After nearly 18 years of providing hosting/services to folks who are involved with emulation, general "electronica", or other similar subcultures/underground, we have decided to close our doors.
Starting mid-August 2012, we will begin to decommission portions of our network. Everything will be gone (sort-of; please read on) by August 31st 2012, which is the final/last day of our co-location contract with our co-location provider. Most of the actual decommissioning will be done on the weekend of August 28th and 29th. Herein those two days will be referred to as TFD ("The Final Days").
This will certainly comes as a surprise to many of our users, in addition to an even larger number of Internet visitors who have come to rely on the sites hosted here and the no-nonsense nature of what we've been doing for so many years. I'm sure there will be many questions — the foremost being "Why?!?!", which I'll answer privately if asked — but I hope to cover as many of the general inquiries as I can in advance.
Most importantly: we're not just going to shut everything off and leave everyone's data/accounts/etc. hanging in the wind. Morally and ethically this would be wrong, and very inconsiderate. We've never operated a service like that, and just because we're shutting down doesn't mean our ethics change. So please keep in mind that we will do everything we possibly can to make migration off our systems painless for you, as well as minimise impact as much as possible.
Furthermore, your data is your data, and as such should be treated (by us) with the utmost respect and courtesy. We'll get you your data and help you in any way we can (within reason).
And for those who have dedicated servers with with us: yes, your stuff will also be impacted. You will be sent a private/separate Email outlining those details, as your situation is a bit different than the "free hosting" environment mentioned here.
Q: What will happen to all the data on my account (my files, etc.)?
You will need to migrate your data to another hosting provider or to your
own machine/system between now and TFD. FTP, SFTP, ssh/scp and rsync are all
available for you to use.
If your account is not configured to work with one or more of these, please let
us know and we can enable said services for you to make your life easier.
Q: What will happen to my website name, i.e. my current URL?
We will be setting up redirections for any users who wish for their Parodius
address/URL to redirect to their new hosting provider. For example, if your
old site was http://mysite.parodius.com/ we will redirect visitors to
http://yoursite.someotherplace.com/.
This also applies to other non-parodius.com domains that we host.
Just let us know what the new URL of your site will be and we'll be happy to
set up the redirection(s).
Q: How long will the URL redirections be kept in place?
Until October 31st, 2012.
Q: What about software reconfigurations, such as if I move my Wordpress blog to
a new site that's no longer named mysite.parodius.com? Will you help me with
that?
We will do our best to provide any kind of general support that involves the
migration of your data.
However, keep in mind that some things we may not have familiar with, so your
new hosting provider and/or the author(s) of the software should be your
primary contact for these issues.
Q: What will happen to my Email address(es)?
All parodius.com Email addresses will continue to work, however POP/IMAP and
outbound SMTP (i.e. sending mail through us) services will no longer be
available. Instead, parodius.com Email addresses will be redirected to another
Email address of your choice (e.g. myname@parodius.com →
user123@gmail.com). Simply let us know and the redirection will work going
forward.
Please keep in mind, however, that any Email destined to your old parodius.com
Email address will still be subject to our anti-spam software and so on.
Q: How long will the Email redirection capability be kept in place?
Until October 31st, 2012.
Q: What will happen to my existing Email?
You will need to export/download/save any Email stored on our server to your
own system (preferably via a mail client of your choice). POP, POP+SSL, IMAP,
and IMAP+SSL are available (naturally).
For those familiar with shell services, you can use tar, mutt, alpine, etc. to
do whatever you need to migrate your mail spool(s). Any Email left on the
Parodius server after TFD will be deleted.
Q: What if I don't have a high-speed Internet connection or the bandwidth/time
to download all of my stuff?
We will be happy to mail you a USB flash drive (possibly multiples)
containing your account data. The cost of the drive is on us; you'll pay
nothing.
Q: I have (one or more) domains hosted with you. What will happen to those?
If they're used for web content hosting, then see the above question "What
will happen to my website name?"
If they're used for mail, see the above question "What will happen to my Email
address(es)?"
