NEWS UPDATE
Breaking news and outages

2008 is the 10 Year Anniversary of MonkeyBrains

Mon Apr 28 22:11:24 PDT 2008

MonkeyBrains is adding a gigabit link to Global Exchange in May, 2008! Also, we signed paperwork for one more cabinet with TelX today. Right now, we have 10 racks with XO, 6 with TelX, and 6 with DRT/UL. With extra space, we can offer you a stellar deal on colocation!

Sun Apr 6 22:19:05 PDT 2008

Site redesign by Rudy due to finally realizing the old site was too 1990s. The site now uses Javascript!

Fri Apr 4 13:59:01 PDT 2008

MonkeyBrains has moved into the TelX space at 200 Paul Ave and has rented 5 cabinets of space. TelX manages the Meet-Me-Room at 200 Paul Ave.

Sun Mar 2 18:08:14 PST 2008

New dialup system! Test users Erin and James report faster connections speeds -- thank you both for the feedback. Under this new system, you can connect through one of MANY numbers. CLICK HERE for the list of numbers. Dialup will now be $10 per month. Special offer: If you pay a year in advance (as in not late, as in you are already caught up in your bills), it is $100/year. Write "Year of Dialup" in your check memo.

Wed Feb 20 13:27:45 PST 2008

The 415 dialup number is off-line. I called XO and have a trouble ticket open with them... Just now, they called back to state that all 415 for all their customers are OFFLINE. MonkeyBrains buys phone lines from XO and has 4 phone numbers which can be used to connect to our bank of 48 modems. Visit the support page if you wish to use the 650, 408, or 510 numbers. Hopefully, this will be resolved in the next few hours.

Mon Mar 19 15:35:29 PDT 2007

Existing customers: "Want SHELL access?" email Rudy. PINE, netris, nethack, lynx, gopher, IRC, all in ASCII waiting for you.

Fri Feb 23 11:52:02 PST 2007

Monkey Brains has grown to 15 racks of equipment. Our newest full rack customer is occupied by linefeed.org and some IndyMedia servers. Welcome to MonkeyBrains. Alex (Monkey Brains partner) is on vacation! Other news:
  • we have colocation space available near 6th and Brannon Street and in 200 Paul Ave.
  • Monkey Brains has been building more dual-core systems -- AMD and Intel versions
  • XO had a power failure on the second floor of 200 Paul Ave. They declined to refund Monkey Brains for any service, even though they had over 600 amps of users on a 600 amp circuit.

  • Thu Aug 31 08:33:21 PDT 2006

    Josh Wolf is in jail for not turning over some video footage to the Feds. Was he going to flee the country? No. Why is he in jail? That is too easy to answer -- I'll leave it to you to figure out.

    Tue Jul 25 13:06:16 PDT 2006

    MonkeyBrains has passed 100 Megabits per second. Here is our bandwidth graph:

    Alex and Rudy are excited about our 100% growth in the past 10 months. In other news:
  • Firstly, Rudy got hitched to his lovely wife Penelope
  • MonkeyBrains has expanded to 10 racks.
  • Alex negotiated a 100Mbps cross town link to a SOMA data center (want to host near the MonkeyBrains world Headquarters?)
  • dialup up lines have been cut back, but we plan to always offer local, Bay Area access
  • MonkeyBrains is researching a 3rd uplink and the purchase of our own autonomous IP numbers
  • The MonkeyBrains intern, Alex Kessinger, is still learning stuff and going strong!
  • Rudy Rucker and Alex Menendez are doing the legal paperwork to become an LLC partnership (sole proprietership days are numbered, at last!)
  • Civicspacelabs.org is hosting with MonkeyBrains.net

    Fri May 12 16:48:26 PDT 2006

    Phew! Haven't updated this page for a while. Here is some news:
  • Using MonkeyBrains dialup? Turn on the Accelerator! How-To
  • Bouncing more spam on the secondary mail server. Spammers prefer the secondary MX record to the primary. So, MonkeyBrains added several DNS blacklists to the secondary mail server.
  • Data Center Expansion - MonkeyBrains is renting 3 more racks at the data center and has a fiber line between the 5th and 2nd floors. Figuring out fiber optic stuff was fun! We bought a brand new Cisco 2960G to accomplish the InterFloor connect at Gigabit speeds.

    Mon Aug 29 09:09:29 PDT 2005

    The move last Friday did not go smoothly. The RAID rebuild caused all email from August 3rd to August 26th to be lost (if you had not already downloaded your messages). For more information, read this. Steps have been taken to make sure this will not happen again.

