Network Status News & Information

We will be performing routine maintenance and software upgrades to the Cloud UI Interface on Thursday, October 10th, from 21:00 to 22:00 UK (GMT +1).

This maintenance will not affect any virtual servers, everything will continue to operate as usual. However, you will not be able to reboot, shut down, or use the VNC console for your virtual server during the maintenance period. Please consider opening a ticket or using our live chat in case of an emergency.

Thank you for your understanding.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 09/10/2024. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:45): The LDeX1-Plesk6 server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing routine maintenance and software upgrades to the Helpdesk on Tuesday, October 1st, from 21:00 to 22:00 UK (GMT +1).

The maintenance doesn’t affect any hosting services, everything will continue working usually. The helpdesk system will continue to receive your requests at support@freethought.uk so all your requests will be updated by our team once the system is upgraded. Please consider using our Live Chat support in case of emergency.

Thank you.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel7 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 26/08/2024 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:50): The LDeX1-cPanel7 server is rebooting.

Update (22:57): The LDeX1-cPanel7 server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel7 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 03/09/2024 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:57): The LDeX1-cPanel7 server is rebooting.

Update (23:01): The LDeX1-cPanel7 server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing an emergency update of the operating system and associated software on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 14/08/2024. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:16): The LDeX1-Plesk6 server is rebooting.

Update (22:35): The LDeX1-Plesk6 server is back online.

Update (22:52): The LDeX1-Plesk6 server is rebooting a second time.

Update (22:55): The LDeX1-Plesk6 server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the customer portal (portal.freethought.uk) on 01/07/2024 between 21:00 and 23:59, so all functions on the customer portal will be unavailable during this time, including the ability to raise tickets. If you need to get in contact with us for any reason whilst this upgrade is taking place, then you can email us on support@freethought.uk.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability of the service as well as introduce new features. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: We have begun the upgrade of the customer portal

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully. The customer portal is accessible as normal again.

We will be performing routine maintenance and software upgrades to the Helpdesk on Thursday, June 13th, from 21:00 to 22:00 UK (GMT +1)

The maintenance doesn't affect any hosting services, everything will continue working usually. The helpdesk system will continue to receive your requests at support@freethought.uk, so all your requests will be updated by our team once the system is upgraded. Please consider using our Live Chat support in case of emergency.

Thank you.

The LDeX1-VPS6 node has unexpectedly rebooted. All VPS on this node are currently unavailable. We're investigating the issue and will keep you updated.

Update: (10:05): The node is back online again and VPS are booting.

Update: (10:36): All VPS are up and running. We are monitoring it closely.

Update: (11:50): Everything has remained stable. We will be contacting all customers to arrange migrations from this node. If you are still experiencing any problems with your VPS, please reach out to us via support@freethought.uk or by opening a ticket in the customer portal.

We will be migrating the three.freethought-dns.net/ns3.mypremiumserver.com name server to a new server between 11:00 and 11:59 on 30/04/2024.

The name server in question will be unavailable for a short period whilst this takes place, however the one.freethought-dns.uk/ns1.mypremiumserver.com and two.freethought-dns.com/ns2.mypremiumserver.com name servers won't be affected by this and so there won't be any disruption to DNS resolution for customers.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The migration has been completed successfully and the three.freethought-dns.net/ns3.mypremiumserver.com name server is back online. Please submit a support ticket to our helpdesk if you are seeing any DNS resolution issues.

We will be migrating the one.freethought-dns.uk/ns1.mypremiumserver.com name server to a new server between 10:00 and 10:59 on 30/04/2024.

The name server in question will be unavailable for a short period whilst this takes place, however the two.freethought-dns.com/ns2.mypremiumserver.com and three.freethought-dns.net/ns3.mypremiumserver.com name servers won't be affected by this and so there won't be any disruption to DNS resolution for customers.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The migration has been completed successfully and the one.freethought-dns.uk/ns1.mypremiumserver.com name server is back online. Please submit a support ticket to our helpdesk if you are seeing any DNS resolution issues.

We will be migrating the two.freethought-dns.com/ns2.mypremiumserver.com name server to a new server between 13:00 and 14:00 on 25/04/2024.

The name server in question will be unavailable for a short period whilst this takes place, however the one.freethought-dns.uk/ns1.mypremiumserver.com and three.freethought-dns.net/ns3.mypremiumserver.com name servers won't be affected by this and so there won't be any disruption to DNS resolution for customers.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update (13:55): The migration has been completed successfully and the two.freethought-dns.com/ns2.mypremiumserver.com name server is back online. Please submit a support ticket to our helpdesk if you are seeing any DNS resolution issues.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 25/01/2024 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 15/01/2024. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:13): The LDeX1-Plesk6 server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk8 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 15/01/2024 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:01): The LDeX1-Plesk8 server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 04/12/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk8 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 04/12/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

We will be taking one the inter-datacenter backhaul circuits between Iomart DC12 (formerly LDeX1) in London and Iomart DC13 (formerly LDeX2) in Manchester on our core network out of service at 21:00 on 16/11/2023 in order to clean the fibres. 

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of any one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.

Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, as with all network maintenance of this nature there is the risk of unexpected issues, so the network should be considered to be at-risk of disruption for the duration of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

 

The LDeX1-VPS6 node has unexpectedly rebooted. All VPS on this node are currently unavailable.

Update (14:45): The node is back online and VPS are booting

Update (15:07): Some VPS haven't come back online. We are investigating why.

Update (15:32): We believe that there is a compatibility issue with some of the virtualisation software which is causing issues with VPS that have more than 4GB of RAM. We are downgrading these packages to an older version that we know works. This requires us to reboot the node and so all VPS will be offline.

Update: (15:40): The node is back online again and VPS are booting.

Update: (15:45): VPS appear to be running stably so far. We are monitoring closely.

Update: (15:50): All VPS are running and everything has remained stable so far.

Update (15:55): Everything has remained stable so we think this is now resolved. We will continue to keep a close eye on the node in case of any further issues however. If you are still seeing any problems with your VPS, then please get in touch with us via support@freethought.uk or raise a ticket in the customer portal.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 12/07/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:37): We are rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk5 server.

Update (22:44): The LDeX1-Plesk5 server is back online and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/06/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:54): We are rebooting the LDeX1-cPanel6 server.

Update (22:59): The LDeX1-cPanel6 server is back online and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/06/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:54): We are rebooting the LDeX1-cPanel6 server.

Update (22:59): The LDeX1-cPanel6 server is back online and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk7 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 10/05/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (10:31 10/05/2023): We are rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk7 server

Update (10:33 10/05/2023): The LDeX1-Plesk7 server is back online

Update (09:03 11/05/2023): We have confirmed that the backups for the LDeX1-Plesk7 server are working normally again.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk4 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 10/05/2023 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (10:31 10/05/2023): We are rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk4 server

Update (10:33 10/05/2023): The LDeX1-Plesk4 server is back online

Update (09:03 11/05/2023): We have confirmed that the backups for the LDeX1-Plesk4 server are working normally again.

We will be performing routine maintenance and software upgrades to the Freethought customer portal starting at 20:00 on Wednesday 26th April. We expect the actual impact to be minimal and last only a very short while, although have allowed 2 hours to complete the work.

We are investigating a DDoS attack which is affecting services behind the LON2-FWCL1 firewall cluster.

Update (18:45 28/01/2023): We have mitigated the attack and normal service has resumed. We are continuing to monitor the network in case of further issues. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Update (19:15 28/01/2023): We have identified and resolved a side effect of our mitigation of the DDoS attack which was impacting DNS traffic.

Update (20:30 28/01/2023): We have made further changes to how we are blocking the DDoS traffic in order to resolve issues seen by some customers. As a result of this, all traffic to the shared IP address on the LDeX1-Plesk8 server is currently being blocked.

Update (21:45 28/01/2023): We have made some changes and the LDeX1-Plesk8 server is available again, albeit with degraded performance due to the volume of traffic.

Update (22:15 28/01/2023): We think we have blocked most of the malicious traffic and so the LDeX1-Plesk8 server is working again now.

Update (13:31 30/01/2023): The attack subsided in the early hours of Sunday the 29th and we haven't seen any further signs of malicious traffic since then, so we are marking this as resolved.

We are performing an emergency reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk6 server in order to apply Microsoft Windows updates to patch a critical security issue announced today.

Update (10:37): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are investigating a network issue affecting services in DC12 (formerly LDeX1)

Update: There is an issue with LON2-ESW1 affecting IPv4 traffic. We are currently rebooting the Virtual Chassis to try and restore service.

Update: The Virtual Chassis is back online and all alerts have cleared.

Update: BGP is still causing network connectivity issues and we are still investigating.

Update: We have identified the root cause of this and taken action to mitigate it. The network is now stable and we are continue to investigate exactly what happened.

Update: The network has remained stables since mitigations were out in place at 10:48.

On Monday the 3rd of October starting at 13:00 BST, we will be upgrading our THN-RT1 core router located in Telehouse North in London with new hardware. This upgrade will involve us swapping out the some modules in the hardware for higher capacity versions and so we will be shutting down all of our peering and transit connections that are connected to that router for the duration of the work.

In addition, we will be moving over to a higher capacity backhaul ring between Iomart DC12 (formerly LDeX1), Iomart DC13 (formerly LDeX2) and Telehouse North as part of this work. The new backhaul ring does not include Equinix MA1.
The new backhaul ring is already connected and working, but not yet carrying any traffic. The old backhaul ring will continue to be available after the migration in case of any issues.

Once the router has been upgraded, we will also be taking the opportunity to introduce a new Tier 1 transit connectivity provider as well as upgrade the capacity of the connections to our existing transit providers and peering exchanges.

Due to the nature of the work being undertaken, the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the maintenance window. Our network is highly redundant and we have significant capacity elsewhere to be able to carry the normal traffic volume whilst the THN-RT1 router is unavailable, so we are not expecting any disruption to services, although you may see increased latency.

Update (03/10/2022 13:00): Unfortunately, due to issues encountered with the work in Manchester, we will be late starting the work in London.

Update (03/10/2022 14:35): Whilst we can't carry out most of the work that we had scheduled for today, we have been able to upgrade one of our IP transit connections in THN.

Update (03/10/2022 15:32): We have cancelled some of the London work today and will be re-scheduling it for tomorrow pending resolution of the IP transit issues in Manchester. In the meantime, the network remains stable and working normally via the London router in THN.

Update (03/10/2022 15:52): The new IP transit connection is online.

Update (03/10/2022 23:20): We have upgraded our LONAP peering. No further work will be taking place today.

Update (04/10/2022 19:58): All inter-datacentre traffic is now being carried on the new, high-capacity backhaul ring. The old backhaul ring remains in place as a backup.

Update (12/10/2022 14:15): We have scheduled the remaining work for 14/10/2022 starting at 12:00. This will involve upgrading our connections to two peering exchanges as well as completing the hardware upgrade.

Update (14/10/2022 12:13): We have taken the London router out of the network so that we can begin the remaining work.

Update (14/10/2022 13:16): The hardware upgrade work has been completed and all connections have been re-patched. We are double checking that everything is working as expected before we start bringing things back up.

Update (14/10/2022 17:45): All upgrade work has been completed. All transit and peering connections are online. Full redundancy has been restored. We will closely monitor the network to ensure that everything is working as designed.

On Monday the 3rd of October starting at 13:00 BST, we will be physically relocating the as well as upgrading the hardware in our EQMA1-RT1 core router in Manchester.

The router will be moved from the Equinix MA1 data centre on the Manchester Science Park to the Iomart DC13 data centre at Media City.

This upgrade will involve us swapping out the some modules in the hardware for higher capacity versions and so we will be shutting down all of our peering and transit connections that are connected to that router for the duration of the work.

In addition, we will be moving over to a higher capacity backhaul ring between Iomart DC12 (formerly LDeX1), Iomart DC13 (formerly LDeX2) and Telehouse North as part of this work. The new backhaul ring does not include Equinix MA1.
The new backhaul ring is already connected and working, but not yet carrying any traffic. The old backhaul ring will continue to be available after the migration in case of any issues.

Once the router has been upgraded, we will also be taking the opportunity to introduce a new Tier 1 transit connectivity provider as well as upgrade the capacity of the connections to our existing transit providers and peering exchanges.

Due to the nature of the work being undertaken, the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the maintenance window. Our network is highly redundant and we have significant capacity elsewhere to be able to carry the normal traffic volume whilst the EQMA1-RT1 router is unavailable, so we are not expecting any disruption to services, although you may see increased latency.

Update (03/10/2022 09:08): We have successfully removed the EQMA1-RT1 router from the network and will now remove it from the rack and transport it to Iomart DC13.

Update (03/10/2022 10:59): The router has been moved to Iomart DC13 and has been powered back up. We are patching in all of the connections.

Update (03/10/2022 12:28): Patching is complete. We are double checking that everything is working before re-introducing the router to the network.

Update (03/10/2022 12:55): Unfortunately we have found a problem with our IP transit connection which is preventing us from fully re-introducing the router to the network. We are working with our suppliers 

Update (03/10/2022 13:29): Our LINX Manchester peering is back online.

Update (03/10/2022 15:16): We are still working with both of our IP transit providers to bring up the services in Iomart DC13. In the meantime, the network remains stable and working normally via the London router in THN.

Update (03/10/2022 15:44): We have been able to bring up one of our IP transit connections in Iomart DC13. We are continuing to work on the other one.

Update (04/10/2022 11:48): Our second IP transit connection in Iomart DC13 is now online. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

Update (04/10/2022 19:58): All inter-datacentre traffic is now being carried on the new, high-capacity backhaul ring. The old backhaul ring remains in place as a backup.

Update (05/10/2022 13:16): All work in Manchester has been completed and the network has remained stable for an extended period of time, so we are marking this as resolved.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/07/2022 in order to perform a Linux kernel update. This is to fix a CloudLinux/KernelCare bug which is affecting auto replies.

Update (21:28): We are rebooting the server

Update (21:34): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/07/2022 in order to perform a Linux kernel update. This is to fix a CloudLinux/KernelCare bug which is affecting auto replies.

Update (21:28): We are rebooting the server

Update (21:32): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel7 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/07/2022 in order to perform a Linux kernel update. This is to fix a CloudLinux/KernelCare bug which is affecting auto replies.

Update (21:28): We are rebooting the server

Update (21:32): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 22/07/2022 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:52): We're rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk5 server now

Update (21:57): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 29/06/2022 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

We have been notified by Iomart that they will be carrying out remedial maintenance work on the generator at DC12 (formerly LDeX1) between 08:00 and 17:00 on 09/03/2022 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme. This will be followed by a black building test to ensure that everything is operating correctly.

The maintenance work that will be carried out in this maintenance window is as follows:

1. Carry out the service and replace the PT pump Governer Needle Valve on the generator set, once this has been completed, the steps below will be carried out.
2. Check the generator and all of the UPS units are operating fault free.
3. Operate the changeover key switch on the main switch board.
4. Check the generator has started and is running correctly with no faults.
5. Check all UPS units and BMS are operating fault free.
6. Let the generator run for approximately 60 minutes to ensure there are no issues.

Whilst no aspect of this work is expected to be service affecting, as detailed above, at various points during this work the DC12 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy and so all services hosted in DC12 should therefore be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

We are aware of a loss of service affecting LDeX1-Plesk6, we are investigating and working to restore service.

29/03/22 11:27 - Service has been restored, we were forced to reboot the server hardware to restore service. We will continue to monitor the server for issues to ensure continued stability. 

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 02/03/2022 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:35): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (21:48): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 17/01/2022 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:13): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (22:17): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a precautionary filesystem check on the LDeX1-Plesk4 server on the 3rd of December between 21:00 and 23:59. This is a follow up on the database corruption issue experienced on the 2nd of December as a result of a failing SSD.

This will require us to take all web, email and database services offline for the duration of the check, which we are hoping should be completed well within the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work has been re-scheduled for 04/12/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59

Update: We are starting the filesystem check now.

Update: The filesystem check has completed successfully without finding any problems. All services are functioning normally again, please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are seeing corruption of MySQL/MariaDB databases on the LDeX1-Plesk4 server. One of the SSDs is showing errors and despite being in a RAID array this has caused corruption in MySQL/MariaDB. We are therefore restoring the databases from our backups taken at 15:01 today.

The problematic SSD has been removed from the RAID array.

Update (20:45): The restore has been completed and MySQL/MariaDB databases on LDeX1-Plesk4 are working normally again.Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 22/1/2021 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update: The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 21:00 on 27/10/2021 and 09:00 on 28/10/2021, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 19/10/2021 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:06): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (22:13): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the customer portal (portal.freethought.uk) on 13/10/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59, so all functions on the customer portal will be unavailable during this time, including the ability to raise tickets. If you need to get in contact with us for any reason whilst this upgrade is taking place, then you can email us on support@freethought.uk.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability of the service as well as introduce new features. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:48): The upgrade has been completed and the customer portal is available normally again

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-cPanel7 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 23/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:49): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB

Update (22:04): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-cPanel6 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 23/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:49): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB

Update (22:04): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-cpanel5 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 23/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:49): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB

Update (22:04): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 22/09/2021. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:47): We are rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk6 server now.

Update (23:47): We are rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk6 server a second time.

Update (23:49): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk7 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 22/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (23:30): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB

Update (23:41): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 22/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (23:32): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB.

Update (23:36): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk8 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 22/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:51): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB.

Update (22:00): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk5 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 21/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:01): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB.

Update (22:09): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 21/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:14): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB.

Update (21:41): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk4 server from 10.2 to 10.5 on 21/09/2021 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:21): We have begun the upgrade of MariaDB.

Update (21:41): MariaDB has been upgraded successfully. All services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 09/09/2021 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:43): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (22:50): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are aware of an issue affecting MySQL on Plesk5 and are working to resolve.

UPDATE: 01:15 The issue has been resolved

On Monday the 5th of July at 21:00 BST, we will be performing a software update on the LDeX1-VPS8 node. This update will install a new version of the Linux kernel as well as the Xen hypervisor and so will require us to reboot the server in order for these changes to take effect.

We will perform a graceful shutdown of virtual servers when starting this work, but you are welcome to manually shut your virtual server down yourself ahead of the work if you prefer.

