All Systems Down: ReliableSite.net Review

So I don't know if it was some weird juju, but it seemed like the perfect storm hit many of my sites...

ReliableSite.net: Even though I have chosent to remain a customer, I do have quite a few concerns about their service. So much so that I am writing this blog entry about you.

I must warn you that the billing situation for their site does not handle auto billing - so you must either login to pay your bill OR you have to pre-pay for a full year. I had mine going to my yahoo account (but as I am looking back through my emails and they might have stopped sending my bill to the correct address) .




In any caser, I don't really check my yahoo email accout often unfortunately. In any case, here I am - 10 days overdue on my invoice and I login to see the problem in my yahoo email. So I immediately login to pay my bill. Unfortunately in my haste, I didn't realize that I paid with an E-Check (which takes a few days to clear).

I paid, but the system would not let me access my account - due to the fact that it was an e-check apparently. So I put in a support ticket stating that I had sent in payment, but that I was having some difficulties, etc... They wrote me back telling me it was an e-check.

I immediately logged in and then paid via C20.

I then used their online support as you can see below. They told me someone would be with me shortly as they:
payment as well as the c20 payment i had just made

[20:55] ReliableSite: Ok
[20:57] ReliableSite: We're mid-restore on a very large server right now.
[20:57] ReliableSite: We should be able to bring you back up within the next 12 hours.
[20:58] djfractalien: ok, thanks


on 6/26 I receive this response (apparently their Reliable Servers had crashed):

----- Original Message -----

From: Support - ReliableSite.Net

To: mauricio@chaosexistence.com

Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:28 AM

Subject: [37D-0FF59F09-2606] Invoice #1075

Hello,

Someone should get back to you shortly, we have the control panel down for the time being for a server restore.

Thank you,
ReliableSite.Net Support

New Products:

• Windows Server 2008 Shared Hosting - http://www.reliablesite.net/v3/shared.asp
• Affiliate Program (earn $15 for shared, $25 for reseller, and $30 for clustered referrals) - Sign up now at https://payments.reliablesite.net/register.php

---

From: mauricio@chaosexistence.com
Sent: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:27:53 -0400
To: Support Department
Subject: Invoice #1075

[20:53] djfractalien: hi reliable site... I think have a mess... I think you terminated (maybe deleted my account) but I had made a payment - but since it was an echeck (not intentionally) it had not cleared and thus why the problem... sigh. I went in to try and repay via c20 but it looks like maybe im too late because I cannot get into helm :(
[20:55] djfractalien: I have a ticket submitted... [040-0FF2D18F-E8A3] . In addition you will probably receive my paypal payment as well as the c20 payment i had just made

I have made the payment already via C20 but my account has not been reinstated yet, can you please help? I have several sites down. Thanks,
Mauricio Zuniga

=============================

By the 30th of june, I still had not received word - they had received my payment from C20 AND Paypal... still I could not access my control panel:

----- Original Message -----

From: Support - ReliableSite.Net

To: mauricio@chaosexistence.com

Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 1:06 AM

Subject: [2BF-0FFC29FB-CC6A] Invoice #1075

Hello,

Please excuse the delay, the account should now be active and you should receive an e-mail with the login instructions.

Thank you,
ReliableSite.Net Support

New Products:

• Windows Server 2008 Shared Hosting - http://www.reliablesite.net/v3/shared.asp
• Affiliate Program (earn $15 for shared, $25 for reseller, and $30 for clustered referrals) - Sign up now at https://payments.reliablesite.net/register.php

---

From: mauricio@chaosexistence.com
Sent: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:34:19 -0400
To: Support Department
Subject: Invoice #1075

I have paid this through C20 AND my payment through paypal ALSO cleared... my sites are still down - have been for about a week now.

[20:53] djfractalien: hi reliable site... I think have a mess... I think you terminated (maybe deleted my account) but I had made a payment - but since it was an echeck (not intentionally) it had not cleared and thus why the problem... sigh. I went in to try and repay via c20 but it looks like maybe im too late because I cannot get into helm :(
[20:55] djfractalien: I have a ticket submitted... [040-0FF2D18F-E8A3] . In addition you will probably receive my paypal payment as well as the c20 payment i had just made
I have made the payment already via C20 but my account has not been reinstated yet, can you please help? I have several sites down. Thanks,
Mauricio Zuniga

==================================

EVERYTHING HAD BEEN WIPED OUT! NO RECOVERY... ALL MY DNS / Domain ENTRIES, Databases, Files, etc... (about 600 domains).