    Fri Aug 25 14:36:00 PDT 2005

    Mail server was down for about 40 minutes. I moved it into another rack at the data center and accidentally powered down the machine before it had properly shut down. This caused the RAID array to require a rebuild upon reboot. All systems go as of 2:45 PM.

    Mon Jun 20 13:06:47 PDT 2005

    Office Party on June 24th! Yes, we moved to a new bigger office. Come to 984 Folsom Street Friday from 5pm until 10pm. Hang out, buy T-Shirts, drink beer, eat snack food!

    Tue Apr 26 23:01:35 PDT 2005

    * 1 Hour Outage
    A DOS attack brought our network down for an hour. Measures are being taken to reduce the effects of similar attacks in the future.

    Tue Apr 5 17:03:30 PDT 2005

    * System reboot
    A security advisory caused me to patch the kernel and reboot the hosting box. Downtime: 2 minute. (Server had been up for 144 days since last reboot.)

    Feb 28, 2005

    * Greylist filters on mail server

    > Hi Rudy! Why is it sometimes I get emails much later than
    > the time sent on the message? Today I have been frantically
    > anticipating a response to a job application, I keep
    > refreshing, reading other mail, hoping that when I return
    > to the inbox message list I will see something new- and Nada.
    > Then just now I log in, @5:30, Ilook at old mail, when I
    > return to the list there is a new message, but it says it was
    > sent at 3:35? (This was a local email from the outer mission)
    > Before when I experienced this, I thought maybe I was crazy
    > now I am bothered. Can you help me understand or help me deal
    > with it?

    If your email account (or anyone at monkeybrains.net) receives an email from someone 'new' their email is tagged for a 'greylist'.
    The Monkeybrains server says, "Hold on. You have never sent email to me before. Wait 5 minutes and then send it to me." This is all is server speak and the person sending the email and you don't have to do anything.
    The server will then send it 5 minutes later. If the other server is busy, it may take up to an hour for the message to be automatically resent (again, humans have to do nothing, this is all in standard server protocols).
    Once the message is send, the MonkeyBrains server makes a note, and then trusts future emails from that server to your account.
    This process (greylisting) has reduced the amount of spam monkeybrains customers receive Dramatically.
    If this continues to be a problem, let me know and I can have your email skip this filter. (I must add, that regular correspondence is not delayed due to MonkeyBrains 'learning' to trust certain senders.)

    Dec 30, 2004

    Upgrading the mail server. Mail will be down for 1 hour.

    Fri Nov 12 10:14:24 PST 2004

    The hosting machine got a memory and CPU upgrade. Dial up was not available this morning during the due to the upgrade. Also, the photo server (www.monkeyview.net) got a memory upgrade and the OS updated.

    Fri Nov 5 11:19:41 PST 2004

    Monkeybrains finalized acquisition today of another ISP www.webarchitection.com. Monkeybrains is now occupying space at 365 Main in addition to the 200 Paul Ave Data Center. With this new merger Monkeybrains has significantly expanded its virtual hosting business as well as taken on a variety of new colocation clients including www.amoebamusic.com. Welcome to our new monkeys!

    Wed Oct 6 10:04:45 PDT 2004

    The hosting machine had a couple of issues after the hard drive upgrade last week. Notably, FTP was not working for 2 days (Friday and Saturday). Several other software upgrades were made at the same time causing the guestbook script to not function for about a day. Also, this morning for 3 hours, the web server program (Apache) crashed due to upgrades. Everything all these issues have been addressed. If you have any problems, do not hesitate to email support @ monkeybrains.net

    Thu Sep 30 12:32:15 PDT 2004

    The hard drives are going to be upgraded on the hosting server. The drives are a couple of years old! Expect a bit of downtime today (10 to 30 minutes).
    Jul 2004: The move

    Sat Jul 24 15:49:20 PDT 2004

    The circuit breaker on one of the power strips blew today! Dialup users may have noticed an outage. Some of the colocated machines were down for about half an hour (eg beta.indyvoter.org and a couple of others).
    Mail, hosting, and some colocated machines were not affected. The BGP network used the avaiable link, and no traffic was lost even though one link was down!

    Wed Jul 14 12:38:40 PDT 2004

    The network will be down for 10 - 20 minutes for the final transition in the network.

    Tue Jul 13 16:59:26 PDT 2004

    MonkeyBrains is upgrading network connections. The modem rack was down for 15 or so minutes today. All of MonkeyBrains equipment is being moved from one floor of the colocation facility to another. This floor will provide better cooling, more AMPs per cabinet, and bettet connections to the Internet.

    Thu Jul 8 13:43:30 PDT 2004

    MonkeyBrains is upgrading network connections. Expect 10 to 30 minutes downtime this afternoon.

    Sun Jun 13 08:27:50 PDT 2004

    One of my two uplinks was down for 9 hours (Sat 11pm - Sun 9am). Two things changed in the past week with the nLayer link to monkeybrains: (1) The link was changed from a 100Mbp to a 1000Mbps fiber optic line, (2) nLayer plugged me into a new router on their end. I set up BGP, but the traffic did not fail over to the second link. Why? I will look into that as well. I am guessing my netblock is two small for some of the larger backbone routers to be picking up the routes for my IPs.

    Thu Jun 3 20:15:05 PDT 2004

    I am upgrading the mail server's software if you have any trouble, wait a couple of minutes, and try logging in again. If you cannot connect, call me on my cell: 974.1313 Protest March

    Tue Mar 16 20:35:31 PST 2004

    Summary: The mail server rejecting emails for 20 hours. All systems stable now.
    I figured out how to run multiple queue runners... not that well documented. If you ever have sendmail running slow, research the "QUEUE_GROUP" configuration tweak.

    Tue Mar 16 12:34:21 PST 2004

    There are about 8000 messages in the mail queue which will be delivered in the next hour. (it took longer for me to figure this out...)
    Why? Human error! Jokes aside, MonkeyBrains bought up a new link last night with a provider we are happy to have... we are now connected to a transit only ISP which is run by the dudes who started Sirius.com (no longer a local ISP in San Francisco). MonkeyBrains is connected to the Internet by two 100 Mbps connections. What does this have to do with email? Rudy set up the new IP on the mail server and checked out the connectivity, everything was in order, but a side project (indyvoter) with mailing list functionallity tripped things up. Good news: soon monkeybrains customers will be able to impliment their own mailing lists.

    Feb 20, 2004

    Phew! We are all moved into our new office. Stop by if you are in the hood: 984 Folsom, 10am-5pm Monday-Friday. Billing was not sent out this month. I will get on it now that all is getting settled in the office. THe new zipcode is 94107 for the 981 Folsom Address... that would be a swell place to send your checks!

    Jan 27, 2004:

    MonkeyBrains has a new office! 984 Folsom Street in San Francisco. Friday Feb 13th there will be a party from 6pm to 10pm. Beer, wine, and some food will be provided by MonkeyBrains. T Shirts will be for sale at $10.

    Jan 11, 2004:

    Mail server was down for 12 hours. The power strip was overloaded and the machines went down, and the mail server did not properly reboot. So, you can get 17 machines on one 15 AMP circuit, and then it blows!

    Dec 13, 2003:

    Man, what a nightmare! One of the MonkeyBRains links (through CET networks) got hosed. I had to renumber a bunch or IPs on machines. Colocation customers have been affected the past few days, but dial up and hosting users were not.

    Dec 1, 2003:

    MonkeyBrains is volunteering down at the Matt Gonzalez headquarters at 13th and Mission. We (Alex, Rafael, and Rudy) wired the phone banks, the ethernet cable in the volunteer half of the office, and set up two computer labs. Thanks to ACCRC for lending us some WiFi equipment to set up a hotspot at the headquarters. We are encouraging people to use this free Internet access to research both parties running for mayor.

    Nov 10, 2003:

    Looks like dialup connections are not being dropped as frequently. Down to an acceptable level, I say! On the 6th, I made some configuration changes to my modem rack. Here are the results:

    Nov 6, 2003:

    I am shopping for yet another new modem server. I found a neat,new RAS (Remote Access Server) for a bit over $5000... I am trouble shooting the new link with XO tomorrow morning and may yet be able to salvage my existing hardware. If I can get my old stuff working, I'll throw a party with the $$$ saved. Hang in there, noble customers. Here is what I have been reading.

    Nov 4, 2003:

    Modem users have been getting disconnected for an unknown reason and are forced to reconnect to the modem server. Arg, the replavement server seems to be funky. Well, I have another used one I will try out, and right now, I am shopping around for a new one.

    Oct 23, 2003:

    The 466-0000 number is going to disappear! MCI never completed the installation from last June. I ordered a backup XO connection, and that has been running smoothly, so I am going 100% XO for now. Here is what you need:
    : 415.901.0173 : sf
    : 510.740.0114 : oakland
    : 408.350.0168 : san jose
    : 650.227.1960 : san mateo

    Check out the online calendar of events!

    Oct 19, 2003:

    The webserver stopped resonding for about 24 hours. The server was running out of file handles. I upgraded the mySQL server, and the problem seems to have vanished.

    Oct 13, 2003:

    There was a brief email and FTP outage due to a changed DNS configuration serving the MonkeyBrains network. Web access was not affected... systems back to normal.

