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    • CommentRowNumber1.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeNov 28th 2010

    As many people have noticed, the nlab appears to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Going to http://ncatlab.org leads to a generic placeholder website.

    Fear not, the nlab is still alive and well. It can be found at: http://nlab.mathforge.org. Similarly, the personal webs are at http://nlab.mathforge.org/web-name.

    It may take a few days to get the ncatlab name back pointing to the nLab so in the meantime, please use the above. The problem isn’t anything malicious (or at least, there are far more likely explanations that aren’t malicious) and for once it’s not my fault!!!

    I’ll fix the forum so that all links from here work properly. Unfortunately, I can’t put in a global redirection as that’s not under my control.

    • CommentRowNumber2.
    • CommentAuthorFinnLawler
    • CommentTimeNov 28th 2010

    That is a relief, thanks! It might be worth posting this on the Café (if anyone with posting powers is reading this) for those who don’t use the Forum and might jump to the same conclusion as I did.

    • CommentRowNumber3.
    • CommentAuthorDavidRoberts
    • CommentTimeNov 28th 2010

    Would it be possible to change the links manually in Zoran’s post at the cafe? At the moment they just point to the ’spam’ page. This is a call to any cafe hosts.

    • CommentRowNumber4.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    It seems to be working again now?

    • CommentRowNumber5.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    It seems to be working again now?

    Not for me!

    • CommentRowNumber6.
    • CommentAuthorDavidRoberts
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010
    • (edited Nov 29th 2010)

    -

    • CommentRowNumber7.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    According to Whois, Urs still owns the name. So I guess that Urs needs to make sure that those email addresses (and other contact info) still work and then contact the registrar (which seems to be eNom, but Urs probably bought it from an intermediary).

    • CommentRowNumber8.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    Hmm, that’s weird… it was working for me, but no longer. Maybe I was using an out-of-date DNS cache or something.

    • CommentRowNumber9.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010
    • (edited Nov 29th 2010)

    Hi everyone,

    originally the nLab server and the domain name were rented by me via “A2” hosting company. When I canceled that subscription because their performance was quite bad, I thought that I had chosen to keep the domain name indefinitely. Apparently I must have misunderstood something. I never spent enough time acquainting myself with these IT issues, to be frank, so possibly the fault is all mine. (Though I could also try to blame it again on A2’s service, couldn’t I.)

    To fix the problem, I have now taken steps to transfer the domain to UK2.net. Or rather, Andrew can tell you what exactly it is that I have taken steps to. I am now waiting for them to confirm my payment (supposed to happen during the course of this day). Once this is done my understanding is that I insert some name server name somewhere and the nLab will again respond at ncatlab.org.

    Then, eventually, I will try to transfer all my ownershop of ncatlab.org over to Andrew, such as to ensure that it will be in more capable hands.

    I am sorry for all this. I wish I knew what exactly I did wrong. But I am trying what i can to fix it.

    • CommentRowNumber10.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010
    Don't worry Urs, as far as blame is concerned. Everybody around here knows and appreciates how much you done for public good by initiating and running the whole project and nobody expects you to be manager and unfallible lawyer of the related issues simultaneously with all that :)
    • CommentRowNumber11.
    • CommentAuthorFinnLawler
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    My feelings exactly, Zoran. Well said.

    • CommentRowNumber12.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010
    • (edited Nov 29th 2010)

    Zoran, Finn,

    thanks.

    Everyone:

    while Andrew is offline:

    I received now the reply from UK2.net that my payment was accepted and that I should go to their website

     http://www.uk2.net/
    

    and “administer my domain”. They didn’t send me anything like a login information, though. I am not sure what on this page I should do to “administer my domain”.

    But a minute later another email arrived, that asks me to agree with the transfer of the domain ncatlab.org. After going through some agreement procedure, I am being asked to provide the “Authorization code” of my domain.

    After googling a bit to see how to do that, I find instructions to go to the webpage of

     eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR)
    

    and ask them to tell me my Autorization Code. Sure enough, on that webpage I am being asked to log into some account. That i don’t have.

    So I am stuck right now. Waiting for Andrew. Or for anyone who might have an idea.

    • CommentRowNumber13.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    I managed now to get login information from UK2net. Still don’t see where to change nameservers, though. And still don’t have the Authentification code.

