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GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? 201

Posted by kdawson from the time-for-a-change dept.
Several readers alerted us to this piece in PC World reporting on concerns that GoDaddy might not be ready for the DST changeover. Some readers, and others, claimed that GoDaddy's servers are not reachable now and are not serving email or web sites; but others see no evidence of this. The article recounts the rather flip response one GoDaddy customer got from their tech support: "As Daylight Savings [sic] does not apply to our servers, since we are on Arizona Time and our time zone does not change, our servers wouldn't update." When IDG News Service contacted GoDaddy they got an altogether more sensible reply.
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GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover? More

GoDaddy Bobbles DST Changeover?

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  • Timezones (Score:5, Informative)

    by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Sunday March 11, 2007 @02:20PM (#18309174) Journal
    For international services like domain registrars, switch to UTC already. Running the server on a local timezone will only lead to confusion.

    All my internet servers just use UTC. NTP synchronized, naturally.
    • UTC - for people who are too snobbish to use GMT
      :-)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
        Yeah, though in actuality, recalculations of the earth surface cased the Greenwich line to no longer run where it used to. It is a few meters away now. The trouble is that the earth hasn't got an exact centre to base measurements on.
        • looks like we're going to have to build a big machine to roll the earth back into a more spherical shape then :-O

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by David_W ( 35680 )

            looks like we're going to have to build a big machine to roll the earth back into a more spherical shape then

            Cool... maybe next we can build one to alter our rotation and have it be exactly one year, eliminating leap years. :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ucklak ( 755284 )
        I must be ultra snobbish as I only use Zulu time.
    • Ya but this is GoDaddy we're talking about here...I don't they even know what "UTC" is.
  • I dont understand, all that godaddy does is manage dns, web servers for parking space and basic MX services. How can someone fuck up with this kind of setup? Even if DST patches are off the only problem that i see is with

    1. DNS TTLs being incorrect.
    2. Your mail showing incorrect time
    3. Web server logs (who analyzes these anyway) showing an incorrect time.

    How can any or all of these bring down a site. WTF?
    • Well you see.... *points to elephant in corner* ====> who me? [linuxtoday.com]

      Tom
      • So, in other words they had a functioning Linux solution and they (apparently on purpose) migrated to Microsoft.

        Huh.
      • Heh... I know this is exactly what I thought when this happened. In fact, when they made that switch, I wondered how long it would take before this started happening. Looks like the issues have begun. And not only did they lose a ton of customers last month causing IIS's stats for active sites to plummet on the Netcraft Survey to plummet, this month looks to be more of the same. So much for GoDaddy's partnership with Microsoft being good for their customerbase (and their bottomline).

        Maybe they should thi
      • I just recently migrated a whole office over to the new DST settings. Basically followed the instructions on the Microsoft website, went with my brother and applied a registry hack to all the machines. In fact, if the domain had been set up properly, we could've had it automatically apply the patch to any Win2K box on the network as soon as it boots.

        I mean, never mind that the XP boxes and my own Linux systems have been wholly unaffected -- just grab the latest patches and you're good.

        But why is this hard f
        • Using tzedit changes not only DST for year 2005 till indefinite, it changes it for all previous years; so the worst case is your a criminal for altering legal documents.
    • It fall out of sink and replaces a new file with a old one.

    • Re:if there is a possibility for a screwup ... (Score:4, Informative)

      by brokencomputer ( 695672 ) * on Sunday March 11, 2007 @02:38PM (#18309366) Homepage Journal
      I called GoDaddy and they told me "we're having network issues. We've been having them for a while. I don't know when they'll be fixed but they should be soon." My site is now resolving ( http://wrongplanet.net/ [wrongplanet.net] ) but it wasn't resolving when i called. He didn't say anything about daylight savings time and some of my other domains with godaddy had no problems.
      • Cool - You run that? I have an Aspie gf - she loves it and I find it very useful too!

        To stay on topic ;) Neither of my GoDaddy domains suffered any issues..

    • Could be a Windows issue? Windows and PCs usually store local time, and map back to GMT through time zone info.

      Where as most UNIX installs, and PC-UNIX installs where you choose network time on install would work the other way.

      The important difference is GMT0 is network time, thus not calculating it once again has advantages. I have 3 un-patched systems running on the internet right now, all work just fine. Sure, a email header might be out an hour but it shouldn't make any difference.

      • Could be a Windows issue? Windows and PCs usually store local time, and map back to GMT through time zone info.

