Does anyone know what has happened to Openhosting these last few days? The servers have been down for a few days now, and noone has contacted me as a customer yet...

Since I need a working site, can anyone please suggest another (not expensive) host that charges annually. And that in a hurry...

/ Jonas:confused:

http://www.ghoulnet.com/

It is kinda worrying that Openhosting have let there servers be down so long.

Yes it is... don't really know what has happened...

The most worrying thing for me anyway is that business mail to my domain aren't getting where they are supposed to go... I can live with my site being down for two days, but not my mail...

/ Jonas

I'm in the same boat. :/
my webby is hosted with them.. and i've recieved no word about why their servers are down. :mad:
I'm hoping they havn't run off with my money!

Does anyone know any way to contact those behind Openhosting besides E-mail, which obviously don't work?

I am beginning to get a bit annoyed anyway... I am also considering reversing the charge made to my credit card for the webspace. I have paid for a year, and not for a few months...

/ Jonas

Sorry .. \i wouldn't mind giving them a call either..
.. but i've only got e-mail contacts. :erm:

Have your tried whois'n domains that they own to get some contact information?

Regards

Craig

Here's the info....
no real information.. apart from that e-mail. But i'm uncertain as to whether i'd just be e-mailing an employee of Fasthosts , the guy who uploaded the new dns information.. or the guy we actually want to contact.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Domain Name: OPENHOSTING.CO.UK

Registered For: Adam Saunders

Domain Registered By: FASTHOSTS

Registered on 01-May-2000.

Record last updated on 24-Mar-2001 by "robcrack@cableinet.net".

Domain servers listed in order:

NS1.OPENHOSTS.COM 212.69.234.193
NS2.OPENHOSTS.COM 212.69.234.194

WHOIS database last updated at 18:35:01 22-Jul-2001
----------------------------------------------------------------------
anyway .. it's l8 .. so I'll let it lie till the sun rises oncemore.

Registrant:
OpenHosting
1 Lincoln Court, Duchess Way
Stapleton
Bristol, BS16 1BX
UK

Domain Name: OPENHOSTS.COM

Administrative Contact:
Saunders, Adam admin@openhosting.co.uk
1 Lincoln Court, Duchess Way
Stapleton
Bristol, BS16 1BX
UK
07970 913325

Technical Contact:
Fasthosts, Domain Admin Team domains@fasthosts.co.uk
154 Southgate Street
Discovery Court
Gloucester, GL1 2EX
UK
+44 (01452) 541499

Billing Contact:
Saunders, Adam admin@openhosting.co.uk
1 Lincoln Court, Duchess Way
Stapleton
Bristol, BS16 1BX
UK
07970 913325


Record last updated on 21-Jul-2001.
Record expires on 09-May-2002.
Record Created on 09-May-2000.

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.OPENHOSTS.COM 212.69.234.193
NS2.OPENHOSTS.COM 212.69.234.194




Adams mobile number is there.

Hi, newbie here, I am in the same boat, they seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I've been using their forum lately and no mention of any problems on there, infact they very recently redesigned their front page. :confused:

We also have a domain with them and up until the DOS attacks last week had been 100% happy with them, this really worries me ! I think they share rackspace with Vibus (http://www.vibus.net), but they are having no problems. Anyone have any contact with Vibus, ask them if they know anything ?

Originally posted by MaareK
[COLOR=seagreen]Here's the info....
no real information.. apart from that e-mail. But i'm uncertain as to whether i'd just be e-mailing an employee of Fasthosts , the guy who uploaded the new dns information.. or the guy we actually want to contact.[/COLOR

Nope... this is just a domain that was registered through UKreg by the looks of it (hence the fasthosts IPS tag)...

Any problems they are having are unlikely to be related to Fasthosts unless there is an issue relating to the domain name that has made Ukreg take it offline.

OK a quick update, I've just spoken to Adam, they haven't done a runner with our 20 quid a year lol :D

They had a severe attack (excuse my pigeon tech talk, I'm no techie) apparently they were attacked by 250 servers and they just couldn't handle this one.

Anyway, to save myself further embarassment by trying to explain what Adam said, I'll just leave you with the fact that he is HOPING to be back up by tomorrow, maybe tonight.

