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ResourcesrackAID BlograckTIPSPlesk 8.4 Qmail Adds Max Recipient PatchPlesk 8.4 has been out for a while now. We recently rolled it out to our management clients and discovered that they have added a maximum recipient patch to Qmail. Though I did not see it on the What's New page for the release, I discovered by happenstance. About two... July 18, 2008 7:58 AMSecuring Web Forms for PCI DSSAs part of our PCI Compliance project and in work with clients trying to reach compliance, I've noticed a new criteria that will catch many web sites. The issue involves web authentication forms.... June 13, 2008 11:42 AMEmail Migration TipWhen you migrate a server, one of the biggest issues is email. Keeping email in sync and be very challenging on some systems. Methods to re-sync email may require additional time and increase the cost of migration. For many of our clients in the shared hosting business, keeping cost down... June 11, 2008 10:43 AMA Friendly Helpdesk ReminderThe outage at ThePlanet has reminded us all that communication is vital during server outages. One of our helpdesk's primary roles is to make communication during an emergency go a little smoother. It is our first line of support.... June 3, 2008 3:22 PMDomain Keys ExplainedI am starting to see more and more requests regarding DomainKeys (DK) and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM). Yesterday, I found a DKIM talk from Sendmail's CSO, Eric Allman. The presentation starts off slow but eventually gets into some details of DK and DKIM.... May 28, 2008 10:36 AMPCI Compliance Project: Initial ResultsWe are making some progress on our PCI Compliance Project. Our last update focused on PCI scanning vendor selection. We now have our first pass results back.... May 27, 2008 11:29 AMSelecting Secure SoftwareI previously wrote about Secunia's PSI tool to help you keep your desktop updated. Secunia has another good use: checking up on software security history. Looking at a software's security history is a good step in any software selection process.... May 8, 2008 1:43 PMPCI Compliance Project: Vendor SelectionAs part of our PCI Compliance Project, we are working with different scanning vendors to test who has the most user friendly, cost-effective and reliable services. We've finalized our list and will start scanning soon. Just wanted to share some initial impressions of the sign-up process with the vendors.... May 8, 2008 1:02 PMPCI Compliance ProjectIf you are selling online, you have likely already dealt with or will soon deal with PCI DSS. If you've gone through the audits you know they can be a real pain. We are starting on a new project to test the PCI compliance of the Plesk control panel. We... May 7, 2008 11:17 AMServices and Tools We UseI just thought I would share some of the tools and services we use to run rackAID. As most of our readers and clients are involved in some aspect of the hosting industry, you may find some of these tools useful or even have better ones to recommend. We welcome... May 6, 2008 9:00 AMEeePC is a WeePCI have a lime green EeePC that I bought to toy around with. I was curious about this sub-$500 laptop.... May 5, 2008 2:40 PMBounced Email or BackscatterEmail Bounces In the past few weeks, we have seen a sharp rise in email bounces. These bounces are for emails that the person did not send. While there are many reasons you can get a bounce, the current wave appears to be a spamming technique where spammers spoof reply-to... April 28, 2008 10:07 AMHelp! I lost my domains in Plesk!Assuming you didn't delete them, they're still there! Likely someone (ok probably us) was logged in as the admin and using the handy search box just above the domain listing under the General -> Domain section.... February 18, 2008 1:29 PMDesktop Security: PSI from SecuniaHere at rackAID, we spend a lot of time patching and securing servers. Keeping a server patched is the cornerstone of a good security management plan. However, a secure server is useless if your desktop has security holes. Secunia has released PSI. PSI stands for "personal software inspector." The utility... January 30, 2008 10:55 AMEmail Bac'nThe other day I heard an NPR story on email "bac'n." What is bac'n? Well it is not spam or ham, but emails that you want but are of very low importance. As spam filtering improves, I am finding that these useful but low priority messages are becoming more problematic.... October 9, 2007 10:00 AMEnsim X AnnounceIt! MessagesLately, we've seen quite a few people confused by the update announcements in Ensim 10.0 and above. They're confused because they've requested updates and been told their server is up-to-date but they still see messages like this when they log into the control panel:... September 14, 2007 2:23 PMPlesk 8.2 DNS Server (BIND) ErrorI've seen a few cases of DNS Server (BIND) generating errors after updating Fedora Core 4 or Plesk 8.2. I've not ruled out which update causes the issue. The problem is the rndc key.... July 16, 2007 3:40 PMAntiSpam & Antivirus Solution for SendmailSpam, spam, spam. No not the famous Monty Python skit or that canned substance I ate in summer camp. I'm talking about those penis enlarging emails, lottery winnings, and hot stock tips that arrive in your mail box daily. Though there are tons of