        Windows expects the hardware clock to be set to local time (mainly because that's all MS-DOS could understand, and so Windows follows suit). Windows does store time internally in UTC. So upon startup, it reads the hardware clock, converts it to UTC, and runs with that.

        I still don't see how a DST issue could cause this much havok for GoDaddy. Like others have said, there isn't much they do that s
    • This is not the first time GoDaddy has been discussed on Slashdot.

      MySpace and GoDaddy Shut Down Security Site [slashdot.org]
      GoDaddy Holds Domains Hostage [slashdot.org]
      Alternative Registrars to GoDaddy? [slashdot.org]
      etc.

      I've thought to myself many times before that I should move to a different registrar but I typically procrastinate. However this morning all the domains that I have registered were down due to GoDaddy's boo-boo and I've had it with them. A company that can afford to spend $2.4M for a superbowl commercial but can't proper
    • FWIW, I worked at Go Daddy for 4 years ending this last September; check my link for a resume if you wish.

      They do quite a bit more than just manage DNS, MX records and parked web servers. The founder called Go Daddy "The Walmart of internet services", or something like that; Which is pretty accurate.

      This article is specifically referring to the web hosting they do, and how the version PHP they're running does not seem to handle the new timezones properly. Hell if I know if that's true or not, but that's wha
  • IDG news service got a more sensible reply... which is...? Or is this a telepathic moment?

  • DST? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xandu ( 99419 ) * <matt@truYEATSch.net minus poet> on Sunday March 11, 2007 @02:23PM (#18309226) Homepage Journal
    The real question is, is the problem DST related, or is it a coincidence?

    Sure, it happened around the day of the change. Sure, they were pretty flip about responding to peoples' questions about their DST change readyness. But is it fair to jump to the conclusion that it [the outage] is because of the new DST rules? It could be that they are incompetent in other ways. ;-)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by drmerope ( 771119 )
      This whole article is bogus. GoDaddy started having troubles several days ago. It has nothing to do with DST. It does, however, demonstrate people's propensity to find evidence in mere coincidence.
      • Pfft. Clearly, GoDaddy knew that the DST changeover would be a problem, so they started faking network problems early on so that they could pretend that it was nothing to do with DST.

        If you'd been wearing your tinfoil hat, your brain would be unclouded by the control waves and you'd have been able to figure that out for yourself!

  • IntellAdmin blew it with their DST fix (Score:5, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Sunday March 11, 2007 @02:24PM (#18309246) Homepage

    Remember IntellAdmin [intelliadmin.com], offering a free DST patch for Windows 2000? Well, it doesn't work. I installed it on a Win2K system, and the time didn't change to DST. I contacted Intelladmin, and got "workaround instructions" (open clock, change to another time zone, change back, then reset the clock to the correct time.). It only changes to DST the next time you manually set the clock.

    So if you deployed this "patch" on your Win2K machines in a corporate environment, the time is going to be wrong when everybody shows up on Monday.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dr Caleb ( 121505 )
      "It only changes to DST the next time you manually set the clock."

      "So if you deployed this "patch" on your Win2K machines in a corporate environment, the time is going to be wrong when everybody shows up on Monday."

      The Microsoft KB articles said that was exactally what you would have to do with 2000 and NT4. Everyone seemed to think that we were changing the *time* early this morning. Well, we weren't, we changed *timezones*. On 2K and NT4 updating the timezone information only ocurrs when the timzone is

      • The Microsoft KB articles said that was exactally what you would have to do with 2000 and NT4. Everyone seemed to think that we were changing the *time* early this morning. Well, we weren't, we changed *timezones*. On 2K and NT4 updating the timezone information only ocurrs when the timzone is changed.

        Didn't anybody know what they were doing?
        I think you misunderstand what the patch is supposed to do. It's supposed to update when windows changes from *ST to *DT where * is Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific

        • "I just booted my Win2K laptop which..."
          You just answered your own question. Re-booting the system will cause the change to take effect, so W2K-Pro machines that were patched and shut down over the weekend should be OK come Monday. W2K Servers on the other hand which don't get rebooted all that often will need to be "prodded" in order for the update to take effect, if you haven't rebooted them since applying the update.

          • You just answered your own question. Re-booting the system will cause the change to take effect, so W2K-Pro machines that were patched and shut down over the weekend should be OK come Monday. W2K Servers on the other hand which don't get rebooted all that often will need to be "prodded" in order for the update to take effect, if you haven't rebooted them since applying the update.

