🚀 go-pugleaf

Posting-Frequency: fortnightly
Version: 1.2.0

Demon.Service FAQ v1.2.0
------------------------
16th October 1996

Written and maintained by Mark Lowes <mark@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk>

Any comments or suggestions about this FAQ or information contained within
should be sent to dsfaq@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk

Changes are marked with a #

1.0 What is demon.service?
   1.1 What is demon.service for?
      1.1.1 Health Warning
      1.1.2 Posting Level
   1.2 Official/Unofficial postings
   1.3 Why do people keep telling me to look at the motd and status@gate?
   1.4 Demon posters
   1.5 Expansion Plans
      1.5.1 Netherlands
      1.5.2 France

2.0 Connecting to Demon
   2.1 A ROMP across the UK
   2.2 Why does it reject my password?
      2.2.1 Have you changed your password?
      2.2.2 RADIUS failure
   2.3 Bad Modems/Lines
   2.4 Contacting Demon
      2.4.1 Technical Support
      2.4.2 Changing Demon's records
      2.4.3 Pager support

3.0 News
   3.1 Scalable Systems?
   3.2 What does the response code xxx mean?
   3.3 Is news part of the TAM Account?
   3.4 Access to Demon's news servers
   3.5 Pubnews
   3.6 Article expiry policy

4.0 Mail
   4.1 Machines
      4.1.1 Post
      4.1.2 Punts and Relays
      4.1.3 What are MX records?
   4.2 I've lost mail!
      4.2.1 Internal delays at Demon
      4.2.2 What can I do?
   4.3 Bounces
      4.3.1 Demon & your mail
   4.4 Sticky mail
   4.5 POP3 v SMTP
      4.5.1 Advantages of SMTP (as implemented by DIS)
      4.5.2 Advantages of POP3
      4.5.3 Which is best?
#     4.5.4 Will Demon keep providing SMTP?

5.0 Connectivity & Routing
   5.1 Why can't I connect to ...
   5.2 Bandwidth out of Demon
      5.2.1 US
      5.2.2 Europe
      5.2.3 Linx

6.0 Other Services
   6.1 Are Demon going to provide....?
      6.1.1 Quake Server


=====

This FAQ has been put together, to answer some of the frequently asked
questions, from titbits of information I've gathered from both
listening on the various demon.* groups and reading Demon Internet
(DIS) documents.  I have no inside knowledge of Demon's network or
organisation other than what could be gathered by anyone else.  It was
written in order to answer some of the more common questions about DIS
on demon.service.


Disclaimer

This FAQ is provided as is without any express or implied warranties.
While every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information contained in this article, the author assumes no
responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from
the use of the information contained herein.

=====

1.0 What is demon.service?
--------------------------

1.1 What is demon.service for?

   Demon.service is simply a place to sound off about the level of
   service provided by Demon Internet.  It is *NOT* a support group
   and you cannot *expect* a reply from a Demon employee here.
   However a number of people from Demon post regularly in answer to
   service issues, mainly in their own time.

1.1.1 Health Warning

   Demon.service has a very high flamage content, many of the regular
   posters are "robust" in expressing their views.  Before coming to
   demon.service it is well worth checking your facts first and making sure
   that your own set-up isn't at fault.

1.1.2 Posting Level

   The level of posts is a pretty fair indicator of the state of
   *.demon.net a high level usually means either something is suffering
   major problems or the censorship debate is back.  An abnormally quiet
   demon.service usually means that news is broken.

1.2 Official/Unoffical postings

   Among all the other regulars in demon.service there are a large number
   of postings from demon.net.  Unless stated otherwise these people are
   posting their own views and not DIS policy, but because of their
   position within DIS they can often can give an insider's view on what's
   happening. The only time postings from anyone at Demon can be taken as
   official is if they are either cross-posted to demon.announce or
   specifically flagged as being official.

1.3 Why do people keep telling me to look at the motd and status@gate?

   Demon have a couple of mechanisms for alerting their users to problems
   within the network.  The motd (message of the day) is a short (2-3
   lines) message which is normally displayed on login (depending on the
   dialler used). It gives short descriptions of the network status (e.g. News
   feed halted, punt-4 down, etc.).  Status@gate.demon.co.uk is for longer
   (more technically based) comments on any current problems with the
   network. The value of these sources varies but they are being used a lot
   more now than was the case 6 months ago indicating that Demon do indeed
   pay attention to their customers.

