For news linux users, what to do when simplemining.net is down :

Login to your miner using putty (default username/passwd : miner/miner)
(or open a terminal if you're in front of the RIG)

Type :

miner@simpleminer:~$ sudo nano /etc/hosts

You'll be in a file editor.
Make it look like this :

[quote]
127.0.0.1	localhost
127.0.1.1	simpleminer

[b]127.0.0.1	simplemining.net[/b]

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     localhost ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
[/quote]

Press Ctrl+X, press Y, Enter, to Save and exit the file editor
Reboot

You now cannot connect to simplemining.net, and the script will not bother you with [i]Retrying connection[/i]
Your RIG will mine on the last settings downloaded. In order to change them, edit the file /home/miner/config.json to match your changes (beware of json syntax).

When SMOS is back up, edit your [b]/etc/hosts[/b] again, and remove or comment out the line you added with a #