I am Kabaka, one of the server administrators that keeps the PonyChat IRC Network running. One of my jobs is to help maintain our web chat interfaces, including the Iris interface. Recently, you may have noticed a long Iris outage. This was the result of a small oversight in one of my server management tools.

The host for the Iris server, Linode, informed me via email that the server that hosts our account needs to be taken off-line for maintenance, so our account was being moved to another server. In preparation for that outage, I ran a tool which automatically removes servers from the global and regional IRC pools. The Iris server happens to be on Rainbow Dash (rainbowdash.ponychat.net), which is the server that Linode plans to take off-line.

Until I had discovered the error in my tool, the de-pooling process simply removed all references to the target server from our DNS records. In other words, anything that pointed at the server (except the exact server name) was deleted. As part of that process, iris.ponychat.net was automatically removed. This seemed like a great idea when I wrote it.

I have repaired my tool — it will now correctly remove servers from only the irc.* host names.

In any event, I am very sorry about this downtime. Because the problem has been repaired, it should not be repeated. I have also created additional server monitoring tools which should almost immediately alert staff to any similar problems.

And because of the upcoming maintenance on Rainbow Dash, we have already (prior to this slip-up) begun working on bringing up a second Iris server so that, baring something incredibly unlikely, we always have at least one Iris node available (and my de-pooling tool’s action would have been correct).

Thank you for bearing with us through this downtime. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me or any of the other staff.

Had a record breaking turnout thanks to the guys running the show over at bronystate.net. Many piled in for the live streaming of the new Luna episode, the network didn’t even break a sweat. Thanks to everypony who participated!

Our terms of service is now live and can be viewed by clicking “Network Rules” from the navigation. You can also view our full up-to-date server information from the “Server Information” link. Finally, staff page should be up within the day. Hope everypony had a great OCD Twilight Sparkle day.

Here’s a warm welcome to the new PonyChat webpage from your resident pony webmaster. The obvious thing you’ll notice is that a lot of the navigation links don’t function at the moment. They will gradually crop up over time when I get around to finishing them and some empty spaces around the page will be used. I’ve also noted some slight compatibility issues with older browsers, I’ll look into that. Now I’m just a cog in this machine, but there’s an awesome team that made all this possible so kudos to everypony. For now, below is a quick summary of the hostnames you can connect to.

irc.ponychat.net
rainbowdash.ponychat.net
fluttershy.ponychat.net
applejack.ponychat.net
twilightsparkle.ponychat.net
rarity.ponychat.net

Ports: 6666-6670, 7000, 7001
SSL Ports: 6600, 6697, 6698

You can connect to the network using our Iris and LightIRC web clients respectively. You can also download a standalone client such as mIRC or xchat and connect using the hostnames listed above

Bear with us while everything gets situated. Servers and services are currently all online and functioning 100%. We are now in the final stages of ensuring everything is stable. A full website is in development as well and you can expect to see that in the future.