We will be taking the following servers offline for about 10-15 minuets each tonight (Tuesday July 1st, 2008) between the hours of 11:00 and 00:00 to apply an urgent security patch released yesterday for these servers.

alder.forest.net
balsa.forest.net
cactus.forest.net
columbia.forest.net
date.forest.net
durian.forest.net
grapevine.forest.net
helpdesk.forest.net
honeysuckle.forest.net
jasmine.forest.net
palm.forest.net
rosemary.forest.net
sage.forest.net
sherwood.forest.net
smtp.forest.net
spruce.forest.net
tangerine.forest.net
thyme.forest.net

Update: The date for these update has been changed to July 2nd, 2008 during the same timeframe.

One of our mail servers, smtp.forest.net, is down to investigate recurring problems. We hope to have the server back up within an hour to ninety minutes. Thanks for your patience.

Update (4:38AM PST): smtp.forest.net is back up and running.

Last week the mail server "smtp.forest.net" crashed and required being rebuilt from backups. This server acts as an outbound relay for hosting servers' mail, the primary mail server for our domain "forest.net", as well as handling mail for many of the clients that used to be customers of Ninewire Digital Solutions, a company we acquired in 2005.

One of the features offered to Ninewire customers was custom, third-party "skins" on their webmail. We updated the mail server software last year and since then the skins have proven problematic and unstable. We made the decision during the rebuild to not re-install any skins beyond the half-dozen ones included in the default install. We apologize if your favorite skin is no longer supported, but overall we feel that the long-term stability of the mail server is more important than the look & feel of a minor component. We hope you understand and agree.

Regards,
Chuck Goolsbee
VP Tech Ops
digital.forest