    • CommentRowNumber14.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010
    • (edited Nov 29th 2010)

    Zak McKracken was more fun. Otherwise similar.

    • CommentRowNumber15.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    After you log in to UK2, there aren’t any links saying something like “DNS configuration” or “Nameserver setup”?

    • CommentRowNumber16.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 29th 2010

    I should have sent an update:

    I managed to get the UK2.net password and log into the part of the page where one could in principle edit name servers. However, I can’t without first getting the “Authorization code” from the previous “reseller” of the ncatlab.org domain.

    I finally figured out that i had to email “A2 hosting” and ask them to send this code to me. (I did check my email carefully, they did not send it to me before when establishing the domain.) So this is the latest now: I am waiting for their reply.

    Then we’ll see. In principle I would then complete the transfer by providing that code and then be able to reset the name servers.

    • CommentRowNumber17.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    I still haven’t heard from A2. But will have to go to bed now.

    • CommentRowNumber18.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    Still no reaction from A2, though that is not all that surprising, given the time-zones. Let’s hope that something happens today.

    • CommentRowNumber19.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010
    • (edited Nov 30th 2010)

    I still haven’t heard anything from A2. Will try to contact them again.

    But something has changed: at least on my system, when I go to

     http://ncatlab.org/
    

    The infamous screen-with-the-young-lady starts building up, but a fraction of a second later the window blanks and the address line displays

     http://dp.000.in/
    

    Then nothing else happens.

    • CommentRowNumber20.
    • CommentAuthorTim_Porter
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    I do not get that happening. I did notice that Googling ncatlab gets some strange results! WHat browser are you using? (I googled http://dp.000.in/ and got some interesting(but incomprhensible to me) results.)

    • CommentRowNumber21.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    Still get the backpacker.

    I just tried googling ncatlab.org and got a page that claimed to “review” it. No reviews, but we apparently have some “related websites” including a branch of the AA at Austin. Given that Austin is usually in the US, I’m guessing that this isn’t the Automobile Association.

    • CommentRowNumber22.
    • CommentAuthorTodd_Trimble
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    I can’t tell if you don’t already know this, Andrew, but in the US, “AA” is usually taken to mean “Alcoholics Anonymous”. We do have AAA, or triple-A: the Automobile Association of America.

    • CommentRowNumber23.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010
    AA and AAA are kinds of batteries :)
    • CommentRowNumber24.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    My results agree with Tim #20.

    • CommentRowNumber25.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeNov 30th 2010

    I have sent another email to A2, but still no reply. I will try to call them by phone later, first need to fetch my headset for that.

    • CommentRowNumber26.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2010

    No reply yet. And I can’t phone them: my Skype account is emptied and the usual automatic payment is sending me error messages tonight. I need to try tomorrow from the institute.

    This is becoming kafkaesque.

    • CommentRowNumber27.
    • CommentAuthorTim_Porter
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2010

    This is becoming kafkaesque.

    No it is known as working with the IT industry! it sounds very like my trying to get one of our bank accounts unlocked after a slip up on passwords.

    • CommentRowNumber28.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2010

    Just called them. After 15 minutes in the waiting loop, I spoke to somebody. He said he cannot give me an authorization code, as it does not look to him as if A2 currently owns the domain. I should look at the whois page who does.

    It’s true, on the whois-page it says that the current “registrar” of ncatlab.org is a company called “eNom”. But on their website it said I would have to contact A2. I am again stuck, sorry.

    • CommentRowNumber29.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 1st 2010

    I have now described the situation to UK2.net, asking them for advise on how to proceed with this. Now waiting for their reply…

    • CommentRowNumber30.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2010

    Corporative capitalism at work.

    • CommentRowNumber31.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2010
    • (edited Dec 2nd 2010)

    So here is the latest: UK2.net said there is no way, I need to contact Enom. Enom now said, there is no way, I need to contact A2.

    A2 differs from this in that they do not respond to email and in that their hotline staff after 15 minutes of intercontinental music transmission has no clue.

    • CommentRowNumber32.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 2nd 2010

    Very good business nowdays is to be a provider of half-products and half-services. The important thing for them is to have in small script in all contracts the disclaimers that any service has to be complete in any reasonable way, contrary to the feeling from the ads.