I had a feeling it had to do with the DDoS attacks ! I know that there are limited things you can do in this situation, I wish them the best of luck !!

We have had a line of bad luck streaks last week and all rolled into a major disaster.

..We have had a nightmare. Our server had been DDoS'd over the last 2 weeks which it was happy to handle until Thursday night when the DDoS peaked and perminately brought the server to its knees..

..We learnt on the thursday that the "code red" internet worm was causing, on top of it all, just under 250 other servers to DoS the server. We patched the server which didn't seem to make any difference.

The intense attack (we have had DoS in the past, but this was unbelievable) completely corrupted IIS, and the SAM database on the server meaning that we couldn't even log into the server. :(

Friday was spent trying to get to the data on the server, which we were able to do. Saturday we had to make a completly fresh backup of all the data because disk issues had caused problems with the RAID services.

We had to wait for Vibus to re-build the server which they have taken way too long to do (?). They tell me that they had some issues with the build and are now sending extra reinforcements from belfast to help out.

I haven't been too happy with their responses or reactions to this disaster.

I've been promised that the server will be back up tonight.

Mark and myself have created a set of scripts that will allow us to recreate all the webs, FTP, Mails etc within about an hour.

We are all now waiting for Vibus to get themselves sorted out.

Adam! you're here, lol sorry I was sooooooo bad at explaining what the problem was, I am so not a techie! lol

Did you run down the road to the nearest internet cafe? ;)

I think running off a bridge would be more constructive :( We don't seem to be able to do anything except pester Vibus to get the server up pronto!

I wish I could show how sorry I am to all our members about the events that have taken place...

The trouble is that now our reputation is going to be cursed because of the line of events that has just hit us. We learnt much from the last few days and know that this type of situation will just make us stronger and better.

By the way, Vibus aren't to blame for this. They have been very good prior to this event, and I'm sure that are doing everything they can to get the openhosting server back online as quickly as possible.

This whole situation is more of a case of bad luck because of the series of problems that were to unfold at the same time.

Lets hope plenty of good luck will follow.

Let's hope so Adam :) I've never had a problem with your services until you had this trouble and I've been with you for about a year now.

Keep up the good work and as my old gran used to say, don't let the b*****ds grind you down (well ok she didn't say that exactly, but you get the picture ;) )

Good luck Adam...

Hope the situation gets sorted soon...

Glad to hear you haven't done a runner Adam ;), Look forward to the return of service. A great relief to me and others that use your service, shame I had to Search with Google to get this info though, it's bin a worrying few days for all. Good Luck with the re-build.

James

Server is coming alive tonight!!... Thanks to Jonny and Pete at Vibus.. :D

Seems that the server was in a complete state after the attack and so they have spent tons of time and money getting it fixed.. NOW THAT'S COMMITMENT!

Given that things have picked up just thought I'd offer a little wisdom for future emergencies...

You might want to keep some kind of backup plan handy as well as a copy of all your customer emails as by the look of various NG's the server downtime hasn't been explained to quite a few clients.

From the look of one or two more vitriolic complaints a number have gone to trading standards to find out what's going on... :blush:

Bottom line... communication fell apart somewhere... dunno why and I'm sure it wasn't deliberate but for future reference I'd do your damndest to ensure that an explanation of the problem reaches your clients before they make up their own minds and walk... i.e. within 24 hours.

Anyway, like I said, constructive criticism and all the best getting yourself sorted out again.

This was another piece to the puzzle..

We lost our backups when the server went down as it was downloading at the time. We made the mistake of not making incremental backups (stupid mistake) and so didn't have any of the contact details until we could get to the server.

It was one event after another.. someone didn't like us last week!

The scripts are running, and the sites are being rebuilt as I type.

Yup ... It's back
Thanks Adam ... although keeping your clients details on a server that's open to attack is surly never a good idea. :D
they'd probably be safer stored on some form of removable media.
then you could get to them in an emergency such as this. and let us know what the hell was goin' on. :stickout

neway .. fixed now ... so I (along with many of your clients) are happy now.. so there's no need to form a linch mob to hunt you down.

No more need for the linch mobs.. :cool: