Monthly Archives: June 2013

Killin’ Zombie Bots DNS Style

The fun post title is the only thing fun about this. Unless you are in hosting, server admin, or run your own DNS servers this is going to be complicated, technical and boring.

First [is first ~LK]: an apology to any “upstream” DNS servers that our pet zombie bots may have passed bad requests to.  Like us, you probably didn’t know it was happening.

“What’s happening?!”
~ Dana (Dominique Dunne, Poltergeist, 1982)

Thousands Hundreds of thousands Millions Hundreds of millions of bad DNS requests.
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Yes, More Spam

It is not catastrophic, but there is an increase in the junk mail getting through.

Q: Why?
A: Because gmail, yahoo and aol have managed to get their servers listed in Uniform Resource Identifier Blacklist (URIBL) databases. **

The Q/A above leads to the P/S below (as distasteful as it may be).

Problem: gmail (google), yahoo and aol [and others] are URIBL blocked by the spam filters/servers, we all want email from our friends at gmail, yahoo and (yes, still) aol.
Solution: turn off URIBL blocking at the spam filters/servers. (Throw IN the bad bathwater with the good?)

Someday, maybe, the internet will be a better more friendly place to live.  Until then, a few more *Junk* emails every day.

** gmail, yahoo and aol do not provide ‘easy platforms’ for spammers, phishers and junk/bulk email proliferators; they get listed on these ‘block lists’ by their competitors, odd-balls that hate big companies and goofy, immature people that have nothing better to do.

6.18.2013 Finally…

Dear Diary:

June 6, 2013: need a new website for a customer.  “Let’s do wordpress!”  Boom #1: wordpress needs newer php.

June 6-8, 2013: Thinking, discussing, planning regarding: in-place updates never work.  “Just setup a new server all up to date and ready for wordpress.”

June 9, 2013: Smart I.T. peoples backup on Sunday, run a full system backup… Boom #2: backup hard drives marked “read only” (usually means damage or imminent failure).

June 9-16, 2013: 2 new (rebuild one, fire up and build the “backup equipment” been sitting idle since 2008 waiting for catastrophe) servers to dish DNS, one will be “live” server, one is a fall-back/backup.

June 9-16, 2013: The endless cascade of computer junk.  One thing leads to one more thing that reveals that other problem and so-on and so-on.

June 16, 2013 11:00PM: everything transferred from 3 servers onto/into the new pair.  Shutdown (shutdown -h now) “ninesix” (online since 1.2010) and “isp1100″ (since 2006?? 2005?? earlier??).  Unplug this, plug in that, check this check that… “Tomorrow, let’s do wordpress!”

June 17, 2013: Boom #3.  bind (DNS Server) SERVFAIL.  Zone file for MLD Computers ( mldragon.com, how cool is that ) marked with .err extension, all ‘other’ domains working (sort of), but DNS errors for one cause DNS errors for many.  Finally got passed bind/DNS problems (delete the zones and re-create is the hind-sight how-to).  ns3 DNS ports lost in the shuffle (they say forwarding and accepted, poof no reply).

June 17, 2013: Boom #4.  Lots of “little fixes” needed to make sites work/look like they used to.  All new server os and hosting software should not be mixed with all old web design.

June 18, 2013: Finally…
All of this and that and the others settled down enough: “Let’s do wordpress!”

So, testing it out here before trying on the customer site that started this ‘mess’ 12 days ago.