   Both messages can be obtained by fingering motd@gate.demon.co.uk and
   status@gate.demon.co.uk respectively

1.4 Demon.net posters

   Malcolm Muir
      Malcolm is one of the most patient and polite people I've had the
      good fortune to meet on any of the demon.* groups.  Despite the
      baiting and flaming he takes, it is a rare day that he posts anything
      other than helpful information.

   aDe Lovett
      aDe once Demon's newsmaster, now has a new set of responsibilities,
      one of which is the development of the newsborg (the scalable news
      system). He posts infrequently but is helpful more often than not,
      however some readers may find his manner a little abrasive for their
      tastes.

1.5 Expansion Plans

   DIS have a policy of expansion into Europe, at the moment they are active
   in the Netherlands and France but are also looking at Germany.  It is
   possible to logon to the Demon network from any active PoP by using the
   Fully Qualified Domainname (FQD).  (e.g. flyhmstr.demon.co.uk, not
   flyhmstr)
 
1.5.1 Netherlands

   At the moment DIS have a fully operational service in the Netherlands,
   running under the demon.nl domain.  This operation has it's own news
   and post system which is not accessible to demon.co.uk customers.  In
   other words if news.dcu is down you cannot connect to news.demon.nl
   (The reverse is also true)
 
   The Netherlands operation is quite happy to accept sales from the UK
   (there is at least one case where someone had their first choice of name
   taken but was able to get it from demon.nl (email sales@demon.nl or have
   a look at the on-line for at http://www.demon.nl/ENG/dinlonls.html for
   more information)

1.5.2 France

   The French operation is currently being set-up but no start of service
   dates have been released yet.


2.0 Connecting to Demon
-----------------------

2.1 A ROMP across the UK

   Prior to 1995 Demon's dial-up access points were formed by having a
   unix machine with a bank of modems and a leased line to Finchley at each
   PoP.  In late 94/early 95 the first vPoPs (virtual points of presence)
   were created after a deal was signed with Energis.  This deal allowed
   Demon to host the computers at Finchley (allowing easier access in case
   of problems) whilst still providing local call access.

   The vPoP system has since been expanded to provide 100% coverage of the
   UK and has been split into a couple of ROMP's (Regionally Organised
   Modem Pool).

      NER   : National Energis ROMP
      CLR   : COLT London ROMP (COLT : City Of London Telecommunications)

   The gaps left are filled by an Energis local call number (0845 079
   8666), which provides local call access to the rest of the UK.  At the
   end of September the last tPoP will close leaving just the ROMPs.

   At the time of writing some numbers are being provided by Mercury, these
   will cease to operate at the end of September.

   To check for the best number to call from any location within the UK use
   the PoP search engine at http://www.demon.net/connect/pop/pops.html for
   checking the best phone number to call from any location in the UK.
   
2.2 Why does it reject my password?

   This is a regularly occurring problem, usually caused by one of two
   problems - changing your login password and failures in the RADIUS
   password databases.

2.2.1 Have you changed your password?

   If you've just changed your password, and logged on again shortly
   afterwards then you probably haven't allowed enough time for the new
   password to propagate around the Demon ethernet.  Give it at least one
   hour before trying to reconnect after changing your password.

2.2.2 RADIUS failure

   The RADIUS database handles all password verification for Demon.  From
   time to time, like all computer systems, part or all of it fails.  At
   the time of writing there are three machines serving password requests
   so if one fails service suffers only a mild drop in level but if two or
   all three fail then the service drops to being useless.

   As a general rule of thumb if logins start showing a 'invalid password'
   message then give up for now and try again later.  If you are reasonably
   sure that the problem is with Demon and is not due to something you have
   done then report the problem via the pager or the support lines.

2.3 Bad Modems/Lines

   It is a generally accepted fact that within the ROMPs there are some bad
   modems but finding them among the 3000 modems in the various pools is an
   exercise in log scanning and luck.
                                  
   So why does it seem that every other modem is bad?  Well at busy times,
   when the modem pools are operating at near maximum capacity, the modems
   which are more likely to be free are the less reliable ones.  Other
   possible reasons for 'bad' modems can include anything from loose
   cabling between the users modem and the BT box, rain water in the
   Telecom ducting or old exchange hardware.  However if every modem at
   Finchley seems to be bad, then it is just possible that there is a
   problem at your end.