We expect this work to take about half an hour to complete, but in case of any unforeseen problems we have scheduled a maintenance window from 21:00 to 23:59 BST. 

If you have any questions about the migration, then please don't hesitate to get in touch with us by replying to this email or raising a ticket via the customer portal.

Update (21:00): We are starting the maintenance work now. All virtual servers on LDeX1-VPS8 are shutting down.

Update (22:01): The maintenance work has been completed successfully and all virtual servers are back online. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 26/04/2021 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:35): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (22:42): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 21:00 on 24/04/2021 and 09:00 on 25/04/2021, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We are aware that one of our virtualisation nodes is currently offline which has resulted in virtual servers on that node going offline. We are working on restoring service as quickly as possible and will post updates to this status message as we have them.

Update (13:12): The LDeX1-VPS7 node rebooted unexpectedly. It is back online and virtual machines are starting up.

Update (13:48): We have restored service for some virtual servers on this node and continue to investigate the underlying cause and restoring service to remaining customers.

Update (14:38): We are rebooting the LDeX1-VPS7 server.

Update (15:52): We are rebooting the LDeX1-VPS7 server again in order to change the version of the Xen hypervisor in use.

Update (16:15): The LDeX1-VPS7 server has finished booting and most virtual servers are back online, but unfortunately 5 virtual servers still won't start. We are continuing to investigate why.

Update (16:58): There seems to be a problem with the RAID array in the server. We are continuing to investigate.

Update (18:31): We have identified a failed drive, this should not have impacted RAID in the way it did but we are working on replacing the failed drive.

Update (21:44): We are continuing to investigate the failed storage and have installed the spare drives that were on-site. More updates will follow.

Update (22:53): Unfortunately the replacement drive has not resolved the storage issue and we are still investigating the RAID issue in efforts to get the node back functioning.

Update (00:19): Engineers onsite are containing to investigate the problematic RAID array. We are also implementing a replacement node for customers to be moved to as an alternative. Please check back for further updates as we have them.

Update (07:37): Replacement hardware is installed and being configured, we continue to attempt to troubleshoot the problematic RAID array.

Update (09:38): Despite our best efforts it has not been possible to recover the RAID array and so virtual servers hosted on the LDeX1-VPS7 node have become corrupt and unusable .
We have brought new hardware online to provision fresh virtual servers and will be contacting customers shortly with the details.
For customers with managed servers, we have begun restoring our backups and will have the servers back online as soon as possible.

Update (11:56): Restores are progressing still and we will be in contact as quickly as possible as machines come online.

Update (16:05): Restores are progressing and unmanaged machines are being provisioned.

Update (20:15): All affected customers have been sent details of how to access their VMs. Some temporary work arounds are still in place for some customers and some additional works are to be carried out however services are restored.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 21:00 on 12/04/2021 and 09:00 on 13/04/2021, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We are currently investigating a network issue which is impacting all data centres.

Update (13:08): We are seeing the network recover, however there are still periods of packet loss

Update (13:24): We are continuing to see 25-30% packet loss across the network. We have raised the issue with our backhaul connectivity supplier to investigate.

Update (13:31): Our backhaul connectivity supplier confirm that they are investigating a possible DDoS against another customer on their network.

Update (13:40): The packet loss seems to be improving.

Update (14:05): We are waiting for confirmation from our supplier that the DDoS attack has been mitigated, however we haven't seen any further packet loss across the backhaul network since 13:43. 

Update (14:14): Our supplier have confirmed that this was due to a DDoS attack against another customer. They have temporarily disconnected the customer in question whilst they evaluate how best to proceed. In the mean time, the network is stable and functioning normally.

Update (15:46): We just saw another brief period of packet loss between 15:43 and 15:45.

Update (17:08): Our supplier has confirmed that the previous instability was due to them trying to reintroduce some service for the customer being targeted, however they have disconnected them again due to the ongoing attacks.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 03/04/2021 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:26): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (21:32): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 11/03/2021. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (22:10): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (22:12): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 02/03/2021 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:27): We are rebooting the server now.

Update (21:37): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 30/09/2020 in order to resolve an issue with the RAID card. There will be a loss of service for a few minutes whilst the server reboots.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:05): The server is now rebooting.

Update (21:09): The server is back online, however this has not resolved the issue with the RAID card.

Update (21:15): We are going to try shutting the server down and then starting it back up again.

Update (21:18): This has not resolved the issue either. We are going to take the opportunity to apply some outstanding Windows updates whilst we consider our options.

Update (21:51): The Windows updates have finished installing and we are rebooting the server.

Update (22:05): The server is finally going down for the reboot.

Update (22:07): The server is back online again.

Update (22:24): We're going to leave this for now and continue at 21:00 tomorrow night (01/10/2020).

Update (01/10/2020 22:21): We are shutting the server down again, this time to physically disconnect both power supplies simultaneously and ensure that the backplane and RAID controller are power cycled and start back up from a cold boot.

Update (22:38): The server is back online again, however unfortunately this has not resolved the issue. We will follow this up with the vendor before scheduling any further work.

Update: It turns out that the issue wasn't with the RAID card or backplane at all, but with an SSD which appeared to work fine in other servers but not in the LDeX1-Plesk6 server. We have replaced the SSD in question and the RAID array has rebuilt.

We are migrating customers from LDeX1-cPanel3 to LDeX1-cPanel7 starting at 21:00 on 20/11/2020. Full details of the migration can be found in the email sent to customers on 17/11/2020, however please contact us if you have any questions.

Update (01:35): The migration has been completed successfully and all services are back online. Please let us know if you are experiencing any problems.

We are migrating customers from LDeX1-cPanel2 to LDeX1-cPanel7 starting at 21:00 on 20/11/2020. Full details of the migration can be found in the email sent to customers on 17/11/2020, however please contact us if you have any questions.

Update (01:35): The migration has been completed successfully and all services are back online. Please let us know if you are experiencing any problems.

We are migrating customers from LDeX1-cPanel1 to LDeX1-cPanel5 starting at 21:00 on 13/11/2020. Full details of the migration can be found in the email sent to customers on 10/11/2020, however please contact us if you have any questions.

Update (02:07): The migration has been completed successfully and all services are back online. Please let us know if you are experiencing any problems.

We are migrating customers from LDeX1-cPanel4 to LDeX1-cPanel6 starting at 21:00 on 06/11/2020. Full details of the migration can be found in the email sent to customers on 02/11/2020, however please contact us if you have any questions.

Update (02:47): The migration has been completed successfully and all services are back online. Please let us know if you are experiencing any problems.

We are aware of a targeted DDoS attack against one of our customers that is impacting wider network connectivity, we're working on mitigating the impact as quickly as possible. 

Update (1051): We have taken steps to mitigate the attack and connectivity is now stable across our network. We'll monitor the situation to ensure there are no further issues.

Update (20:47): We haven't see any further issues, so we believe this is resolved as of 10:51, however we will continue to monitor the network closely.

LDeX1-Plesk5 has become unresponsive which has necessitated an emergency reboot. Service should be restored soon.

We are investigating alerts from our monitoring system that the EQMA1-RT1 router has become unreachable. The rest of the network appears to have quickly routed around this and is functioning normally. Any traffic entering or leaving the network via Manchester will have seen some disruption as it was re-routed via London.

Update (06:33): It seems that the line card on the router has crashed and rebooted.

Update (06:39): The line card has finished booting and traffic is flowing normally again. There was some further disruption whilst diverted traffic routed back through Manchester. We are attempting to determine the cause of the line card crash.

Update (07:25): We have seen some further errors in the logs which may be related and are continuing to investigate.

Update (08:12): We are looking at whether we need to remove the router from the network and perform an emergency reboot and/or software update.

Update (10:09): We have removed the EQMA1-RT1 router from the network and will be performing an emergency reboot shortly. This should not be disruptive to traffic as everything has been routed away from it in advance.
Due to the reduced redundancy, the network should be considered "at risk" whilst we are undertaking this work.

Update (11:25): Initial indications are that the reboot appears to have resolved the issue. Given that we had the router safely removed from the network, we have decided to also install some outstanding software updates.

Update (12:04): The software updates have all been installed successfully and following a reboot in order to apply these updates, everything appears to be functioning normally. We have therefore inserted the router back to the network and as such full redundancy has been restored to the network. We will continue to monitor the router closely for any sign of further problems.

Update (29/09/2020 17:06): We haven't seen any further problems with this router, so we believe that this issue is resolved.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 23/09/2020 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:03): We're now rebooting the server

Update (21:07): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 02:00 and 06:00 on 11/082020, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The provider in question has informed us that they have re-scheduled this work for 02:00 to 06:00 BST on 25/08/2020.

Update: The provider in question has once again re-scheduled this work, this time for 02:00 to 06:00 BST on 08/09/2020.

Update: The provider in question has once again delayed this work, although they have not given a new date for it to go ahead. We will mark this as resolved until we have a new date.

We will be performing a firmware update on the firewall clusters in LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 21:00 and 23:59 on 05/08/2020.

This will affect all web hosting, reseller hosting and ULTRA hosting services, as well as dedicated server and co-location customers using our managed firewall services.
Virtual server customers and as well as dedicated server and co-location customers using our managed firewall services will not be affected.

Each cluster member will be updated and restarted before being returned to the cluster. As such, we expect that disruption from this work should be minimal - just a few seconds during the failover process.

This is essential maintenance which is necessary in order to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this firewalls. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: This work has been re-scheduled for 06/08/2020 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Update: Due to the DDoS attacks today, this work has been re-scheduled for 10/08/2020 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Update: This work has been re-scheduled for 18/08/2020 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Update (21:22): We are beginning the upgrade on the LDeX1-FWCL1 firewall cluster.

Update (21:33): The LDeX1-FWCL1 firewall cluster has been successfully upgraded. We are beginning the upgrade on the LDeX1-FWCL2 firewall cluster.

Update (21:46): The LDeX1-FWCL2 firewall cluster has been successfully upgraded. We are beginning the upgrade on the LDeX1-FWCL3 firewall cluster.

Update (21:56): The LDeX1-FWCL3 firewall cluster has been successfully upgraded. We are beginning the upgrade on the LDeX2-FWCL1 firewall cluster.

Update (22:06): The LDeX2-FWCL1 firewall cluster has been successfully upgraded. All firewalls are now running the latest firmware version. Our monitoring did not detected any interruption to services, but please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel2 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 18/08/2020 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:15): The server is rebooting

 

Update (21:16): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

LINX will be performing maintenance work on our LON2 connection between 00:00 and 06:00 on 11/08/2029. We will therefore be disabling all peering over LON2 whilst this work is carried out.

During this period, all traffic will be routed via our other peering connections on LINX LON1, LINX Manchester and LONAP as well as our three IP transit providers and so this will not be service affecting.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: LINX completed their maintenance work successfully and full peering capacity has been restored to the network.

We are aware of a network issue impacting a large proportion of network traffic. We are investigating the cause and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. We suspect this is a repeat attack against our network.

Update (6/8/20 @ 2052): We have confirmed this issue is indeed an attack against our network. It has been mitigated for the time being and service has been restored. We of course will continue to monitor the situation closely to attempt to ensure network stability going forward.

An attack was detected against our network at around 13:29 which may have caused some brief disruption, we mitigated the attack at around 13:36 and continue to monitor the situation.

Update: The attack appears to have subsided at 14:04

We have been notified by iomart that they will be carrying out annual maintenance work on the LV distribution board in the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 18:00 on 29/07/2020 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

The maintenance work which will be carried out during this window is as follows:

1. The generator circuit breakers will be inspected and maintained first whilst the facility is still operating on utility mains power as normal.
2. The facility will then be transferred onto generator power and the utility mains circuit breaker will be serviced and tested.
3. Whilst still on generator power, the A side UPS will be put into external bypass to allow for the UPS circuit breakers to be maintained. Once complete the A side UPS will be restored before repeating with the B side UPS.
4. The facility will then be restored back on to utility mains power supply and the generators will be put back into auto standby.
5. The air-conditioning circuit breakers will then be tested and maintained one at a time in order to ensure resilience of the redundant cooling capacity.

Whilst no aspect of this work is expected to be service affecting, as detailed above, at various points during this work the LDeX2 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy and so all services hosted in LDeX2 should therefore be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

The manufacturer of the RAID card in the LDeX1-Plesk6 server have advised us that we need to update the firmware and drivers for the RAID card as part of troubleshooting an issue. We will complete this work between 21:00 and 23:59 on 09/07/2020. This will require us to reboot the server down briefly, so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:15): We have started the update process.

Update (21:21): The firmware update has completed. We are now updating the drivers.

Update (21:39): The driver update has completed. We are now rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk6 server so that the updates take effect.

Update (22:04): We are performing a second reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk6 server.

Update (22:07): The second reboot has been completed and the server is back online after 3 minutes of downtime.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance to increase the disk space for the /home partition on the LDeX1-cPanel3 server on 20/06/2020 between 21:00 and 23:59. This will require us to shut the server down briefly, so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:56): We are shutting the server down now

Update (22:26): The /home partition has been successfully resized and the server is starting back up.

Update (22:32): The server is back online and all services are working normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance to increase the disk space for the /home partition on the LDeX1-cPanel2 server on 20/06/2020 between 21:00 and 23:59. This will require us to shut the server down briefly, so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:56): We are shutting the server down now

Update (22:24): The /home partition has been successfully resized and the server is starting back up.

Update (22:26): The server is back online and all services are working normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance to increase the disk space for the /home partition on the LDeX1-cPanel1 server on 20/06/2020 between 21:00 and 23:59. This will require us to shut the server down briefly, so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:10): We are shutting the server down now

Update (21:55): We have run into some unexpected complications whilst carrying out this work which have slowed us down, but we're making progress and hope to have the server back online shortly.

Update (22:10): The /home partition has been successfully resized and the server is starting back up.

Update (22:13): The server is back online and all services are working normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk5 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 20/06/2020 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (21:24): The server is rebooting

Update (21:28): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are currently investigating disruption to our network which we suspect may be attributable to a DDoS attack against a customer. We'll update this ticket once we've more information and mitigated the issue.

Update: We have identified the nature of the outage and it is indeed a malicious attack. We have taken steps to mitigate the attack which has restored stability to the network. We'll continue to monitor the situation.

Update: The last attack traffic was seen at 12:39, however we will continue to monitor in case of any further attacks. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We are aware of packet loss currently impacting our network, this appears to be a DDoS attack directed at a customer. We are working to mitigate the attack as quickly as possible and will update this ticket with information as it becomes available.

Update: Mitigations appear to have been effective and the attack has now subsided. We will continue to monitor in case of any further attacks. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 12/05/2020. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on their equipment in LDeX1, LDeX2 and THN between 22:00 on 28/02/2020 and 04:00 on 01/07/2018 during which time they will be reconfiguring BGP on six switches as part of work to remove legacy infrastructure from their core network.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out further work to increase the UPS capacity at the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 16/03/2020 to 18/03/2020.

This work will involve a period where each of the UPS systems needs to placed into bypass whilst the new modules are brought into service and as such the LDeX2 facility will be operating as a level of reduced redundancy for some periods whilst this work is being carried out. As such, all services hosted in LDeX2 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

Whilst in bypass, any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on generator power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an issue with the generators. Utility mains power will remain available throughout the maintenance work as a backup if required.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 26/02/2020. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: We have begun the maintenance work.

Update: The LDeX1-Plesk6 server is now rebooting .

Update: We are performing a second reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk6 server.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again after approximately 1 minutes of downtime for each of the two reboots  Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 02:00 and 06:00 on 20/02/2020, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 01:00 and 06:00 on 21/02/2020, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk5 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk4 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

We will be performing a software update on our THN-RT1 border router in Telehouse North on 12/02/2020 starting at 20:00.

This update will require us to reboot the THN-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the THN-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We are beginning this maintenance work.

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully and the THN-RT1 router has been returned to the network. Full redundancy has been restored to the network. 

We will be performing a software update on our EQMA1-RT1 border router in Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House/Kilburn House) on 05/02/2020 starting at 20:00.

This update will require us to reboot the EQMA1-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the EQMA1-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We are beginning this maintenance work.

Update: Unfortunately, whilst removing the EQMA1-RT1 router from the network there was a network wide loss of service between 20:17 and 20:32 . We have rolled the changes back and are currently assessing the cause.

Update: We have determined that the cause of the issue was a combination of a configuration mistake and an inadvertent rollback of the configuration on one network device. We are correcting this and attempting to remove the EQMA1-RT1 router from the network again.

Update: The EQMA1-RT1 router has been successfully removed from the network and the software update is now in progress.

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully and the EQMA1-RT1 router has been returned to the network. Full redundancy has been restored to the network. Please accept our apologies for the unexpected disruption earlier.

We are currently investigating possible power issues in our Manchester data centre, LDeX2. 

Update - 12:08: It has been confirmed that there was an interruption to power in LDeX2 at around 11:52 which should be resolved. We are investigating and confirming if all systems are operational again.

Update - 12:30: We have confirmed that power has been restored. This issue impacted only a single power feed within the data centre. If you are experiencing problems please contact support.

We will be performing a software update on our THN-RT1 border router in Telehouse North on 13/06/2019 starting at 20:00.

This update will require us to reboot the THN-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the THN-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The software update has been completed successfully and the THN-RT1 router has been returned to normal service. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be performing emergency software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 14/01/2019. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance in order to ensure the ongoing security of this server in response to a critical security flaw in the Windows cryptography API discovered by the NSA. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again after approximately 3 minutes of downtime across two reboots. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the UPS in the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 08/01/2020 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve a firmware update, visual inspection of the components in each of the UPS systems, functional testing and cleaning of the fans and as such the LDeX2 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX2 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously. During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode. This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed. Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out further work to increase the UPS capacity at the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 28/11/2019 and 29/11/2019.

This work will involve a period where each of the UPS systems needs to placed into bypass whilst the new modules are brought into service and as such the LDeX2 facility will be operating as a level of reduced redundancy for some periods whilst this work is being carried out. As such, all services hosted in LDeX2 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

Whilst in bypass, any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on generator power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an issue with the generators. Utility mains power will remain available throughout the maintenance work as a backup if required.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

Our monitoring has alerted us to a problem with the LDeX1-cPanel4 server. We are currently unable to access the server remotely or via the local console, so we are performing an emergency reboot.

