Server upgrade and scheduled downtime

February 2, 2013 Leave a comment

In order to improve the performance of our email services we will perform a server upgrade with the scheduled downtime window:

*** Wednesday, February 6 at 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM CET ***

(7:00-8:00 GMT / 2:00-3:00 AM EST / 11:00-12:00 AM Feb 5 PST)

This means that the Runbox email services to be unavailable for up to 1 hour while the upgrade take place.

The downtime should be outside business hours for most of our customers, but we know you depend on your Runbox email and we will work as efficiently as possible. It shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes, but the downtime window is set to 1 hour to be safe.

Incoming email will be queued on our servers and will be delivered once our system is fully operational again.

What you can do

If you usually check your email during this time, please log on either well before or after that interval on Wednesday.

To keep updated you can check our Blog at http://blog.runbox.com and Twitter at
https://twitter.com/Runbox.

What we are doing

We are installing a Flash Cache on one of our application servers to improve the performance of disk access when email clients open email on the server.

This is done as a measure to increase the I/O (input/output) capacity of the server until we acquire new and more powerful servers.

We apologize if the upgrade causes any inconvenience for you and appreciate your understanding!

Thank you,

The Runbox Team

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Increased password strength

January 31, 2013 5 Comments

To protect your Runbox account, and any other online account you may have, it’s crucial to choose a good password. Your password needs to be unique enough to prevent others from guessing it or computers from cracking it.

This is becoming increasingly important since attackers can use powerful password cracking software and attacks are happening more often.

We see that many users choose passwords that are too simple, perhaps thinking that no one will try to gain access to their account, or that they don’t have anything to hide anyway.

The importance of strong passwords

However, if someone did gain access to your account unauthorized they could potentially use the contents to break into other accounts you may have, since email often contains login information to other services.

An intruder could also hijack an account in order to send large amounts of spam, which would  hurt not only the recipients of the messages, but also the account owner (due to returned, undeliverable messages). Furthermore, it could negatively impact Runbox as a whole, since it could get our service blocked by other email services.

Creating a good password

In Runbox 6, you can create a longer and more complex password using many different special characters.

Your password must be between 6 and 64 characters long, and can contain the letters a-z and A-Z, the numbers 0-9, and the following special characters:

+?=()&,.:;-_/*@!#~`#$%^&[]{}|\'”<>

We know, creating and remembering a long and complex password sounds like a big hassle. But it’s actually very simple, and could even be fun!

Just see our Tips for choosing and protecting passwords for a quick how-to.

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Runbox 6 launched

January 25, 2013 18 Comments

Over the past year and a half we have spent a great deal of time behind the scenes upgrading the Runbox Webmail code. We have also upgraded all the underlying software that powers Runbox, and much of the hardware it runs on.

The Runbox 6 platform

This is the 6th generation of Runbox, and while it may appear similar to Runbox 5 it provides a solid and updated platform for further development of new features. In addition, we have created a software building and deployment system that will enable us to develop new code faster and more securely.

We have already put some new features into Runbox 6 — some minor ones you will discover as you use it, and a few bigger ones:

New Features in Runbox 6

1. Tags: These let you label messages across folders, and will allow you to organize and find messages more easily. To add a tag, open an email, select [New Tag] from the Tags field near the top, enter a tag name, and click “Add tag”. You can now sort messages by your tags in the message list.

2. Improved Account overview: You can now get a full overview of your account’s Data Usage on the Account screen.

3. Sub-account management: You will now be able to manage any sub-accounts you might have in a similar way to the main account and also see detailed information about the usage of the account. Just click the sub-account address in the list after going to Sub-accounts. Note: Sub-account owners can now change the passwords of their sub-accounts and therefore potentially access them.

4. Color themes: You can now choose between 4 color themes by going to Webmail: Preferences and selecting an option from the “Theme” menu. We have also removed they gray background color from all pages to brighten things up a bit.

