Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 23:34:07 -0500 (EST) From: BCPLNET SysAdmin To: BCPL.NET News Subject: [BCPL.NET NEWS] E-Mail Interruption Update -------------------------- E-MAIL INTERRUPTION UPDATE -------------------------- This is an update of the BCPL.NET News message I sent out at 9:51 AM this morning (Thursday December 22). In that message I mentioned that the mail queue on the Barracuda Spam & Virus Firewall had built to about 30,000 messages, but as of the time of that message the Barracuda appeared to be processing it normally. I also mentioned that it would take a long time to process that amount of mail and deliver it to your mailboxes. That turned out to be the understatement of the year. Not long after I sent that message the Barracuda bogged down again. The technicians at Barracuda Networks babysat the Barracuda via remote login for the rest of the day, prodding it when it slowed down. The good news is that at 10:45 PM they called me to report that the processing of the queue was almost complete. By the time you read this all e-mail that had been trapped in the queue will finally have reached your mailboxes. As far as we can tell, none of the queued mail was lost. The bad news is that the technicians decided at about 8:45 PM that our Barracuda has hardware problems and is beyond repair. They will be shipping a replacement out tomorrow, but warned that due to the holidays it may not arrive until early next week. As a temporary work-around I have reconfigured our DNS records so remote mail servers will now deliver mail directly to our main mail server (mail.bcpl.net), bypassing the Barracuda. This will keep incoming mail flowing normally, but it puts us back to where we were a year ago before we installed the Barracuda. This has two adverse consequences for your e-mail: 1. It provides only minimal protection against spam. You will probably receive a lot more spam than you are used to between now and early next week when the replacement Barracuda is installed. 2. It provides no protection against viruses transmitted by e-mail. If you have anti-virus software on your computer, please make sure its virus definitions are up to date to ensure that you are fully protected against virus infection. If you don't have up-to-date anti-virus software, be VERY wary of e-mail with file attachments. DO NOT open a file attachment unless the sender is known to you AND you are expecting a file attachment from that sender. I know this has been a trying situation for all of you, especially for those of you who depend on your BCPL.NET e-mail for communication with your families and business associates. Hopefully the worst of it is over. Thanks to all of you for your patience and understanding. If you have any questions about this, please contact the BCPL.NET Help Desk at 410-887-3297 or help@bcpl.net. Chip -- BCPL.NET INTERNET SERVICES 320 York Road Towson, MD 21204-5179 U.S.A. Web Site: http://www.bcpl.net Who To Contact For What: http://www.bcpl.net/contacts/