LINX connection down

Due to a suspected fibre cut, our connection to LINX (London INternet eXchange) is currently unavailable. This is causing some partial contention on internet traffic and a change in normal routing paths. Please bare with us while repairs are made.

Update @ 12.28: Engineers are due to arrive on-site at 13.30.

Update @ 13.44: An Engineer arrived on site in Birmingham and carried out an OTDR on a spare fibre, the location of the break is 86 KM outside of Birmingham.

Update @ 15.04: Fibre break localised to the B5066. Replacement fibre and crew on route to site ETA - 16:00GMT

Update @ 16.23: Engineers have arrived on site and are working on the issue.

Update @ 4.43: Fibre has been restored and LINX connections are coming back up. Fix was delayed due to the extreme weather conditions in the Birmingham area.

Slow broadband speed issues

There is currently a slow speed fault affecting one of the links that connects us to BT's Wholesale broadband network. Engineers are investigating this and attempting to fix it. Please bare with us.

Update: The issue was resolved at 18:20.

ZyXEL 660 Provision Utility v1.0

The ZyXEL 660 Provision Utility from Bytel allows you to configure a new or factory defaulted ZyXEL 660 router in just moments for either normal Bytel broadband service or the Bytel/Atlas Middletown broadband service.

Download (559KB)

Outage Update :: INEX/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: INEX
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage :: INEX/ping

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: INEX
Service: ping
Status: down

New Features

New features on the Bytel Members Area, and this one has been a long time coming:

• DNS Editing - Edit the DNS for any domain hosted on Bytel's DNS servers.

Changes to Domain Renewals

We've made some long needed changes to the way domain name renewals are handled. From now onwards when you receive your domain name renewal notice it will contain a unique link to the Bytel members area. This link will allow you to pick what domains needs to be renewed, and our system will then automatically renew those domains without the need for human intervention as the old methods required.

Example email

Emergency Outage Notice :: LINX

We have been notified by one of circuit providers that our LINX connection may be going down for a few hours tonight. Actual impact should only be a momentary blip while traffic re-routes to our other connections.

Start Date/Time: Tuesday 25th August 2009, @ 00:00
End Date/Time: Tuesday 25th August 2009, @ 06:00

Ulster Bank Phising Scam

From Wikipedia: In the field of computer security, phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

This morning we have witnessed a number of emails purporting to be from Ulster Bank, and claiming that your account has either been compromised or that someone is attempting to log into it, and asking you to verify your details.

No bank, including Ulster Bank, will ever ask you for your online banking login details. If you receive one of these emails do not respond to it and do not click on any links included. If you are worried about the security of your account or have any reason to suspect a problem you should contact your bank immediately.

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

Outage Update :: INEX/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: INEX
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage :: INEX/ping

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: INEX
Service: ping
Status: down

Transit Issue

Currently one of our main transit providers, Cogent, is having problems in Dublin. This in turn is causing some slowness as traffic has to pass through our remaining links. We will update this entry as we hear more.

Update: Cogent have told us that they are currently flying in replacement equipment and are still working hard on the problem.

Update: Current ETA for the service returning to normal is now 19.30.

-- Rick

Members Area :: New Features

New features on the Bytel Members Area:

• Tools :: DSL Checker - One-shot check for ADSL and SDSL service with a great deal of detail.
• Tools :: Postcode Map - This interface provides access to our postcode plotting database.
• Tools :: Whois - Look up registration details on domain names and IP addresses.

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

Members Area :: New Features

New features on the Bytel Members Area:

• Colocation - A graph of power usage over the last 24 hours has been added to the profiles for colocation servers and racks.
• Broadband - The broadband section will now show a Google map of the estimated location of the line based on the recorded postcode - handy for resellers!

DDoS Attack

http://members.bytel.net.uk/node/66On the 13th May 2009, between 4pm and 9pm, Bytel was subjected to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack by malicious persons unknown. This attack saturated all our available incoming bandwidth at that time across all our connections. This caused severe disruption and packet loss for all customers.

In order to mitigate the attack we increased our available bandwidth to customers in order to exceed the volume of the attack. This proved successful.

We are continuing to monitor our connections and also are conducting an analysis of the attack in order to build into future response plans.

The graph below shows the extent of the attack, compared to our normal traffic levels before and after.

We apologise for any and all disruption that this may have caused and please do not hesitate to call your account manager if you have any further questions or queries.