Try Runbox 6 now

You can start using Runbox 6 now by going to the following link: https://beta.runbox.com/mail?activate_rmm6=YES

This will take you to https://runbox.com, which is also where you will be redirected automatically next time you log in.

We hope you will enjoy the new Runbox! If you have any questions, please add a comment below or open a support ticket at https://support.runbox.com.

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More details about last night’s DDoS attack

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In the early hours of 25th January the Runbox network was subject to a Distributed Denial of Service attack. This sort of attack uses multiple computers around the world to flood our servers with requests and this makes it difficult, if not impossible, for legitimate access by our customers.

Response and consequences

We were quick to respond to this problem, but it can take some time to identify the multiple sources of the attack and then block the traffic to our servers. As a result of the attack many of you would not be able to access our services during the time it was taking place.

The attack was carried out by a group who had previously failed to get access to some of our customers accounts that do not belong to them. They had threatened to carry out the attack if we did not comply with their wishes.

No data was compromised

We would like to assure our customers that no customer data was compromised before, during or after the attack, and that we would never give way to such threats. If you have any concerns about this incident, please open a support ticket at https://support.runbox.com

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[Resolved] Email services down because of DDoS

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Our email services are inaccessible and we’re working to find out where the problem is.

We’ll keep you posted and apologize for the service interruption.

UPDATE 00:45 CET: We seem to be under a DDoS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, flooding our servers with requests and preventing legitimate logins to our services. We’re working to block the attackers now, so stay tuned.

UPDATE 01:45 CET: We’re still working to block the attackers on several levels of our network and we expect to be back up soon.

UPDATE 03:45 CET: The attackers changed tactics but we’re regaining control over our network now, and our services should be accessible again.

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Upgrade for Runbox 4 users

December 20, 2012 24 Comments

Although Runbox 5 was launched in 2009 we have continued supporting Runbox 4 despite having to maintain an extra set of servers and software.

At this point we are going to have to make some changes, though…

Runbox 4 and the recent database upgrades

We have been planning to retire Runbox 4 for a while now, but some of you who have been with us for a long time have grown to love the trusty but perhaps a bit clunky interface. So we postponed the decision and wanted to do it slowly and gently at some point in the future.

However, when completing the database server replacement today, we realized that some of the software powering Runbox 4 is no longer compatible with the new database servers. We have tried upgrading that old software, but it’s proving very difficult.

Runbox 5 and the even newer Runbox 6

Since we think it’s better to spend time improving the new Runbox 6 instead, and because Runbox 4 is so old it’s starting to be a security risk, we have decided to upgrade those still using Runbox 4 to Runbox 5 Basic.

Runbox 5 Basic works very similarly to Runbox 4, but it looks a lot nicer. Runbox 5 is the standard Webmail while we finish the new Runbox 6, which is still in testing.

You can find more information about how Runbox 5 works here: Runbox 5 Upgrade Guide

We hope you will like Runbox 5 while we keep working to finalize Runbox 6!

Drafts in Runbox 4 vs Runbox 5

In Runbox 5, drafts are stored in a different way that lets them be synchronized with an email client over IMAP. Unfortunately, this also means that drafts stored in Runbox 4 are not available in the Runbox 5 interface.

However, for those of you who have saved drafts in Runbox 4 we can most likely convert them to Runbox 5 if you contact us via https://support.runbox.com.

fast.runbox.com and light.runbox.com

The text-only Webmail at fast.runbox.com was also running Runbox 4 software. We have a new, similar webmail powered by Runbox 5 available at light.runbox.com for those who want that: http://light.runbox.com/mail

fast.runbox.com will therefore redirect to light.runbox.com from now on.

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[Completed] Scheduled database replacement and downtime

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7:00 AM CET: We are now stopping all email services in order to complete the database server replacements.

We will redirect www.runbox.com and beta.runbox.com to this blog so you will be able to follow our updates.