I put in a support ticket - they said that they did not have a backup (although they alluded that they might). Luckily I have much backed up, but not the latest versions of the databases unfortunately...

===================

Finally, I get around to trying to work on the disaster recovery a day or two after they send me my new login info. What do you know....I have to put in a support ticket yet again. I cannot add or delete domains in my account: yet delayed ONCE again.


My sites went down for weeks... everything deleted, sure I'll take some of the blame... but having used their online support I was in contact with people in their company - I would assume they understood that I was trying to make a payment, and thus might make some type of effort on their end to not delete everything. You seriously delete your accounts 10 days after the invoice is due? I am surprised by how nonchalant the loss of my data was for them....

Sigh - why do I choose to remain here... well there are other factors I don't want to get into right now, but I would be weary. They do have some good deals and technology - but their support seems more concerned with closing the ticket than actually resolving the issue.

Argument list too long when using RM command

I ran into this issue myself when going to delete a large number of files from a linux drive...


I found the answer here:
http://www.moundalexis.com/archives/000035.php

But the easy answer is this... be very careful and navigate to the location where you want to delete everything and then use this command:
find . -name '*' -print0 | xargs -0 rm

Hope that helps, I know I will use this page to look it up in a few weeks when I forget again.

How to manually delete a service in windows

I had to find out how to manually delete a service the other day...

i looked it up online, nowI cannot find the link where it came from as I just saved the text... (Sorry whotever wrote it!).

Normally it should not be necessary to manually delete a service. Uninstalling an application should remove its associated service (if any).

However, should it be necessary to manually remove a service:

1. Run Regedit or regedt32.

2. Find the registry entry:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services

3. Find the service there and delete it.
   You may wish to look at the keys and see what files the service was using and perhaps delete them also.

Note:

• You will have to reboot before the list gets updated in server manager.
• I have had it pointed out that some programs are cunning and prevent you from removing their service easily. (For example the spyware\malware called ‘Command Service’ - "cmdService".) These change the permissions to make it more difficult for you to delete them. For these you will have to right click on the ‘service’ in regedit (regedt32), go to permissions and grant the administrator full control before the service can be deleted.

TUTOS - Blank Screen When You Add A New Bug

So I love TUTOS so far, except I encountered a bug when I entered a bug. I found the solution in their forum, but it was after searching google for a while with no luck I was about to post something for help when I noticed a post which had the answer.

Go into php/bugtracking/ folder.
edit bug.pinc

line 880 something...
$mail->resetBody();
change to
$mail->resetBodies();

delete all the echo or debugging information throughout the mess you have made trying to fix this.
Thats it!!

How to setup Mailman List Administration on a different Port

This is just a really quick set of commands that I needed to use in order to fix my mailman html administration to work on another port. My mailman installation is on ubuntu (debian), so your locations might be different.

I needed mine to work on port other than 80 so this is what I dug up after some research:

In your mailman config file (/etc/mailman/mm_cfg.py):
search and replace the port in the Default URL Pattern:

DEFAULT_URL_PATTERN = 'http://%s:8080/mailman/'
(the 8080 represents the port you would like to use,
so if you are using a different port, plug it in there)

Use a program like vi in your ssh connection or you use webmin, edit this file in the file editor.
I would also recommend checking these settings if they are not already there:
# Max recipients for each message
SMTP_MAX_RCPTS = 4
# Max messages sent in each SMTP connection
SMTP_MAX_SESSIONS_PER_CONNECTION = 30

I had to change these to work properly with my isp host as mailman was sending too many recipients per message and it ended up bouncing.

Ok, now save your file.

You will notice that this will not change any of your current administrative pages and it will unfortunately still end up giving you the old urls (without the port you need).

To fix this you can use this little session I saved to remind myself what I did (it took me a while to find the location, but)...

> cd /var/lib/mailman/bin
> /withlist -l -r fix_url mailman
bash: /withlist: No such file or directory
> ./withlist -l -r fix_url mailman
Importing fix_url...
Running fix_url.fix_url()...
Loading list mailman (locked)
Finalizing
Saving list
> /etc/init.d/mailman force-reload Mailman
* Restarting Mailman master qrunner mailmanctl
 ...done.

Voila! Now you should be able to reload those pages and see the changes: your urls should include the port that you need.