Outage Update :: mx2.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx2.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: br1.heron.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: br1.heron.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Members Area :: New Features

New features on the Bytel Members Area:

• You can now view details regarding your broadband connections (when installed, what product you currently have and estimated speed on Max) and your passwords.
• You can now set-up reverse DNS entries for your broadband connection's assigned IP addressess without having to contact support.

Outage

Good afternoon,

Firstly we apologise for any inconvenience that the fault affecting your service may have caused earlier today . This fault was due to a switch issue that affected some of our VLAN traffic. This had the effect of diverting our traffic to our resilient provision which will have slowed all traffic down as this is by far the busiest time of the week for this traffic.

We will continue to micro monitor the network and once again our sincerest apologies.

Many Thanks

Iain Kay

Senior Sales Networks Division

Members Area :: New Features

New feature on the Bytel Members Area:

• For datacentre customers, you can now set your own custom notes and/or name against your remote control sockets.

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage Update :: br1.heron.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: br1.heron.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage Update :: br0.heron.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: br0.heron.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage Update :: cr0.heron.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: cr0.heron.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

Outage Update :: web1.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web1.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage :: web1.bytel.net.uk/ping

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web1.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: down

Outage Update :: web1.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web1.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage :: web1.bytel.net.uk/ping

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web1.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: down

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

Members Area :: New Features

New features on the Bytel Members area:

• Broadband: Perform a basic connectivity test of ADSL lines.
  This will attempt to determine if the line is logged in, if it can be pinged and will test for simple faults. If you have a Bytel supplied ZyXEL router it will also attempt to retrieve the sync speed from the router.
• Hosting: Change DNS servers at registrar.
  This will allow you to change the DNS servers of any domains registered through Bytel.

Outage :: Armagh and Monaghan

This morning's outage in Armagh and Monaghan appears to have been caused by the failure of a switching board in Armagh, which partially disabled two seperate circuits. Traffic to customers in Armagh was re-reouted by 11am across alternative circuits, but the outage in Monaghan (not affecting the MTEK service or Middletown ADSL2+ service) is ongoing while our engineers work on replacing the faulty equipment.

-- Rick

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

Global Routing Instability

Yesterday at around 16.30, a global routing instability incident occured. A small company called Supro in the Czech Republic began announcing a routing path far in excess of the limits allowed in the specification and caused a great many companies worldwide to suffer until the cause was found.

A full analysis has been posted at the Renesys Blog.

Outage Update :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: up

Outage :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: down

Outage Update :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: up

Outage :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: down

Outage Update :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: up

Outage :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: down

Outage Update :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: up

Outage :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: down

Outage Update :: web1.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web1.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage Update :: ns1.bytel.net.uk/dns

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns1.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: up

Outage Update :: ns0.bytel.net.uk/dns

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns0.bytel.net.uk
Service: dns
Status: up

Outage Update :: ns0.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: ns0.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage :: ns0.bytel.net.uk/ping

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: ns0.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: down

Outage :: web1.bytel.net.uk/ping

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web1.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: down

Outage Update :: nas1.backup.bytel.net.uk/ftp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: nas1.backup.bytel.net.uk
Service: ftp
Status: up

Outage Update :: nas1.backup.bytel.net.uk/ping

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: nas1.backup.bytel.net.uk
Service: ping
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: down

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: down

Outage :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: down

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/pop3

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: pop3
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Outage Update :: mx1.bytel.net.uk/smtp

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: mx1.bytel.net.uk
Service: smtp
Status: up

Service Notice :: Potential Degraded Service on 1st Feb 2009

Due to essential maintenance work on our network, there will be potential degraded service for our network, broadband and hosting customers on Sunday 1st February, 2009. This will be for around 1 hour between 9am and 5pm.

Please note that we will still continue to offer services to the internet during this period and we do not expect a loss of service.

-- Rick

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down

New Support System

SSadly recent updates to our support system software of choice (Accord5 Trellis) have rendered the email functionality nearly useless, as it is unable to comprehend emails from a wide variety of email clients.

We have reinstalled and migrated to an older but much more reliable support system, OTRS, the latest versions of which are ITIL compliant.

Hopefully this will make our email and phone support faster and less prone to error.

PS - The web interface will be at http://support.bytel.net.uk/. The old address will remain available for retrieval of old support tickets should it be necessary.

-- Rick

Outage Update :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

The outage has now been resolved. Normal service should resume shortly.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: up

Outage :: web2.bytel.net.uk/http

A failure has been detected as below. Engineers have been notified and are currently investigating the problem.

Device: web2.bytel.net.uk
Service: http
Status: down