2.4 Contacting Demon
2.4.1 Technical Support

   There are several ways of getting support.  Which to use depends on how
   bad your problem is and how urgent the fix required is.  For problems
   requiring an urgent resolution the support phone line (0181-371-1010) is
   the best choice.  However getting through is regularly a problem despite
   attempts by DIS to get ahead of the growth curve.  For non-urgent
   problems then mailing internet@demon.net is the best option, but be
   aware that the mail backlog can be anything up to two weeks so a quick
   reply is unlikely.  You will get an automated response informing you
   that your mail has been delivered.  The best option for most problems is
   to post to the relevant demon.ip.support.* newsgroup requesting help.
   Don't guess; .pc is not for Windows problems!  For the best guide to the
   groups the "Which Group FAQ" maintained by Richard Ashton
   <URL:ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/doc/general/whichgrp.faq>

2.4.2 Changing Demon's records

   Changes of address should be emailed to sales@demon.net, faxed to
   (0181-371-1150), or posted to Gateway House. To check what address is
   currently held on file, you can email sales@demon.net, or call the Sales
   Department on 0181 371 1234.  Your address does matter to Demon, without
   it they will be unable to send you your copy of DISpatches.

   If you wish to close your account then you will need to instruct Demon
   to terminate your account, don't just stop paying.  To do this either
   email accounts@demon.net *from the account you are closing* or send a
   letter or fax (0181-371-1150) to the accounts department at Gateway
   House.

2.4.3 Pager support

   The pager (Tel: 0941 112882) is provided for the reporting of system
   problems.  When calling the pager number give the following information

          Your name
          Your nodename
          A contact phone number
          A short description of the problem

   All messages to the pager are looked at and if any of the above
   information is missing the message will not be acted on.  Demon do not
   guarantee to call you back but need the contact number in case they need
   to check on some of the details.

   It is worth noting that Demon are trialing 24 hour telephone support at
   the moment and that the pager may become a backup system only.

 
3.0 News
--------

3.1 Scalable Systems?

   Demon long ago reached the point where a single news machine could not
   cope with the demand being placed on it with up to 400 users collecting
   news, posting articles and forwarding news out of the Demon network into
   the rest of the net.

   The solution settled on by Demon was to split the server across a
   cluster of synchronised machines.  The only supported name for the news
   server is news.demon.co.uk, this is a CNAME for news.news.demon.net
   which in turn is a name with 4 A records pointing towards the news
   machines called news1.news.demon.net, news2, news3 and news4. There is
   also a machine called peernews which has the job of feeding articles
   into the cluster and out into the rest of the net.

   With the current version of the Newsborg server software the newsfeed is
   stalled if a problem occurs with one of the machines and is not
   restarted until a fix is made or the offending machine has been removed
   from the cluster.  Demon have stated that as the development of the
   software continues an automatic system for dropping machines from the
   cluster will be implemented.

3.2 What does the response code xxx mean?

   The standard response is RTFRFC (Read the f* RFC) but for here are the
#  three most common error codes. For the full list, please refer to RFC977
   <URL:ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/doc/rfc0977.txt>

400 Server Busy
   This code is returned when all the machines in the cluster are operating
   with the maximum number of connections.  This used to be a very common
   message before the scalable system was rolled out.  Now it's only likely
   to be seen if one or more of the machines are removed from the cluster.

430 Article unavailable
   It is quite normal for the odd article to be unavailable.  For example
   if a cancel message is sent the article's message ID will be left in the
   history file but the article itself will be deleted.

502 Access Denied
   This is usually caused by not having reverse DNS lookups enabled.

3.3 Is news part of the TAM Account?

   The official line at the moment is no.  News is provided as a bonus
   service and the machines are part of the supported services.  In other
   words if news dies horribly the Demon will do their best to get it up
   and running in as short a time as possible.

   OK, so why do Demon provide news then?  There are two obvious reasons -
   the first being simply that they would lose business without it.  The
   second is a matter of external bandwidth. With news.demon.co.uk Demon
   can put high bandwidth ethernet connections in place to handle the
   traffic.  At this time I would estimate that anything up to 1600 people
   can access news simultaneously).  Without news.demon.co.uk all those
   users would clog up the external links hunting for the various public
   access servers round the world.

3.4 Access to Demon's news servers

   Anyone with a demon account can connect to news when connected via that
   account.  In other words you cannot access news.demon.co.uk from any
   other network (e.g. CompuServe).

