Virginia Websites Down

You have to read through the comments at http://www2.timesdispatch.com/rtd/Business/local/article/DMVV21_20091120... to understand the extent of the problem.

Went to renew my registration at http://www.dmv.state.va.us/ and Firefox says - Firefox can't find the server at www.dmv.state.va.us. Now that could be anybody along the chain and I can get that by:

root@helen:~# tracepath 206.113.143.4
1:  208.94.92.222 (208.94.92.222)                          0.207ms pmtu 1500
1:  208.94.92.221 http://www.radford.edu/(208.94.92.221)                         10.470ms
1:  208.94.92.221 (208.94.92.221)                         10.430ms
2:  ge-7-3-204.car2.Atlanta1.Level3.net (4.71.22.157)     35.340ms
3:  ae-1-51.edge4.Atlanta2.Level3.net (4.68.103.14)       35.267ms asymm  4
4:  4.68.62.18 (4.68.62.18)                               36.081ms asymm  5
5:  0.ge-2-2-0.XT2.ATL4.ALTER.NET (152.63.82.106)         35.580ms asymm  6
6:  0.so-7-0-0.CL2.RIC2.ALTER.NET (152.63.32.30)          59.319ms asymm 10
7:  POS7-0.GW2.RIC2.ALTER.NET (152.63.37.229)             56.793ms asymm 10
8:  gw1-covanetmci-oc12.customer.alter.net (157.130.57.78)  57.567ms asymm 12
9:  206.113.135.22 (206.113.135.22)                       59.640ms !H
     Resume: pmtu 1500

I can ask for the IP address:

root@helen:~# dig www.dmv.state.va.us
;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.dmv.state.va.us. 172800 IN A 206.113.143.4

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
state.va.us.  69173 IN NS cnsa.vita.virginia.gov.
state.va.us.  69173 IN NS cnsb.vita.virginia.gov.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
cnsa.vita.virginia.gov. 69178 IN A 166.67.65.169
cnsb.vita.virginia.gov. 69178 IN A 166.67.65.170

And then "ping":

root@helen:~# ping -c1 www.dmv.state.va.us
PING www.dmv.state.va.us (206.113.143.4) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- www.dmv.state.va.us ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

The tracepath gets close but the question remains "how close?" To shed more light we head over to http://www.robtex.com/ and enter the domain name "dmv.state.va.us".

Chasing the "as" link to http://www.robtex.com/as/as17373.html#graph we find their sole upstream provider is MCI. Radford University - http://www.radford.edu/ is a "peer" but Radford university is "dual homed" meaning that either route should work.

I suspect there is a way of doing this in Microsoft Windows. I'll come up with some sort of prize if anyone posts a workable comment.

Hope they fix it by Monday or Fred will become an illegal vehicle.