easyDNS Blog - Status

DNS usage counts back: May numbers borked

nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:05:53 -0400

We've re-enabled access to viewing your DNS query counts online.

Unfortunately, the May numbers are out of whack: you'll see a large spike in your query counts between May 12 and May 19 which is actually each day's total carried forward and added to the next. This was due to a parser bug caused by a change in the output log format.

Sorry for the on-again/off-again nature of this feature and we should be good to go now.

Comcast blocking catch-all wildcard e-mail addresses, and some advice..

nospam@example.com (Simon Carr) — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:47:27 -0400

Update: Catch-alls originating from EasyDNS to Comcast are now once-again unblocked. That being said, please minimize your usage of catch-all wildcard e-mail addresses where you can. It's good practice!

Original Post:

Greetings,

Comcast is currently blocking "catch-all" wildcard e-mail addresses originating from EasyDNS. If you have a wildcard e-mail address set up at EasyDNS, and that wildcard e-mail address points to a Comcast destination address, it will likely end up blocked, by comcast.

Important note: This block DOES NOT impact regular mail forwarding for target-specific e-mail address mailmaps.

The best solutions are to a) use a different destination service provider to funnel wildcard e-mail address at, or b) create specific mail-maps for those important addresses. The immediate fix to get your catch-all e-mail working again is to log in to your EasyDNS account, and edit the e-mail address your catch-all points to, to point at a provider other than Comcast.

We are working diligently with Comcast to get our catch-all processing system unblocked, but in the mean time, they are still blocking us.

Now, with all that being said...

A lot of people use wildcard e-mail addresses to "combat" spam, by creating unique e-mail addresses for every sign-up form. While that does have a limited positive impact for personal filtering, it just leaves you open to dictionary attacks and other uglies, like e-mail backscatter.

Catch-all wildcard e-mail addresses are generally a bad idea, because what they really do is increase your volume of spam exponentially. When you have a wildcard e-mail address implemented, spammers can send to any username at your domain, and our mail servers will accept it, and forward it on. So they don't even have to guess right!

My advice? Don't use part of your domain as a spam shield. You pay good money to own that property. It's impossible these days to keep your mail pristine, but using throwaway addresses in your own domain-space just opens you up to even more spam in places you don't want it to be.

- Do have a throwaway address.
- Don't host it in your domain-space.

If you need a semi-disposable address, GMail provides an excellent service. I wouldn't otherwise suggest you "point your spam at host X" but Google seems to eat it up.

Bug fixed for some dynamic DNS clients

nospam@example.com (Mark Jeftovic) — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:15:20 -0400

If your dynamic DNS client suddenly started having trouble sending updates over the last few days it is probably because your client does not support SSL connections and it was encountering a "302 found" response from our end redirecting it to an https address which it couldn't follow.

That should now be fixed and dynamic updates should be working as expected.

We're sorry about any glitches this would have caused.

Hat tip to former easyDNS partner Colin Viebrock for the clue.

Updated: Members site maintenance: February the 7th 2009

nospam@example.com (Simon Carr) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:46:42 -0500

UPDATE: We are pushing this update to February the 7th 2009, at 10:00pm EST

Original notice below;

Greetings,

On Saturday January the 31st, 2009, at 10:00pm EST, the EasyDNS admin team will be doing maintenance on our retail members interface. This maintenance will impact members site access and dynamic DNS requests.

DNS queries, mail flow, and web forwarding services will not be impacted.

This maintenance will take between 40 minutes to as long as two hours.

Relay of email to AT&T mailservers...

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:23:00 -0500

We are aware of an issue with our primary mailservers relaying email forwarded emails to destination email addresses within the AT&T network due to a block on their end. Affected destination email address domains are:

@bellsouth.net
@sbcglobal.net
@pacbell.net
@att.net
@ameritech.net
@swbell.net
@prodigy.net
@snet.net

Our sysAdmins have routed email to non-affected mailservers which will allow email to go through, and we are in contact with AT&T to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

Update: re ns2 timeouts

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 05:54:48 -0500

The issues we experienced with timeouts when querying ns2.easydns.com were cleared up as of approx 3:45pm(EST) on Tuesday Nov 11.

We are still working with our provider to determine the root cause of the issue.

ns2 timeouts

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:16:00 -0500

We have been experiencing intermittent connecvtivity issues with
some of the nodes in our ns2.easydns.com anycast cluster.

We have escalated the issue to our providers and are working with
them to resolve the issue.

More info will be posted as it becomes available.

thank you
easyDNS

Gmail currently not accepting email...

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:49:06 -0500

We have received various reports of delays to Gmail email addresses from our customers. Upon further investigation, it would appear that the Gmail mailservers are deferring most, if not all, email that is relayed to them starting this morning at 10am EST. This has been confirmed via the easyDNS mailservers, and external mailservers maintained by our sysAdmins.