3.5 Pubnews

   Pubnews.demon.co.uk is the name of the Demon publicly accessible
   newsserver.  It is an unsupported service which is provided for the
   mutual benefit of the net, but can be withdrawn at any point without
   prior notice.  At the moment Pubnews is accessible by anyone with a
   reverse DNS lookup, however this may change without notice.

3.6 Article expiry policy

#  *warez*           2 days
#  alt.binaries*     3 days
#  demon*           28 days
#  all other groups 14 days
 
   Expiry headers are honoured.
 
   The expiry times on alt.binaries.* and *warez* were dropped solely due
   to the disk space used.  At the time of writing there is no commitment
   to any change to this but it is subject to review.


4.0 Mail
--------

4.1 Machines

   There are three groups of machines that form the mail service provided
   by Demon.  These are post, the punts and the relay machines.  To check
   for mails waiting on the punts finger <yournode>@post.demon.co.uk (e.g.
   finger flyhmstr@post.demon.co.uk would give a list of mail waiting for
   me)

4.1.1 Post

   Post is the Demon smarthost.  You may choose to send mail to a
   address on the Internet via Post.  The major advantage of is that
   when connecting to slow links post will keep trying for long after
   you've come off line.  The disadvantage of this is that mail can be
   delayed if post is very busy or that mail could potentially be lost
   if post completely trashed its discs. To date this has not
   happened.

4.1.2 Punts and Relays

   Both sets of machines collect mail for forwarding to users.  They are
   all housed at Finchley, if the Demon network disappears due to a major
   failure the incoming mail is stored on the sending host.

4.1.3 What are MX records?

   For each Demon node there is a series of MX (Mail Exchanger) records.
   These indicate the machines to which mail should be delivered for
   forwarding to the node.

   A typical record might give the machines as

      flyhmstr.demon.co.uk   MX  1   40 relay-1.mail.demon.net
      flyhmstr.demon.co.uk   MX  1   10 punt-4.mail.demon.net
      flyhmstr.demon.co.uk   MX  1   20 punt-1.mail.demon.net

   Under the above records a well configured system would try punt-4 first
   then punt-1 and finally relay-1.  The MX records can be checked by
   fingering yournode.demon.co.uk@post.demon.co.uk or by visiting
   http://http.demon.net/external/ntools.html

4.2 I've lost mail!

   This is a rare cry but one which does appear occasionally, as a general
   rule mail is not lost.  However there are several things which can look
   like lost mail.

4.2.1 Internal delays at Demon

   Periodically there are problems with the way the Demon mail system
   operates.  In the past International connectivity problems have caused
   massive backlogs to appear in a short space of time.  The delays
   resulting reached anything up to 6 days and much of the mail being
   reported as lost did re-appear.   Current estimates put the outgoing and
   incoming mail at around the 8,000,000 mails/day mark.

4.2.2 What can I do?

   The best approach to solving mail problems which are not to do with your
   own set-up is to get hold of the *full headers* of any bounces and mail
   them to internet@demon.net.  Remember that not all problems are solvable
   by DIS. For example if the problem is with a mailhost somewhere inside
   another network there is little that can be done except mailing the
   postmaster@site and alert him/her to the problem.

4.3 Bounces

   If mail is undeliverable for whatever reason the RFCs state that it
   should be bounced, i.e. returned to the sender. Reasons for this may
   include unreachable hosts, unknown users or a local policy that rejects
   mail from certain addresses or domains.

4.3.1 Demon & your mail

   Mail is held on the punts for 30 days before bouncing.  After 8 days a
   warning is sent out alerting the sender that the mail hasn't been
   delivered.

   Although these 8-day bounce messages shouldn't cause any problems to
   mailing lists many list admins use them as a cue to drop list members to
   prevent 30 days worth of bounces coming down over the following month.
   Due to the number of 8 day bounces there are a number of lists that no
   longer accept any requests from *.demon.co.uk.  If you know you're going
   to be away and may have these bounces going out it is only polite to
   inform the list admin, and unsubscribe, resubscribing upon your return.

4.4 Sticky mail

   Unfortunately there are times when the automatic mechanism for causing
   mail to flow fails.  There is *no* way to force the punts to deliver.
   Despite what you may hear, all that commands like "smtp kick" do is to
   try and deliver any *outgoing* mail.  The punt should try to deliver
   again every 5 minutes, but if this fails the only way to restart the
   delivery system is to log off and back on again.