    Sept 9, 2003:

    All is well with the new modem server. New phone lines have been ordered, and one of the numbers will disapper (the 466-0000 number) and a 650 number will be added. It usually takes a month for new numbers to become active.
    Aug 2003: Modem trouble & Upstream issues

    Aug 31, 2003:

    The modem server was replaced at 10:30 am! Let's hope that fixes the illing modems.

    Aug 27, 2003:

    I ordered a replacement modem server. Also, I tuned some of the parameters for the modem server and it hasn't crashed in 2 days (cross your fingers). The crashing may have been due to a DOS attack targeting the modem server.

    Aug 24, 2003:

    The modem server had another memory upgrade. It seems the problem of all busy signals still exists. I wrote a script that checks the modem server every 10 minutes and reboots it if it is locked up.

    Aug 22, 2003:

    The memory in the modem server was swapped out at 8pm. The memory in my inventory was a different brand as the type in the modem server, so if you get any errors while dialed up, email or call me and let me know what happened.

    Aug 21, 2003:

    When it rains, it pours. The modem server seems to be crashing periodically. A busy signal or an 'all circuits are busy' message is indicative of the modem server taking a nap. Feel free to call me at 415-ICK-YUCK and tell me to reboot the modem server if this occurs. This problem is not directly related to the outage on on Aug 19th and Aug 14th. As for connectivity, the modems, mail server, and web hosting machine are all on the more stable link: if you can connect, the link ought to be up!

    Aug 20, 2003:

    OUtages! Last night, the main monkeybrains connection was down for 3 hours. THere is a secondary link that kicks in for for email, but dialup users and website pages were down. Last Thursday, there was a seven hour outage. WHY??? Well, MonkeyBrains is connected to two transit ISPs (ISPs that provide a connection to the Internet backbone but don't do things like dialup) and one of those ISPs (Wire Works) just sold their company to CETnetworks.com. The transition caused some outages beyond the realm of MonkeyBrains. If the link does not stabilize in the next day or two, all the websites and modems will be moved to MonkeyBrains secondary link.

    Jul 30, 2003:

    The my.monkeybrains.net got a facelift. Some people are having trouble with SSL certificate on the web based mail.monkeybrains.net system. Try deleting your old cert and then saving the new one you download. Seems like XP/Explorer has a bug. I HIGHLY recommend switching to Thunderbird to read your email. It is FREE and does not SUCK.

    Jul 30, 2003:

    Some people are having trouble sending mail through Eudora. Try setting 'Secure Sockets when Sending' to NEVER. Screenshot ... this is related to a bug in the SSL libraries Euroda uses.

    Jul 17, 2003:

    The mail server has been upgraded to support SSL connections (encrypted connections for your outgoing email). To try it, set your email client (Netscape, Mozilla, Outlook, Eufora, etc) to use an SSL connection. In Netscape and Mozilla, you would:
  • Open your mail reader
  • Click the Edit menu
  • Click "Mail and Newsgroup Account Settings"
  • Select the "Outgoing Server (SMTP)" on the left
  • Select "Always" under the "Use secure connection"
    If you have any troubly, try "Never" instead of "Always".

    Jun 19, 2003:

    I added a counter script to monkeybrains.net. Check out: /support/counter.html for info on how to set it up for your domain.

    Jun 8, 2003:

    The modem authentication process was broken all Saturday. The system was fixed around midnight last night. Dial-up was down for about 24 hours.

    Mar 25, 2003:

    The Spam Filters where updated. Look at all your email headers to see the 'behind the scenes filtering'. IMAP users: Any emailed put in your Trash folder will be automatically erased in about 48 hours.

    Dec 9, 2002:

    MonkeyBrains party on December 12th! Do you use winamp or xmms to listen to mp3 files? download the MonkeyBrains Winamp/XMMS Skin.

    Nov 12, 2002:

    All the phone lines have been filling up! I ordered more lines. New dialup numbers will be:
    (415) 901-0173, (510)740-0114, (408) 350-0168.
    The numbers ought to be active (barring configuration trouble) by tomorrow afternoon.

    Nov 11, 2002

    The last time I switched ISPs, I got allocated new IP numbers. Unfortunately, these numbers have only bee active on the internet for about 3 months. Occationally, there is still a server out there you cannot reach. Email me if you have this problem with 'BOGON' in the subject line. (4 reported IPs in 2 months... so the situation is not that bad. Read all about it if you are feeling geeky!)

    Nov 3, 2002:

    This morning there was lousy connectivity for a couple of hours. It seems to be running smoothly now. In the past 2 weeks, people had trouble sending email (sometimes). There was a problem with the way I had the DNS set up on the new mail server. Now, messages are going out fine.

