I’ve had to reconfigure my mail server to stop it from being exploited by spammers and causing it to get “IP blocked”.

It can take up to 72 hours for the changes to take effect. i.e. to “propagate”.

Until then, application forms, contact forms, and notifications from contact forms, blogs, discussion lists, and message boards not only won’t work, but they are lost in the ether, never to be recovered.

Unfortunate, but unavoidable.

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There are some more problems with the server.

This time it’s with the mail server and the IP address.

Application forms, blog notifications, message board notifications are not coming through.

I’m working on the problem at present and will post an update when there’s more news.

Sorry about the inconvenience this is causing.

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A massive thank you to everyone who responded to my call for donations in order to gather enough money to hire a Linux expert to fix the PRODOS server.

I’ve written back to everyone personally.

What we’ve found is that the there was no root hacking of the server.

What happened was there was a “security hole” in a program that I use on one of the project sites which allowed some spammer to use the server for sending out LOADS of spam and thereby crashing the server. I think that’s how it was explained to me.

There’s still more work to be done on closing security holes and upgrading stuff, but I can now get back to organising more SOLID VOX shows, and working on the campaigns.

PS: Death to spammers!

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It looks like the server and all PRODOS project sites have just come back online – including this blog, which allows me to leave this message!

We’ll see how the system behaves over the next 24 hours.

[Later note, Friday 9 AM: The server is working, but there is still some security hole that's allowing an exploitation and using up the server's resources. I'm continuing to look into it.]

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Still trying to locate the cause.

Unfortunately, due to lack of money at the moment I can’t hire a Linux expert to look into this (they’re expensive!), so I’m relying on friends what I can do myself.

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The PRODOS server crashed earlier this morning. I haven’t been able to establish the cause. I’ve been able to get it back online. While it was down, PRODOS project sites, application forms, and contact forms were unable to connect.

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