esper.net is dying after 20+ years

[superkuh]

-Global- [Network Notice] kbuck - Hi all, you may be aware that we have
not been able to send NickServ emails for a few weeks now. In addition
to this outage, we are also currently unable to renew TLS certificates
and update DNS records, both critical infrastructure for IRC operation.
We do not currently have time or resources to replace this infrastructure.

-Global- [Network Notice] Currently, our DNS caches are expiring, which
has resulted in some users being unable to connect. As time goes on, the
DNS issues will worsen. Additionally, on March 25, our TLS certificates
will expire and not be renewed. This will render the IRC network largely
unusable. We recommend that you put plans into place to move your
communities elsewhere. Thanks, EsperNet staff.

[David Chmelik]

Post by superkuh
-Global- [Network Notice] kbuck - Hi all, you may be aware that we have
not been able to send NickServ emails for a few weeks now. In addition
to this outage, we are also currently unable to renew TLS certificates
and update DNS records, both critical infrastructure for IRC operation.
We do not currently have time or resources to replace this
infrastructure.
-Global- [Network Notice] Currently, our DNS caches are expiring, which
has resulted in some users being unable to connect. As time goes on, the
DNS issues will worsen. Additionally, on March 25, our TLS certificates
will expire and not be renewed. This will render the IRC network largely
unusable. We recommend that you put plans into place to move your
communities elsewhere. Thanks, EsperNet staff.

Don't need 'resources' to replace TLS certificates--use letsencrypt
(free)... and if domain registrar doesn't give DNS (rare they wouldn't)
use freedns.afraid.org . Only takes little time... but if they don't have
time to administer network I guess it'll end.

[superkuh]

Here's an update with more information:
https://gist.github.com/mrflea/5bc585d2b49182be0f9006d20f364471
---

EsperNet network outage FAQ

Espernet issues:

Virtually no staff, those that remain don't have much free time to
invest in the network. This is the main issue.

No access to the domain registration to update nameservers (current
nameservers have gone offline). This makes it difficult to connect
without knowing the IP address of a server.

We lost hosting for a support server that handled email (for
nickserv registrations), domain and TLS certificate tooling. We have
backups, but setting up a replacement takes time, see issue 1.

Efforts have been made to contact the esper.net domain owner, this may
resolve issue 2.

FAQ:

Q: What went wrong? A: We lost hosting for our backend server that
provided DNS, email, and TLS certificate renewal services. The provider
gave us many years of free hosting but could not continue.

Q: Can you just replace the server that was lost? A: Not without access
to the domain registration, which we currently don't have.

Q: Is this definitely the end of EsperNet, for good? A: Not necessarily.
If we regain access to the domain registration and enough motivated
people donate their time to help us restore services, then we may be
able to continue to operate.

Q: Why can't you replace the DNS server? A: We do not have access to the
domain registration to update the DNS information. All other services
that are down depend on DNS as well.

Q: Do you have backups? A: Yes, but without access to the domain
registration, restoring them is pointless. Additionally, restoring the
backups will be a long a difficult process as the backend server hosted
many, many manually-configured services.

Q: Have you considered a new domain? A: This is basically setting up a
completely new IRC network. We don't think it's worth it nowadays.

Q: Is there a way I can help? A: If we can gain access to the domain
registration, possibly. Until then, not really.

Q: The DNS isn't working, can I have the server IPs? A: The IRC server
IPs are: 139.99.136.176, 51.255.119.242, 188.240.145.50. The IPv6 IPs
are 2001:6b0:78::50, 2001:41d0:304:200::e1e0, 2402:1f00:8100:400::1570.
Webchat's IP is 51.81.82.143.

Post by David Chmelik
Don't need 'resources' to replace TLS certificates--use letsencrypt
(free)... and if domain registrar doesn't give DNS (rare they wouldn't)
use freedns.afraid.org . Only takes little time... but if they don't have
time to administer network I guess it'll end.

[superkuh]

Here's a hopeful update,

<kbuck> As of today we've contacted the domain owner and are working on
putting a replacement nameserver into service
<kbuck> so it looks like the situation is salvageable
<kbuck> we have to. our DNS infra is very specialized. it's tightly
integrated with certificate issuance. also, we would still need the old
DNS database anyway