[kictanet] Government Websites down - again?

Thu Jan 10 09:49:07 EAT 2013

@ Mich,

Nice probes/sniffers you send out... I also did notice that our Presidents website  www.statehousekenya.go.ke has a thing to do with  having a US Admin contact.

>Admin Contact:

>Name: Director Operations

>Organisation: Elance, Inc.
>Address:
>441 Logue Avenue
>Mountain View, CA 94043
>US
>Email Address: hostmaster at elance.com

And the way we like shouting about our sovereignty - whenever it is convenient.

Unless ofcourse this is some "clever" Kenyan based in the US who wanted an excuse to charge more the for the service - it is always easier to get away with a big invoice if based abroad you know :-) Anyway, most government sites seem to be crawling back online - thought they seem to be slow. 

My probes/sniffers reveal that most government ministries seem to have hazina.treasury.go.ke as their primary Name Server. Which is fine/ok, but one wonders why this local server could not then  be reached for resolving - given that it is presumed to be an internal box within their local (government) area network.

I think its got something to do with the routing setup.  I suspect the routing at the various ministries levels is designed to first go "International"  - even though they maybe searching  and reaching out  for the "Local" dns resolvers @ hazina.treasury.go.ke.  And if this International route is down(TEAMs), then the resolving function would fail and services become unavailable. 

Which also exposes another design flaw - why connect to ONLY one International Link in this day and age? Particularly for a rich client like Govt of Kenya?  If GoK was connected to both TEAMs and say SEACOM, then with proper configuration at the Ministry level, the dns resolvers at Treasury would still be reached - despite having to do so through un-necessary international routing.

Anyway, enough free consultancy for now :-)

walu.

----- Original Message -----
From: Michuki Mwangi <michuki at swiftkenya.com>
To: Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Government Websites down - again?

Hi Walu, et al,

Probably worth taking a moment to give oversight on what is going on in
view of the article in the media today;

http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate-News/Public-agencies-off-Internet-as-undersea-cable-is-repaired/-/539550/1659978/-/llc49t/-/index.html

The reason KRA is online is because they are connected to the KIXP and
their services are hosted locally.

From my checks the following websites are hosted locally and hence
should be operating normally despite the cable cuts. Am able to access
the sites in under 70ms.

www.ict.go.ke (Kenyaweb)
www.transport.go.ke (Kenyaweb)
www.information.go.ke (Kenyaweb)
www.treasury.go.ke (Telkom Orange)
www.immigration.go.ke (Telkom Orange)
www.centralbank.go.ke (Safaricom)

This two below should be ideally locally accessible but seems there is
routing problem :(. Am informed that this is being worked on.

www.communication.go.ke - E-Govt/GITS
www.health.go.ke - E-Govt/GITS

The following are hosted abroad in various European and N.American sites

www.tourism.go.ke
www.statehousekenya.go.ke

Now that is just the Website function.

Looking at Email the picture is very different;

@ict.go.ke - (Google Apps - International)
@transport.go.ke - (Xtranet - Local)
@information.go.ke - (E-Govt/GITS - Should be Local see aboves)
@treasury.go.ke (E-Govt/GITS - Should be local, see above notes)
@immigration.go.ke (E-Govt/GITS - Should be local, see above notes)
@centralbank.go.ke (Safaricom)
@communication.go.ke - (E-Govt/GITS - Should be Local see aboves) **
@health.go.ke - (E-Govt/GITS - Should be Local see aboves)
@tourism.go.ke - (E-Govt/GITS - Should be Local see aboves)
@statehousekenya.go.ke - (HopOne Internet Corporation - USA)

** DNS is broken so Email will not work until DNS entries are fixed.

In conclusion 2 out of the 10 domains will be partially affected by the
TEAMS cable repairs. Statehousekenya.go.ke is the only one that may be
fully affected by the TEAMS cable repairs since both website and email
are hosted abroad.

The remaining domains seem to be having local routing issues and once
they are resolved it should be business as usual.

As such, it would be safe to say that for most of Government should be
partially functional. If not, then it is purely a technical issue and
nothing to do with the TEAMs cable.

I have to state that this is not inclusive of all .go.ke domains - but
it is a good indication of where most domains are hosted/located and
their current state.

Regards,

Michuki.

On 1/7/13 12:40 PM, Walubengo J wrote:
> Sorry @Paul  K,  @Ndemo and @Kate Gitau to pick on you early in the
> year, but it looks like I cannot reach most of the government site
> (www.xxx.go.ke)
> 
> I quick ping to the following fails:
> http://www.ict.go.ke/  (ICT Board site down)
> 
> or
> http://www.information.go.ke/ (Ministry of Info and communication site
> down).
> 
> Rumour has it that it has something to do with the TEAMs cable
> undergoing scheduled maintenance. Pliz ?!!??...
> 
> But thank heavens our Money minting machine below has somehow managed to
> stay up :-)
> 
> http://www.kra.go.ke/  (Kenya Revenue up)
> 
> even though its parent ministry is down :-(
> 
> http://www.treasury.go.ke/  (Ministry of FInance down)
> 
> Ok, could someone remind me why we are the best ICT destination in East
> Africa and the future mother of Silicon Savannah/Konza CIty when we
> cannot design redundancy within our government networks?
> 
> We have guys on this list who can design redundancy for free - me
> included. But since it is election time, why cant my good friend Dr.
> Ndemo just put up an international tender for this work :-)  and then I
> can apply from  which Island was it again? -Cayman Island or something?
> 
> walu.
> 
> 
> 
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