    • CommentRowNumber33.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010

    good news:

    I am being told that ncatlab.org has been reactiviated by A2 and that it will work again within 24 hours from now.

    • CommentRowNumber34.
    • CommentAuthorTodd_Trimble
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010

    Hooray! Thank you, Urs, for all your hard work in getting us back.

    Stupid me: when all this happened, I had a bunch of pages in edit mode, both at nLab and my personal web. Many, many hours of work which I am afraid will be lost because I couldn’t get past the backpacker to save them. I would consider myself extremely lucky if all those pages were restored as they were in edit mode, but that’s probably hoping for too much.

    • CommentRowNumber35.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010

    Which browser were you using ? IE can not safely return to the pages which have invalid URL with all the form data untouched, while firefox usually has all OK. But it may depend on setting.

    • CommentRowNumber36.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010

    Hooray! Thank you!!

    • CommentRowNumber37.
    • CommentAuthorTim_Porter
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010

    Great news. Thanks.

    • CommentRowNumber38.
    • CommentAuthorTodd_Trimble
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010

    @Zoran: the most recent version of Firefox. We’ll see.

    • CommentRowNumber39.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010
    • (edited Dec 3rd 2010)

    I mean when I am for example getting offline just after submitting a page to nlab, then I go back button and get back to the window in firefox having still my source code, without assistance of nlab or net. Can you open an additional window and experiment with mathforge nlab entry to see if you can make it behave this way? Now reopening the edit page from killed firefox sometimes has such behaviour on windows, the one on linux complains and does not do that from killed firefox.

    • CommentRowNumber40.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 3rd 2010
    • (edited Dec 3rd 2010)
    • CommentRowNumber41.
    • CommentAuthorDavidRoberts
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    Huzzah! Three cheers for Urs!

    • CommentRowNumber42.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010
    • (edited Dec 4th 2010)

    Three cheers for Urs!

    One for messing things up in the first place. One for going about fixing things in an ineffective way. And finally one for fixing it afterall. ;-)

    But the frustration never ends: while the domain is back, right now the server does not respond. And I can’t bring it back.

    • CommentRowNumber43.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    Hm, strange. I am working on two computers at the moment: my old webbook, my new webbook. On the old one I can’t reach any nLab page. On the new one I can reach some.

    • CommentRowNumber44.
    • CommentAuthorFinnLawler
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    It’s working fine for me.

    (Also, n cheers for Urs!)

    • CommentRowNumber45.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    It’s working fine for me.

    Interesting. Over here it’s painfully slow or does not work at all, depending on which computer I use.

    I am already spending more than an hour on a tiny little edit I wanted to do…

    • CommentRowNumber46.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    Maybe Firefox is my problem. That browser is no longer what it used to be it seems. Just tried with chrome, and the nLab pages appear immediately. Just not with all math displayed…

    • CommentRowNumber47.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    Hurrah, it works from here. Though the response is unusually long. We expect sudden fall in temperature tonight (the coldest this Autumn so far, -11 in Zagreb) so it may freeze the connections :)

    Once all works stably maybe we could make another anouncement at ncafe where also the alternative address and the links to last two digests (3000 and 4500) would also be made.

    • CommentRowNumber48.
    • CommentAuthorFinnLawler
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    I’m using Firefox too, version 3.0.6.

    I thought that maybe this was down to Instiki’s caching rendered pages, so that the first viewing of a newly-edited page could be much slower than subsequent views, but I’ve just edited monad (moving the ’related entries’ bit at the top of the page down to the bottom), and it only took a few seconds. So I’m puzzled too.

    • CommentRowNumber49.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010
    • (edited Dec 4th 2010)

    It is going fine now. (Maybe because my ears warmed up next to the radiator)

    • CommentRowNumber50.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    @ Urs #43

    If they’re connected to the Internet differently, it may be that one is still using old DNS entries. That should fix itself within a day.

    But this wouldn’t explain the speed, nor would it work if the two computers are connected the same way (to the same wireless network, say).

    • CommentRowNumber51.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    Was there any explanation for why the ncatlab.org name stopped working? Will it happen again? Are you still going to change the DNS provider?

    I would like to use the name ncatlab.org. (In particular, I’d like the links from the Forum to go back to that name.) But I would also like it to work!