Update (10:09):  The server is back online again and all services are running normally. We will investigate further to see if we can establish what cause the server to lock up and we will closely monitor in case of any further issues. Please accept our apologies for the disruption and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We are aware of intermitted availability issues of services on our network. The root cause appears to be a DDoS attack directed at one of our customers, we're taking steps to mitigate the problem.

Update: The attack has been mitigated for the time being, we are continuing to monitor the situation and work with the client who was the target of the attack.

We will be performing essential maintenance work starting at 21:00 on 06/11/2019 in order to migrate customers from the existing server LDeX1-Plesk1 to the brand new LDeX1-Plesk5 server as part of a major hardware upgrade. This migration will take several hours, during which time all web site and email services will be unavailable.

Customers using the shared IP address on LDeX1-Plesk1 (194.110.243.11) will change to 194.110.243.196 as part of the migration. Customers using dedicated IP addresses won't see any change as we will move these over as part of the migration.
Customers using our name servers will have these new IP addresses applied automatically, but customers using third party name servers will need to manually update their DNS records. If you don't know whether you are affected by this, please get in touch and we'll be happy to take a look for you. 

We will forward all traffic from the old to the new IP address for a few weeks after the migration in order to give everyone sufficient time to make the change.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to get in touch with our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

6/11/19 21:03 - We have commenced the upgrade work, we'll post updates to this status periodically as the work progresses.

7/11/19 01:21 - The migration to the new server is continuing. We are monitoring progress, at the moment the transfer is taking longer than originally estimated but we will continue to monitor the situation.

7/11/19 07:25 - Unfortunately this migration attempt has been taken an extremely long time to complete for reasons we are still investigating. This means however that it would not have complete within the advises time window and so for now we have cancelled the migration and put the original Plesk1 server back in operation. We will email shortly with another window to complete this process.

8/11/19 20:29 - We have once again commenced the upgrade work. As before, we'll post updates to this status periodically as the work progresses.

9/11/19 09:07 - There are just 10 accounts left to migrate and we're cleaning up a few minor issues. We're hopeful that everything will be finished soon.

9/11/19 11:05 - We have been investigating why these last few accounts are taking so long to copy and have found a potential issue with having a large number of dedicated IPv6 addresses, so are making some changes which we hope will speed things up.

9/11/19 12:45 - Unfortunately we have had to restart the last few migrations as they had hung. Hopefully with the changes that we made they will copy much quicker this time.

9/11/19 17:35 - We are still working on problematic migrations for three accounts, but as everything else has migrated over we have put the new server live. Inbound email is now being routed to the new server and DNS has been updated to point to the new IP address, so website using our name servers should be loading.

9/11/19 18:28 - The old 194.110.243.11 IP address has been pointed to the new server, so websites using third party name servers should also be loading. All services should be working normally again, please accept our apologies for the disruption as a result of the unexpected extended time taken to complete the migration and don't hesitate to let us know if you are still experiencing any problems with your service.

We have been monitoring the new server since the completion of migration work on 9th November and have concluded it is stable and operating normally. This issue is now resolved and the migration is considered completed. 

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server from 10.1 to 10.2 on 03/11/2019 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

6/11/19 22:04 - Software maintenance work completed successfully. 

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server from 10.1 to 10.2 on 03/11/2019 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

6/11/19 22:04 - Software maintenance work completed successfully. 

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 01:00 and 05:00 on 09/10/2019, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out installation work to increase the UPS capacity at the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 14/10/2019, 15/10/2019 and 16/10/2019.

This work will involve a period where each of the UPS systems needs to placed into bypass whilst the new modules are brought into service and as such the LDeX2 facility will be operating as a level of reduced redundancy for some periods whilst this work is being carried out. As such, all services hosted in LDeX2 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

Whilst in bypass, any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on generator power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an issue with the generators. Utility mains power will remain available throughout the maintenance work as a backup if required.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

The LDeX1-cPanel4 server is currently not responding remotely and we are unable to login on the local console, so we are performing an emergency reboot.

Update: The server is back online again and all services are running normally. We will investigate further to see if we can establish what cause the server to lock up and we will closely monitor in case of any further issues. Please accept our apologies for the distruption and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 17/10/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:12): The server is rebooting

Update (22:23): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are currently investigating an issue with the LDeX1-Plesk6 server which is unresponsive.

Update: There seems to be a problem with the RAID controller or RAID array on the server which is preventing it from booting into Windows.

Update: After investigating, we have determined that the quickest way to get the server back online is to restore from the last good backup. This is now in progress.

Update: We're currently estimating that the restore will finish about 20:00.

Update: The restore is approximately 25% completed.

Update: The restore is approximately 60% completed after 4 hours.

Update: The restore has completed and the server has booted in Windows. Email is functioning normally, but web sites are currently still offline.

Update: Web sites are back online and so we believe that normal service has resumed. We are continuing to check that everything is working correctly. We will email all customers with full details of what happened tomorrow as well as follow up with the hardware vendor to investigate the cause of these problems.

We will be rebooting the LDeX1-Plesk4 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 05/09/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from configuring new IP addresses on the server.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: This issue was the result of a broken CloudLInux package update, which has now been resolved without requiring a reboot. This work has therefore been cancelled.

We are aware of an issue with websites hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk1 server displaying the default page. The server is currently regenerating configuration for all web sites and once this is complete normal service should be resumed. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Update (16:50):  The server has successfully finished regenerating the configuration and normal service has resumed again. Please accept our apologies for the disruption and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We are currently investigating a problem with the LDeX1-cPanel4 server.

Update (14:55): The server appears to have locked up, so we are performing an emergency reboot.

Update (14:59): The server is back online again and all services are running normally. We will investigate further to see if we can establish what cause the server to lock up and we will closely monitor in case of any further issues. Please accept our apologies for the distruption and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 17/07/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:35): The server is rebooting

Update (22:43): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the mail server software on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server on 03/07/2019 between 21:00 and 23:59. This will disrupt all web site and email functionality on the server for a few minutes during the upgrade and may require a reboot of the server once complete.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (21:11): The upgrade process has started.

Update (21:24): The upgrade has finished successfully, we are now rebooting the server.

Update (21:26):  The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel4 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 01/07/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:24): The server is rebooting

Update (22:30): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 22:00 on 11/06/2019 and 08:00 on 12/06/2019, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: We have received confirmation from our supplier that they have completed their maintenance work so we have successfully re-enabled our connections to them. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 08/02/2019. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again after approximately 3 minutes of downtime. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are currently experiencing a DDoS attack against one of our customers which is having a knock on impact on accessibility to our network in general. We are working to mitigate the attack and will post updates once available.

Update (16:01): We have managed to mitigate the attack for the time being. We're monitoring the situation and will update once we feel the situation has resolved.

Update (20:07): We haven't seen any further issues as a result of this attack, so we believe that this is now resolved. Please accept our apologies for the disruption caused by the arrack earlier today.

We will be carrying out some essential maintenance work on the management platform for our virtual servers on 05/06/2019 between 20:00 and 23:59. During this period customers may be unable to perform management tasks such as restarting, reinstalling, upgrading/downgrading or accessing the console via VNC on virtual servers.

This maintenance work will not effect the virtual servers themselves, which will remain running as normal throughout the maintenance work.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

Update: Unfortunately we need to postpone this work. There has been no impact to customer service. We will provide a new time and date as soon as possible.

Update: This work has been rescheduled for 07/06/2019 at 20:00.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed successfully and virtual servers can be managed as normal again.

We will be performing a software update on our EQMA1-RT1 border router in Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House/Kilburn House) on 06/06/2019 starting at 20:00.

This update will require us to reboot the EQMA1-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the EQMA1-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: Unfortunately we've run into some problems with this software update. We're going to have to leave the EQMA1-RT1 border router out of service for now and look to re-introduce it to the network tomorrow. In the mean time, the London router (THN-RT1) is functioning normally and we have ample capacity to run without the Manchester router.

Update: The software update has been completed successfully and the EQMA1-RT1 router has been returned to normal service. Full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the UPS in the LDeX1 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 03/04/2019 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve a firmware update, visual inspection of the components in each of the UPS systems, functional testing and cleaning of the fans and as such the LDeX1 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX1 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously. During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode. This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed. Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have detected a DDoS attack against one of our customers which saturated some parts of our core network. We have therefore taken the appropriate steps to mitigate this attack and restore service for affected customers.

Due to the intermittent saturation of parts of the core network, some customers may have briefly seen packets loss affecting their services. This should be completely resolved as of 21:43.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this attack and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems or have any questions or concerns.

Update (10th April @ 23:33): We have not seen any further issues and therefore believe that this is resolved, however we continue to monitor the situation closely.

Update (11th April @ 12:19): We have seen a return of DDoS traffic targeting the same customer which has saturated parts of our core network causing a brief outage. We have mitigated the attack and will continue to monitor the situation. 

Update (30th April @ 14:29): We have not seen any further DDoS traffic and so are marking this issue as resolved.

We will be replacing the RAID card on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 19:00 and 21;00 on 29/03/2019. This will require us to shut the server down for the duration of the work. We are expecting this to last approximately 30 minutes.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update (19:16):  The server is shutting down

Update (19:35):  The RAID card and one of the SSDs have been replaced. The server is back online again and the RAID array is rebuilding. All services are back online and working normally.

Update (21:107): The rebuild of the RAID array has completed successfully.

We are currently investigating a hardware issue with LDeX1-Plesk6 which is preventing the server from booting. All services hosted on LDeX1-Plesk6 are currently offline.

Update (04:24): The server is back online and all services are running normally. We are working with the hardware vendor to investigate the root cause of this problem.
Please accept our apologies for the distruption and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 05/03/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:22): The server is rebooting

 

Update (23:27): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 24/02/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (22:35): The server is rebooting

 

Update (22:40): The server has been rebooted successfully and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

Following the earlier problems with the LDeX1-VPS6 node, we will be performing an emergency reboot of the LDeX1-VPS7 node between 21:00 and 23:59 today as we believe that there is a risk of it experiencing a similar issue.
We will gracefully shut down all virtual servers running on the LDeX1-VPS7 node before performing the reboot and start them back up normally again afterwards. We except this to take approximately 30 minutes or so due to the number of virtual servers running on this node.

Unfortunately due to the nature of this issue we have not been able to give our normal advanced notice, however this work is essential in order to ensure the ongoing stability of this server. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: Virtual servers on the LDeX1-VPS7 node are shutting down gracefully.

Update: All virtual servers  have been shut down successfully and the LDeX1-VPS7 node is now rebooting.

Update: The LDeX1-VPS7 node is back online and virtual servers are booting back up. This may take a little while due to the number of servers which need to start.

Update: Most virtual servers are back online, we're just waiting for the last handful to finish starting up.

Update: All virtual servers are back online. Please accept our apologies for the short notice and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

Some virtual servers hosted on the LDeX1-VPS6 node appear to be experiencing issues. We are currently investigating the cause.

Update: We believe this relates to some routine software updates which were rolled back earlier following issues on another node. We are therefore performing an emergency reboot of the node.

Update: It is taking some time to gracefully shut down all of the virtual servers on the node.

Update: All virtual servers have been successfully shut down and the node is now rebooting.

Update: The node is back online and virtual servers are booting back up. This may take a little while due to the number of servers which need to start.

Update: Most virtual servers are back online, we're just waiting for the last handful to finish starting up.

Update: All virtual servers are back online. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

Update: The LDeX1-VPS6 node has been running the updated version of both the hypervisor and the management tools since the reboot earlier. We have been carefully monitoring the LDeX1-VPS6 node and it has remained stable, so we believe that the issue is fully resolved, however we will continue to keep a close eye on the node in case of any further issues.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 00:00 and 05:00 on 15/02/2019, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 08/02/2019. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again after approximately 14 minutes of downtime. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-cPanel3 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 29/01/2019 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk4 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk4 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

Update: We have begun the upgrade

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

Update: We have begun the upgrade

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the LDeX1-Plesk1 server starting at 21:00 on 19/01/2019.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the LDeX1-Plesk1 server may be briefly unavailable for a few minutes at some point during the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 to 23:59, however the upgrade should only take 10 minutes or so.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

Update: We have begun the upgrade

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully.

We will be  performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on the LDeX1-Plesk6 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 10/01/2019. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again after approximately 2 minutes of downtime. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be migrating our three.freethought-dns.net, six.freethought-dns.net and ns3.mypremiumserver.com authoritative DNS name servers to new hardware between 09:00 and 13:00 on 20/12/2018, during which time they will not be responding to DNS queries.

Our authoritative DNS name servers are part of a geographically diverse, fully redundant cluster and so DNS queries will continue to be handled by the other name servers for the duration of the maintenance work and there will be no disruption to service. However, as with all maintenance work of this nature, authoritative DNS services should be considered at risk for the duration of the maintenance window.

Update (12:10): We're running a little bit behind schedule due to some unforeseen delays, so we're extending the maintenance window to 16:00.

Update (14:40): Everything has been successfully migrated over to the new hardware and all DNS services are back online.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 00:00 and 06:00 on 02/12/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/11/2018 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

LINX will be performing maintenance work on our IXManchester connection between 22:00 on 22/11/2018 and 09:00 on 23/11/2018. We will therefore be disabling all peering over IXManchester whilst this work is carried out.

During this period, all traffic will be routed via our other peering connections on LINX LON1, LINX LON2 and LONAP as well as our three IP transit providers and so this will not be service affecting.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: LINX completed their maintenance work successfully and full peering capacity has been restored to the network.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 02:00 and 05:00 on 14/11/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 00:00 and 06:00 on 30/05/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We will be carrying out routine maintenance work affecting the mail server functionality of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 to 23:59 on 17/10/2018. We expect incoming (POP3/IMAP) and outgoing (SMTP) email to be unavailable for approximately 90 minutes during this maintenance.

Incoming emails using our spam filter platform will be queued until the maintenance is complete and the delivered as normal, so no emails will be lost.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this maintenance work may cause, however this is important to ensure the smooth running of the mail server.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update (22:15): The mail server has been stopped and we have begun the maintenance work

Update (22:50): The maintenance work has been completed successfully and the mail server has been started back up. Normal service has been resumed. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

LINX will be performing maintenance work on our LON2 connection between 23:30 on 10/09/2018 and 09:00 on 11/09/2018. We will therefore be disabling all peering over LON2 whilst this work is carried out.

During this period, all traffic will be routed via our other peering connections on LINX LON1, LINX Mancheser and LONAP as well as our three IP transit providers and so this will not be service affecting.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: LINX completed their maintenance work successfully and full peering capacity has been restored to the network.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 21:00 and 23:59 on 05/08/2018 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update: The server has been rebooted and all services are functioning normally again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We have lost access to the LDeX1-cPanel1 server and the console indicates that the server has locked up and is unresponsive. We are therefor performing an emergency reboot in order to restore service as quickly as possible.

Update: The LDeX1-cPanel1 server is back online and working normally again. We will continue to closely monitor the server whilst also investigating what caused the initial lock up.

We will be upgrading the verson of SQL Server on the TMA01/Japetus server on 02/08/2018 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Due to the nature of the work, any web sites or other services dependant upon SQL Server databases will be unavaialble during the updrage. Additionally, this upgrade will probably require at least one reboot, so all services hosted on the TMA01/Japetus server will be unavailable for portions of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

Update: Unfortunately we have been unable to complete this upgrade after running into some issues with SQL Server. We will investigate these further and then re-schedule the maintenance work.

Update: We believe that we have now resolved the issues which were preventing us from carrying out this upgrade and so will be re-scheduling this work for 05/08/2018 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Update: The upgrade to SQL Server 2014 has been completed successfully

We are currently experiencing intermitte network disruption due to an ongoing attack against a customer on our network. We are working to mitigate the attack and will post updates when we have them.

Update: The attack was sucesfully mitigated and the nework has remained stable since these mitigations were put in place.

We will be performing a software update on our THN-RT1 border router in Telehouse North on 16/07/2018 starting at 21:00.

This update will require us to reboot the THN-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the THN-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully and full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be performing a software update on our EQMA1-RT1 border router in Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House/Kilburn House) on 09/07/2018 starting at 21:00.

This update will require us to reboot the EQMA1-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the EQMA1-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: Unfortunately we have had to re-schedule this maintenance work for 21:00 on 10/07/2018 to 01:00 on 11/07/2018

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully and full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be performing a software update to the compute hypervisors for the Freethought cloud environment which hosts our shared, reseller, and website builder products as well as some other supporting services such as DNS, spam filtering etc. and any cloud server customers.

The maintenace should not be seriously service affecting however there will be brief moments of inaccessibility whilst cloud servers migrate from one hardware node to another during the maintenance period. During the maintenance window services hosted within the cloud environment should be considered at risk.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully

We will be performing a software update to the storage platform for the Freethought cloud environment which hosts our shared, reseller, and website builder products as well as some other supporting services such as DNS, spam filtering etc. and any cloud server customers.

The maintenance should not be seriously service affecting, however there may be brief moments of inaccessibility whilst we failover between storage controllers during the maintenance period. During the maintenance window services hosted within the cloud environment should be considered at risk.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The upgrade has been completed successfully
.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on their equiment in LDeX2 between 01:00 and 03:00 on 01/07/2018 during which time they will perform an emergency reboot of a core device due to a memory leak.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We will be performing a reboot of the TMA01/Japtus server on 01/06/2018 between 21:00 and 23:59 in order to address an issue with TLS 1.2 and FTPS. This should take approximately 10 minutes or so to complete.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Our backhaul network provider have informed us that Zayo have suffered a fibre break between London and Manchester which is affecting one of their 10Gbps wavelengths and thus the backhaul network is currently at-risk.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this is not service affecting for any customers. The network should however be considered at-risk until this issue is resolved as a further failure on another leg of the backhaul network would lead to the network becoming partitioned.

If you have any questions or concerns about this, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: Zayo have splicing teams ready to repair the damaged section of fibre, but are currently struggling to gain the necessary access in order to do so.

Update: Zayo have completed the repair work and full redundancy has been restored

LINX will be migrating our LON2 connection from the old Extreme network to the new EdgeCore/IP Infusion network between 23:30 on 31/05/2018 and 09:00 on 01/06/2018. We will therefore be disabling all peering over LON2 whilst this work is carried out.

