Washtenaw County's website is down
This story was updated at 3:36 p.m.
Washtenaw County's website is down, preventing public access to the functions on the site and affecting staff email access.
"All of eWashtenaw.org is currently unavailable from the outside, but all township websites are still working," according to an email from Dale Vanderford, county infrastructure manager.
The county has a temporary web page on its site while the regular page cannot be accessed.
The cause, Vanderford said this afternoon, is that the domain name was not renewed with the provider.
"It just expired," he said.
The renewal appears to have slipped through the cracks as the county experienced employee turnover, Vanderford added.
So far, the renewal is int he approval process. He hopes the site will be restored by this evening.
Meanwhile, multiple county email functions are affected, Vanderford said.
Employees appear able to send email, but county employees are not receiving external email or able to use webmail. Emails on mobile devices are not accessible.
Comments
Steve Pierce
Thu, Aug 11, 2011 : 11:29 p.m.
The county should also get DNS servers on separate address blocks and should have more than two DNS servers for better reliability. - Steve
Epengar
Thu, Aug 11, 2011 : 2:22 p.m.
Shouldn't this story, or at least the headline, be changed to show that the site is back up, and has been since late yesterday?
Abe Lincon
Thu, Aug 11, 2011 : 8:01 a.m.
I actually work for a major hosting provider with millions of domains. I know their registrar (eNom) very well and they were notified about the upcoming expiration. They were even asked to verify the contact information was still good to avoid future delays in dealing with domain information. Domain Name:EWASHTENAW.ORG Created On:09-Aug-2000 20:45:08 UTC Last Updated On:10-Aug-2011 20:48:19 UTC Expiration Date:09-Aug-2021 20:45:08 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR) $ dig -t mx ewashtenaw.org +short 10 mail.messaging.microsoft.com. Your mails complaining were queued and delivered sometime this evening. (not before being mined by Microsoft though) Before I'm labeled a hacker, all of the above information is public without a request. Else if not, all our mail would have a hard time rounding the planet. Full DNS report available here <a href="http://pastebin.com/c77J9VYC" rel='nofollow'>http://pastebin.com/c77J9VYC</a> and could use a bit of TLC.
E. Daniel Ayres
Wed, Aug 10, 2011 : 9:55 p.m.
Sheesh! At least no scammers tried to offer the county a renewal on a 10-year registration. I have a name registered with the original registrar for all names and some con artists in Canada sent me a bill for a renewal before it was due without making it clear that they were not the provider of record for my domain. I was just back from surgery and paid their statement before getting another notice from the original provider. What a mess that was to clean up. Fortunately no one's email was disrupted by the problem.
Andy Brush
Wed, Aug 10, 2011 : 8:44 p.m.
The DNS has been updated and we expect things to filter back through the internet starting now and everything will be back to normal within the next few hours. The issue was that the domain name ewashtenaw.org that we purchased 10 years ago expired It has been renewed for another 10 years and we will be changing DNS providers to one that offers 24/7 support. We apologize for the fact that we have to learn our lessons at the expense of our employees and citizens who rely on our services. Andy Brush IT Manager Washtenaw County
Andy Brush
Thu, Aug 25, 2011 : 5:24 p.m.
Nice comment
Charles
Wed, Aug 10, 2011 : 8:17 p.m.
Your ISP or previous Domain Name Provider should have notified you of the pending DNS expiration. You might consider changing providers.
Eric J. Klooster
Wed, Aug 10, 2011 : 7:25 p.m.
The problem with the Domain Name Service provider is that the name was not renewed and expired (for whatever reason).
Walter
Wed, Aug 10, 2011 : 7:13 p.m.
Thanks, Paula. Its good to know it isn't just me.