    • CommentRowNumber52.
    • CommentAuthorTim_Porter
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    In wet and warmer North Wales, using Firefox 3.6.12 on an oldish MacBook, it works BUT redirects me to mathforge!!! or not depending on whether or not I force it to go to http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/ etc. Then it uses a different serifed typeface and otherwise looks okay. The edit works ok as well.

    • CommentRowNumber53.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeDec 4th 2010

    Now that we have the domain name back, I’ll restore the forum links from the alternative name to the canonical one. The name ncatlab.org is certainly our real domain name. The nlab.mathforge.org is just an alternative route. It will stay available - it always has been an alternative route - but certainly ncatlab.org is the preferred name.

    The bare domain name, either http://ncatlab.org or http://nlab.mathforge.org redirects to the home page of the nlab via a bit of Apache wizardry. The way it works at present is to specify the full domain name in the redirect, which is why it currently points to the mathforge one. I’ll reset that as well.

    • CommentRowNumber54.
    • CommentAuthorzskoda
    • CommentTimeDec 6th 2010
    I'd just like to know, what is the reasoning behind having two different URLs ? Why special paid abbreviation ncatlab.org at all and all the hussle with domain name ? If it is about future purposes, what I can understand, it does not weigh much. We used to use xxx.lanl.gov for what is now arxiv.org and the change at some point in past never hurted anybody (true, xxx.lanl.gov exists still).
    • CommentRowNumber55.
    • CommentAuthorDavidRoberts
    • CommentTimeDec 6th 2010

    Not that I am really in a position to comment, but having a short, catchy URL is a great benefit to a website. Do you remember the full URL for the n-cafe? Well, maybe you do - I do too, but I had to consciously learn it, rather than have it slot neatly into a nice easy pigeonhole in my mind. I imagine that it helps for pagerank and other google trickery.

    • CommentRowNumber56.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeDec 6th 2010

    Why two? Easy: historical accident. Urs set up the nLab with the name http://ncatlab.org . Then I took over system administration at the time of the migration. Before migrating, I needed to test the set up and for that, I wanted a domain name. Easiest was to set up a new domain and work with that. I chose http://www.mathforge.org as an oblique reference to SourceForge. Since the mathforge machine can do more than just run the nLab (for example, it runs the itex->MathML server for the forum and it runs John’s new wiki), it seemed reasonable to hold on to the mathforge domain even when we’d transferred the ncatlab.org domain over. A domain name doesn’t cost much, and also it was wholly under my control (something that recent events showed to be a wise move!). So it’s less about future purposes and more about ensuring backward compatibility. Since we have so many links already to ncatlab.org, we’d need to keep control of that domain name even if we decided that the mathforge one should be the canonical one.

    (Incidentally, after I’d chosen the domain name, I discovered that our esteemed hosts truncate the domain name to 8 characters to provide an account name. Given that it has been established that people recognise words very well even when the internal letters are mixed around, I often read that truncated name with the sixth and seventh characters switched. Ribbit.)

    • CommentRowNumber57.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeDec 6th 2010
    • (edited Dec 6th 2010)

    Just for the record, so that we all have the same information.

    • renting the domain “ncatlab.org” costs 12.95 dollars per year. So costs are not a problem.

    • While I finally did reach somebody at A2 who was capable and helpful and reactivated the domain, they still did not give me the “authorization code” of the domain, which we need to transfer it from A2 to some other company.

      This is a ridiculous state of affairs, I know. But more ridiculous is the number of hours that I already spent on this, so I am currently willing to leave it at that. If anyone feels more energetic: I think you can all pretend to be me on the phone just as well as I can, so if somebody feels like calling the A2-hotline trying your luck on this…

    • CommentRowNumber58.
    • CommentAuthorTobyBartels
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2010

    @ Andrew #53: Have you done this yet? mathforge is still coming up as canonical, both from http://ncatlab.org/ and from this forum.

    I would prefer that ncatlab.org be canonical, but also that it be assigned through a company that actually treats it right. If we revisit this in the summer, nothing should go wrong before then and Urs won’t be burnt out over it.

    • CommentRowNumber59.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2010

    Just done it.

    I agree with your last paragraph. But Urs should check that he’s not going to get charged for the attempt to transfer the hostname given that it wasn’t his fault that it didn’t happen.