During this period, all traffic will be routed via our other peering connections on LINX LON1, LINX Mancheser and LONAP as well as our three IP transit providers and so this will not be service affecting.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 00:00 and 03:00 on 30/05/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on their equiment in LDeX1 and Telehouse North between 22:00 on 25/05/2018 and 04:00 on 26/05/2018 as they perform software updates on their core routers as well as their WDM platform.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 01:00 and 04:00 on 29/05/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We will be performing maintenance work on the cloud server platform between 21:00 on 27/04/2018 and 09:00 on 28/04/2018. During this time, we may need to reboot some virtual machines, so there will be a brief disruption to service for the impacted servers.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The vast majority of the maintenance work has been completed successfully. We will need to perform follow up maintenance affecting only the LDeX1-cPanel4 and TMA01/Japetus servers this evening (21:00 on 28/04/2018 to 09:00 on 29/04/2018) as we were unable to complete them during the first window.

Update: The remaining maintenance work has been rescheduled for 21:00 on 03/05/2018 to 09:00 04/05/2018

Update: Part of the maintenace work was completed sucesfully (migrating TMA01/Japetus), however we were not able to complete all of the work due to a system wide outage on the cloud server platform, possibly triggered by the maintenance work. We will investigate what happened and reschedule any remaining maintenance work at a future time once we are confident that it can be completed without any further major disruption.

Between 03:26 and 06:00 on 04/05/2018 we experienced a system wide failure on the cloud server platform in London. All virtual machines running on the platform locked up and would not restart.It seems that storage performance on the platform w as poor to the point of being unusable. After troubleshooting for some time, we eventually had to perform a complete restart of the entire cloud server platform in order to resolve this issue.

Once all virtual servers were shut down, the compute nodes were restarted and we then performed a restart on the primary controller on the SAN, triggering a failover to the secondary controller.This seems to have  cleared the issue responsible for the original outage and allowed us to start virtual machines back up normally. Services began coming back online around 05:30 and were fully restored by 06:00.

If you have any questions about this outage or if you are still experiencing any issues, then please get in touch with our helpdesk in the ususal manner.

This is being posted retrospectively as the customer portal was also impacted by this outage.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on their equiment in LDeX2 between 22:00 on 20/04/2018 and 04:00 on 21/04/2018 as they perform software updates on their core routers.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We will be disabling all transit and peering connectivity at Equinix MA1 between 21:30 on 06/04/2018 and 09:30 on 07/04/2018 due to maintenance work taking place on our backhaul connections in the MA1 data centre.

During this period, all traffic will be routed via the Telehouse North (THN) data centre in London and so this will not be service affecting, however the network will be operating with reduced redundancy and so should be considered at risk for the duration of this maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

A customer hosted on the LDeX1-cPanel1 server is the target of a DDoS attack which is causing occasional disruption of 1-2 minutes to web sites hosted on this server. We are blocking the attack, however as it keeps shifting we have to additional blocks in place each time.

Update: We have put some additional measures in place to better handle this attack.

Update: We are making some changes to the web server software in order to better handle these attacks. These changes themselves will be somewhat disruptive, however they should hopefully minimise any further disruption from the attack.

Update: We have completed the software changes and combined with the measures that we put in place earlier, it looks like this has had the desired effect.

Update: We haven't seen any further disruption for over an hour now, so we believe that this is under control.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 00:00 and 05:00 on 13/03/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 00:00 and 05:00 on 12/03/2018, during which time the connection will be unavailable.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We have observed a brief but large influx of traffic onto the network between 01:59 and 02:02 causing packet loss. This may have been a DDoS attack, however because it was so short lived we were unable to investigate thoroughly before it ceased. We continue to monitor the network in case of any further such activity.

We will be carrying out maintenance work on the LDeX2-Back1 R1Soft CDP backup server on 10/02/2018 starting at 21:00, during which time the server will be unavailable. No new backups will be taken and it will not be possible to perform any restores during this maintenance.

We will be performing a reboot of the LDeX1-Plesk1 server between 22:00 and 23:59 on 02/01/2018 in order to resolve an issue which is preventing us from taking backups.

Update (02/01/2018 22:20): The server is now rebooting

Update (02/01/2018 22:29): The LDeX1-Plesk1 server is back online again. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are allocating additonal disk space to the /home partition on the LDeX1-cpanel4 server. This will require us to shut the server down briefly.

Update: Unfortunately whilst resizing the filesystem we have encountered a problem which has required us to restore the /home partition from backups taken earlier today.

Update: We are currently estimating that the restore will finish some time between 05:30 and 06:30.

Update: Unfortunately the rate of restore has slowed somewhat and so the current esitmate is that it will finish some time betwen 07:30 and 08:00

Update: The restore has finished and the LDeX1-cPanel4 server is back online. We are currently checking the server to make sure that everything is functioning correctly.

Update: Everything appears to be working correctly on the LDeX1-cPanel4 server and we have deliverd all queued emails from our anti-spam platform. We will be sending an email with full details to all affected customers shortly, but in the mean time please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are experiencing any problems.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 23:00 on 24/11/2017 and 07:00 on 25/11/2017 in order for their supplier to cut and splice long haul fibres in Leeds as part of network expansion work.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This has been rescheduled to take place between 23:00 on 08/12/2017 and 07:00 on 09/19/2017.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

Following the issues with the SAN handling the storage for our cloud server platform on 02/12/2017, we have been advised by Dell to carry out a firmware update which resolves a memory leak bug. We will be doing this between 22:00 on 06/12/2017 and 02:00 on 07/12/2017.

The SAN has two controllers and so one should always be online and handling storage activity whilst the other is being upgraded, so we do not exepct this work to have any noticable impact beyond a few seconds pause in disk activity whilst failing between controllers, however the entire maintenance period should be considered "at risk".

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The firmware update has been completed sucesfully.

One of the nodes on our cloud server platform has lost connection to the storage network and so all virtual machines on this node have lost access to their virtual disks.

Update: The node has been re-connected to the storage and all affected virtual machines have been rebooted. Normal service has now resumed.

Update: Two more nodes have suffered the same problem. This appears to be an uptime bug in the iSCSI multipathing code in XenServer as far as we can tell.

Update: The LDeX1-Plesk1 and LDeX1-cPanel1 hosting servers are among the virtual machines which have been affected by this issue. We are currnetly performing an emerency reboot of both servers.

Update: THe LDeX1-Plesk1 server seems to have got stuck mounting the filesystems, so we are rebooting it again.

Update: We are performing a filesystem check on the LDeX1-cPanel1 server.

Update: The LDeX1-Plesk1 server is back online, although the load is currently quite high.

Update: The load on the LDeX1-Plesk1 server is back to normal.

Update: The LDeX1-cPanel1 server is back online agian.

Update: Following the previous update the issue began affecting the entire cloud platform with a complete loss of storage to all cloud nodes. This impacted all our shared, reseller, and Windows hosting as well as any other customers or internal systems running inside our cloud environment. The issue appears to relate to one of the SAN controllers but the SAN has a redundant controller that was eventually able to take over. Subsequently some servers needed an additional reboot as their filesystems had gone read only causing a variety of errors on hosted websites and email. The issue does now appear to be stable but we are monitoring the situation carefully and will provide more inforamtion when it becomes available.

Update: We have been monitoring the cloud platform and have not experienced any more problems since services were restored at approximatley 1730, we now consider this issue resolved. We will continue to work with our hardware vendors to determine the root cause of the problem and what steps can be taken to prevent a reoccurance. If anyone experiences any continued problems please don't hesitate to contact support in the usual manner.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 10:00 and 22:00 on 26/11/2017 in order for their supplier to move fibres in the Trafford Park area due to construction work taking place.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 06:00 and 14:00 on 19/11/2017 in order for their supplier to cut and splice long haul fibres in Leeds as part of network expansion work.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between Telehouse North and Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House/Kilburn House) between 00:00 and 05:00 on 28/11/2017 in order for their supplier to replace a failing card.
A backup window of 00:00 and 05:00 on 29/11/2017 has also been scheduled, in case any further work is required.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully without the need to make use of the backup window.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on their equiment in LDeX1 between 22:00 on 17/11/2017 and 04:00 on 18/11/2017 as they remove redundant hardware from their rack and perform software updates on their core routers.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We are aware of a connectivity issue to our Manchester data centre (LDeX2) we are investigating and working to restore connectivity as quickly as possible. More updates will be posted when available.

Update @ 12:48 - Connectivity has been restored, we apologies for any inconvenience this caused. We will continue to monitor the situation to ensure there is no repeat of the issue.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 03:00 and 08:00 on 05/11/2017 in order for their supplier to inspect and clean some fibres in Manchester.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed without incident.

We have suffered a loss of one of our IP transit providers in Telehouse North (London), this may have resulted in a brief disruption of service for some customers whilst our network re-routed the affected traffic onto alternative providers.

We have four other connections to two different IP transit providers as well as extensive peering at four internet exchanges, so we have ample capacity to handle the loss of a single supplier and still maintain network redundancy.

Update (09:45): The IP transit provider in question has acknowledged the outage and are investigating. This is a wider issue affecting several of their clients.

Update (10:41): Our connection to the IP transit provider has come back online and appears to be functioning normally again. We are waiting for them to provide us with a full explanation as to exactly what happened in order to cause this issue.

Update (10:49): The IP transit provider has confirmed that service has been restored. The device terminating our connections lost power, however they do not yet know what the root cause of this was and so consider the service to be at risk until this has been established.

Update (11:42): Our connection has gone down again. Once again this may have resulted in a brief disruption for some customers whilst the affected traffic was re-routed onto alternative paths.

Update (11:47): The connection is back up.

Update (11:49): The connection has gone down for a third time.

Update (11:52): The connection is back up again.

Update (11:54): We have disabled the provider in question until the connection stabilises and we receive an explanation as to exactly what has caused the problems this morning as well as what has been done to address this permanently.

Update (12:55): The IP transit provider has confirmed that they have identified the root cause of the power issue and taken appropriate steps to correct it. They consider the issue resolved and the service stable, however we will leave the connection disabled and continue to observe it for a while before re-introducing them to our network.

Update (23:04): The connection has remained stable, so we have brought it back into service. Full redundnacy and capacity has been restored to the network.

We are currently investigating the possible failure of the LDeX1-SW02 switch. All customers directly connected to this switch will currently be offline.

Update (07:22): All affected customers have been moved to another switch and should be back online. If you are still experiencing any issues then please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

We are seeing intermittent issues on the TMA01/Japetus server which may be causing web sites to load slowly or not at all.

Update: Several key Windows management functions are unresponsive, so we are performing an emergency reboot of the server.

Update: The reboot is taking longer than normal due to installing pending updates

Update: We have temporarily suspended a site on the server which we believe may be being attacked. The server seems to be stable at the moment, however we are continuing to monitor the situation

Update: The server is experiencing renewed intermittent issues which we are attempting to diagnose, we will update this status notice once the issue has been identified.

Update: The server appears to be stable again, however we are continuing to monitor the situation.

Update (06/09/2017): We have seen a further period of high CPU usage  causing issues between 12:33 at 13:07. Unfortunately we have not been able to determine the cause of this due to the system being almost completely unresponsive during this time.
The server is currently responsive again and we are working on the best way of collecting additional data so that we can see exactly what is causing this problem.

Update (07/09/2017): A further occurrence of this issue started at 04:20 and is currently ongoing. We are performing an emergency reboot of the server as we are unable to access it remotely.

Update (07/09/2017): Unfortunately we are experiencing issues getting Windows to boot on the TMA01/Japetus server. We are continuing to investigate.

Update (07/09/2017 17:41): Windows is completing a file system check of the server which is taking some time to complete. We are continuing to monitor the server and will update this status message with updates as they become available.

Update (07/09/2017 11:55): The Windows server is continuing to complete a check disk, we are hesitant to interrupt this process as it could damage the file system of the server. At this time we are erring on the side of caution and are simply patiently awaiting the completion of the check disk. 

Update (07/09/2017 12:50): After investigating further the check disk had seemingly stalled, we observed zero CPU utilisation and zero disk activity suggesting the check disk was not doing anything. We have rebooted the server and a fresh check disk has begun which appears to be progressing much quicker than before.

Update (07/09/2017 14:27): The second check disk stalled at the same point as before with the same lack of CPU or disk activity. We have rebooted the server and skipped the check disk, which has allowed it to nominally boot but it is completely unresponsive. We are continuing to investigate, however we have also started restoring the most recent backups to another server, in case they need to be used.

Update (07/09/2017 17:36): We have run a further check disk from the Windows repair/recovery environment on the installation CD, however this once again hung part way through. We are currently trying other methods to attempt to recover the Windows installation. The restoration of the backups is now just over half way rhought, with an estimated 4 hours remaining.

Update (07/09/2017 20:09): We are continuing to work on recovering the TMA01/Japetus server, however we increasingly believe that we will need to rely on the ongoing backup restoration which is running in parallel. We currently believe that this will complete around 10PM and so we should hopefully be able to get the server back online at some point tonight.

Update (07/09/2017 22:22): We have finished restoring the TMA01/Japetus server from backups and it is now back online again. Unfortunately this means that any data changed between the backup being taken and the srever going offline will have been lost. All emails queued on our spam filters are currently being delivered.
We apologise for the inconvinience caused by this extended outage and will be arranging service credits for all affected customers tomorrow. All services should now be back online and working normally. Please contact our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the fibre paths between LDeX2 and Equinix MA1 between 18:30 on 14/08/2017 and 07:00 on 15/08/2017 for fibre re-splicing.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work main incoming breaker and generator breaker on the LV switchgear panel in the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 25/08/2016 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve a visual inspection of the switchgear as well as service and testing of both of the breakers and as such the LDeX2 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX2 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 20:00 on 18/07/2017 and 05:00 on 19/07/2017 in order to apply routine software updates, during which time the circuit will be down for approxumately 15 minutes.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have seen a DDoS attack targetting a customer. This attack was saturating some core network links so we have temporerily null routed the server in question in order to restore service to other customers. This was complete by 22:19 and normal service resumed to all other customers.

We are currently carrying out an emergency reboot of the LDeX1-VPS2 server due to problems with the Xen hyerpvisor running on it. All virtual servers running on this node will be unavailable for the duration of the reboot.

Update: The LDeX1-VPS2 node is back online and all virtual servers have been restarted. Please accept our apologies for the inconvience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any issues.

We will be performing a software update on our THN-RT1 border router in Telehouse North on 23/06/2017 starting at 21:00.

This update will require us to reboot the THN-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the THN-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work has been re-scheduled for 28/06/2017 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 03:00 and 05:00 on 01/07/2017. During this period the connection will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between THN and Equinix MA1 between 22:00 on 18/06/2017 and 05:00 on 19/06/2017 in order to re-locate the fibre as a result of road works on the M6.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We are investigating an issue with the LDeX1-VPS1 node which is currently unresponsive.

Update: It seems that the LDeX1-VPS1 server may have suffered a hardware failure as we are currently unable to get the server to power on.

Update (01:35 20/06/2017): After physically disconnecting the power supply the server has now booted sucesfully and all VPS have been started back up. We will continue to monitor the server in case of any further issues.

Update (11:02 20/06/2017): This issue seems to have reocured.

Update (13:20 20/06/2017): The server is still offline, hard reboot did briefly restore service but it was unstable. We have arranged for the PSU to be swapped for another, this may resolve the issue. We have also dispatched spare motherboard and other parts via same day courier which should arrive towards the end of the afternoon should they be required.

Update (18:51 20/06/2017): The spare parts have arrived at the data centre and we are swapping the motherboard, CPU and RAM over now.

Update (21:25 20/06/2017): We are still seeing the same problem after swapping the motherboard, CPU and RAM so are now examining the RAID card.

Update (22:47 20/06/2017): We have run into a problem with the new RAID card - the ports are in a different position and so the cables are not long enough to reach. We are trying to work out the best way around this.

Update (23:43 20/06/2017): We have been unable to find a way to work around the problem with the cables, so longer cables have been ordered for delivery tomorrow (21st).

Update (13:08 21/06/2017): Unfortunately the server is still exhibitting the same behaviour with the new cables. We are continuing to try and determine the root cause.

Update (13:30 21/06/2017): The server is currently online and working, although we haven't made any changes so we aren't sure if this will remain the case. We continue to try and investigate the root cause of the fault.

Update (14:00 21/06/2017): The server has remained stable for 30 minutes, however as we can't be confident that the issue won't reoccur we are making arrangements to migrate customers to alternative nodes.

Update (19:29 21/06/2017): The server has failed again.

Update (21:52 21/06/2017): We have been unable to get the server to boot again, so we are moving the hard drives to another chassis. We will then use this temporary chassis to access the data on the RAID array and migrate the servers to other VPS nodes.

Update (22:54 21/06/2017): We have sucesfully booted the drives in the temporary chassis and have begun migrating the VPS to other servers.

Update (22:54 21/06/2017): All VPS have been sucesfully migrated to other servers.

We have seen both of our connections to one of our IP transit suppliers in Telehouse North go physically down. All traffic has been automatically re-routed over alternative paths.

We have two other IP transit providers as well as extensive peering at four internet exchanges, so we have ample capacity to handle the loss of a single supplier and still maintain redundancy.

Update: The connections have come back up again. We have contacted the supplier in question to find out what happened.

Update: We have seen a second flap on the connection, so we have disabled it until the supplier confirms that they have identified the route cause and are confident that the service has stabilised.

Update: Our IP transit provier has identified a loose fibre patch which they believe may have caused this issue. They have replaced the fibre patch in question and are monitoring the stability of the connection, as are we. Once that we are happy that it is now stable will will bring it back into service.

Update: We have seen a further flap on our IP transit circuit, so replacing the loose fibre patch hasn't resolved the issue. Our IP transit provider are continuing to investigate the issue.

Update: Our IP transit provider has identified a second loose fibre patch which has also been replaced and the circuit has been stable for over 5 hours. We have therefore re-enabled the connection and will continue to monitor it.

We have seen a DDoS attack targetting the TMA01/Japetus server. This attack was saturating some core network links so we have temporerily null routed the TMA01/Japetus IP address in order to restore service to other servers. This was complete by 14:16 and normal service resumed to all servers except TMA01/Japetus.