8:05 AM CET: The work is almost complete and we’re getting ready to start the new database servers that will take over.

8:12 AM CET: We have started the new database servers and will start the email services now.

8:16 AM CET: Everything looks good, and all email interfaces are operational. The email queued during the downtime has been delivered. We’ll remove the redirection to this blog now.

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Server replacements and scheduled downtime

December 19, 2012 Leave a comment

In order to complete improvements to our email services we are scheduling the following downtime:

*** Thursday, December 20 at 6:30 AM to 8:30 AM CET ***

(5:30-7:30 GMT / 12:30-2:30 AM EST / 9:30-11:30 PM Dec 11 PST)

This means that the Runbox email services to be unavailable for up to 2 hours while the work takes place.

The downtime should be outside business hours for most of our customers, but we know you depend on your Runbox email and we will work as efficiently as possible.

Incoming email will be queued on other servers and will be delivered once the system is fully operational again.

What you can do

If you usually check your email during this time, please log on either well before or after that interval on Thursday.

To keep updated you can check our Blog at http://blog.runbox.com and Twitter at https://twitter.com/Runbox.

What we are doing

We are completing work started last week, switching to new and powerful database servers. This replacement will improve both the performance and reliability of our email services.

Why it is being done

This is part of our server upgrade plan in which most of our servers are being replaced and/or virtualized.

By replacing or virtualizing our servers we greatly improve the reliability of our email services since we will not only be running better hardware, but will be able to move services across our servers much more easily.

We apologize if the upgrade causes any inconvenience for you and appreciate your understanding!

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[Postponed] Scheduled database replacement and downtime underway

December 15, 2012 2 Comments

We’re getting ready to stop all email services in order to switch to the new database servers.

We will redirect www.runbox.com and beta.runbox.com to this blog so you will be able to follow our updates.

Once we have stopped the services we will import into the new database the records that have been added/changed since the full import we did last night,

Then we will move the database service address to the new servers, and start them up. If all goes well, the email interfaces will be started shortly thereafter.

UPDATE 07:10 AM CET: IMAP and POP services stopped. Stopping database services.

UPDATE 07:19 AM CET: Starting import of database records that have been changed since last night’s full import.

UPDATE 08:09 AM CET: During the import we discovered records that will need to be converted to another format. The safest solution is to revert to the old server and reschedule the switch once the conversion is done. We will inform everyone when this will occur.

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Server upgrades and scheduled downtime

December 5, 2012 Leave a comment

In order to improve our email services we will perform server replacements with the scheduled downtime:

*** Wednesday, December 12 at 6:30 AM to 8:30 AM CET ***

(5:30-7:30 GMT / 12:30-2:30 AM EST / 9:30-11:30 PM Dec 11 PST)

This means that the Runbox email services to be unavailable for up to 2 hours while the replacement take place.

The downtime should be outside business hours for most of our customers, but we know you depend on your Runbox email and we will work as efficiently as possible.

Incoming email will be queued on our servers and will be delivered once our system is fully operational again.

What you can do

If you usually check your email during this time, please log on either well before or after that interval on Wednesday.

To keep updated you can check our Blog at http://blog.runbox.com and Twitter at https://twitter.com/Runbox.

What we are doing

We are switching to two much more powerful database servers which will improve both performance and reliability of our email services, since the second server can take over in case the first one goes down.

This server replacement is one of the last on our system that will need extended downtime.

Why it is being done

This is part of our server upgrade plan in which most of our servers are being replaced and/or virtualized.

By replacing or virtualizing our servers we greatly improve the reliability of our email services since we will not only be running better hardware, but will be able to move services across our servers much more easily.

We apologize if the upgrade causes any inconvenience for you and appreciate your understanding!

Thank you,

The Runbox Team

UPDATE 12.12.2012 7 AM CET: Please go to the main page at http://blog.runbox.com for updates.

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