CS New Media - Server Status

Please accept our apologies for the loss of service to all services on our Linux Hosting Network. We are currently experiencing a severe network failure.

Network engineers are working to resolve this as soon as possible.

UPDATE: 14.17 - Engineers are still working to resolve this issue. Please accept our further apologies for the continued loss of service to our Linux hosting network.

UPDATE: 18.20 - Due to the extended outage which is clearly severely beyond any anticipated estimates of downtime associated with the maintenance work, we have decided that the only feasible option for returning service quickly must be to perform a full roll-back. Note that this was previously an unfavoured option for obvious reasons (we performed that maintenance with a view to making several necessary improvements) - however, we also must return service for all customers as quickly as possible and this is now viewed as the fastest possible way.

This will involve approximately 2-3 hours work which is now under-way.

Please accept our apologies for the continued loss of service. Further updates will be provided shortly.

UPDATE: 19.33 - All VPS customers are now online, we are working on getting all shared / reseller & dedicated server customers back online

UPDATE: 19.37 - Mail Server, Database Servers & Web1 Server now back online

UPDATE: 19.41 - All customer dedicated servers  & the Web3 shared hosting server is now back on-line

UPDATE: 20.27 - Web2 shared hosting server is now back online

UPDATE 21.26 - We are working on resolving an issue with the MySQL5 service.

UPDATE: 22.51 - All services are now back online. Please accept our apologies for todays problems, we will be sending an email out over the next few days explaining todays problems.

00.39 / 16th August 2008 - We are aware & investigating an outage with the MS-SQL 2005 server. Please accept our apologies for the loss of service during this time.

UPDATE: 01.05 - The MS-SQL server is now back online.

We will be undertaking significant maintenance on key elements of our Linux hosting infrastructure on 22nd August 2008. Whilst every effort is being taken to minimise the service impact, unfortunately there is a necessity for a period of downtime during the work. We have scheduled this period to occur overnight at a weekend to reduce the inconvenience caused to all of our valued customers.

WORK TO BE PERFORMED:

This essential maintenance is across three vital areas:

1) Major reorganisation of our rackspace to facilitate further growth, improved cooling (critical for continued reliability), and additional functionality;

2) Significant network upgrades including updated network hardware, additional transit partners, and enabling us to provide enhanced network capabilities in future;

3) Following a review of our power resiliance, we will be improving this aspect of our service with more servers utilising redundant power supplies, PDU hot spares, and dual power feed options.

MAINTENANCE WINDOW:

* Start @ Friday August 22nd 2008: 22:00 BST/Western European Time/UTC+1
* End @ Saturday August 23rd 2008: 06:00 BST/Western European Time/UTC+1

Estimated maximum outage per server: 4 hours

DURING THE MAINTENANCE WINDOW:

No email will be lost during this maintenance period, all mail will be stored on our off-site backup mail server located in the USA and then re-delivered to mailboxes once all our services are back online. No loss of data will occur during this maintenance period.

Helpdesk support during this maintenance period will be limited while we focus our attention on this maintenance work. Our own email and helpdesk systems will still be available throughout this maintenance period should you need to contact us for any reason either during or after the maintenance period.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this maintenance work please do not hesitate to contact us at
linux-support@csnewmedia.co.uk or submit a ticket via our web based helpdesk.

Thank you for your co-operation & understanding during this maintenance period as we continue to improve the quality, performance & reliability of our service.

Our Windows mail server has been upgraded to SmarterMail v5.5, new features include:

• Added: SmarterMail Enterprise Edition allows synchronization of Contacts, Calendars, Tasks and Notes with devices such as BlackBerry, iPhone, and more.
• Added: The messages page now displays the folder of the message when searching in multiple folders.
• Many more additions, enhancements, and improvements.

Full release notes:
http://www.smartertools.com/SmarterMail/ReleaseNotes.aspx

SmarterMail Sync Guide:
http://www.smartertools.com/downloads/documents/smartermail/Collaboration_Synchronization_and_Over-the-Air_Mobile_Communications_with_SmarterMail_V01.pdf

Over the last few weeks we have been receiving a number of support tickets of websites that have been ‘hacked’ or ‘compromised’. In all cases theses sites have been attacked due to software not being kept up to date / security patches not being applied or incorrect CHMOD permissions set on files.

All customers are responsible for ensuring that all scripts installed on their domains are kept up to date/patched; including scripts installed via the auto-installers we previously made available inside the hosting control panels (Helm/Plesk).

It would be appreciated if all customers could check scripts installed on their websites to avoid any chance of the website being compromised and data loss occurring. These scripts may include:

• Joomla / Mambo
• phpBB
• vBulletin
• Invision Power Boards
• PostNuke
• PHPNuke
• osCommerce
• Zencart
• Cubecar
• Wordpress

If you are not sure if your scripts are up to date or require assistance upgrading to the latest versions of your scripts please contact us via our web based helpdesk for assistance.

CHMOD Security

If you have any files or folders that you have CHMOD to mode 777 (which allows any user to read/write not just the owner (you), we suggest you change these to the following should your script or website allow it;

• 644 for files
• 755 for folders

This may not always be possible as some scripts to require the use of ‘777′ permissions.

Keeping scripts up to date & setting these permissions will further improve the security of our hosting environment.