We have subsequently been able to restore service to the TMA01/Japetus server at approximately 14:27. We will continue to monitor the network for any sign of further attacks.

Update: We have seen a further attack starting at approximately 19:52. This is once again targetting the TMA01/Japetus server, which we once again null routed at approximately 19:58 in order to restore service to the rest of the network whilst we investigated the attack further. This null route was then removed at 20;13 and normal service was resumed for TMA01/Japetus.

Update: We have bought additional capacity online in the core network as well as put some extra protection in place for the server being targetted. Hopefully this should be sufficient to mitigate any further attacks.

Update: We have not seen any further DDoS attacks.

We will be performing a software update on our EQMA1-RT1 border router in Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House/Kilburn House) on 16/06/2017 starting at 21:00.

This update will require us to reboot the EQMA1-RT1 border router and so will be service affecting for any customers with services terminating directly on the router such as IP transit. Other services will not be affected as we will gracefully route traffic away from the router prior to performing the update.

We have sufficient upstream IP transit and peering capacity elsewhere in the network to handle the load from the EQMA1-RT1 border router without causing congestion, however we will be running without redundancy and so the network should be considered at-risk for the duration of the work.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between THN and Equinix MA1 between 22:00 on 09/07/2017 and 05:00 on 10/07/2017 in order to re-locate the fibre as a result of the expansion of Totworth Quarry.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work has been re-scheduled to take place between 22:00 on 15/07/2017 and 05:00 on 16/07/2017.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections between 23:00 on 30/05/2017 and 06:00 on 31/05/2017. During this period the connection will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance work to upgrade the Plesk control panel software on the TMA01/Japetus server starting at 21:00 on 12/05/2017.

Due to the nature of the work, all services hosted on the TMA01/Japetus server may be periodically unavailable for portions of the maintenance window. We have scheduled a maintenance window of 21:00 on 12/05/2017 to 09:00 on 13/05/2017, however we hope to complete the service affecting porting of this work well within this window.

This upgrade will bring new updated software such as PHP and new features, but also lay the groundwork for a future migration of your hosting service to a newer version of Windows Server, IIS and SQL Server running on newer hardware.

If you have any questions about this maintenance or about any other aspect of your hosting please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner or give us a call on 03300 882130.

Update: Unfortunately we have encountered some problems with this update which have caused us to overrun the maintenance window. Currently the Plesk control panel is inaccessible, however web and email services are working normally.

Update: The issues encountered with the upgrade process have been overcome and the Plesk control panel is now once again accessible and the upgrade is complete.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 22:00 on 16/05/2017 and 00:00 on 17/05/2017, during which time the circuit will be down for approxumately 30 minutes.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been cancelled

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be scheduled maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between Telehouse North (THN) and LDeX1 between 00:01 and 07:01 on 09/05/2017 in order to apply routine software updates.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been completed sucesfully

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that there will be emergency maintenance work being carrying out on one of the circuits between LDeX1 and LDeX2 between 18:00 and 23:59 on 02/05/2017 during which time the circuit will be at risk for approxumately 20 minutes.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been completed sucesfully

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the UPS in the LDeX1 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 25/04/2017 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve a firmware update, visual inspection of the components in each of the UPS systems, functional testing and cleaning of the fans and as such the LDeX1 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX1 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously. During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode. This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed. Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

One of our upstream network providers have informed us that they will be carrying out routine maintenance work on one of our transit connections on 02/04/2017 between 00:00 and 05:00. During this period the connection will be unavailable for up to 45 minutes.

On top of our substantial public peering, we have five upstream connections to three transit networks split across two data centres and significant spare capacity so we do not anticipate any impact to service as a result of this maintenance work, however as with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that they will be carrying out scheduled maintenance work on the devices which terminate our connections in LDeX1 between 22:00 and 04:00 on 07/04/2017. During this period they will need to reboot each device in turn, which will result in a loss of service for approximately 5-10 minutes. These reboots will be at least 1 hour apart in order to minimise disruption and ensure network stability.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.
Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We will be performing a reboot of our Plesk Windows server (TMA01/Japetus) at 2100 on 5th April to fix an issue identified with the .Net framework. The reboot should only last for a few minutes however we have scheduled 30 minutes in case additional reboots are required.

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that our connection between Telehouse North (THN) and Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House and Kilburn House) will be impacted by fibre re-routing work being carried out on the route between MA1 and THN between 21:00 on 18/03/2017 and 06:00 on 19/03/2017.
Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.

Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that our connection between Telehouse North (THN) and Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House and Kilburn House) will be impacted by fibre re-routing work being carried out on the route between MA1 and THN between 21:00 on 11/03/2017 and 06:00 on 12/03/2017.
Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.

Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

As part of our ongoing PPM programme, on Monday 27th February 2017 between 08.30 – 17.00 Emerson Network Power will be carrying out a routine maintenance operation on the LV panel main incomer breaker, the generator breaker and associated switchgear.

This operation will mean that there will be a reduced level of resilience at times during the maintenance window however we don’t anticipate any disruption to your service.

This maintenance procedure includes a visual inspection of the switchgear, service and test of the ACCB and generator breaker.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We are currently investigating an issue affecting all websites hosted on our website builder service. The websites along with the editor are currently unavailable and we are looking into this as a matter of urgency.

Update: Normal service has been restored. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

The LDeX1-VPS2 hypervisor has unexpectedly rebooted. They hypervisor is already backup up and running and all VMs are booting.

Update: All but one VM is back online. The VM in question is currently carrying out a filesystem check due to the length of time since the last one.

Update: The filesystem check on the VM has finished. All virtual servers have finished starting and normal service has been resumed. We will continue to monitor the server in case of any further issues as well as investigating what caused the unexpected reboot. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are currently investigating why we are unable to connect to the LDeX1-cPanel1 server remotely.

Update: We are unable to connect to the hypervisor management interface in order to access the local console on the virtual machine either. It seems that there may be an issue with the physical hardware running this virtual machine.

Update: The physical server seems to be unresponsive, so we are rebooting it via the IPMI out-of-band management interface.

Update: The physical server has finished rebooting and has successfully rejoined the cloud hosting environment. The virtual machine is now starting.

Update: The virtual machine has finished booting and services are back up and running normally again. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing essential network maintenance on Wednesday 25th January starting at 1800 until approximately 2100 hours to bring a new network point of presence (PoP) and upgraded routers online. 

At the beginning of this maintenance window our network links between LDeX2 (Media City, Manchester) and Telehouse North (London Docklands) will be taken offline, in addition our peering connections at ixManchester and our Cogent transit ports in LDeX1 (North London) will be taken offline. During the maintenance window our Manchester network will be operating with reduced redundancy with only a single network path between Manchester and London, and our entire network will be operating with reduced router redundancy as we will be operating on a single router whilst our second router is installed into our new PoP.

At the conclusion of the maintenance window we will have expanded our network into our new PoP at Equnix MA1 (previously known as Telecity Williams) in Manchester with a state-of-the-art high performance Cisco router, bought online new transit connections from GTT in Manchester, and moved our second Cogent port from London to Manchester. 

This maintenance is highly complex and requires core network connections and ports to be moved and reconfigured so during the window the AS41000 network should be considered at risk - we will update this notice during the maintenance window.

Update: Our Cogent transit connection in LDeX1 and our IXManchester peering connection in LDeX2 have both been shut down. The link between THN and LDeX2 has also been disabled ready for the equipment to be installed in Equinix MA1 and inserted into the ring.

Update: We have completed the installation of the equipment in the new PoP at Equinix MA1 and redundancy has been restored to the ring, with MA1 now sitting between THN and LDeX2.

Our IXManchester peering connection is back online, however we have encountered issues with both our new Cogent and GTT transit connections in MA1. We are currently working with both providers to try and get these connections online as quickly as possible. Unfortunately this means that in the mean time we are operating with reduced transit redundancy.

Update: Our Cogent transit connection is now fully operational. We are working with GTT to resolve an on-going issue that prevents that new transit port being bought into service. Now that our Cogent transit is online our network is now fully redundant once again as we have both routers now able to handle traffic on-ward to the internet.

Update: Out GTT transit connection in MA1 is now online and working. This completes the full range of peering and transit connections.

We have become aware of an issue affecting the KSP810-Back2 backup server which provides backups for hosting customers and managed customers. Currently the web interface for the backup software is unavailable and we don't believe any new backups are being taken.

Update: Whilst the server is responding to ICMP ping requests, we are unable to gain access to the server remotely via SSH as the connection is actively being refused. The local console for the server is showing I/O errors and we are unable to get to the login prompt, so we have been forced to perform an emergency reboot of the server via the IPMI controller.

Update: The server is refusing to boot as it doesn't seem to be detecting the RAID card. We are going to attempt a hard power cycle of the server chassis by having the data centre remote hands technicians physically unplug the power cables.

Update: The server is still unable to detect the RAID card after removing the power cables, so we have asked the data centre remote hands technicians to open the server up, inspect the RAID card for any obvious physical problems and re-seat it. 

Update: The RAID card has been re-seated, but unfortunately is still not being detected by the server so it seems likely that this is a hardware failure. We have sent what little diagnostic data we have over to the vendor for them to investigate and will be looking at options for replacing the RAID card and re-importing the RAID array. 

Update: The vendor have suggested disconnecting the backplane from the RAID card to see if it shows up then, but this was unsuccessful. They have therefore requested that we remove the RAID card and ship it back to them for them to test and replace.

Unfortunately, we weren't aware that the advanced replacement cover on the RAID card is only for the first 2 years of the 3 year warranty and has expired, so we will need to wait for them to receive the failed RAID card before shipping us a new one. We also don't have a spare 16-port RAID card in stock, only 8-port RAID cards and our supplier advises that new 16-port cards are on back-order with the vendor with an ETA of early December.

In order to resume taking backups as soon as possible, we have therefore decided to bring forward the planned introduction of a new backup server which we recently purchased.

We will still endeavour to replace the failed RAID card and have the old backup server accessible again as soon as possible.

Update: The new backup server has been installed in LDeX2 and is currently being configured. We hope to be able to resume taking backups later today once this configuration work is complete.

Update: We have completed the configuration of the backup tasks for the first few servers and the backup jobs are now running. We will continue setting up the remaining servers.

Update: The first backup task has completed. We are still setting up backups for some servers.

Update: We have finished setting up backups for all servers. Most servers have completed their initial backup and are now running hourly differential backups as normal. The remaining servers should finish their initial backups in the next few hours.

Update: We have received the replacement RAID card and installed it into the old backup server. After performing a firmware update it has now successfully imported the RAID array and we have been able to boot the server normally. All legacy data contained on the old backup server is therefore accessible once again.

Update: As we now have more than a full cycle of backups on the new backup server and any restoration tasks from the old backup server have been completed, we have decommissioned the old backup server permanently.

 

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that our connection between LDeX2 and THN will be at-risk due to fibre splicing work being carried out on the route between Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House and Kilburn House) and Telehouse North (THN) between 22:00 on 11/12/2016 and 05:00 on 12/12/2016.

This work should not directly affect any of the circuits which make up our backhauk provider's network (and thus our network), however due to the close proximity of the work to fibres carrying our traffic there is a small risk that there may be some unintended disruption.
Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so if there is any disruption to this circuit then it should not be service affecting, however there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss whilst the network reconverges. 

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work has been completed without impact

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that their connection between LDeX1 and LDeX2 will be offline for up to 90 minutes between 23:00 on 02/12/2016 and 03:00 on 03/12/2016 due to their supplier swapping out a series of line cards as part of preventative maintenance. Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.

Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the maintenance work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work has been completed without impact

We have become aware of a problem with our Plesk Windows envionment hosted on TMA01/Japetus, the server is currently offline and we're unable to regain connection currently to diagnose. Data centre staff are en route to the server to reboot the hardware in person. We will update this status once more information is known and service has been restored.

Update 18:11 - The server is now back up and running. The host hardware had crashed and was only recoverable with a hard reboot of the server, we will investigate root cause to ensure on-going stablity. Customers continuing to experience problems should contact support for assistance.

On Saturday 26th November starting at 10:00am we will be upgrading our THN-RT1 core router located in Telehouse North in London with new hardware. This upgrade will involve us shutting down the old router as well as peering and transit connections that are connected to that router. In addition this will break the backhaul ring between LDeX1, LDeX2, and THN so our AS41000 network will be operating with reduced backhaul redundancy.

Once the new router is installed we will also be taking the opportunity to move our Tier 1 transit connections from our LDeX1-RT1 router to the new THN-RT1 router, at the same time we will also bring new Tier 1 transit connectivity online with a third provider.

Furthermore with the new router installed this will allow us to bring online new peering connections to LONAP and increase our bandwidth to our existing transit providers.

Due to the nature of the work being undertaken the network should be considered at risk and some disruption to connectivity is possible for short periods throughout the maintenance window.

Update: The new router was successfully installed and is carrying production traffic. Full redundancy and capacity has been restored to the network.

We will be carrying out essential maintennace to the Freethought cloud environment used to host our shared, reseller, and website builder products. This maintenance is to install a number of firmware and software updates to the switches, shared storage, and the hypervisor installed on each node. In addition we will be making configuration changes to improve performance and capacity of the storage network.

The maintenace should not be seriously service affecting however there will be brief moments of inaccessibility whilst servers migrate from one hardware node to another during the maintenance period. There may also be brief periods of packet loss whilst network traffic migrates from the active switch to the redundant switch whilst firmware is updated and switches rebooted. During the maintenance window services hosted within the cloud environment should be considered at risk.

The following servers will be affected:

• LDeX1-cPanel1
• LDeX1-cPanel2
• LDeX1-cPanel3
• LDeX1-cPanel4
• LDeX1-Plesk1
• Website builder platform
• LDeX1-WBMail1 (Zimbra mail server)
• Customers with managed cloud servers

As such, we will be working with the vendors to address the issues that we encountered last night and then scheduling a further maintenance window in order to complete the remaining tasks. We will let you know once we have a date and time for this.

In the mean time, the cloud server environment is operating normally with full redundancy. There is no adverse impact from any of this incomplete work.

Update: The storage vendor has provided us with steps which they believe will resolve the issues that we encountered, so we have scheduled a second maintenance window for 23/07/2016 in order to carry out the remaining multipathing configuration tweaks as well as the SAN firmware update which we were unable to complete during the first maintenance window.

This maintenance window will be from 21:00 on 23/07/2016 to 03:00 on 24/07/2016 and the impact should be the same as last time - brief disruption whilst we live migrate virtual machines between physical host nodes.

Update: Unfortunately, we encountered some issues with the hypervisors whilst carrying out the maintenance work last night. These are unrelated to the previous issues and we were able to overcome them, but they slowed our progress and so we were unable to complete all of the necessary work within the scheduled maintenance window. As such, we will need to arrange a further maintenance window in order to complete the remaining maintenance work.

The supplier of our network links between LDeX1 and Telehouse North is repairing some damaged fibre at Cricklewood on 18th October 2016 between midnight and 6am - during the maintenance window there will be reduced connectivity and resilience between LDEX1 and Telehouse North (THN) data centres and the Freethought AS41000 network should be considered at risk.

There may be brief moments of packet loss or increased latency during the maintenance window whilst our network reconverges upon restoration and loss of specific links.

We are currently performing an emergency reboot of the TMA01/Japetus server as the IIS web server service has stopped and refuses to start again.

Update: The TMA01/Japetus server is back online and working normally again. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are aware that customers of Virgin Media are currently experiencing problems accessing our network. We're investigating the problem and will update once we know more.

Update (10:14): We have determined that another network operator is mistakenly announcing Virgin Media IP addresses into the LINX route servers where we peer with a wide range of networks. This is causing return traffic destined to Virgin Media to instead go to this other network. We have put measures in place to route around this issue as a temporary fix, Virgin Media customers should now be able to access our network.

Update (11:34): LINX have informed us that they have temporarily disabled the connection to the LINX route servers for the offending network operator. We will keep our own temporary mitigations in place until such time as we have received confirmation that this issue has been permanently resolved.

Update (13:47): LINX have confirmed that the offending network operator has resolved the problem and LINX have re-enabled their connections to the LINX router servers. We have removed our temporary mitigation and confirmed that Virgin Media IP addresses are still reachable.
Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any connectivity issues.

Whilst attempting to investigate an issue with our management access to the hypervisor on the LDeX1-VPS3 node, it has unexpectedly rebooted. All virtual servers hosted on LDeX1-VPS3 will be offline at the moment.

Update: The LDeX1-VPS3 hypervisor has finsihed booting and is back online. Individual virtual servers are currently starting up and should be back online shortly.

Update: All of the virtual servers hosted on the LDeX1-VPS node have sucesfully finished booting and normal service has been resumed. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that our connection between LDeX2 and THN will be impacted by fibre splicing work being carried out between Equinix MA1 (formerly Telecity Williams House and Kilburn House) and Equinix MA2 (formerly Telecity Reynolds House) between 18:00 on 19/09/2016 and 07:30 on 20/09/2016. Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.

Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the miantenace work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work has been cancelled and will be rescheduled in 2017.

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that they are currently experiencing an outage on one of their 10G wavelengths between London and Manchester.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this backhaul issue is not service affecting, however it does mean that the network should be considered "at risk" until the connection is back online and full redundancy is restored.

If you have any questions or concerns about the impact of this backhaul issue, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: Our backhaul provider has informed us that the underlying dark fibre supplier (Zayo) have discovered a fibre break between Stoke and Wolverhampton and a repair team has been dispatched.

Update: The engineers have arrived at Zayo's Hanchurch PoP and are setting up to test south the fibre leg heading towards Shareshill where engineers are scheduled to arrive at 14:00.

Update: The tests have shown that there is a break 20.9km south of Hanchurch. Engineers are en route to survey the area on foot, however this is rural land and the fibre chambers are each 2.2km apart, so it may take some time to locate the damage.

Update: The engineers have located the fibre break and are currently making preparations for a temporary repair. As the break is 600m from the nearest road, all equipment is being carried to the break and so this is slowing down the repair efforts.

Update: The fibre break has been repaired and the affected 10G wavelength circuit is back up, so our network is now fully redundant again. Our backhaul network supplier are awaiting an RFO from Zayo to confirm what caused the damage as well as whether this is a temporary or permanent repair.

