[dhx]

“An Optus source, who did not wish to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said a BGP prefix flood from a peer was likely causing the issues on the telco’s core network.”

“Our on-site technician is actively prioritising establishing a console connection [a physical cable connection],” the message to Optus’ partners early on Wednesday said. “Rest assured that said technician is also being provided additional technical support remotely.”

[1] https://www.smh.com.au/technology/what-caused-the-optus-outa...

[__turbobrew__]

So there is one dude in a datacenter trying to plug in a db9 connector to get a serial connection in order to fix this?

[dhx]

I haven't been able to find information on what part of their overall network is impacted. Per [1] they use a mixture of leased fibre and owned fibre for connectivity between Australian cities, and per [2] (note: zoom in) many point-to-point microwave links connecting mobile phone tower sites to the fibre footprint. It's potentially as bad as Optus needing to send a technician on a flight to a remote airfield somewhere in rural Australia, then driving 5 hours to a microwave tower to fix a router within the communications hut. Multiply by thousands of routers which are no doubt very much spread out. If Optus are lucky, it's just impacting routers for part of their overall network. For example, only impacting routers within data centres of the major Australian cities where you'd expect Optus to have technicians nearby who could physically access the router with 1-2 hours notice.

[1] https://www.optus.com.au/dafiles/OCA/Wholesale/ProductAndSer...

[2] https://maprad.io/us/search/text/optus?filters=WyJkdl9saWNlb...

[fragmede]

Sure, but how do they reach those technicians? They can't call them.... Hopefully they provisioned sat phone backups for enough of them! Or they're HAM radio enthusiasts.

[martin8412]

Actually a lot of newer network equipment ships with the USB to Serial adapter built in, so they have a USB Micro or USB-C connector on the front you can use.

[sonicanatidae]

Yes. lol

#SysAdminLife

[bogantech]

I wonder if they are too cheap to have Out-of-band console servers or if their OOB relies on the Optus network...

[vasdae]

It's an Australian network so I already can figure what country that peer is from.

[defrost]

Singapore, from a Singtel peer?