The authors of the Mailman mailing list software we provide for customers have recently released version 2.1.21 to fix several bugs.
We’ve upgraded the Mailman software on our servers as a result.
Users of Mailman lists shouldn’t notice any changes, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or see any problems.
We’ve updated the SSL/TLS security settings on our mail servers to match current “best practices” for security.
Our customers shouldn’t notice any changes. We’re just mentioning this so that people know to contact us in the unlikely event they do have any trouble.
That said, if you do have any trouble, it’s probably because you’re using outdated, insecure mail software that you should update. If you can’t update it, but the changes prevent you from sending mail with the “SSL” option turned on in your program, you may need to turn off the “SSL” option for outgoing mail until you can update.
The MySQL database software on the “web14” server started becoming intermittently unstable at 4:29 PM (Pacific time). Web sites that use a database (such as WordPress sites) may have experienced problems until the problem was fixed at 5:03 PM.
Between 9:00 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time on Friday February 5, 2016, the MySQL database software on each of our servers will be upgraded from version 5.5.46 to 5.5.47. This will cause an approximately 60 second interruption of service on each MySQL-using customer Web site at some point during this period.
This upgrade is necessary for security reasons. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes.
Update 11:04 PM Pacific time: The maintenance was completed as planned and all services are running normally.
Between 2:32 and 2:37 PM Pacific time today (January 27, 2016), one of our network providers that handles a substantial portion of our network traffic had a failure.
For some (but not all) visitors, sites and e-mail we host were unreachable during that period. The problem was resolved by routing data around that network provider.
We’ve been told that the network provider experienced a hardware failure in a core router. They are investigating the issue and intend to resolve it.
We apologize to our customers affected by this problem.
10:16 AM Pacific time January 10: The problem described below has been fixed by Cogent Communications, and we are no longer detecting any packet loss. There should be no further problems. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you still have any trouble.
9:54 AM Pacific time January 10: We’re receiving scattered reports of intermittent problems when connecting to our servers, although all services on our end are working normally.
The authors of the Joomla software announced today that every version of Joomla below 3.4.6 has a critical security bug that allows “hackers” to take over a site.
The bug was in use by hackers for two days before the Joomla authors patched it, and we found several Joomla customer sites that had been modified as a result. We’ve restored backups of those sites and notified those customers directly, but we recommend that all Joomla users change their password to be safe, even if we didn’t notify you of a problem.
The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.4.6 immediately. However, we also added a rule to our servers this morning to block any more attacks until our customers can update. The rule should ensure that if you use our hosting service, and your site hasn’t already been modified, hackers won’t be able to take advantage of this bug.
Outgoing mail that customers send through our servers is now digitally “signed” using DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). Receiving mail servers can check the DKIM signature and know that a message was really sent by someone @ your domain name, which can help them detect and block spam forgeries.
The signing is automatic, and most customers don’t need to do anything to get the benefit of it. You can find details on our page about DKIM.
Customers should not notice any changes due to DKIM signing, but don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or trouble.
Between 9:00 PM and 11:59 PM Pacific time on Friday October 30 2015, the MySQL database software on each of our servers will be upgraded from version 5.5.44 to 5.5.46. This will cause an approximately 60 second interruption of service on each MySQL-using customer Web site at some point during this period.
This upgrade is necessary for security reasons. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes.
Update 10:25 PM Pacific time: The maintenance was completed as planned and all services are running normally.
The authors of the Joomla software announced today that every version of Joomla between 3.2.0 and 3.4.4 has a critical security bug that allows hackers to take over a site (the bug is known as “CVE-2015-7857”).
The best solution for Joomla users is to update to version 3.4.5 immediately. However, we’ve also added a rule to our servers to protect our customers until they do this. The rule should ensure that if you use our hosting service, “hackers” won’t be able to take advantage of this bug.