We will be performing a routine reboot of LDeX1-Plesk1 at 21:00 on 14th September 2016. This reboot will result in less than 10 minutes of down time and is to resolve issues with backup software that can only be resolved by a complete system reboot.

Update (21:16): The reboot of LDeX1-Plesk1 has completed successfully.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the UPS in the LDeX2 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 25/08/2016 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve a firmware update, visual inspection of the components in each of the UPS systems, functional testing and cleaning of the fans and as such the LDeX2 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX2 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously. During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode. This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed. Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

The LDeX1-VPS2 hypervisor has unexpectedly rebooted. They hypervisor is already backup up and running and all VMs are booting.

Update: All but one VM is back online. The VM in question is currently carrying out a filesystem check due to the length of time since the last one.

Update: The filesystem check on the VM has finished. All virtual servers have finished starting and normal service has been resumed. We will continue to monitor the server in case of any further issues as well as investigating what caused the unexpected reboot. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

Our backhaul network supplier has informed us that our connection between LDeX1 and LDeX2 will be impacted by highway maintenace work being carried out on the M1 motorway between 06:45 and 19:15 on 31/07/2016. Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit and continue to function as normal, so this maintenance work should not be service affecting.

Whilst we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network during this maintenance window, there may however be a brief period of increased latency or packet loss at the start and end of the miantenace work whilst the network reconverges. As with all network maintenance of this nature, the network should be considered at risk for the disruption of the maintenance window.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: Our backhaul connectivity supplier has confirmed that this maintenance work has been completed sucesfully without any impact on service. Unfortunately the restoration of the service was delayed until 21:00 on 31/07/2016 due to a faulty network card in the WDM platform causing a large number of alarms which took several hours to investigate. Restarting the card in question cleared the alarms and restored the affected wavelength.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance of our backup system on 15/07/2016 starting at 11:00. This will primarily consist of updating the R1Soft CDP software to the latest version, during which time no new backups will be taken and no restores can take place.

This update requires the on-disk format of the backup disk safes to be updated and so due to the volume of data contained within these disks safes the update may take some time to complete.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has begun and we have blocked any new tasks from being scheduled. We are just waiting for existing tasks to complete before proceeding with the upgrade.

Update: All scheduled tasks have completed successfully, so we will now being the upgrade.

Update: Just over a third of the disk safes have been converted to the new format so far.

Update: Two thirds of the disk safes have now been converted to the new format.

Update: We are still waiting for the conversion of the last few disk safes to complete. These disk safes are all quite large and so are taking some time to convert.

Update: We are now down to converting the last four disk safes

Update: We are still waiting for the last four disk safes to finish converting. We can see heavy I/O on the disk array as well as high CPU usage on the server, so we know that the disk safe conversion is still in progress, but unfortunately we don't have any indication of progress or time remaining.

Update: Due to the length of time that the conversion of the last four disk safes seems to be taking compared to all of the other disk safes on the backup server, we have decided to restart the backup server service in case we have run into a bug which has caused the conversion process to become stuck.

Update: Unfortunately, due to the length of time that the conversion of the last four disk safes is taking, we have been forced to abandon the conversion process and create new disk safes. This means that we will be unable to restore any data contained within these four disk safes. Given the difficult decision, we feel that it is more important that these servers are backing up again so that fresh data is protected.

Update: The fresh backups of the four servers whose disk safes we've had to recreate have finished. We are checking that all other backups are running correctly.

Update: All but one server is backing up correctly. The issue with that server is unrelated to the backup server upgrade (kernel module update required).

Update: All servers are now backing up correctly.

Our interconnect with one of our leased line wholesale providers in Telehouse North has gone physically down. Any leased lines using this provider will currently be unavailable. We are investigating the cause of this.

Update: The wholesale provider have confirmed that they are investigating a major incident.

Update: The LINX and LONAP looking glasses both show a number of BGP sessions dropping at approximately the same time, so there may be a wider issue.

Update: The wholesale provider have confirmed that there is a power outage affecting their equipment in the TFM10 suite in Telehouse North. They are working with the facility operator to restore power and have also dispatched their own engineers.

Update: We are seeing reports from several customers of users struggling to access services that we host. All of our equipment is online and working normally, however several ISPs including BT are affected by the power issues in Telehouse North and so access to some destinations is disrupted. If you are having issues accessing our services then please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner, however it is likely that you will need to speak to your own ISP.
This is unrelated to the power issues in Equlnix LD8 (formerly Telecity Harbour Exchange) which affected BT yesterday.

Update: We have forced BT/Plusnet traffic via a different upstream provider as we suspect that there is significant congestion at the BT end. This change was made at approximately 10:35 and initial reports seem to indicate that this has alleviated the problem for BT/Plusnet customers.

Update: Our interconnect with the leased line wholesale provider has come back up at 14:57 and all affected circuits are back up and running again. We have not yet received an official all-clear, so services should still be considered at-risk.

Update: All leased line services delivered via the interconnect in question have remained online and stable since power was restored by Telehouse on Thursday afternoon, however we are still waiting for full details of exactly what happened and whether it has been fully resolved.

Update: We have received a copy of the Telehouse RFO and it seems that the south side of the 3rd floor in Telehouse North lost power at 07:43 on 21/07/2016 due to a fault in the electrical distribution infrastructure.
The faulty components were isolated and power was restored to some of the affected Telehouse customers at approximately 10:20. Terminal blocks, circuit breakers and associated cabling were then replaced and power was restored to the remainder of the affected portion of the 3rd floor by 13:40.
The wholesale leased line provider who was affected by this outage then began powering their equipment back up and found that they had to replace 3x IOM cards in their Nokia (formerly Alcatel Lucent) network equipment which had failed. This was completed and our interconnect service was restored at 14:57.
Telehouse are conducting a RCA (Root Cause Analysis) of the fault and we expect to receive a copy of their findings in due course, however it may take some time for them to produce as they will likely have to have the failed components forensically analysed. If you wish to receive a copy of this RCA once it is available, please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.
In the mean time, power in Telehouse North has remained stable and we do not have any reason to believe that there is a risk of this problem reoccurring. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this. We will be getting in touch with individual leased line customers in order to arrange the appropriate SLA credits.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 14/07/2016. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 3 minutes across two reboots. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/05/2015. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 22 minutes across one reboot. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Our connection to the IXManchester exchange has unexpectedly dropped. Any traffic arriving or leaving the AS41000 network via IXManchester will have briefly been interrupted, however all traffic was automatically re-routed to alternative connections so the disruption should have been minimal.

We are investigating what caused this issue, however the AS41000 is still fully redundant via alternative paths in the mean time.

Update: The network interface connecting our router to the IXManchester exchange is physically flapping. We have temporarily disabled all BGP sessions to peers over the IXManchester exchange whilst we investigate what is causing this.

Update: The cabling has been checked and replaced and the interface is now up. We are monitoring to ensure that it is stable before re-enabling the BGP sessions with our peers over the IXManchester exchange.

Update: The connection has been up and stable for 3 hours, so we have re-enabled the BGP sessions with our peers over the IXManchester exchange and traffic is flowing as normal again.
We will continue to monitor our connection to the IXManchester exchange in order to ensure that it remains stable, however we believe that the issue has been resolved at this time. Please don't hesitate to contact our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are experiencing any problems and please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

As part of our ongoing PPM programme, on Monday 20th June 2016 between 08.30 – 17.00 Emerson Network Power will be carrying out a routine maintenance operation on the LV panel main incomer breaker and the generator breaker and associated switchgear.

This operation will mean that there will be a reduced level of resilience at times during the maintenance window however we don’t anticipate any disruption to your service.

This maintenance procedure includes a visual inspection of the switchgear, service and test of the ACCB and generator breaker.

Our backhaul supplier has informed us that they are carrying out essential maintenance on network equipment that may impact our backhaul connection between LDeX2 (Manchester) and Telehouse North (London, Docklands). This maintenance work is to install new module and replace a faulty module in core network switches and may cause a brief interuption of network connectivity to links using the affected network equipment.

Freethought has redundant links between Manchester and London so the work on one of our links should not be service affecting, however the network should be considered at risk whilst this work is carried out.

Update: Our backhaul connectivity supplier has confirmed that this maintenance work has been completed sucesfully without any impact on service.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/05/2016. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Our backhaul supplier will be performing essential maintenance work to their core network equipment during the early hours of the 27th May. This maintenance involves rebooting four network devices in turn with a 30 minutes gap between each reboot. Our backhaul links between Manchester and London go two different paths via different switches so only one of our backhaul links should be impacted at any one time. 

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit so this maintenance should not be service affecting, during this window we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network however there may be short moments of increased latency or packet loss. As with all network maintenance of this nature the network should be considered at risk of disruption.

Our backhaul supplier will be performing essential maintenance work to their core network equipment located in Telehouse North (London Docklands) during the early hours of the 26th May. This maintenance involves rebooting two network devices in turn with a 30 minutes gap between each reboot. Each of these switches terminate one of our links to either Manchester or our LDeX1 PoP, as each switch is rebooted we will loose only one of the links at any one time.

Our network is designed to withstand the loss of one circuit so this maintenance should not be service affecting and during this window we do not anticipate a complete loss of connectivity to any part of our network however there may be short moments of increased latency or packet loss. As with all network maintenance of this nature the network should be considered at risk of disruption.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully.

We are currently experiencing a DDoS attack against our network which is causing some customers to have difficulty access services we provide. We are working to identify and mitigate the situation as quickly as possible and will update this status message as we learn more.

Update (1854): The attack has been mitigated the network is now recovering, services hosted on the network should now be accessible. We will continue to monitor the network for the next few hours to ensure continued availability and to mitigate any additional attacks.

Update (20/05/2016 @ 0922): The network has remained stable overnight, we have identified the target of the attack and are working with them to prevent any reoccurance of this problem. Once again we apologise for the inconvenience. 

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk3 server from 5.5 to 10.0 on 12/05/2016 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The update has been completed and MySQL/MariaDB is back online again.

In conjunction with our suppliers we are performing essential network maintenance on 11th May starting at 10pm and continuing for up to 4 hours. This maintenance is to improve the reliability and stability of our national links connecting London to Manchester as well as performing other essential minor network related tasks and config changes to our core network.

During the maintenance window our network will at times be operating with reduced redundancy both in terms of our network links between Manchester and London, and our links to transit and peering. Whilst a complete loss of network connectivity is unlikely the entire Freethought network should be considered at risk for the duration of the maintenance window.

Update 1: This maintenance has proven more disruptive than planned with periods of complete loss of connectivity. We apologise for the inconvenience whilst we complete this essential maintenance work.

Update 2: Our network maintenance changes have been completed and the network appears to be stable again. We are continuing to monitor the situation and complete minor remaining tasks.

Update 3: The maintenance is now complete, once again we apologise for any inconvenience caused by the loss of connectivity to our network earlier. The maintenance work is now complete and should mean for greatly improved reliability and stability of our network going forward, particularly in our Manchester PoP. This issue is now considered resolved, any further problems should be reported via the usual support channels.

Whilst investigating an issue with our management access to the hypervisor on the LDeX1-VPS3 node, it has unexpectedly rebooted. All virtual servers hosted on LDeX1-VPS3 will be offline at the moment.

Update (10:53): The LDeX1-VPS3 hypervisor is back online and individual virtual servers are currently starting.

Update (10:55): All virtual servers have finished starting and normal service has been resumed. We will continue to monitor the server in case of any further issues as well as investigating what caused the unexpected reboot. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be upgrading the version of MariaDB on the LDeX1-Plesk1 server from 5.5 to 10.0 on 05/05/2016 between 21:00 and 23:59. We expect the upgrade to take around 5-10 minutes to complete.

We will need to stop the MariaDB service for the duration of the upgrade, so this will affect any scripts depending on the MariaDB/MySQL service. The Plesk control panel will also be affected.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The update has been completed and MySQL/MariaDB is back online again.

We have been alerted to a network accessiblity problem with our AS41000 network, we are currently investigating and will update this status as soon as more information is available.

Update (16:14): Some of our backhaul links have gone offline resulting in a loss of connectivity, the links appear to have been restored and our network is now recovering.

Update (16:25): Access should be restored to the majority of services hosted in our London data centre LDeX1. We are still waiting on the network to recover in Manchester and London Docklands.

Update (16:31): Normal service has now been restored to the entire network and to all customers in London and Manchester. We will leave this network status issue open for a short while longer whilst we monitor the stability of the network.

Update (17:01): Our network remains stable following the earlier outage, the root cause of this problem was one our backhaul links to London Docklands going offline due to a DDoS attack against our suppliers network. This was exacerbated by a subsequent crash of some of the software processes on one of our routers causing a wider network stability problem. Normal service has been restored and as the network remains stable this issue has been closed.

We have identified a problem affecting MySQL database connections from the Plesk control panel which requires two registry changes to fix. In order for these chandes to take effect, the TMA01/Japetus server needs to be rebooted.

This has been scheduled to take place this evening (28/04/2016) between 21:00 and 23:59 and should hopefully take around 10 minutes to complete. We will also apply any outstanding Windows patches before this reboot so as to avoid requiring another reboot in the near future.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: This reboot has been completed sucesfully.

The hypervisor on the LDeX1-VPS3 node seems to have suffered similar problems to the LDeX1-VPS4 node following a routine software update and so we are also rebooting this node.

Again, this is being performed via a controlled shut down of the host node and all running virtual machines.

Update: The reboot has been completed successfully and all virtual machines are back online. The original problem with the hypervisor seems to have cleared, however we will continue to monitor the server for any signs of further issues. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We are currently carrying out an emergency reboot of the LDeX1-VPS4 node due to problems detected with the hypervisor which are affecting some virtual machines.

This is being performed via a controlled shut down of the host node and all running virtual machines.

Update: The reboot has been completed successfully and all virtual machines are back online. The original problem with the hypervisor seems to have cleared, however we will continue to monitor the server for any signs of further issues. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

 

We are currently performing essential maintenance on TMA01/Japetus to migrate the operating system to a new virtualised server to facilitate an eventual migration of hosted websites into the Freethought cloud platform.

Update (20-03-16 0100): The conversion of the server to a new virtualised environment has been successful and websites are back online. We will now begin the update from Plesk 9.5.4 to Plesk 11.5

Update (20-03-16 0350): The update to Plesk has partially completed and some websites are back online, the update has yet to fully complete however and a large file system permissions task has yet to complete. This task is likely to take some time.

Update (20-03-16 0900): The file system permissions task is still running. We have identified that some websites are failing to load due to a "500 Internal Server Error" - this is caused by the PHP module not being present because the Plesk update process has yet to install it. We are unable to investigate or resolve this issue until the Plesk update completes as it will most likely resolve the issue as part of the update.

Update (20-03-16 2100): The file system permissions task is still running, we have no estimated time to complete. Unfortunately some websites are still offline due to the PHP library errors mention in the previous update. We are unable to intervene manually as to do so could cause data loss, at this point we have no choice but to allow the update to complete.

Update (21-03-16 0825): The file system permission task has finally completed. Additional tasks as part of the update are now completing. We have managed to restore a small number of websites experiencing issues manually however those experiencing PHP related errors are still offline with no estimated time to resolution.

Update (21-03-16 0904): The update process has installed the PHP engine which appears to have resolved issues with PHP that was preventing some websites from loading. We are currently verifying if any websites are still experiencing problems.

Update (21-03-16 0912): The installation of the PHP engine appears to have resolved the issues with all the websites that were previously not loading. The update is still running but it does not appear to be service affecting any longer.

Update (21-03-16 0941): The Plesk update has completed! If you are having any continuing issues with websites or email please contact support by emailing support@freethought-internet.co.uk or calling 03300 882130.

We have become aware of an unexpected reboot of the VPS3 node. We are currently investigating and will update this status when we know more.

Update (12:05): The node has now completed booting and individualy virtual servers are booting back up.

Update (12:09): All virtual servers have completed booting. We will investigate the root cause of the unexpected reboot and take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. If you continue to experience issues with any virtual servers hosted on this node please contact support.

We have been notified by our backhaul connectivity provider that they will be carrying out scheduled maintenance work on the devices which terminate our connections in LDeX1 between 00:01 and 04:00 on 27/02/2016.

During this period they will need to reboot each device in turn, which will result in a loss of service for approximately 5-10 minutes. These reboots will be at least 1 hour apart in order to minimise disruption and ensure networks stability.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance, however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

The login credentials for a client's email account hosted on the TMA01/Japetus server has been compromised and used to send a large volume of space, which has resulted in a very large mail queue on this server. We have therefore temporarily stopped the SMTP service on TMA01/Japetus whilst we clean out the queue. All inbound and outbound SMTP connections will currently be failing as a result of this.

Update: The mail server's outgoing queue has been cleaned and the SMTP service has been started back up again. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch if you are still experiencing any issues.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the UPS in the LDeX1 facility between 09:00 and 17:00 on 08/02/2016 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve a firmware update, visual inspection of the components in each of the UPS systems, functional testing and cleaning of the fans and as such the LDeX1 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX1 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously. During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode. This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed. Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance has been sucesfully completed without any impact to service.

We are currently experiencing difficulty with one of our routers located in Telehouse North (THN), whilst our network adapted to the loss of this router there will have been some instability and loss of service starting at 09:01am.

Update: The router in THN has started responding again and appears to have gone offline due to a software failure.

Update: Some customers will have seen service return around 09:11 and full service was restored by 09:26. Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this network issue and please don't hesitate to let us know if you are still experiencing any problems or if you have any questions.

We have observed brief periods of disruption on our backhaul connctivity to LDeX2. We have sked our supplier to investigate this. Customers in LDeX2 may have noticed some packet loss whilst traffic was re-routed.

Update: This seems to have stopped around 06:44, however we are continuing to closely monitor the network in case of any further problems and await an explenation from our supplier.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the LV breakers for both the main incoming utility mains feed and for the backup diesel generator feed in the LDeX1 facility between 08:30 and 17:00 on 14/12/2015 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve visual inspection, servicing and testing of the breakers and as such the LDeX1 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out, so all services hosted in LDeX1 should be considered "at-risk" for the duration of this work.

Generator power may be unavailable for periods during this work, however no work is being carried out on the utility mains power infrastructure whilst the generator is unavailable, so one power source should always be available to power the facility. The three facility UPS have approximately 45 minutes of battery run time at the current load.