    Sep 29, 2002:

    Due to outages and lack of support from my past carrier, I am switching upstream providers. This means I am spending this Sunday night reconfiguring the IP numbers for all of my servers (including the modem reack). The modems were down for 45 minutes before I figured out why they were not working with their new IPs. (sorry!)

    Sep 22, 2002:

    I ordered some more phone lines. They will be installed in 6 weeks and have 510, 408, and 415 area code access. Please be patient if you have any busy signals while MonkeyBrains awaits 23 new phone lines! I had ordered 47 lines from MCI, but they failed to ever install the second set of 24 lines. So, The new lines will be delivered my XO, another telecom company.

    Sep 22, 2002:

    There was a problem with FTPing today. I downloaded a fix from freebsd.org and now it works.

    Sep 21, 2002:

    At about 10:30 PM, I installed a 60Gig drive in the backup server. This caused the modems to be down for about 15 minutes.

    Sep 13, 2002:

    More spam filters installed! in the past 24 hours about 65% of the email send to MonkeyBrains was discarded! Also, there is now an online email system being tested out. (list of blocked mail from the first day of filtering)

    Sep 12, 2002:

    There was an outage this morning form about 8 to 11 am. There was a problem with MonkeyBrains upstream provider.

    July 10, 2002:

    There will be web-based email soon. I bought a new machine and need to configure/program it.

    July 9, 2002:

    The modem server has been repaired, and has not crashed in 3 days! Now, I have some spare parts, so if the same problem arises, I can quickly fix it. Happy surfing!

    July 1, 2002:

    During peak hours, the monkeybrains network was experiencing 2% to 10% packet loss. Working with my upstream provider for the past 2 weeks has solved this problem. The network is back to 0% packet loss.

    June 26, 2002:

    The modem server is crashing about once a day. I've tracked the problem down to a messed up modem in a special card whcih holds 12 modems. I need to replace the whole modem card. I hope to have a new one in within 4 days.
    Phone number switch debacle

    June 4, 2002:

    The new number works! 466.0000

    June 1, 2002:

    The new number is down. :(....
    Use the temporary info below until MCI gets it back up.

    May 28, 2002:

    Half the phone lines are up! Try 466-0000 with your regular username and password.

    May 22, 2002:

    The wires are set up, but something is wrong with MCI's equipment. An MCI tech and I trouble shot the conenction between MCI and MonkeyBrains something is wrong with one of their PRIs. (Turns out the problem was MCI/WorldCom was going bankrupt!)

    May 15, 2002:

    MCI cut off the temporary dialup by accident this morning. This temporary account has been reactivated and will be active until June 30, 2002. In other news, the permanent lines (466-0000 and 466-0001) have been physically installed, but are not yet configured. MonkeyBrains is waiting for MCI to configure their end of the the phone lines.

    May 15, 2002:

    To all my inconvinced customers: I regret the delays in getting the phone lines installed. Thank you for your patience. If I can get MCI to refund me a month of two of service, I'll pass on the refund to MonkeyBrains dialup users.

    May 1, 2002:

    MCI has set up a temporary dialup solution for MonkeyBrains. Please configure your REMOTE ACCESS to use the following username, password, and phone number. You may need to set you DNS setting to 69.1.75.3 if you do not have it set on automatic. 
    NO LONGER VALID
The username is:  monkey@custdemo.sales-eng.net
The password is:  monkey2002
Phone numbers: 

  • SF 415-357-9923

  • SF 415-228-4420

  • OAK 510-433-0258

  • SSF 650-238-3400

  • San Mateo 650-653-2754

  • San Jose 408-268-0582
    • Having trouble? Here are some instructions for changing your dialup access number.

    April 30, 2002:

    MCI has not yet setup my phone lines. They gave me an install date of May 6th. I am working to get the lines installed sooner. They are going to set up temporary dialup number for customers today! The number will connect you to WorldCOM and allow you to surf the net, check your monkeybrains email, etc. I'll post the temporary phone number, username, and password here when I receive the information.

    April 25, 2002:

    The old phone number has been disabled. MCI stated that they could get me up by April 15th, 2002! The new number will be 466-0000 and 466-0001. The DNS number is 69.1.75.3.

    March 13, 2002:

    Negotiations with MCI done. I faxed some information to WorldCom/MCI and the process has begun.

    Email, and webhosting are not affected by this outage. Dial Up access will be back up As Soon As Possible!

    Dec 16, 2002:

    Hey, check this out! Rudy was named "Privacy Hero of the Month" on NCCPRIVACY (now defunct)!
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