Network Solutions DNS Outage on January 18, 2006

A short while ago I found that I couldn't access my website. I then discovered that I couldn't retrieve IP addresses for any of my domain names for which I have DNS service from Network Solutions. Network Solutions is probably the largest domain name registrar in the world. I've been using GoDaddy primarily for registering domain names for quite some time, since their service is as good or better than Network Solutions service and they are a lot cheaper, but I still have some domain names registered with Network Solutions.

At the Internet Storm Center (ISC), I found a posting from Swa Frantzen at 2006-01-18 17:14:32 UTC regarding reports that Network Solutionsworldnic DNS servers are not responding to name queries. Network Solutions name servers have names of the form nsxx.worldnic.com, where xx is some number.

I called the Network Solutions customer support number. I heard a recorded message stating that they are experiencing a widespread outage and are working diligently to resolve the problem, which is their highest priority at the moment. There was no estimated time for restoring service.

The 24 x 7 Network Solutions support numbers are as follows:

In the U.S. and Canada call:
1.888.642.9675 (General Support)
1.866.391.HELP (Technical Assistance)

Outside the U.S. call:
1.570.708.8788

I first noticed the problem at noon US EST. At 12:55 PM EST, the problem was resolved. I could then successfully lookup IP addresses for domain names hosted with Network Solutions. I don't know when the problem first started, but it appears to have taken at least an hour to resolve (I'm presuming I didn't see it at the exact moment it started).

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Auotmatically Starting Apache When the Server Reboots

If you wish to have the Apache web server software start automatically when a Solaris 2.7 system reboots, you can create a script with root ownership in /etc/rc3.d. Start the script's file name with Sxx where xx is a number not already being used in a filename for an existing script in the directory. For instance, if you have S34dhcp already in the /etc/rc3.d directory, you shouldn't use S34httpd, but you could use S88httpd, if S88 wasn't already used as the start of some other script name. The text that comes after the Sxx part of the name is arbitrary. You could call it S88httpd, or S88apache, or whatever else you choose.

You then need only the following line in the file to have Apache start automatically, presuming apachectl is located in /usr/local/apache2/bin.

/usr/local/apache2/bin/apachectl start

You can then change the permissions on the file to make it executable, though I found Apache was still started with permission settings of 644, i.e. "-rw-r--r--".

chmod 744 /etc/rc3.d/S88httpd

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