All racks will continue to be fed from two of the facility UPS via independent A+B feeds throughout the duration of the maintenance work. All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: LDeX have sucesfully completed this maintenance work without incident.

We will be undertaking a period of maintenance work from 23:00 on Saturday 12/12/2015 to 03:00 on Sunday 13/12/2015 for the final part of the planned remedial works following the recent network problems.

We do not expect any significant impact on service availability during this maintenance work, however due to the nature of the changes the network should be considered at-risk throughout. There may be brief periods of increased latency or packet loss whilst traffic is re-routed as this work is carefully carried out in stages.

If you have any questions or concerns about this maintenance work, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed sucesfully.

The cloud node running the LDeX1-cPanel4 server is experiencing network problems. We are currently investigating whether we can resolve these problems or if we will have to restart the LDeX1-cPanel4 server on another nodes.

Update: We have been unable to resolve the networking issues on the affected node, so we have powered it down and are booting the LDeX1-cPanel4 server back up on another node.

Update: The LDex1-cPanel4 server is back online running on a different cloud node. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are currently aware of some router instabilities that are causing some customers to have trouble accessing our network. We're working on resolving the issue and will update this status message as more information is available.

Update: 

We experienced some network instability this evening which manifested itself as packet loss or intermittent connection problems for some users. The sporadic nature of this issue made it difficult to track down exactly what was happening and thus what was causing it, however from our initial investigations we believe that high our LDeX1-RT1 router was the primary culprit.

This router has temporarily been removed from the network and since that was done at approximately 18:25 the problems seems to have been resolved and everything seems stable. We are continuing to closely monitor the network in case of any further issues.

We will examine the LDeX1-RT1 router in detail and if we believe that it is safe to do so we will reintroduce it into the network later this evening.

Update:

Following the network instability earlier this evening, we have successfully completed a software upgrade on the problematic LDeX1-RT1 router to bring it in line with the software version that we are already running on our THN-RT1 and LDeX2-RT1 routers and reintroduced it into the network. We have also removed LDeX1-RT2 router from the network, upgraded it to the same software version and reintroduced it into the network. This emergency maintenance work was completed without any service affecting impact on customer traffic.

Full redundancy has now been restored to the network and we will continue to monitor the network closely in order to ensure that there are no further issues. We are hopeful that this newer software version will correct the bug which we believe caused this evening's network instability and was also responsible for the issue on the 6th of November.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused by this evening's network issues and please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions.

We have currently seeing significant instability across the AS41000 network.

Update: The network is currently stable and normal service has resumed. We are investigating the cause of this issue.

Update: The network has remained stable over the past hour. From examining log files, we believe that the issue originated on the LDeX1-RT1 router where a process crashed, although we are still investigating what caused this.

We have lost remote access to the TMA01/Japetus server

Update: We are unable to access the local console on the server using the KVMoIP, so we are carrying out an emergency reboot

Update: The server is back online and the alerts have cleared. We are investigating what caused the server to lock up, however we believe that normal service should now have resumed. Please accept our apologies for the inconivnience caused. If you are still having any problems then please contact our helpdesk in the usual manner.

We have received a number of alerts from our external monitoring system indicating a problem with connectivity to our network. We are investigating this as a matter of urgency.

Update: One of our upstream providers seem to be experiencing major network issues which affected any traffic that was arriving over our connections to them. We have disabled our connections to the upstream network provider in question and the AS41000 network now appears to be stable on our remaining upstream provider. We will keep this connection disabled until we receive confirmation that the cause of these issues has been identified and resolved. In the mean time, the network should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced levels of redundancy.

Update: The upstream provider in question suffered an unexpected reboot on a router when making a routine change that should not have otherwise been service affecting. They have placed a change freeze on their network and will not implement any further non-emergency work until they have identified the underlying cause of the issue with the router manufacturer and implemented a full fix. They have advised us that the network is stable in the mean time and so we have re-enabled our connections to them and the network is now fully redundant once again.

We experienced a Denial of Service (DoS) attack against the TMA01/Japetus server which caused a disruption to service between 19:27 and 19:38.

We have been able to block the malicous traffic on our core network in order to restore service, which seems to be effective for now. We continue to monitor the situation in case of any changes in the attack which might cause further issues.

We will be performing a firmware update on the LDeX1-SW01 edge switch on 01/06/2015 between 21:00 and 23:59.

Any devices connect to this switch will lose network connectivity when the switch is rebooted in order to load the new firmware.

This firmware update will require the switch to be rebooted twice during the maintenance window and so there will be two periods of disruption to your service, each lasting a few minutes. 

Whilst we do not expect to encounter any problems with this firmware update, we have a cold spare switch on standby just in case.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this maintenance work will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The first reboot has been completed successfully. We are now copying the second firmware file onto the switch in preparation for the second reboot.

Update: The second reboot has been completed successfully and the switch is now running on the latest firmware. Each of the reboots took approximately 2 minutes. All network connectivity to the affected systems should be back to normal. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/05/2015. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 20 minutes across two reboots. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We are currently unable to reach the LDeX1-VPS3 VPS node

Update: The VPS node appears to have unexpectedly rebooted. We are currently investigating the cause of this.

Update: The VPS node is back online and VPS have booted back up.

Update: Unfortunately there are no log entries from immediately before the reboot to indicate what may have caused this so we are currently unable to determine exactly why this happened. We are monitoring the server closely in case of any further issues. All customer VPS should be back online as of ~11:56. Please get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be carrying out a series of hardware upgrades to our cloud server platform in LDeX1 between 21:00 on 30/03/2015 and 02:00 on 31/03/2015 in order to increase performance and expand the capacity of the platform.

During this time there may be some brief interuptions to network connectivity as well as periods of degraded performance. The plaform should be considered at risk for the duration of this maintenance

Update: This maintenance work was ceusfully completed without incident.

We have identified a problem with one of our SolusVM nodes, LDeX1-VPS3. The node is currently offline and all virtual servers running on it are also offline. We are on-site and investigating and will restore service as soon as possible.

Update: We have identified and resolved an issue with the RAID card on this server and are monitoring the RAID array rebuilding. Affected VPS may have a read only filesystem as we result of this problem and will require a reboot in order to correct this.  Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems or require any further assistance.

We are currently investigating a loss of connectivity to the TMA01/Japetus and TMA02/Enigma servers behind the legacy firewall cluster 1 HA pair.

This does not affect any other firewall clusters or servers.

Update: The firewall pair in question is now passing traffic again and all affected services have been restored. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems

We are currently investigating a loss of service affecting clients hosted on the TMA02/Enigma server.

Update: We have been unable to gain access to the server either remotely or via the local console, so we are carrying out an emergency reboot in order to regain access and restore service.

Update: We have performed the emergency reboot and the server is booting back up again. Currently it is performing a filesystem check due to not being shut down cleanly.

Update: The server is now back online and normal service has been restored. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems

We are currently experiencing an outage with one of our shared cPanel server, LDeX1-cPanel3. We are currently investigating and will update this status as soon as more information is available.

Update 1537: LDeX1-cPanel3 has completed booting back up folllowing an unexpected restart of some of the hardware nodes it was running on. Service is now restored.

We have been notified by LDeX that the UPS vendor will be performing routine preventative maintenance on the UPS infrastructure in LDeX1 on 23/02/2015 between 09:00 and 17:00.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously.

During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode.

This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed.

Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available.

All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your device is connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The UPS maintenance work has been successfully completed without any impact. Full redundancy has been restore on all power infrastructure.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 28/01/2015. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 11 minutes across one reboot. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We have experienced an unexpected reboot of the LDeX1-VPS2 node and are investigating what has caused this.

Update: We have made some configuration changes to the node based on the last log entries before the unexpected reboot.

Update: We have expereinced further unexpected reboots of this node and are continuing to investgate the cause of the problem.

Update: We have downgraded the version of the kernel used on this node to bring it in line with other nodes. We are hopeful that this has fully resolved the issue, however we are continuing to monitor the node closely in case of any further problems.

One of our upstream network providers will be carrying out maintenance on two of our connections between 00:00 and 06:00 on 06/01/2015. We will gracefully remove these connections prior to the maintenance work in order to eliminate any impact to customer traffic.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance, however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: Our upstream provider has rescheduled the maintenance for 27/01/2015.

Update: This work was completed without incident.

We are currently carrying out maintenace on TMA03/Tsung to upgrade it with new hardware. This maintenace window will continue until 09:00am on 11th January whilst websites are transitioned to the new server. Any relevant updates will be posted to this status message.

Update: Acount settings and data have been migrated to the new server hardware successfully. All websites are back online and functioning. SSL certificates yet yet to be migrated for those sites with a certificate, this should be complete in the next hour.

Update: All SSL certificates are now installed.

Update: Server upgrade complete, if you experience any problems please open a ticket.

Following on from the network instability between 12:38 and 12:53 which affected all customers on the AS41000 network, VPS customers in LDeX1 would have seen approximately 50% packet loss due to problems with a LACP aggregated bundle between our LDeX1-SW01 edge switch and our LDeX1-CSW2 core switch.

The LACP aggregated bundle in question was disabled at approximately 13:10 and normal service resumed. We are continuing to investigate what caused this problem and how we can restore the bundle to normal operation.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience that today's disruption caused and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk if you are still experiencing any problems or if you have any questions.

Between 12:38 and 12:53 we experienced problems with our LDeX1-RT1 router blackholing packets which caused a loss of connectivity inside our network.

LDeX1-RT1 was isolated from the network whilst further investigations could be carried out As a result, all traffic was failed over to LDeX1-RT2 and normal service was resumed with reduced redundancy.

The LDeX1-RT1 router has now been returned to normal operation and the network is fully redundant again. 

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience that this disruption caused and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk if you are still experiencing any problems or if you have any questions.

Our monitoring systems have alerted us to packet loss affecting both of our connections to one of our upstream network providers.

We have currently disabled our connections to the provider in question, which has resolved the packet loss issues but means that we are currently running on a single upstream network provider and so the AS41000 network should currently be considered at-risk.

We have raised this issue with the provider in question and are waiting for an explanation of what caused the issues that we experienced and whether it has been resolved before we reintroduce their connections to the network.

Update: The packet loss was caused by a DDoS attack against another customer connected to the same router as us. The upstream network provider has put filters in place to block this attack and we have seen no further problems with our connections in the mean time, so have reintroduced the upstream network provider to the AS41000 network. The AS41000 network is now fully redundant again.

We are currently unable to access the TMA03/Tsung server remotely. This could be a repeat of the kernel panic which this server experienced two weeks ago.

Update (1725): The server issue has been resolved and access to the server has been restored.

We are currently unable to access the TMA03/Tsung server remotely.

Update: We are not seeing any video output from the server to our KVM, so we have dispatched a technician to physically inspect the server.

Update: The technician was unable to find any problem with the server, however it was unresponsive locally as well so has been rebooted and should be back online shortly.

Update: The server is now back online and normal service has been restored. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

Wehave been forced to carry out an emergency reboot of the TMA03/Tsung server due to service affecting problems that this server is currently experiencing. Please accept our apologies for the inconvinience caused.

Update: The server is back online and normal service has been restored. Once again, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 13/11/2014. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 17 minutes across two reboots. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We are currently performing a reboot of one of our core switch stacks in order to resolve a connectivity issue affecting all customers in LDeX1.

Update: The core switch has been rebooted and normal service has been restored.

We have just experienced a core switch crash in LDeX1.

One of the physical Juniper EX4200 switches which makes up the logical LDeX1-CSW1 virtual chassis crashed and rebooted. The remaining physical switch in LDeX1-CSW1 took over some of the traffic whilst the VRRP default gateway IP addresses on VLANs directly connected to the problem switch will have failed over to the second virtual chassis of core switches (LDeX1-CSW2).

Unfortunately, any customers who are single homed and directly connected onto the affected core switch will have lost connectivity whilst the switch in question crashed and rebooted. Such customers are in the minority as we provision all services with redundant connections by default.

We believe that the root cause of this reboot may have been as a result of a software bug related to routine configuration work which was taking place at the time and so will be looking to upgrade all of the core switches to the latest stable version of JUNOS in the near future.

All affected services should be restored as of 13:29 (approximately 3 minutes of disruption). If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

One of our upstream network providers is currently experiencing problems with their network and as such we have removed their routes from our network. Clients may have noticed a brief period of  disruption whilst re-routing occured.

We have sufficient capacity on our remaining connections to carry all of our traffic, however the AS41000 network is currently running with reduced redundancy and so should be considered at-risk until we are satisfied that the carrier in question has restored stability to their network.

If you have any questions or are experiencing any problems, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: Our upstream network provider has informed us that a power supply for one of the devices in their rack failed, which in turn caused a circuit breaker to trip and so the router which terminates our connections lost power.

When the circuit breaker was reset and power to the rack was restored, one of the line cards in the router in question did not return to service correctly and so needed to be removed and re-inserted before it would function normally again.

Our network is now fully redundant again and the upstream network provider in question does not anticipate any further problems related to this, however they are shipping spare parts to the data centre just in case.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the LV metering for the backup generator in the LDeX1 facility between 08:30 and 17:00 on 08/10/2014 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve upgrading the LV metering on the feed from the backup diesel generator and as such the LDeX1 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out and as such services should be considered "at-risk".

Generator power may be unavailable for periods during this work, however no work is being carried out on the utility mains power infrastructure. The three facility UPS have between 45 and 65 minutes run time at the current load.

Once the work on the LV metering for the backup diesel generator is complete, the facility operator will also be carrying out their quarterly full load test, which will involve a simulated mains power failure in order to verify that all backup power infrastructure is functioning correctly.

All racks will continue to be fed from two of the facility UPS via independent A+B feeds throughout the duration of the maintenance work. All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available. All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your devices are connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The facility operator have confirmed that the work has been completed successfully.

We are currently experiencing a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against our network directed towards one of our customers. This is causing high latency and packet loss on our network which will result in pages loading slowly or not at all. We are actively investigating and will post updates as the situation develops.

Update: The attack subsided before we were able to put our mitigation measures in place, however we have identified the target IP addresses and are ready to filter the traffic upstream should the attack resume. If you are still experiencing any connectivity problems then please contact us in the normal manner. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on 25/09/2014. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 12 minutes across two reboots. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

The filesystem for the /var partition on the TMA02/Enigma server has become read only, so we are performing an emergency reboot on the server to run a filesystem check.

Update: The filesystem check has been completed sucesfully and all services appear to be running normally again. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

Following the update of the software on one of our border routers (LDeX1-RT1) on 11/09/2014, we will be performing the same update on our remaining border router (LDeX1-RT2) on 18/09/2014 between 22:00 and 23:59. This will require us to reboot the router so the AS41000 network will be running at reduced redundancy whilst this is carried out. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect the at-risk period to be much less than this.

We will divert traffic away from this router whilst the maintenance is taking place, so we do not expect any noticable impact to customers. The AS41000 network should however be considered to be at-risk during this time as we will be running with only one border router.

This is essential maintenance in order to ensure the ongoing stability and security of our network Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed without any impact to traffic on the network and the LDeX1-RT1 router is back online running the new version of JUNOS. Full network redundancy has been restored.

We are carrying out an emergency reboot of the TMA03/Tsung server due to service affecting problems that this server is currently experiencing. Please accept our apologies for the inconvinience caused.

Update: The server is back online and normal service has been restored. Once again, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing a software update on one of our border routers (LDeX1-RT1) on 11/09/2014 between 22:00 and 23:59. This will require us to reboot the router so the AS41000 network will be running at reduced redundancy whilst this is carried out. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect the at-risk period to be much less than this.

We will divert traffic away from this router whilst the maintenance is taking place, so we do not expect any noticable impact to customers. The AS41000 network should however be considered to be at-risk during this time as we will be running with only one border router.

The second router (LDeX1-RT2) will remain on the present software version for a week whilst we ensure that there are no unexpected issues with the new software version in product use and then be upgraded in a second maintenance window on 18/09/2014.

This is essential maintenance in order to ensure the ongoing stability and security of our network Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed and the LDeX1-RT1 router is back online running the new version of JUNOS.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM03/Tsung between 23:00 and 23:59 on the 04/08/2014. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We have received a number of alerts from our external monitoring system indicating a problem with connectivity to our network.

Update: One of our routers has suffered a software issue which caused services to crash and restart. This took approximately 10 minutes to complete as the router had to re-establish several BGP sessions and learn several hundred thousand routes. During this time the router was not passing traffic, however appeared to other routers on the network as if it was stable so the normal failover mechanisms did not kick in. We believe that this is related to the version of software running on this router and so will be arranging a scheduled maintenance window in order to update it once we have investigated further. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and don't hesitate to let our helpdesk know if you are still experiencing any problems with your services.

We are currently carrying out an emergency reboot on the TMA03/Tsung server due to some problems experienced with the backups running on this server.

Update: Whilst rebooting, the server has detected an issue with the filesystem one one of the partitions and so is performing a filesystem check in order to verify the integrity of the data stored on this partition.

Update: The filesystem check has completed and the server has finished booting. Normal service has been restored. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 08/07/2014. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 6 minutes across a single reboot. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We have been notified by London Data eXchange that they will be carrying out work on the LV panel breakers and metering in the LDeX1 facility between 08:30 and 17:00 on 14/07/2014 as part of their planned preventative maintenance programme.

This work will involve upgrading the LV metering as well as visual inspection, servicing and testing of the main ACB breaker. The LDeX1 facility may be operating as a level of reduced redundancy whilst this work is being carried out and as such services should be considered "at-risk".

The LV panel is split into three sections, one serving each of the three UPS. Only one section of the LV panel will be worked on at any time. Currently all three facility UPS have at least 1 hours run time and generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All racks will continue to be fed from two of the facility UPS via independent A+B feeds throughout the duration of the maintenance work.
All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available.

All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your device is connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: This work will take place on 14/07/2014, not 04/07/2014 as originally advised.

Update: This work has now been completed without incident.

One of our upstream network providers has informed us that they need to carry out some emergency maintenance work which will affect our connections to them.

This work will take place at some point within the next 90 minutes, so we have temporarily disabled our connections to them in order to prevent any disruption.

This means that the AS41000 network should currently be considered "at-risk" as we are running without normal levels of redundancy.