            I think the issue here is that people are expecting the patch to change the timezone right away when they apply it, since we're a
          • OOPPS, I should have known when it was easier to fix the unsuported machine than the supported I'm sure I didn't reboot the win 2k server
        • It's clear the GP did not ....wait for it....T E S T

          Shame on him.
    • I hear that... My team installed that damn IntelliAdmin patch on over 100 Windows 2000 servers back in January, and it looks like most of them didn't update their clocks this morning. Almost all of those servers were rebooted when the patch was installed, too, since our server room had scheduled downtime for a planned power outage a few weeks ago.

      I guess that I can't complain too loudly, though. The patch was free, and we got what we paid for.
    • Okay, this thread desperately needs a knowledge-injection.

      (This is all based on Windows 2000/XP, I understand NT4 and Vista are similar, no promises for 9X.)

      Windows stores time zone information in two places. One is what Microsoft calls the "time zone database". This is the collection of all the time zones that Windows knows about. It's kept here:

      HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Time Zones\

      Now, when you set or change the local time zone, Windows copies the appropriate time zone table fro

  • Admitting it now (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rhyno46 ( 654622 )

    I can confirm that they were down, but it looks like they might be coming back up. Some of my hosts are responding now.

    For a bit, the GoDaddy support site mentions "technical difficulty". Godaddy.com [godaddy.com]

    The Internet Storm Center has notes, too: SANS Internet Storm Center [sans.org]

  • My Linux update (Score:4, Informative)

    by ortholattice ( 175065 ) on Sunday March 11, 2007 @02:38PM (#18309372)
    Here is how I updated a Linux machine (Debian Woody) for Eastern
    time, if anyone is interested.  Some of the information I found on
    thar Intraweb was, well, sloppy, and it took some trial-and-error.
    The following was exactly what I typed, and it "took" correctly
    this morning, with a nice 1-hour gap in the Apache log at 2am.  I
    don't know if this is the best way, but it worked.

      su -
        # root password, of course :)
      ls -l /etc/localtime
        # (mine said:  /etc/localtime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Eastern,
        # in case we have to reverse the procedure below)
      mkdir /root/dst2007
      cd /root/dst2007
      wget ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2007c.tar.gz
      tar -xzf tzdata2007c.tar.gz
      zic -d zoneinfo northamerica
      cd /usr/share
      mv zoneinfo zoneinfo.old
      mv /root/dst2007/zoneinfo/ .
      ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
      zdump -v /etc/localtime | grep 2007
         # (should include Mar 11 in listing)

    • And how I updated my box.

      root #emerge -uD world
      *waited a few mins*
      root #etc-update

      TADA!

      Tom

    • Re:My Linux update (Score:5, Funny)

      by cmcguffin ( 156798 ) on Sunday March 11, 2007 @04:21PM (#18310128)
      And to think that some people claim Linux isn't ready for the desktop! ;)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zCyl ( 14362 )
        Well, in Linux's defense, I updated my time on Linux by going to sleep, getting up, and seeing that all of my Linux systems were automatically working just fine. They had fixed themselves automatically with the new settings during an "apt-get upgrade" that I had run quite some time ago.

        The grandparent had to do the change manually because he was running a release from 5 years ago which had apparently not been updated in the intervening time. This would be like running Windows 2000 and trying to update to

      • And to think that some people claim Linux isn't ready for the desktop! ;)

        In retrospect, I should have made it very clear that my procedure was intended for an obsolete Debian version that is no-longer supported, and for that I apologize. (Great advocacy there, huh?) If you have a currently supported Linux, definitely do apt-get or its equivalent - and it will have already been updated for you if you have automatic security updates, as you should.

        My server has only been rebooted after power failures a

      • As you can see above in my response, I updated timezones in Debian by simply installing tzdata via automated installation... if I'd waited, tzdata might have been pushed out via automated update. I'll never know, I suppose.

        But this could equally well have been done via any of the Debian GUI installation tools that work with apt-get.

