not acceptable. Sorry your weekend just got turned upside down, and thanks for being there to take care of this. Jim.

[Al Willits]

No problem, thanks for the warning, stuff like this unfortnately happens and I'm just glad (but broke now) that this forum is here...

Would this have anything to do with the "Setting planers/jointers up and how close?" topic not going into page 2 and not showing a few posts?

Anyway, thanks for running this forum, gotta be a lot of work.

Al

[Allen Bookout]

First, thanks much for all your efforts! Also, it indicates that our IP address or range was assigned to a new customer and it would be up to Cox to make arrangements/changes with that customer rather than have an existing customer jump through the hoops!

I totally agree with you John. Sounds like that Cox there is a pretty shaky operation. I had better stop here before I experss my real feelings about their actions.

Thanks you guys!!!!

Allen

[chip hamblin]

Having spent over 30 years in the IT field, I have a great deal of sympathy and understanding for you in this unfortunate situation.

Thanks for the very thorough and clear warning. The best of luck to you in the transition.

Chip

[Bart Leetch]

This may be a not so smart question. But how do we know the new IP address? Will we be automatically transfered from the old IP address to the new IP address?

[Art Mulder]

This may be a not so smart question. But how do we know the new IP address? Will we be automatically transfered from the old IP address to the new IP address?

Short answer: Yes, it will be automatic, however it may take 3 days since the IP change has to propagate out across the Internet.

Long Answer: (warning, Network Geek Speak ahead, but still a bit simplified) Computers work with numbers. People work with names. So when you enter "www.sawmillcreek.org", your computer goes out and asks your ISP's server "what does www.sawmillcreek.org mean?" Your ISP's servers hand back the relevant IP number, and then your computer can find the proper web page, mail server, or whatever service it is seeking.

Your ISP gets this IP number from *it's* upstream backbone/Internet connection servers. They in turn probably get it from Cox's servers. (There may be more layers inbetween.)

The complication, is that in order to reduce the amount of network traffic, the big Internet companies out there cache the results of previous searches. Those cache's have an automatic expiry time.

So, Cox may change the real IP of one of SMC 's servers. However, your ISP, may still be working from the IP stored in it's local cache. Hence, problems. These will all go away when the cache time limit expires, and all the various ISP's have once again asked Cox for the real IP.

That is why there is usually a delay of 24 hrs or more when a website changes it's IP numbers.

Sooo how'd I do on explaining that?

...art

PS: Bart, it is a perfectly good question. The problem is that understanding the answer requires understanding a little bit of how the Internet itself is put together and works.