What is happening with OnNetworks?

… and why has my OnNetworks/Knossos/Liverton hosted domain stopped working?

If you had a domain name hosted on what used to be OnNetworks / Knossos Networks Ltd infrastructure, those servers have been completely shut down, and services associated with that domain do not work.

If you wish to re-activate or otherwise keep your domain, you must transfer it to another provider / domain registrar. Email domains@rsltd.nz to obtain the authorisation code (UDAI) to do this (or arrange with your new provider to do so).

If you need any data, email, or web content recovered, please email help@liverton.com.

Background

Rumsey Stokes Limited (RSL), formerly known as Knossos Networks Ltd and trading as OnNetworks, transferred its network and domain operations to Liverton Limited in 2015. Since 2017, the only formal involvement in that business by RSL has been to continue to provide domain registration services on Liverton’s behalf, and that only on a limited cost recovery basis, due to Liverton’s refusal to formally become an authorised .nz registrar.

Service Shutdown

In November 2022, we were informally told that Liverton were “preparing to terminate the domain registration part of our business”, without further detail. When a flurry of domain transfer activity in January 2023 prompted us to inquire further, we were informed by a Liverton staff member, on the 24th of January, that

On 1st Feb we plan to firewall block inbound access to the Knossos platform to soft all terminate services. All the equipment needs to be out of the Xtreme DC by the end of Feb

We read this (in the absence of any contrary information) as meaning that from the 1st of February 2023, all services operated on the former OnNetworks DNS, email and web hosting infrastructure would become unavailable, and that all services, including Internet connections hosted on the former OnNetworks infrastructure will be migrated to other infrastructure or cease to operate by the end of February.

On 1 February, services were disabled, and as of late February, the shutdown appears to have been completed.

We must stress that RSL has had no input into or involvement in the decision to shut the platform down, nor in the process for doing so. As the registrar, RSL only provides .nz domain registration services, and (other than a handful of private domains) only on behalf of Liverton. Since Liverton has indicated that they no longer wish for RSL to provide these services, holders of affected domains will need to cancel them or move them to other providers.

Domain Name Cancellations

As Liverton has terminated its registry service arrangements with RSL, we plan to cancel all domain names still registered with RSL (other than those we have a direct interest in).

RSL will provide an authorisation code (formerly known as a “UDAI”) on request to affected domain registrants for .nz domains they hold, to allow those domains to be transferred to other registrars/service providers. Please email RSL at domains@rsltd.nz to obtain this code, and pass it to your new provider / registrar. (Alternatively, you may instruct your new provider to contact us.)

Please note that providing transfer authorisation codes is the only service available from RSL to former OnNetworks customers, as Liverton has not contracted RSL to provide any assistance to Liverton / OnNetworks users, nor does RSL have access to user data. We’re sorry, but we can not help with transferring email, DNS records, web pages, or other resources to new providers, nor can we provide any assistance with non-NZ domains.

Affected domains have had their delegations removed (since the delegated name servers no longer exist), and consequently appear as “inactive” in the .nz domain registry, and are not published to the DNS.

After cancellation, domains will be held in a “pending release” state for 90 days, and may be transferred to a new registrar (and reactivated) at any time during that period. If you need an authorisation code for a cancelled domain, please contact domains@rsltd.nz within the 90 day pending release period. After that has expired, the domain will be available for registration by anyone (including the original holder).

Thanks

On a personal note, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those customers who supported Knossos Networks Ltd / OnNetworks up to 2015, and I am only sorry we were not able to continue to support you going forward.

Don Stokes, Director and Consultant, Rumsey Stokes Ltd.