solutions out there, we've found one... July 10, 2007 4:22 PMIMAP and ThunderbirdEmail, email, and more email. If you run a web hosting company or other IT business, you likely get tons of email. Though the 1000+ messages per month we used to get to our support account have dropped significantly since moving to a helpdesk system, we still get 1000's of... July 10, 2007 4:03 PMPlesk: Spamc HangingRecently, I've seen email delivery issues on several Plesk 8 boxes. The symptoms were slow email delivery to recipients on your server. Outbound email is working fine. On several systems, we notices in the process list that there were hundreds of spamc/procmail processes running. After some investigation, the problem turned... July 2, 2007 12:51 PMRed Hat ES 5 RHN Register WoesApparently, RHEL has a bug in rhn_register. If you try to register from the command line you will get an error and the system will exist with: An error has occurred: up2date_client.rhnreg.InvalidDefaultError See /var/log/up2date for more information Red Hat sent us a workaround by using rhnreg_ks rhnreg_ks --username= --password= This... June 27, 2007 12:25 PMPlesk Firewall LoggingSince version 8.0, Plesk has included a firewall module. This module is accessible from the control panel and makes it easy to configure your itpables-based firewall rules.... March 12, 2007 3:32 PMHelping the HelpersWe are here to help. That should be the mantra of any good technical support crew. After all, it is their job to provide support. Providing consistent quality support is challenging. You have to be abreast of the latest bugs, exploits and network issues; you have to keep up with... January 1, 2006 11:42 AMThe Cost of No Backups"My clients are responsible for backing up their sites, so I don't need to bother with them." We hear this often. Unfortunately, this stance is often taken for legal reasons and not technical ones. Limiting your liability for the loss of data is crucial for almost any web hosting operation;... December 9, 2005 12:02 PMWhat Version Ya' Runnin'?Versions. Versions. Versions. Understanding versioning for Linux systems is not as easy as one may expect. The numerous Linux distributions combined with differing practices by control panel vendors produces dizzying array of versions, releases, hot fixes, errata, bug fixes, patches, updates, and workarounds. Further complicating matters, many vendors do not... November 8, 2005 12:40 PMEnding Clear Text ProtocolsWe spend a lot of time and money trying to keep our systems secure. From security patches to intrusion prevention systems, we attempt to fortify our systems from the hackers while not frustrating our end users. We remind users to choose good passwords and keep their systems free from viruses.... October 7, 2005 1:26 PMPlaying Nice - Using the Post Master Service of Major ISPsUnsolicited Commercial Email, spam, junk or whatever you call it, unsolicited emails are both annoying and costly. In an effort to combat spam, major ISPs are increasingly monitoring incoming spam and blocking spamming servers. AOL, Hotmail/MSN, Yahoo, and others all use some sort of spam filtering technology. Sometimes this is... September 6, 2005 1:57 PMUnable to Send EmailBeing unable to send email is one of the most common complaints we receive. Doing a little detective work can save you a lot of extra hassle. If you're having trouble sending email from clients like Outlook, Eudora and other POP3/IMAP software, please check the following issues: Correct Passwords Verify... August 5, 2005 2:15 PMGeneral Server Migration TipsMigration Planing Server migration though seems daunting can be performed in a controlled, systematic fashion for most platforms. We have found that most people migrate to new systems due to security or performance related issues. If you have an aging server, you may have performance issues, security problems or both.... July 4, 2005 2:19 PMManaging a Security CrisisAt rackAID we deal with compromised servers on a weekly basis. Hacked servers can cause serious problems for your business, your clients and your bottom line. In our experience, recovery from a compromised system requires at least 5 to 6 hours of work, which is easily $300-500 of labor fees.... June 3, 2005 3:30 PMTime to End Clear Text ProtocolsWe get many service requests with passwords that are 10-20 even 50 characters long. For some reason, people think that the larger the password the harder it is to crack. While this is theoretically true, in practice, any password longer than 12 characters is sufficient. What people do not realize... May 2, 2005 2:46 PMUsing the "last" commandUsing the "last" command to get historical login information: last -x Gives reboots and crashes last -ai List logins with their IP address last ai|grep 192.168.1.1 Pass last output into grep to easily filter on an IP address. This allows you to get all logins from a specific IP address.... April 2, 2005 2:29 PMPassword SecurityDespite warnings for years, we still find people using poor passwords. Each month, we deal with cases ranging from simple email account hi-jacking to full server compromises due to poor passwords.So what is a good password? For years, many systems required a minimum 5-character password; however, this is no longer... April 1, 2005 2:28 PM |
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