No sooner do I hit send than do I get a note from UUnet that they
have fixed the problem.
Thanks to UUnet and sorry to the list.
-mm-
I realize the original problem has been fixed, but I'd like to find out if
someone does have a contact at UUnet which will help with these types of
issues. In particular, when I've been having a problem reaching
UUNet-connected sites and needed to contact the uunet noc, I get almost
the same response as Mark did initially, i.e.:
> I have contacted UUnet and have been told to take it up with my
> upstreams 'cuz they won't deal directly with me. They also said to
> have a nice day.
I realize I don't have a direct relationship with UUnet. But trying to
get my upstream to talk to their upstream to talk to UUnet just to get
someone at uunet to do a traceroute or tell me what is showing up in their
(uunet's) BGP tables is just plain rediculous.
Does anyone have better contact information than "call their unhelpful
noc"?
- Forrest W. Christian (forrestc@imach.com) AC7DE
Why should they talk to you? You're not a paying customer..
I get very upset when customers of customers start phoning us up..
I think your problem is with your immediate upstream and if their own
supplier relations and escalation procedures arent up to scratch then you
want to change to another which is but I dont think you can ever expect
UUNET to talk directly to you unless you buy direct
Steve
(eek, did i defend uunet?! i must be losing it!)
:Why should they talk to you? You're not a paying customer..
Because their network transits _most_ internet traffic and
as a courtesy, they should provide some bare level of
diagnostic services to the rest of the network.
Maybe this has changed, but last I checked UUNet was practically
ideologically opposed to providing a public looking glass inside
701 or 703.
So many problems could be solved that way, IMHO. All providers
that originate a certain percentage of all prefixes should be obligated
to provide a public looking glass.
This always made me really mad that the rest of the Internet had to
rely on the charity of a few provders for basic diagnostic tools.
However, this could very well have changed if there was a public
lg in uunet.
I've obviously caused a stir.
Before I proceed, let me say I'm going to continue mentioning UU.net as
I've had experience there... The responses to this list indicate this is
a more widespread problem, so please don't take this as necessarily
badmouthing uu.net.
Let me first say EXACTLY what I was looking for. I'm multihomed. All
I've wanted out of uu.net each time I've called is a traceroute and/or BGP
output to determine which path my packets were heading back towards me on
so *I* could get the problem fixed. I.E. to determine where the loss was
really occuring and/or who was mis-announcing a prefix.
In every case where I've tried to contact uu.net it's been obvious that as
soon as traffic reaches their AS, everything goes to pot. Without being
able to take a peek inside their network (via a traceroute or sh ip bgp)
It's almost impossible to tell where the problem lies, since the problem
is obviously with traffic getting back to my network. I agree with batz:
Because their network transits _most_ internet traffic and
as a courtesy, they should provide some bare level of
diagnostic services to the rest of the network.
I can't think of a case where I've called the uu.net noc where I wanted
more information than could have been queried through a standard looking
glass (I.E. traceroute and BGP information). In fact, if uu.net provided
a looking glass we probably wouldn't be having this discussion.
Without rambling much further I'll add this: Yes, I realize there are
scaling issues. Yes, I do want to call my upstream to get it fixed. No,
I don't expect uu.net to own the problem (unless of course it IS their
problem). BUT I can't tell which of my upstreams is having the problem in
order to call them without a BGP or traceroute from the provider we're
having problems reaching.
- Forrest W. Christian (forrestc@imach.com) AC7DE
This really bothers me.
So, if you are starting to have a major outage because of a
configuration change, or a circuit goes down, or whatever else might
happen, and the first person who contacts you is not a customer, you
are going to ignore it, especially if your network tools haven't
picked it up yet?
In another lifetime ago I was working at a network where Gamer
Tickets (people playing Everquest and those types of games) would
sometimes see the problem before our network tools picked it up. The
Gamers were not direct customers, but we worked on their problems,
because a portion of the time there actually was a problem with the
network that should be fixed immediately before our Big Customers Who
Paid The Company Lots of Money started to call and want SLA or threaten
to (and sometimes did) go to another provider.
You can also think of it in the respect of potentially making more money in
the long run. If you provide some service to a non-customer and their
upstream doesn't provide any, there is a good chance these non-customers
turn into customers by purchasing service directly from you instead.
Rachel
But
1. Customers are always telling us its a problem at our end and it never
is
2. If we have any outage its always picked up by our network tools
Perhaps I'm being too black and white tho.. if -you- found a problem on my
network, you'd probably email noc@ and perhaps run a whois at RIPE/RADB
and get a couple more noc contacts.
Now if you email those addresses you will get a response and you will have
someone look at your issue.
The difference is that by knowing these addresses we can assume you're
reasonably technical and quite possibly have a point.
Another difference is that we're not UUNET, and their network can affect a
lot of people and they will get lots of wrong diagnosis to their email and
support line, so this doesnt scale well. Having said that I think I know
enough addresses to still get in contact and thats also true for most
other large NOCs..
Steve
You're in the wrong line of work - you need to bottle it and sell it.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if it should be marketed as Divine Right or
just as fertilizer... 
After re-reading the following message I wanted to make sure I was clear
that I am *not* currently having any connectivity problems with uu.net.
It just happens often enough (and since it was brought up) that I wanted
to find out what other people did to resolve this.
I have recieved a couple of nice notes from people at uu.net offering to
help in the future. I will be keeping those on file for future
reference.
I would like to say that my comments below still stand. I wouldn't have
needed to contact the uunet NOC if a public looking glass was provided.