Q: What about domains which are placholders? Say I bought mydomain.com and
it's not used for web content or Email, but it's registered to you? What then?
In this case, since we're technically the owner of the domain, we will do
whatever you wish us to do with it. The best option in this case is for you to
have full ownership/control over it. You can find a domain registrar and
request a transfer of your domain; we will approve it: no questions
asked.
After transfer, you will need to change your authoritative nameservers from
ns01.parodius.com + ns02.parodius.com + ns2.afraid.org to DNS servers of your
registrar, or another provider if they offer such.
Q: What about my MySQL databases/tables?
There are multiple solutions. First, you can use phpMyAdmin (available on
the main http://www.parodius.com/ home page) to export/download your DBs.
If the DBs are too large for download please let us know and we can make
changes to our systems or securely put up a dump of your database available for
you to download elsewhere.
Finally, if none of this works, we can include a dump of your DBs on a USB
flash drive and mail it to you (and you can keep the flash drive).
Q: What happens to my shell account?
Your account will no longer exist after TFD. There are many shell providers
online for minimal monthly fees; alternately you could try a VPS.
Q: Is there any cost to me, aside from the inconvenience? Do I need to pay you
for URL and/or Email redirections, etc.?
There will be absolutely no cost to you.
Q: What happens to any contact details, passwords, etc. you have on file for my
account?
All PII (personally identifiable information), including passwords, will be
deleted. Anything on paper will be shredded, old Support Emails will be
deleted, etc..
We politely ask that you put faith into us in this regard; we have never been
in the business of selling your data or sharing it with anyone,
and that policy isn't going to change given our closure. Ethics, morals, etc.
still apply.
Q: What happens to the hard drives my data is stored on?
All hard disks will be zeroed after TFD.
If you wish for us to hold on to a backup of your account data (solely as a
precaution), let us know and we can do so until December 31st, 2012.
Q: What will happen to the parodius.com domain after TFD?
After TFD, the parodius.com domain will have most of its DNS A records
pointed to a box under control of
jdc@koitsu.org. This will allow the
URL redirections to continue to work until the end of October.
MX records (used for mail) will be mostly removed, except for the main
parodius.com MX entry, which will also point to said box. This will
allow Email redirections to continue to work until the end of October.
After October, DNS records will be removed completely, with only the SOA
record and NS records returned; thus any Email to the domain, or attempts
to resolve hosted content under parodius.com, will result in "Host not
found"-type errors in either a web browser or an Email client.
The domain itself will remain registered for 2-3 years (roughly until
2015), after which we'll have to make a decision as to what to do with it.
Q: Do you have any recommendations for hosting providers, registrars, etc.?
Everyone's needs are different. If you need to know roughly how much bandwidth
your hosted site uses (per month, as well as per second (in kilobits)), we
can tell you, just let us know. Otherwise, we recommend paying close attention
to what exactly is offered, especially whether or not backups are done for you
automatically.
Hosting providers who are low-cost and have been told (from colleagues or users
who have already switched) are at least tolerable are, in no particular order:
For registrars, the situation is just as complex. Some registrars, such
as GoDaddy, in recent days have been known to simply "hijack" or blackhole
a domain based on their own TOS/SLA, or based on government pressure.
jdc
blogged about registrar SLAs
back in 2008.
If you're looking for a registrar recommendation, we tend to like
Gandi,
but have used others like
eNom,
Name.com,
and
WebLaunching
in the past. Many registrars now also offer DNS hosting themselves, so
that may be a key point in your decision. If you're looking for a free
secondary or tertiary DNS provider, we recommend any of the following:
We hope this helps give you some choices, or things to look at, when choosing
a provider of services.
Q: Who do we contact to provide any of the above information, or for further
questions?
You can contact Parodius Support up
until TFD, or alternately jdc@koitsu.org
(including after TFD).
If you would prefer to speak to jdc in real-time, the following instant
messenger contact addresses are available. Please keep in mind that I work
1500-2300 (Pacific Time) Monday-Friday, and may not respond immediately.
- AIM: dukandricka
- MSN/Windows Live: dukandricka@live.com
- Yahoo!: koitsu2011