Update: the work took slightly longer than expected, however our upstream network provider has given us the all clear and we have re-enabled our connections to them. The network is running at full redundancy again.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 02/06/2014. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 7 minutes across a single reboot. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

One of our upstream network carriers are experiencing problems with their network due to a hardware failure. We have removed their routes from our network and there is no disruption to any services as we have sufficient capacity on our remaining connections to carry all of our traffic.

As a result of this, the AS41000 network is currently running with reduced redundancy and so should be considered at-risk until we are satisfied that the carrier in question has restored stability to their network.

If you have any questions or are experiencing any problems, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: The carrier have provided us with an update that they have experienced a supervisor card failure on their router in Telehouse North which is having a serious effect on the stability of their network. They have tried to swap the card out with a spare, however this seems to be faulty. They are attempting to source a replacement, however do not have an ETA at the moment.

Update: The carrier has advised that the network should be stable and so we have brought our connections to them back up. Full redundancy has been restored to the AS41000 network.

We are currently experiencing a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against our network directed towards one of our customers. This is causing high latency and packet loss on our network which will result in pages loading slowly or not at all. We are actively investigating and will post updates as the situation develops.

Update: We have identified the target IP address and are now filtering the traffic upstream. We have observed a period of stability and normal performance from the network, so we believe that this mitigation has resolved the issue. If you are still experiencing any connectivity problems then please contact us in the normal manner. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 28/04/2014. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 12 minutes across two reboots. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Some customers may have experienced network disruption between 20:34 and 20:36 on 28/03/2014 due to an issue with one or our upstream network providers.

We've seen our BGP sessions to one of our upstream network providers flap and the provider in question has confirmed that they are investigating a problem with their network in the LDeX1 data centre.

In the mean time, we have disabled our BGP sessions to them whilst they stabilise their network. This means that we are operating with a reduced level of redundancy and as such the network should be considered at-risk.

Update: We have received confirmation from the upstream network provider that this issue was the result of a DDoS against another of their customers and that the issue has been resolved. We turned our BGP session to the provider in question back on at roughly 21:20 and restored full redundncy to the network. No further issues have been observed since.

One of our upstream network providers will be carrying out maintenance on two of our connections between 13:00 and 14:00 on 24/02/2014. We will gracefully remove these connections prior to the maintenance work in order to eliminate any impact to customer traffic.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance, however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This work was completed sucesfully at 13:50 with 5 minutes loss of redundancy and no disruption to service.

We are currently experiencing a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against our network directed towards one of our customers. This is causing high latency and packet loss on our network which will result in pages loading slowly or not at all. We are actively investigating and will post updates as the situation develops.

Update: We have identified the customer that is being targeted by this attack and are working to mitigate the situation to restore normal service to our other clients.

Update: The attack has been successfully mitigated and the network has now stabilised. If you are experiencing issues please open a ticket in the usual manner.

Some customers may have experienced network disruption in the form of packet loss or increased latency between 10:20 and 10:30 on 06/02/2014.

We have two connections to each of our two upstream network providers and traffic passing over one of these connections to one provider was affected. Once we identified which connection was causing these issues, we immediately disabled it and saw network connectivity return to normal.

The provider in question has advised us that an aggregation port in their network became saturated due to a 12Gbps DDoS against another customer. Any traffic traversing this link would have been effected.

The provider is already in the process of installing a number of new devices on their network in order to remove such aggregation points and significantly increase their capacity to deal with large DDoS attacks.

The attack has now been filtered and we have re-introduced the connection in to our network. We are continuing to closely monitor traffic in case there are any reoccurrences.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner if you are still experiencing any problems.

We have been notified by LDeX that the UPS vendor will be performing routine preventative maintenance on the UPS infrastructure in LDeX1 on 04/02/2014 between 09:00 and 17:00.

This maintenance work will be carried out on both the A-side and B-side UPS systems separately. At no point will both systems be under maintenance simultaneously.

During this maintenance period, it may be necessary for either of the UPS units to be placed into bypass mode.

This means that any equipment connected to the feed supplied by that UPS unit will be running on raw mains power and as such should be considered at-risk in case there is an outage on the utility mains feed.

Generator backup power will remain available throughout the maintenance work if required.

All devices with dual power supplies should be connected to both the A-side and B-side PDUs, so in event of any problems on one of the feeds will still have the other feed available.

All devices with single power supplies should be fed from our in-rack ATS units, which can switch between the two feeds fast enough that connected devices do not see any loss of power.

If you have any questions or if you wish to double check how your device is connected, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: The UPS maintenance work has been successfully completed without any impact. Full redundancy has been restore on all power infrastructure.

We are currently investigating proglems with the filesystem on TMA02/Engima. We have taken the server offline whilst we attempt to repair the filesystem.

Update: The filesystem has been repaired and the server is now back onine. We are continuing to monitor the server in case of any further issues. If you are still experiencing any problems with accounts hosted on the server, please don't hestiate to get in touch with our helpdesk in the usual manner.

Update: One of the hard drives in the TMA02/Engima server has failed and is currently being replaced.

Update: The failed hard drive has been replaced and the RAID array is rebuilding. We are also carrying out a filesystem check on the server to make sure that no further corruption has opccured.

Update: The filesystem check has completed and the system is back onlne. The RAID array rebuild is contiuning. Normal service should be resumed, however you may notice slight performance degredation whilst the rebuild completes.

Update: The RAID array rebuild has finished. 

We will be upgrading the version of MySQL on TMA03/Tsung on 29/12/2013 between 21:00 and 23:59. During this period MySQL will be intermitantly unavaialble and PHP scripts making use of MySQL functions may return HTTP 500 internal server errors.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The MySQL upgrade work has started

Update: The MySQL upgrade has been completed and normal service has been restored. Downtime was approxmately 55 minutes due to some unexpected complications.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM03/Tsung between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 19/12/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: During the reboot a fsck of one of the partitions has been forced due to the time since the last check. This partition is quite large so may take some time to finish. The server should still be back online before the end of the maintenance window.

Update: The server is now back online again and normal service has been resumed. Please accept our apologies for the longer than expected interruption to service as part of this scheduled maintenance. Total downtime was approxiumately 1 hour, 30 minutes. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM02/Enigma between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 19/12/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 6 minutes. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 19/12/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 6 minutes. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 07/11/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 7 minutes. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We are investigating periods of high load affecting TMA03/Tsung. This is affecting all services hosted on TMA03/Tsung.

Update: We are currently carrying out some emergency maintenance work in order to stabelise this server.

Update: We are currently rebooting the server in order to load a new kernel

Update: The server is back up and we are monitoring it closely to see if this has improved the situation

Update: The server appears to be performing normally now, however we continue to closely monitor performance.

One of our customers experienced a DDoS attack starting at approximately 15:35. This attack caused network wide packet loss, which brought under control by 15:42. We are continuing to monitor the network in case the attack shifts. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

We are currently experiencing a problem with one of our VPS nodes (LDeX1-VPS1) which has causec clients virtual servers hosted on that node to go offline. We've identified the problem and are working to resolve the issue now.

Update (21h39): The VPS node has been rebooted and service has been restored.

Update (02h30): The issue has reoccured, tests indicate an issue with the RAID controller which we are currently investigating.

Update (03h05): We've identified an issue with the RAID controller in LDeX1-VPS1 and are currently attempting to resolve the issue as a matter of extreme urgency. At this time we believe that all data is intact and will bring nodes back online as soon as possible. At this time this outage is likely to extend into the afternoon of Saturday 21st September.

Update (11h45): This issue has necessitated replacing a part which unfortunately was not readily available. This part has been ordered and will be delivered to the data centre at around 15h30 this afternoon. We aim to have it replaced as fast as possible and restore service soon after.

Update (16h43): The spare part which was required to bring LDeX1-VPS1 back online has arrived at the datacentre and will be fitted to the server straight away.

Update (17h44): The new part has been installed and the server booted back up, we are working on restoring access to data so that virtual servers can boot back up.

Update (18h33): Server has been booted successfully and access to data restored. All virtual servers are now booting up. This issue is now considered resolved.

In response to the brief peirods of network disrption on 31/08/2013 due to IS-IS instability between our border routers and core switches, we have been auditing the network configuration and will be carrying out some remidiatory network maintenance across the AS41000 network on 05/09/2013 between 22:00 and 23:59.

Whilst we will be doing everything possible to minimise the impact to clients during this maintenance, you may see further periods of disruption to internet connecitivity during this maintenance work. We understand that the inconvinience that any network disruption causes our clients, however this work is essential in order to ensure the future stability of your network connecvitiy. If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This work has been sucesfully completed without any impact on customer's services.

We will be performing maintenance on one of our routers between 21:00 and 23:59 on 19/08/2013 which will require us to completely remove the router from the network. All traffic will be moved off the affected router before the maintenance starts.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Between 16:46 and 17:10 on 31/08/2013 customer will have experienced 1-2 minute disruptions to their connectivity due to network instability. This was caused by problems with the IS-IS negotiations between our borders routers and core switches and we believe that this has now been resolved, however we will continue to closely monitor the network incase of any furuther problems.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk if you are still experiencing problems.

We will be moving the internal Freethought Internet e-mail system to new servers on 02/08/2011 between 21:00 and 23:59, which will mean that we have no access to our Freethought e-mail accounts during this time, inculding the support@freethought-internet.co.uk e-mail address.

This will not affect client services in any way, however it will mean that we are unable to receive support tickets etc. whilst the upgrade takes place. If you need support during this time, then please raise a ticket directly through the Freethought customer billing and support portal at https://portal.freethought-internet.co.uk or tweet us on @freethoughtnet.

Update: The e-mail server migration has been sucesfully completed and normal service has been resumed.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM02/Enigma between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 31/07/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: Unforutnately, despite a clean shutdown this server required a filesystem check on boot. This is currently being run and may take a little time to complete.

Update: The server is now back online again and normal service has been resumed. Please accept our apologies for the longer than expected interruption to service as part of this scheduled maintenance.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM03/Tsung between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 31/07/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 6 minutes. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 21:00 and 23:59 on the 31/07/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The maintenance work has been completed and the server is back online. Total downtime was approxiumately 7 minutes. If you are still experiencing any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing emergency network maintenance that will affect one of our circuits between LDeX1 and THN between 23:00 and 23:59 on 27/07/2013.

During this time, they will be restarting a process on a metro switch that forms part of their network backbone which has experienced a partial software failure. All traffic will be moved off the affected connection before the maintenance starts.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: Full network redundancy has been restored.

Level(3) have informed us that they will be carrying out the annual building wide power test at their Goswell Road datacentre on 06/07/2013.

During this test they will simulate a full mains power failure in order to evaluate the automating startup of the generators and switch over of the UPS from mains to generator supply.

Level(3) do not expect any interruption to the protected power in the datacentre during these works, however the site is to be considered "at-risk" for the duration in case of any unexpected failures of the critical power infrastructure.

Electrical staff will be on site throughout the testing work and can quickly restore the facility to mains power if required.

One of the network paths connecting the Freethought/AS41000 network in LDeX1 to our network in Telehouse North is routed via the Level(3) Goswell Road datacentre and so will be "at-risk" whilst this work is being carried out due to a potential reduction in network redundancy.

The second network path connecting these two PoPs together does not go via the Level(3) Goswell Road datacentre and therefore will not be affected in the unlikely event of a power outage.

If you have any questions about this work of the impact that it may have on your services, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: The test has been completed without incident.

We are currently investigating the failure of our tertiary DNS server tertiary.freethought-dns.co.uk (93.89.92.172). The primary and secondary DNS servers are working as normal so customers should not see any noticable impact.

Update: The company that provides the off-site server for our tetiary DNS have advised that they expeirneced a problem with the underlying SAN which in turn required a restart of the SAN controllers and all virtual machines. Ther tertiary DNS server is back online and we are monitoring it closely in case of any further problems.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing emergency network maintenance that will affect one of our circuits between LDeX1 and THN between 23:00 and 23:59 on 26/05/2013.

During this time, they will be replacing a switch on their network which has begun showing signs of a hardware failure. All traffic will be moved off the affected connection before the maintenance starts.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully and the connection to this upstream carrier has been restored. If you are having any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

We have experienced two unexpected reboots of the LDeX1-VPS3 node this evening. These reboots were the result of attempts to unload a kernel module in response to investigations into packet loss problems affecting this server.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 22:00 and 23:59 on the 14/05/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The TMA01/Japetus server has been successfully rebooted following the maintenance work and all services are functioning normally. Please get in touch with our helpdesk if you are experiencing any problems with accounts hosted on this server.

We are currently investigating an issue on the TMA01/Japetus server with web sites not loading.

Update: Unfortunately we have been unable to gain access to the server either locally or remotely and so it is now being rebooted.

Update: The server has been successfully rebooted and normal server has been restored. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused and don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk if you are still experiencing problems with your services.

We are currently investigating issues with the TMA01/Japetus server.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 22:00 and 23:59 on the 28/03/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The TMA01/Japetus server has been successfully rebooted following the maintenance work and all services are functioning normally. Please get in touch with our helpdesk if you are experiencing any problems with accounts hosted on this server.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing network maintenance that will affect one IP transit connections between 22:30 and 23:30 on 26/03/2013.

During this time, they will be upgrading the firmware on the router terminating this connection on their network. We are anticipating approximately a 15 minute loss of connectivity whilst this work is carried out. All traffic will be moved off the affected connection before the maintenance starts.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully and the connection to this upstream carrier has been restored. If you are having any problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Between approximately 12:51 and 13:09 customers may have noticed packet loss and increased latency to servers on our AS41000 network due to an inbound DDoS. This has now been mitigated and normal service has been restored.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this morning's attack. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk if you are still experiencing any problems.

We are currently experiencing a DDoS attack against one of our customers which is causing high packet loss on our network. We are working to resolve this and restore normal service ASAP.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing network maintenance that will affect one of our circuits between LDeX1 and THN on 14/02/2013 between 21:00 and 23:59 which will remove this circuit from service whilst devices providing the circuit are updated and rebooted.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services delivered in LDeX1 as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity at LDeX1 should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully and full redundancy has been restored to the network.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 22:00 and 23:59 on the 07/02/2013. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The TMA01/Japetus server has been successfully rebooted following the maintenance work and all services are functioning normally. Please get in touch with our helpdesk if you are experiencing any problems with accounts hosted on this server.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing network maintenance that will affect one IP transit connections between 23:00 on 04/02/2013 and 05:00 on 05/02/2013.

During this time, the router terminating this connection on their network will be replaced and each connection moved over to the new router individually. We are anticipating approximately a 10 minute loss of connectivity whilst this work is carried out. All traffic will be moved off the affected connection before the  maintenance starts.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: Our upstream carrier has informed us that this work has been postponed due to other maintenance work overrunning. This maintenance work will be re-scehduled at a later date.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing network maintenance that will affect one of our circuits between LDeX1 and THN on 27/01/2013 between 00:01 and 05:00 which will remove this circuit from service whilst devices providing the circuit are updated and rebooted.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services delivered in LDeX1 as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity at LDeX1 should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully without any impact to services and full redundancy has been restored.

We are currently investigating issues with one of the nodes in firewall cluster 1 in LDeX1. This is affecting connectivity to some of our shared servers as well as some managed customers.

We are currently investigating service affecting problems with the TMA03/Tsung server.

One of our upstream carriers has informed us that they will be performing network maintenance that will affect one of our circuits between LDeX1 and THN on 15/12/2012 between 00:01 and 05:00 which may cause up to 15 minutes of disruption.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services delivered in LDeX1 as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity at LDeX1 should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This work has been completed successfully without any noticeable disruption to service. If you are experiencing any problems, please get in touch with our helpdesk.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance including essential software updates on TM01/Japetus between 22:00 and 23:59 on the 13/12/2012. This will require us to reboot the server so there will be a loss of service whilst this is done. The maintenance work itself should take less than 30 minutes to complete and we expect downtime to be much less than this.

This is essential maintenance to ensure the ongoing stability and security of this server. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience that this will cause and feel free to contact our support staff via the usual means if you have any questions or concerns.

Update: The TMA01/Japetus server has been successfully rebooted following the maintenance work and all services are functioning normally. Please get in touch with our helpdesk if you are experiencing any problems with accounts hosted on this server.

We are currently investigating problems with the Apache web server software on TMA03/Tsung which is preventing any web-sites from loading. We believe that we have identified the underlying cause of this problem and hope to have it resolved shortly. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused by this.

Update: Normal functionality has been restored and all web sites hosted on TMA03/Tsung should be back online. If you are still experiencing problems, please don't hesitate to get in touch with our support staff in the usual manner.

We are currently investigating Internal Server Error messages for PHP content hosted on TMA03/Tsung.

Update: This has been resolved and PHP pages are once again being served correctly. Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience and don't hesitate to let us know if you are still experiencing problems.

At 11:26 some customers will have experienced a brief disruption as we lost one of our connections to our upstream network providers. Our network automatically re-routed around this and full connectivity was restored via our other upstream network providers within 3 minutes.

We have seen the connection to the affected upstream provider return to normal, however we have manually disabled the connection whilst they investigate the cause of this issue. At this time the AS41000 network should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy.

Whether or not individual users were affected by this issue will depend on the route which their traffic takes to enter and leave our network. Customers whose traffic traverses our other upstream network provider under normal network operation would have seen no impact.

Update: The affected upstream network provider have confirmed that one of their core routers crashed and rebooted. They believe they know what caused this and are working with Cisco TAC to confirm. We have seen six hours of stable connectivity from this upstream network provider, so we have re-enabled our connection to them. Some traffic is once again flowing over their network and full redundancy has been restored on AS41000.

We will be carrying out some maintenance work on the connection to one of our upstream carriers for up to 15 minutes on 05/10/2012 between 22:00 and 23:59. During this time we will gracefully shut down the connection to this upstream network provider in order to prevent any disruption to client connectivity.

Due to the redundant nature of our network, we do not anticipate there to be any impact on customer services as a result of this maintenance. however during this time, connectivity should be considered "at risk" due to the reduced level of redundancy available across the network.

If you have any questions, then please do not hesitate to get in touch with our helpdesk.

Update: This maintenance work has been completed successfully and full redundancy has been restored to the network.