6to4 Relay Activated

Roller Network has activated a 6to4 relay on one of our border routers.

We have several customers using 6to4 addresses, so instead of relying on public relays for this traffic we will now originate it ourselves. Scanning through the logs and performing a traceroute/ping on several of them revealed working connectivity, but in the event of any trouble with 6to4 addresses, please report it to us.

POTS Line Work

We will be doing some unplanned work on our POTS lines throughout the day. Our call volume is typically extremely low and while we will endeavor to keep interruptions to a minimum, if you do happen to call us with a “ring no answer” please wait a few minutes try again. No services will be affected other than our main voice phone number.

UPDATE: This work has been completed. (16:41)

Last Days of Summer Colocation Specials

Through December, Roller Network is offering special deals for new colocation customers who sign a minimum of a one year contract with us for shared space, half racks, and full racks.

  • $0.15 per PSU watt in shared space (“green” discount for 80PLUS equipment)
  • $500 for a 20A 208V single-phase outlet on half or full racks
  • $800 for a 20A 208V three-phase outlet on half or full racks

Remember that Roller Network rack space is always free of charge. This gives you the freedom to colocate more servers with a three-phase PDU than our competitors who start you off with a underpowered 120V circuit at the same price, then charge you extra for additional outlets. With us there are no hidden fees or underpowered racks.

We’re also offering general term discounts on all colocation services:

  • 40% off for 3 months on a 2-year term
  • 30% off for 2 months on a 1-year term

These offers also include 2 megabits of committed rate bandwidth or 4TB of metered bandwidth for free! A metered PDU is included with setup for half and full racks. Free setup for shared space colocation. Contact us today at sales@rollernet.us or +1-775-284-0383 to see how you can take advantage of these special offers.

Invoice Numbering Change

We’re changing the format of our invoice numbers to make them friendlier for our customers. For a long time we’ve used the format “Rxxxxxx” where the R was followed by a unique identifier. In practice, however, it’s not the most popular format: it’s long, contains letters, and it’s hard to read back over the phone. As such, invoices will now be generated using a simple number as their invoice ID.

  • Old Format: #R4c1a8a99b4ada
  • New Format: #10000

Our testing hasn’t turned up any problems, but there’s always a chance when making a change to a very old system that something can be overlooked. If you notice any problems with these new numbers please let us know immediately. Thanks!

Minor ACC Changes

We’ve moved a couple of the items around on the main menu of the account control center:

  • The “Mail Domain Tests” and “Service Alerts” items were previously under the Tools section, these are now under Mail Services.
  • The “Server Information” page is now part of “My Account”

Certainly not major changes, but if you’ve become accustomed to seeing these under the Tools section we didn’t deleted them from the system.

Roller Network Hosting NCET’s Tech Wednesday

Roller Network is pleased to host NCET, Reno Tahoe’s premier technology and entrepreneurial networking event, for Tech Wednesday on August 18, 2010. For more information on this event or to RSVP please visit:

http://www.ncet.org/ncets-tech-wednesday-roller-network-reno-aug-18/

Global Crossing IPv6 In Service

We are pleased to announce that our native IPv6 connection to Global Crossing is now officially in service. It’s actually been in service since June, but there were a few changes that had to be made before we could make it official.

DNS Exit Breaks IPv6

We were troubleshooting DNS for a customer who has the domains hosted over at DNS Exit over the last couple of days and couldn’t seem to nail down why we here at Rollernet couldn’t resolve their DNS reliably, if at all. After much extended testing, we eventually tested from a site that was IPv4 only and discovered this:

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.dnsexit.com.        28800   IN      A       69.57.160.118
ns1.dnsexit.com.        28800   IN      AAAA    ::1
ns2.dnsexit.com.        59400   IN      A       64.182.102.188
ns2.dnsexit.com.        59400   IN      AAAA    ::1
ns3.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      A       67.214.175.73
ns3.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      AAAA    ::1
ns4.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      A       67.214.161.154
ns4.dnsexit.com.        57600   IN      AAAA    ::1

There’s the problem: delegations to the IPv6 loopback address. This is not something we would ever expect to see. It can, in fact, be damaging because an IPv6 resolver may try to query itself (localhost). As such, we are strongly recommending to all of our customers (plus anyone in general who is interested in working with IPv6 or may use an IPv6 network) to stay clear of DNS Exit at this time.

We try not to recommend one provider over another, but in this instance the localhost AAAA delegations are too egregious of an error to ignore. As far as we are aware only DNS Exit does this, so any of their competitors should be a suitable replacement.

New: Alternate IP Filters for Outbound Mail

Our outbound accounts have long been configurable with one IPv4 and one IPv6 address or host name lookup (A or AAAA). A couple weeks ago a situation was brought to our attention that caused a conflict: end sites with a different failover IP. In order for these sites to work, you’d have to log in and change the filter to the failover IP and then back again later to the primary IP.

To fix this we have just released a new addition of an alternate IP filter setting for both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses.

Alternate IP Filter Settings

This setting works in conjunction with the original primary filter setting to specifically resolve the issue of business customer sites with a failover circuit, and is available on accounts with a service level of Standard and above.

VeriSign Price Increases

Effective July 1, 2010, VeriSign has increased the pricing for .com and .net registrations. As such, our new prices for these domains will be:

.com    $11.60
.net    $9.50

Only these two VeriSign TLDs are affected. All others remain unchanged.