Thankfully, as Gmail is deferring emails, they are not being lost, rather, they are being cached upon the sending mailservers until the admins for Gmail can correct this issue. easyDNS, by default, will retain email for up to five days, and hopefully the Gmail service will not be affected that long.

We shall update this post upon receiving further information, and apologise for the inconvenience.

mailout.easydns.com virus scanning

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 09:48:46 -0500

In an effort to enhance our mailout service and ensure its continued reliability , we have added virus scanning. All mail relayed through mailout.easydns.com will be subject to virus scanning.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact easyDNS support.

Barracuda Mail Issues

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 16:34:35 -0500

We have been experiencing issues with relaying mail to users
utilitizing Barracuda RBLs and SPAM filtering devices.

We are aware of the issue and are escalating with the people at
Baracuda.

More info will be posted as it becomes available.

We do apologise for the inconvenience.

thank you
easyDNS

Renewal notices sent without domains names by registry.

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 16:15:41 -0400

There have been several notices sent during the last 24 hours concerning 5 day renewal warnings that did not contain the domain name of concern and were left blank.

--------------------------------------------------------
FINAL NOTICE! The domain(s) listed below are expiring in 5 days.

If you wish to renew this domain, please log into
your easyDNS members section immediately to remit payment for the renewal invoice.

If your domain is not renewed within 5 days, it will be de-activated and service for your domain will cease. At that point, you will have 40 days to renew the domain (at which point it will be re-activated). If it is not renewed within the 40 days, the domain(s) will no longer belong to you and will become eligible to be re-registered by another party.

If you have any questions, please email support@easydns.com.

Domain Name, Expiry Date

--------------------------------------------------------------

This has been caused by a registry error and we have been assured that the notices will be sent again very soon
and they will contain the domain name proper as was originally intended.

we do apologise for any inconvenience.

thank you
easyDNS

New phishing scam

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:59:52 -0400

A new phishing scam has hit the circuit requesting that domain holders login to correct errors in their whois records.

as example.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear user,

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:42:40 -0500 we received a third party complaint of invalid domain contact information in the Whois database for this domain Whenever we receive a complaint, we are required by ICANN regulations to initiate an investigation as to whether the contact data displaying in the Whois database is valid data or not. If we find that there is invalid or missing data, we contact both the registrant and the account holder and inform them to update the information.

The contact information for the domain which displayed in the Whois database was indeed invalid. On Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:42:40 -0500 we sent a notice to you at the admin/tech contact email address and the account email address informing you of invalid data in breach of the domain registration agreement and advising you to update the information or risk cancellation of the domain. The contact information was not updated within the specified period of time and we canceled the domain. The domain has subsequently been purchased by another party. You will need to contact them for any further inquiries regarding the domain.

PLEASE VERIFY YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION - http://www.yourregistrar.com

If you find any invalid contact information for this domain, please respond to this email with evidence of the specific contact information you have found to be invalid on the Whois record for the domain name. Examples would be a bounced email or returned postal mail. If you have a bounced email, please attach or forward with your reply or in the case of returned postal mail, scan the returned letter and attach to your email reply or please send it to:

Attn: Domain Services 14455 N Hayden Rd Suite 219 Scottsdale, AZ 85260

LINK TO CHANGE INFORMATION - http://www.yourregistrar.com

Thank you,
Domain Services

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the link http://www.yourregistrar.com will send you to one of several fake registrars login interfaces and ask you to input your user ID and password.

Please be aware of any email you receive that look similar to the above message in any way and bring them to the attention of your ISP and report them as phishing scams.

thank you
easyDNS

Yahoo email forwarding service restored...

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:50:35 -0400

The issue we were experiencing with a delay in relaying email to Yahoo email addresses has been resolved, and email should be relayed without issue. We apologise for the inconvenience.

If you continue to experience an issue with email forwarding to your Yahoo email address, please contact Support (1-888-677-4741).

Email Forwarding To Yahoo Addresses Delayed

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:40:00 -0400

We are currently investigating an issue with Yahoo throttling email being forwarded from us.

Any email that is not being accepted by Yahoo at this time will be queued on our mailservers until delivery is successful.

This will result in a longer than usual relay time.

We are endeavouring to resolve this issue, and apologize for any inconvenience.

smtp/smtp2.easydns.com IP change

nospam@example.com (easyDNS Support) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:03:58 -0400

Greetings,

The IP addresses of our mail servers, smtp.easydns.com and smtp2.easydns.com, are changing this weekend, on Sunday October 5th 2008 at 9:00am EST

The old IPs are;

smtp.easydns.com - 205.210.42.52
smtp2.easydns.com - 205.210.42.53

The new IPs are;

smtp.easydns.com - 64.68.200.52
smtp2.easydns.com - 64.68.200.53

This change should not impact forwarding or backup MX and should be transparent to you, the end user.

If you have IP based ACL lists that filter mail, you may want to update them. Ideally though please use the hostname rather than the IP in any mail ACL situation, as our IP addresses associated with smtp.easydns.com and smtp2.easydns.com may change in the future without notice.