Empowering Media: Customer Service Blog

Achilles Server Maintenance

Zachary — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:09:18 +0000

Friday January 20th from 1am – 2am we will be performing server upgrades on the Achilles server. The server will be inaccessible for 1 hour during this time.

Kernel Update CentOS 4 and CentOS 5 Instances

Larry — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:25:17 +0000

We are performing a kernel update for all CentOS 4 and CentOS 5 instances. The upgrade will occur on January 16th from 10p – 11p EDT. It is expected each instance will be unavailable for less than 15 minutes each. We need to perform this update to ensure the security of the kernel.

End Of Life For CentOS 4

Larry — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:35:39 +0000

CentOS support for version 4.9 of the operating system ends February 29th, 2012. This means any updates to the various system software, including kernel, will end after this date. Ideally this means you should be contacting us to upgrade your instance to a newer version of CentOS. We officially support CentOS 6, and will be sending out a formal notice soon. We also offer CentOS 5, if any customers wishes to use that platform instead.

We will best support CentOS 4.9 for the next 3 months past this EOL date. We will continue to update the software we maintain in-house. Though any security issues, normally released by the vendor, is not our responsibility. Three months after this date we ourselves will not be performing any updates to the CentOS 4 distribution. We suggest updating as soon as possible, and work with us on a smooth and scheduled update process.

To check what CentOS version you are running you can do so by running on a ssh command line:

cat /etc/redhat-release

If unsure what version of CentOS you are running on your instance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Selene Emergency Maintenance

Zachary — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:21:18 +0000

Today on January 9th we are performing emergency maintenance on selene to resolve file system issue.
We are working to have services restored as soon as possible.

node04.dc1 Emergency Maintenance

Larry — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:19:54 +0000

Today on January 5th 2012 from 11pm – 12am EST node04.dc1 will be unavailable. During this time the following instances will not be available:

achilles
affiniti06
affinwww99
geckodes00
lunchbox01
windhamp00

Our last efforts to update the RAID controller’s firmware to resolve the issue did not occur. We need to perform an emergency replacement of the RAID controller. The RAID controller is experiencing timeouts with multiple hard drives. Downtime should be less than the hour allotted.

node04.dc1 Emergency Maintenance

Larry — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:19:17 +0000

On December 26th 2011 from 11pm – 12am EST node04.dc1 will be unavailable. During this time the following instances will not be available:

achilles
affiniti06
affinwww99
geckodes00
lunchbox01
windhamp00

We need to perform an emergency firmware update to the RAID controller. The RAID controller is experiencing timeouts with multiple hard drives. Downtime should be less than the hour allotted.

Loki Server Maintenance

Zachary — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:39:04 +0000

Saturday December 24th from 1am – 2am we will be performing server upgrades on the Loki server. The server will be inaccessible for 30-45mins during this time.

Server Migration

Zachary — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:39:57 +0000

Saturday, November 26th from 10pm-2am EST we will be migrating pan to a new server.
The following sites will be unavailable during this time:
hostasite.com
supportem.com
empoweringmedia.com

NS1 Now Changed To New IP Address

Larry — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 04:36:47 +0000

We have successfully changed ns1.empoweringmedia.net and ns1.hosted-sites.net from the old IP address 64.147.107.3 to 107.22.166.155. We have automatically changed DNS who use us for DNS resolution.

For customers who use our name servers, but mask our name servers with their domain, we have adjusted accordingly. More than likely you will still need to update your registrar with the new name server IP address. This issue primarily affects resellers who have their own name servers, and not using either empoweringmedia.net or hosted-sites.net. Please make this change ASAP as the old name server will remain live until the end of next week.

For reference, please visit our knowledge base page for the current list of name servers:

http://supportem.com/kbase/article/00026

NS1 IP Address Change (Please Read)

Larry — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:37:08 +0000

On Saturday November 12th 2011 10:00PM till November 13th 2011 2:ooAM EST we will be changing the IP address of ns1.empoweringmedia.net from 64.147.107.3 to 107.22.166.155. During this time you may experience some delay in DNS resolution, but our other name servers will be online and functional. During this time changes to DNS will be unavailable until the new ns1 instance is online. We will keep both name servers active, so actual downtime should be kept at a minimum.

For any customer who is using us for DNS resolution we will be making the appropriate changes, and no change is required on your part.

If you are a reseller and using our name servers for resolution, you will need to adjust your DNS records to reflect the new IP address.

This is of our part effort in distributing DNS throughout the world, and with various providers. Ns1 will be located in Virginia using Amazon’s EC2 cloud service. Ns3 is located Texas with the cloud provider Linode. Ns2 and ns4 are at our datacenter facility in Long Island, NY. At a later date, Ns4 will be migrated to a, yet to be determined, provider in California.

If you have any questions regarding this migration, please don’t hesitate to contact us.