One of our back-end servers’ upstream providers recently experienced a widespread outage. We have routed around the server, and will be moving it to a more stable host as soon as possible. There will be no impact on network performance; this just temporarily reduces our back-end redundancy.

Servers will be rerouted on 2012-03-30 to improve network performance in the degraded state.

Update 2012-03-30 22:20 UTC Servers have been rerouted to a better-performing degraded state in order to better handle our high weekend load.

The server twilightsparkle.ponychat.net is getting IPv6 support. The server has been removed from the DNS pool. Once population on that server is reasonably low, it will have to be restarted to add the IPv6 address, as the provider requires a MAC address change to complete the allocation.

The change is planned for 2012-03-30 05:00, give or take a few hours.

Update 2012-04-02 03:53 UTC: The server has been rebooted and IPv6 support is activated in the IRCD. The server has been added back to the DNS pool.

Atheme (the software that provides ChanServ, NickServ, etc.) is being upgraded to the latest alpha. This will resolve several bugs as well as add several minor features. Downtime should be less than one minute, but may be as long as five minutes if something goes wrong. Normal chat will not be interrupted, but network services will be unavailable until the upgrade is complete.

The update will take place 2012-03-07 10:00 UTC.

Update 2012-03-07 10:50 UTC: The update was completed several minutes ago. Total downtime was less than 3 seconds, and all services are functioning as expected.

At 04:08:08 UTC on 2012-02-17, we detected increased latency on IPv6 SSL connections to rainbowdash.ponychat.net. The server has been removed from the DNS pool as a precaution while we investigate the cause of the latency.

Update 2012-02-17 04:22: Latency seems to have subsided. We will add rainbowdash.ponychat.net back to the DNS pool if the latency remains low.

Update 2012-02-17 04:25: Connectivity is fully restored and stable.

At 2012/01/31 23:56 UTC, our monitoring software detected instability in the connection of one of our back-end servers. Full connectivity was resorted in under five minutes. Unfortunately, one of the servers linked to that node missed a heartbeat, and was split from the network. We were able to reattach it without any trouble.

We will monitor connectivity for the next hour and route around the back-end server if it becomes necessary.

Update 2012-02-01 01:46 UTC: We are now confident that the connection is stable, as is our service provider.

We are upgrading our network services (Atheme, which provides NickServ, ChanServ, etc.) to the latest version. There are no big changes for end-users, just some performance enhancements and administrative features.

The IRC server twilightsparkle.ponychat.net is being moved from Panama to Japan. The server has been removed from round-robins for several weeks, so impact on end-users should be minimal. Once the new server has been tested and is ready to go, the old one will be removed and the host name’s IP address will be updated and added to the round-robins.

If you connect directly to twilightsparkle.ponychat.net, you will be disconnected when the server goes off-line. Because of DNS caching, you may be unable to reconnect for up to 5 minutes. If that is the case, feel free to use one of our other servers.

Update 2012-01-04 13:20 UTC: The new server has passed all tests and will be brought on-line shortly.

Update 2012-01-04 14:02 UTC: The new server is on-line and DNS has been updated. It will be added to the round-robin once we’re done making sure it is perfect.

Update 2012-01-04 15:09 UTC: The irc and irc.ipv4 round-robins have been updated with the new server’s IP address. We’re all done!

IPv6 support is being added to rarity.ponychat.net. The provider requires that the server be rebooted for configuration to take place. The server has been removed from round-robins. Once population is low, we will activate IPv6 support and reboot.

There should be no impact on end-users except for those connecting directly to rarity.ponychat.net.

Update 2012-01-12 20:09 UTC: IPv6 support has been activated on rarity.ponychat.net and the server is back on-line. It will be added back to the round-robins once testing and configuration is complete.

Update 2012-01-13 02:50 UTC: All tests and updates have been completed and the server has been added back to round-robins. The new IPv6 address, 2a01:7e00::f03c:91ff:fedf:bc02, has been added to DNS.

Linode is performing mandatory system maintenance on rainbowdash.ponychat.net’s server. Expected downtime is less than ten minutes. The server has been removed from round-robin lists.

Update 2012-01-03 06:38 UTC: Maintenance is complete and the server is now available for use.