        Updating Debian for the new DST was a lot less work than installing the Windows fixes... which I had to find, download, install, and run. tzdata was a single command line co
    • Hum. That's pretty damn intuitive. However, it's better than the alternative: doing a time sync with microsoft.com still gives me the wrong time, and I can't sync with time.nist.gov right now. They must be having problems, too.
    • or a:

      apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

      bit shorter . . .
      • Precisely. The glibc update to fix timezones was pushed out on February 18, according to debian.org [debian.org].
      • For those running Sarge, apt-get is fine. However, updates have been discontinued for Debian Woody, since it is obsolete. But there is no other reason for me to upgrade, since everything else works perfectly on this server that just sits there humming along year after year. From debian.org itself: "Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 has been obsoleted by Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (sarge). Security updates have been discontinued as of the end of June 2006." So, I can no longer do apt-get, and the procedure I posted is th
    • I used my sig to update mine.
    • aptitude install tzdata

      Ortholattice, you worked way too hard. Before you do a source install in Debian, ALWAYS check the repositories.

      aptitude search tzdata

      It made the change without even a hiccup. I used the Karen's Power Tools update software to handle the Windows install in the VM... which also worked just fine.
      • Thanks for this information, although it's a little too late for me. :) For some reason I didn't see this in my Google search for how to do this update - maybe I didn't look hard enough - and otherwise I don't know how I could have known that "tzdata" was the magic package name. But I'll remember it for the next daylight savings time change. Live and learn. Anyway, maybe my procedure wasn't a total loss since at least one non-Debian user appears to have benefitted.
  • I have several domains registered with them using their DNS and I can tell you for a fact it was down for a few hours this afternoon, as were their account control pages. DNS is back up now, haven't tried to log in to my account.
  • At least they didn't fumble or bobble the Fingle dopple!

  • Uhh.. Whats not "sensible" about that answer? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I live in Arizona.

    I'm a Unix admin for one of the largest ISPs in the state. We're an AIX house.

    I can't speak for our Windows bretheren, but our AIX boxes required absolutely no patching. Our servers calibrate against a UTC source, and the patch IBM offers only affects the optional right-hand portion of $TZ in /etc/environment...A field that doesn't exist if you're MST-7 w/o DST.

    GoDaddy's response is entirely sensible.

    The only thing not "sensible" here is that you have a bunch of clowns in Congress making d

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 )
      I can't speak for our Windows bretheren, but our AIX boxes required absolutely no patching. Our servers calibrate against a UTC source, and the patch IBM offers only affects the optional right-hand portion of $TZ in /etc/environment...A field that doesn't exist if you're MST-7 w/o DST.

      GoDaddy's response is entirely sensible.

      Unless, of course, people try to connect to their server from outside of the timezone, say on a website that takes the current time converts it to the user's timezone (set by a cookie or

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ebcdic ( 39948 )
        Over here we have devices called "clocks" and don't need web pages to tell us what the time is. And how is a web server supposed to *know* what time zone I'm in? This sort of thing should be done on the client side if at all.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Qzukk ( 229616 )
          And if you look at your clock at 5, and then send a message on your girlfriend's blog/mailserver/etc that you'll be at omegaburger in two hours and want to grab dinner together, and your girlfriend looks at the posting time of your message (4), and then at her clock, your burger is going to be mighty cold by the time you get there.

  • Did anyone else read the title wrong? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ghoser777 ( 113623 ) <fahrenba@ma c . com> on Sunday March 11, 2007 @03:25PM (#18309752) Homepage
    I swore it said GoDaddy Boobies Changeover.
  • Why on earth would servers have to know about everyone else's timezones? I don't see everyone here in the UK patching their servers because parts of the US have changed their timezone rules. If Azerbaijan changes their timezone rules, they don't start having problems because no-one in the US knows about it.
  • I've been trying to get onto yahoo mail all day and it craps every time. Something says they didn't apply the DST fix to their old windows boxen!
  • My XP laptop dutifully adjusted this morning, but I wasn't really expecting it to. I checked time.gov at about 8am Eastern to find out the time, and it disagreed with the laptop so I set the laptop back an hour. It wasn't until I read the good old-fashioned clock on the microwave that I realized time.gov was wrong. By that time, time.gov had been corrected.

    What's more, the local TV station's website was two hours off, so that really convinced me that time.gov was correct at the time :-)

    Did anyone else no

  • This morning, March 11, some of our Go Daddy services came under significant and sustained distributed denial of service attacks resulting in intermittent disruptions of various services, including shared hosting and email.

    Our Internet Security and Network teams immediately invoked counter-measures to respond to these large scale, sophisticated attacks.

    After 4-5 hours of intermittent disruptions of various services this morning, including shared hosting and email, the attack was contained.

    Our Inter

  • I've talked to several people this morning whose web sites were down for a few hours over the weekend -- and their DNS and hosting are managed by companies other than GoDaddy. They're mostly smaller regional ISPs rather than national names, but still. A few national donation systems for nonprofits were unresponsive or very sluggish yesterday morning, as well.

    At my organization, we applied all of Microsoft's patches to our servers and we STILL have DST issues... our I.T. guys worked all day yesterday to m

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