SnapNames Server Outage Brings Down 50 Domain Registrars
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
Outage of (perhaps only one) server takes down 50 registrars.
A reader just informed me about an interesting situation affecting about 50 ICANN accredited registrars. If you visit any of the 50 domain registrars you will see this error message:
Downtime Notice
We have been dealing with a major hardware failure that has necessitated replacement of hardware and restoration of data. This is a long and tedious process and is expected to finish around 08:00 AM GMT on March 12. We are doing everything we can to bring the system up as soon as possible and will keep you posted.
Rest assured that all operations will resume normally as soon as we are online again.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
All of these registrars appear to be owned or operated by SnapNames. And, given the error message and nameservers for all of these domains, it’s possible that all 50 registrars are hosted on one server. [Update: a bit more research shows that Directi is managing the back end on these registrars for SnapNames.]
The whois information for the registrars I checked are mostly privacy protected, but a historical whois look up at DomainTools connects the dots to SnapNames. The sample I checked have historical records showing the domains are owned by SnapNames. They also point to the nameserver ns1.oregondomains.com. SnapNames is based in Oregon, and a historical record for OregonDomains.com shows that it is owned by SnapNames. One of the domains is registered with SnapNames and does not have a protected whois record.
Another irony? The most of the domain names are registered at eNom, which is co-owner of SnapNames’ rival NameJet.
But perhaps the biggest question when sifting through these registrars is “who came up with all these registrar names?”
adomainofyourown.com    Â
allearthdomains.com     Â
atomicdomainnames.com   Â
baronofdomains.com      Â
beartrapdomains.com     Â
belmontdomains.com      Â
biglizarddomains.com    Â
bullrundomains.com      Â
compuglobalhypermega.comÂ
deschutesdomains.com    Â
domainamania.com        Â
domaincomesaround.com   Â
domaininthehole.com     Â
domainparkblock.com     Â
domainsails.net         Â
domainsalsa.com         Â
domainsareforever.net   Â
domainsinthebag.com     Â
domainsofcourse.com     Â
domainsoftheworld.net   Â
domainsouffle.com       Â
domainsoverboard.com    Â
domainsurgeon.com       Â
europeanconnectiononline.com
eurotrashnames.com      Â
finduaname.com          Â
findyouadomain.com      Â
frontstreetdomains.com  Â
godomaingo.com          Â
gozerdomains.com        Â
gradeadomainnames.com   Â
interlakenames.com      Â
microbreweddomains.com  Â
namearsenal.com         Â
namecroc.com            Â
namefinger.com          Â
namepanther.com         Â
namesalacarte.com       Â
octopusdomains.net      Â
oldtowndomains.com      Â
oregoneu.com            Â
pdxprivatenames.com     Â
pearlnamingservice.com
portlandnames.com       Â
protondomains.com       Â
savethename.com         Â
sitefrenzy.com          Â
snappyregistrar.com     Â
soyouwantadomain.com    Â
thirdfloordns.com    Â
Further Reading:
Is not “Snapnames” is Logicboxes
Some of these I recognize as their drop-catching registrars. So, there’s a chance they might not be up for tomorrow’s drop…?
It’s actually Logicboxes/Directi/Reseller Club.
The domains are registered at ENOM.
And they are pointed to Directi/ResellerClub using the “reseller website” of Logicboxes
@Myles
I checked several and they all pointed to manage.snapnames.com. Which ones are pointing to Directi?
I imagine they use direci as a backend for some of these. The ones I checked all had SnapNames as the registrant of the domain name at some point (even if privacy protected now).
By the way, may favorite registrar names are beartrapdomains.com, biglizarddomains.com, and eurotrashdomains.com. Seriously, who came up with these? I guess it’s better than eNom’s naming format (eNom21, eNom22, etc.)
I’ve updated the story to reflect that, as suggested, directi was managing these registrars for SnapNames. This outage may not be limited to SnapNames’ registrars.
Here’s a side question: After winning drops via these Snapnames entities, is there a way to consolidate them into a Moniker account without 1) invoking the 60-day transfer rule (i.e. push), and 2) without paying for an additional year through the transfer. After all, it’s all Oversee, isn’t it? Just curious if anyone else has run into this.
I believe it is Snapnames…any URL you type in redirects you to manage.snapnames.com
@ fd – correct, they are snap registrars but the back end was managed by directi.
@SL: Since the domains that end up at these registrars are mostly drops and not names that are sold from partner registrars pre-drop, they are counted as new registrations from the registry’s perspective. For any new registration the 60 day no transfer rule is blocked directly at the registry level and cannot easily be circumvented by the registrar.