RIPE NCC Keeps SY Online During Outage

Update (24 August, 16:00 UTC): The two other name servers are available again and we have reverted our server to being a regular secondary server.

The RIPE NCC operates one of three authoritative DNS name servers for Syria's Country-Code Top Level Domain, SY, as well as its IDN variant, XN--0GBPF8FL.

The other two, operated by the Syrian government's National Agency for Network Services (NANS), have been offline for several days. That means we are not receiving updates to the zone at this time. Normally, the RIPE NCC would follow agreed DNS protocols and operational practices and stop serving such a zone in order to prevent us from serving stale data.

However, since the server we operate is the only remaining one, this would mean the SY domain and its IDN variant would be completely unavailable.

Therefore, the RIPE NCC decided to override its normal procedure, and will continue to serve the last version of the zones that we have until the name servers in Syria become available again.