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Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

blog.gitbook.com

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Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#171

Post by cirno »

DenseComet wrote: post #162
cirno wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how you feel about CloudFlare as a registrar not allowing GitBook to use an external root nameserver. Being forcibly stuck on CloudFlare's own nameservers only sounds very nefarious, and isn't a limitation I've ever heard of with any other registrar. For instance, it would break my tooling that uses my host's APIs to control DNS records through their nameserver. I'd be very appreciative if eastdakota or j…

Cloudflare sells the domain at cost. I think the idea is that its an extra service meant for their customers, not a service for the general public. As they are a DNS provider, their customers will use cloudflare nameservers. If they didn't, they would no longer be customers.

That does make sense. If I were using Cloudflare I suppose it would be a no-brainer, and if I were Cloudflare and didn't want people not routing their traffic through me on my registrar, that would be an excellent way to discourage it. If they're forced to offer to everyone as part of being a registrar, then the combination of all of the above is my answer. Thanks!

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#172

Post by jasonlotito »

mbreese wrote: post #118
jtl999 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you draw the line? I mean github.com is the corporate email domain of the GitHub company, it also hosts repositories (user generated content)

But it isn't... directly. Github.com is their corporate site, hosts their application, and is how we all interact with repositories (via https or git://). But, the only data you get from that site has been processed through their application and sanitized. The only way to get access to the raw user-generated data is through raw.githubusercontent.com or Github Pages which hosted on github.io. And the data from raw.git…

That’s exactly what they are doing, too. Google effectively shut down github.com for the issues in github.io that didn’t exist anymore, in your example.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23425569

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#173

Post by baryphonic »

spacephysics wrote: post #22

After hearing this I’ll be transferring away from Google domains. Had to use them for the initial .dev sales

Same. I bought a few .app names when they came out, but I'm transferring the rest away. It's not even the threat of someone accidentally locking something that concerns me, but the fact that Google is now so big that, like a black hole, all information is pulled in and none can escape, including (effectively nonexistent or incompetent) support.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#174

Post by odensc »

mmglr wrote: post #170
SamyPesse wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've just published a postmortem: https://blog.gitbook.com/tech/post-mortems/06-20-gitbook-dom... let us know if you have any questions!

How did you arrive at choosing Cloudflare? It's clear Google Domains has broken processes not conducive to running a business centered on user content. How do you know Cloudflare does not suffer from similar broken processes?

I doubt CloudFlare Registrar would be better in terms of customer support—unless said customer has an Enterprise plan—as their prices are just the registry + ICANN fee, no surcharge for them to make money.

Doesn't seem conducive to great customer support, but maybe I'm wrong cause I've never had to contact them.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#175

Post by rswail »

CameronNemo wrote: post #8
koluna wrote: post #6

Google Domains locked my domains at renewal time and refused to renew them until I provided proof of identity in the form of a scanned government ID -AND- a scanned copy of the credit card. Coupled with the horror stories of non-existent support, the first thing I did was move my domains out this month.

To where?

I use name.com for my domains, cloudns.net for DNS, fastmail.com for mail/calendar/contacts.

Currently don't have any hosting requirements but if/when I do, I either use AWS or digitalocean.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#176

Post by CompuIves »

The exact same has happened with CodeSandbox, Google Domains had blocked our csb.dev (internal domain) and csb.app (domain for projects) without any warnings. It took us two days (of downtime!) to get them to lift the block. But then after 3 weeks, they did the exact same thing! They blocked us again for reports without warning. Luckily we had a fallback domain so that there was not much service disruption, but it was extremely frustrating working with them on this.

After 3 sudden blocks from them, they now give us a warning before they're planning to block us, but it took many calls before we got to that stage.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#177

Post by wegs »

... Which is again why I would never use Google for any business application. These stories happen all the time.

"I built my business on Google Cloud / Android / Google Apps / Youtube / etc. I was flagged by an automated system. There was no human to speak to (at least one competent or empowered to do anything), and my business is now gone."

Some of these go viral on social media, and Google then fixes them. Some don't.

Support channels built on only having an impact if things go viral aren't what I'll build my business on.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#178

Post by mbreese »

SamyPesse wrote: post #169
mbreese wrote: post #114

Aside from the Google domain issue (which is obviously a problem) -- why on earth would GitBook be hosting user-generated content under their corporate gitbook.com domain? The registrar issue is one problem here -- but I don't see this addressed in their post-mortem. I thought this was a well-known issue. You don't host user-generated content on the same domain that handles your corporate email. Because things like t…

We don't host user content under the gitbook.com, or at least we've stopped doing it a few years ago. User content is stored under *.gitbook.io, similar to GitHub. Google blocked all domains that contained "gitbook" in our account, even ones that are used for some infrastructure and are not accessible by the public. We don't know the exact reason for this, maybe they've blocked gitbook.com because we still have some…

That’s really important to add to the story! I think that makes the rest of the story more troubling. Especially knowing that domains unrelated to the apparent user phishing code were affected.

You might think of adding it to the post-mortem doc so that others don’t assume what I did.

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#179

Post by fmajid »

ballenf wrote: post #36
yoran wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why you got downvoted. Google's customer support is notoriously non-existent (perhaps except for stuff that brings in money like AdWords). They admit themselves that it's a business decision: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-support-staff-limits-139...

Because it's about as helpful as saying "you shouldn't have moved to Los Santos if you value safety" to someone who's bleeding on the street having just been mugged. The same message could also be worded more like "once you get past this, I'm sure you're already considering moving registrars. But please let us know if the support you're receiving from them is as bad as (my experience / reputation / etc.)".

Or better yet, "here is a reputable site reviewing registrars for reliability and customer service" (I don't know if there is such a site, there really should, but it's unclear how it would make money).

Re: Google Domains blocking all Gitbook URLS: post-mortem

#180

Post by franga2000 »

A month or so ago, I was setting up a new system for writing internal-ish documentation and made the rather unpopular decision to not go with Gitbook because it was too reliant on their servers for my taste. Today, I got to send a very satisfying "told you so" the the team chat.

To be clear, I think the Gitbook team actually handled this very well and it wasn't their fault, but it does illustrate very clearly why we shouldn't be relying on cloud services when we really don't need to.

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