[LINK] My Broken Internet
Roger Clarke
Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Thu May 20 11:28:52 AEST 2010
My xamax.com.au email also went off the air this morning.
That seemed consistent with a DNS-server problem within TPG (i.e.
slow propagation, through gradual rundown towards TTL = zero,
followed by failure to get access to the authoritative DN-server when
it needed it).
So I immediately called TPG and with two choices on the IVR talked
directly with TPG's front-line support person - I infer in the
Phillipines.
Credit where it's due - he had some clue, worked methodically, took
up contact with engineers once he'd done the first-level checks, and
wrote down things like the IP-address of the DN-server whose
cache-content I was suggesting was incorrect.
The first phone-call was 09:30 to 09:55.
At that stage, he asked for time for the engineers to do some more
investigating. (He didn't actually acknowledge that they knew there
was a problem to fix; but it seemed that way. He also couldn't give
me a docket or incident number. They run it all off the login-id -
which looks dodgy to me, but may be a pragmatic solution to an ISP's
problem management).
I checked every quarter-hour or so. At 11:20, it came good. I think
we can safely conclude that TPG's DB-server got poisoned somehow, and
no alarm bells rang anywhere.
Many thanks to the multiple linkers who contributed!
--
Roger Clarke http://www.rogerclarke.com/
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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