tnolen, Author at Network Solutions, Inc.

Planned Maintenance

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing a planned maintenance on Birmingham-Alabama
Access Router 1. The work will be performed on 11/18/2010, during the maintenance
window of 12:00AM-6:00AM, local time. AT&T's goal is to successfully complete the
task and restore service within the stated time frame.

We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience.
We expect service to be impacted somewhat during the maintenance window.

AT&T Engineers will be performing an IOS upgrade.

tnolen2011-10-25T19:52:11-05:00November 3, 2010|News and Updates|Comments Off

The Domain Name System (DNS) is the “phone book” of the internet. Computers don’t understand web addresses like https://www.netsolinc.com. They understand IP addresses. In the same way that you use a phone book to retrieve a phone number by a person’s name, DNS changes web addresses into IP addresses. For instance, https://www.netsolinc.com gets changed to http://74.252.14.254.

The speed of your internet experience can be greatly influenced by DNS. If your computer is taking a long time to look up names, then sites will load slower. Most pages will reference many addresses, and each of those addresses will need to be checked with DNS. If DNS is slow, then each of those checks contributes to a slower page load. For years, we at Network Solutions, Inc. have been utilizing a free service called OpenDNS. OpenDNS is a company which provides free, fast, and reliable DNS. They have some premium offerings as well, which can let you customize your internet experience. The addresses of their servers are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220. All you have to do to take advantage of their speed and reliability is use those numbers for your DNS servers.

Since the Domain Name System is basically your link to finding sites on the internet, it can also be used to filter bad sites. OpenDNS also offers a free service call Family Shield. To utilize this service, all you do is use 208.67.222.123 and 208.67.220.123 as your DNS servers. Using those servers, sites with adult content, anonymizers, and phishing get automatically blocked. Using this service, you can worry a lot less about what content your child is viewing on the internet.

We hope these suggestions can bring better performance and/or a safer internet experience for you and your computer.

tnolen2012-11-14T15:34:40-06:00July 15, 2010|Documentation, FAQ|Comments Off

Web Server Problem

We are experiencing a problem with one of our web servers. The issue was caused by a failed security update. Sites affected by this issue may get an error saying that a required PHP component is not installed. We are working to resolve this issue. 7:15am

Update 7:31am: Some sites are back online. We are still experiencing issues with the server, but on most sites those issues should be unnoticeable.

Update 7:55am: We have gone through all the sites on the server, and they all seem to be functioning properly. We are still getting some errors on the server, which we will be working to correct, but in the mean time, all sites are online.

tnolen2011-10-25T19:53:41-05:00June 29, 2010|News and Updates|Comments Off

Spam Server Problem

One of our spam servers had an issue overnight. It did not thrown any alarms because the service was “partially” running. We noticed more spam than usual making it through the system this morning, so we did some checking. After reviewing the message headers, we determined that the spam getting through was not actually being checked by the system. Upon further investigation, we found a server malfunctioning. The issue has been resolved now, so your spam levels should return to normal.

tnolen2011-10-25T19:53:49-05:00June 22, 2010|News and Updates|Comments Off

Virtual Private Server Issue

We are presently experiencing issues with one of our virtual server hosts. We are working on resolving the problem. Some customers with VPS’s are affected.
Some websites (hosted on virtual servers) are also affected.

We will post updates here. 2:56pm

Update: The problem is stemming from a failure of the shared NAS which hosts the virtual server storage. Efforts are underway to restore NAS service. 3:39pm

Update: Most VPS are back online. We are checking all servers individually to make sure they are operating properly. 3:47pm

Update: Looks like all VPS machines are up and accounted for. We are working on finding cause. The NAS networking shut down, and that caused the VPS’s to not be able to write to their filesystems. We are not yet sure why the networking failed on the NAS. 3:54pm

tnolen2011-10-25T19:53:57-05:00June 17, 2010|News and Updates|Comments Off

Planned Maintenance

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing a planned maintenance on
Birmingham-Alabama Gigabit Access Router 1. The work will be performed on 7/1/2010,
during the maintenance window of 12:00AM-6:00AM, local time.
AT&T's goal is to successfully complete the task and restore service within the
stated time frame. 

We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience.
We expect service to be impacted somewhat during the maintenance window.

AT&T Network Engineers will be performing an IOS upgrade.

Please Note: This maintenance is IN ADDITION TO the planned maintenance on 6/18/2010.
The work on 6/18/2010 will be done on Birmingham-Alabama
Gigabit Access Router 3, while this is being done on Router 1. The notice for that
maintenance can be found at https://www.netsolinc.com/planned-maintenance.

Update: The 7/1/2010 maintenance has been rescheduled to 7/6/2010.  The
maintenance window is the same as is the scope of work.

Update: The 7/1/2010 maintenance which was moved to 7/6/2010 has been moved again.
The new maintenance date is 7/9/2010.  The time window and the scope of work
remains the same.

Update: The maintenance was completed.  Service was affected in the expected manner
and we had some degradation of performance from 2:25AM to 3:05AM CDT.

tnolen2011-10-25T19:54:06-05:00June 17, 2010|News and Updates|Comments Off

Intrusion Detection Policy

1.0 Overview
This policy provides policies to establish intrusion detection and security monitoring to protect resources and data on the organizational network. It provides guidelines about intrusion detection implementation of the organizational networks and hosts along with associated roles and responsibilities.

2.0 Purpose
This policy is designed both to establish procedures for notification of affected clients in the case of an intrusion event.

3.0 Scope
This policy covers every host on the organizational public network.

4.0 Objectives

Increase the level of security by actively searching for signs of unauthorized intrusion.
Prevent or detect the confidentiality of organizational and client data on the network.
Preserve the integrity of organizational and client data on the network.
Prevent unauthorized use of organizational and client systems.
Keep hosts and network resources available to authorized users.
Increase security by detecting weaknesses in systems and network design early.

5.0 Requirements

All systems accessible from the internet must operate IT approved active intrusion detection software.
All host based and network based intrusion detection systems must be checked on a daily basis at a minimum and their logs reviewed.
All intrusion detection logs must be kept for a minimum or 30 days.

6.0 Notification

Any suspicious or malicious activity reported by a third-party must be investigated and responded to immediately.
Upon completion of investigation and resolution of the issue, the reporting party should be notified of said resolution.

7.0 Responsibilities

The network administration team shall:
1. Monitor intrusion detection systems both host based and network based.
2. Check intrusion detection logs daily at a minimum.
3. Determine approved intrusion detection systems and software.
4. Act on reported incidents and take action to minimize damage, archive any hostile or unapproved software for investigation, and recommend changes to prevent future incidents..
5. Notify affected clients as to the extent of intrusion, resolution, and plan for future preventative action.

tnolen2011-10-25T19:44:44-05:00June 11, 2010|FAQ|Comments Off

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