4.5 POP3 v SMTP

   This is the subject of a long running holy war across several groups.
   Both protocols have their advantages, but at the time of writing, DIS
   only offer a SMTP mail service (POP3 is available from Cityscape for a
   fee)

4.5.1 Advantages of SMTP (as implemented by DIS)

   1. Unlimited mailboxes
      i.e. a user may have as many individual mailboxes as he or she likes.
   2. No user interaction is required to collect mail
   3. You get the SMTP envelope delivered as well as the body
   4. Parallel delivery possible

4.5.2 Advantages of POP3

   1. Mail can be checked & read without deleting it from the server
   2. Mail can be collected from anywhere around the globe.
   3. Mail headers can be scanned

4.5.3 Which is best?

   This entirely depends on what you need.  If you need mail that can be
   read from anywhere in the world then POP3 is the logical choice.
   However if you have a large number of users or require extra addresses
   for other services (for example a listserver) then SMTP would be a more
   sensible choice.  Just to confuse matters a little it should be noted
   that some ISP's have 'improved' the normal POP3 system to provide some
   of the features of SMTP.

#4.5.4 Will Demon keep providing SMTP?
#   
#  SMTP will remain the normal way to deliver mail to Demon hosts for
#  as long it is the Internet standard.  


5.0 Connectivity & Routing
--------------------------

   Routing is the mechanism that allows your computer to connect to any of
   the multitude of other hosts on the Internet.  It is normally
   established very early in the login procedure, but is known to fail
   occasionally, one way of checking routeing is to ping one of the
   machines in the DIS network.

5.1 Why can't I connect to ...

   There are many, many reasons why a route to another host cannot be
   negotiated. Some of the more common ones are:

    1. The host is down
    2. A link close to the host is down cutting it off from the net as a
       whole.
    3. A link further back has failed and the routeing tables haven't
       adjusted themselves yet.
    4. The routeing tables have been corrupted somewhere and are causing
       loops and other problems to occur.
    5. The links out of demon.net are suffering problems
    6. A problem inside the DIS network.
    7. You have a incorrect DNS setting locally.
    8. It's Monday and everything feels like playing up.
    9. It's Friday the 13th.

5.2 Bandwidth out of Demon
5.2.1 US

#  Connectivity to the US at the time of writing consists of a single
#  DS3 (45Mbit).  Peering on this line consists of 20Mbit to PSI-Net.

5.2.2 Europe

   A 2Mbit line now runs between Demon's UK & Netherlands operations and
   peers with the EBONE in Europe.

5.2.3 Linx

   A 100Mbit connection into the Linx (London Internet Exchange) provides
   the routeing into most of the UK networks including JANET (Joint
   Academic Network - the UK academic network) and a 155Mbit link to
   Telehouse.
   

6.0 Other Services
------------------

6.1 Are Demon going to provide....?  
6.1.1 Quake Server 

#  At the time of writing there are no plans for an official Quake
#  server at Demon.  However there are a couple of unofficial servers  
#  connected into the LAN's at Finchley and in the Netherlands.  These
#  are *not* maintained as part of the service but are run by staff at
#  Demon in their own time.  Demon support will not answer any queries
#  on the servers.


Credits
-------
(Or I'm not taking all the flak :)

Darrell Ottery (Darrell@lspace.org) for proofing and improving on my
grammar.

Malcolm Muir and Giles Todd for picking up on a few typos and some factual
errors.

The poor souls who got random emails from me asking for suggestions (You
know who you are :)

Everyone who mailed me after the first posting with comments and
suggestions for improvements, many thanks.


Glossary
--------
   DIS  : Demon Internet Services
   RFC  : Request for comments,
   ROMP : Regionally Organised Modem Pool
   TAM  : "Tenner a month" Short for the Standard Dial-up account.
          Also known as TAM+V (+VAT)
   tPoP : Traditional Point of Presence
   vPoP : Virtual Point of Presence

=====
Copyright 1996 by Mark Lowes <mark@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk> This file may be
freely distributed provided that it remains unedited from its current form.
It may be printed for personal use only.  Sections may be quoted for
reference providing its source is given.  The latest version is posted
regularly to the newsgroups demon.service and demon.answers.  It can also
be obtained from <URL:http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/demonservice.html> It
can also be obtained via email <mailto:servicefaq@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk>
This should only be done if no other method works as it puts up my phone
bill!

-- 
Mark <mark@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk>           http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/
The demon.service FAQ     http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/demonservice.html
Listserver                listserv@flyhmstr.demon.co.uk
-- 
Mark <hamster@lspace.org> http://www.flyhmstr.demon.co.uk/