Recently in Technical Support Category

Summary: Nothing. After the downtime on Monday and Tuesday we put a new Mail system in place that deals with POP and IMAP. it's more robust, faster for you and for us. It's better in many different ways than the old one.
There is a slight drawback -  you can no longer send e-mail without explicitly turning on SMTP authentication in Outlook, Apple Mail etc.

We have gathered a few articles for you to help you out on this:

1) https://support.blacknight.ie/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=472
    - this gives you instructions on how to enable this in most common e-mail clients.

OR

2) http://wiki.blacknight.com/index.php/SMTP
    - this gives you a list of SMTP servers for most Irish ISPs, down the bottom is a link to a page that has a list of ISPs for many ISPs outside of Ireland.
An ISP is the company that provides your broadband, cable, dsl, dial up, satellite net connect etc.

I've requested that a newsletter go out to all customers with the above information in it as a technical notice for the next few runs.

Update: 09:35

Webmail users using Firefox 4 or IE 7 or above can use our "alternative" webmail application here: https://altmail.blacknight.com

Due to some issues with staffing levels this week we will be offering a reduced level of technical support on LiveChat.
Our technical support team will be working primarily on tickets submitted via our helpdesk (and email)

Our sales and billing teams will be available on LiveChat as usual during Irish office hours

Apologies for any inconvenience

As Christmas is next week here are our opening hours over the break:

Friday 24th December 2010 - 0900 - 1300
Saturday 25th / Sunday 26th December - closed.
Monday 27th / Tuesday 28th December 1200 - 1600
Wednesday 29th, Thursday 30th, Friday 31st December - 0900 to 1800
Saturday 1st January 2011 and Sunday 2nd January 2011 - closed
Monday 3rd January 2011 1200 - 1600
Tuesday 4th January 2011 - normal office hours resume

NB: We have staff on duty 24/7/365. If you have a dedicated server or colo please refer to the "out of hours" contact details

And, in case we forget, have a good break!

One of our core philosophies has always been to run a "clean" network where feasible.

With that in mind we have recently started contacting clients whose websites appear to be compromised with malicious content.

We are using Google's Safe Browsing Alerts service to track malicious activity across our entire network (as members of RIPE we run our own network and are not relying on a 3rd party)

One of the best ways to avoid these kind of issues is to keep any software on your site (and your computers) up to date and change your passwords regularly.

Related articles

• Google Launches Phishing Alert Service (securityweek.com)
• Google Adds Phishing URL Alerts Into Network Tool (nytimes.com)
• Google To Warn Admins Of Malware Infestations (informationweek.com)
• Google rolls out phishing URL alerts for admins (go.theregister.com)

Summary: We've added further RBLs to our mailservers. We do operate an SMTP AUTH by-pass mechanism so if you're having trouble sending e-mail please turn SMTP authentication in your e-mail client.

The follow KB article will give you instructions on how to do this for most clients:

https://support.blacknight.ie/472/smtp-authentication.html

Since tomorrow is St Patrick's Day, which is a national holiday in Ireland, our offices are open, but for a reduced period

Our offices will be open between 1200 and 1600

Dedicated / colo clients - please use the out of hours emergency number outside those hours.

Due to adverse weather conditions in Carlow and other parts of Ireland we have been forced to close our offices temporarily.

As a result of this we will not be offering telephone support today.

If you need technical support please email support@blacknight.com

If you have a dedicated server or colocation with us please use the out of hours number

Further details here

Summary: We are currently being attacked by a massive DDOS, several million packets per second. This has taken us partially and intermittently off the air this evening between 19:45 and 20:10.

Right now it's peeling off as we've blackholed the traffic and our upstreams are also aiding us in our defence.

We'll post more updates as we have them.

2130 The situation is currently stable and has been since around 2015. Our technical team are monitoring the situation closely

As this weekend is a Bank Holiday in Ireland our opening hours are slightly different

Sales:
Friday 31st July 2009 - open
Saturday, Sunday, Monday - closed
Tuesday 4th August - open

Accounts (Billing)
Friday 31st July - open
Saturday, Sunday, Monday - closed
Tuesday 4th August - open

Technical Support
Friday 31st July - open
Saturday 1st August - 12.30 - 1630 (email / live chat - no phone support)
Sunday 2nd August - 12.30 - 1630 (email / live chat - no phone support)
Monday 3rd August - 12.00 - 1600 (email / live chat - no phone support)
Tuesday 4th August - open normal hours (8am - 7pm)

Emergency Technical Support
If you have a dedicated server OR colocation you should have the emergency number for technical support which is available 24/7. If you have misplaced the number let us know