Sendmail SMTP Smarthost Authentication with Alternate Port

Wow, so this project took me almost all weekend to complete. I am trying to get a maillist server running to also power a mailman installation. I tried to use my virtual private server, it overwhelmed it and my server started having issues; although I have finally deduced a great optimization of those settings (which I still have to post at some point).


In any case I have to credit this page with helping me most of the way; but I think I might have missed something or perhaps it is missing a small be key entry. In any case, I will provide you with my exact files (Without the domains).

This installation was done on ubuntu.

Configuring a smarthost for sendmail

To configure a smarthost (with authentication) for sendmail, you'll have to create a file called /etc/mail/auth/client-info and modify the file /etc/mail/sendmail.mc.

Configure authentication

Create the directory /etc/mail/auth/ if it doesn't exist. Then create the file /etc/mail/auth/client-info. The content in of this file represents your login credentials for the smarthost. It should look like the example below:

AuthInfo: "U:username" "I:email" "P:password"

Where:

• is the fully qualified domain name (fqdn) of your smarthost
• is the userid used to login at the smarthost (often your email address)
• is the account to be used for your smarthost (often your email address as well)
• is the password that belongs to your smarthost username

Here is an Auth File example: client-info.zip

Next, you'll have to build the password hash database with this command:

sudo bash -c "cd /etc/mail/auth/ && makemap hash client-info <> 
 Configure sendmail 
Now you have prepared the authentication setup for the concerning smarthost,
let's go on and configure sendmail to use this smarthost. To do so, please edit the
file /etc/mail/sendmail.mc. Find the line starting with MAILER_DEFINITIONS in this
file and insert the lines before this line: 
define(`SMART_HOST',`relay:smtp.yourisp.com')dnl
define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
FEATURE(`authinfo', `hash /etc/mail/auth/client-info')dnl
I also had to add these lines to get mine to work (not part of the original article).

# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS',`TCP $h 587')dnl
DSsmtp.smarthost.net
The key addition that I made to the article is the DS entry.  Without this entry, the actual
forwarding did now work.

Now use the M4 macro processor to translate the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file into a format
sendmail understands (/etc/mail/sendmail.cf). This can be taken out by: 
 sudo bash -c "cd /etc/mail/ && m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf"
This is an example of what mine looks like.  I use it to effectively relay all sendmail delivery
via my isp's authenticated smarthost on port 587.  You can use webmin to effectively copy and
paste this.  I am also including a zip file, but you would have to search through it extensively
- I don't recommend it.
divert(-1)dnl
divert(0)dnl
define(`_USE_ETC_MAIL_')dnl
include(`/usr/share/sendmail/cf/m4/cf.m4')dnl
VERSIONID(`$Id: sendmail.mc, v 8.14.1-8ubuntu1 2007-08-01 05:06:30 cowboy Exp $')dn1
OSTYPE(`debian')dnl
DOMAIN(`debian-mta')dnl
undefine(`confHOST_STATUS_DIRECTORY')dnl        #DAEMON_HOSTSTATS=
FEATURE(`no_default_msa')dnl
dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Family=inet6, Name=MTA-v6, Port=smtp, Addr=::1')dnl
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Name=MTAv4,Port=smtp,Family=inet')
DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Name=MSPv4,Port=submission,Family=inet')
define(`confPRIVACY_FLAGS', `authwarnings,needmailhelo,noexpn,novrfy')dnl
define(`confCONNECTION_RATE_THROTTLE', `15')dnl
define(`confCONNECTION_RATE_WINDOW_SIZE',`10m')dnl
FEATURE(`access_db', , `skip')dnl
FEATURE(`relay_hosts_only')dnl
FEATURE(`use_cw_file')dnl
FEATURE(`greet_pause', `1000')dnl
FEATURE(`delay_checks', `friend', `n')dnl
define(`confBAD_RCPT_THROTTLE',`3')dnl
FEATURE(`conncontrol', `nodelay', `terminate')dnl
FEATURE(`ratecontrol', `nodelay', `terminate')dnl
dnl define(`confCON_EXPENSIVE',`True')dnl
include(`/etc/mail/m4/dialup.m4')dnl
include(`/etc/mail/m4/provider.m4')dnl
FEATURE(`relay_hosts_only')dnl
define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS',`TCP $h 587')dnl
define(`SMART_HOST',`relay:smtp.smarthost.net')dnl
# "Smart" relay host (may be null)
DSsmtp.smarthost.net
define(`confAUTH_MECHANISMS', `EXTERNAL GSSAPI DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 LOGIN PLAIN')dnl
FEATURE(`authinfo', `hash /etc/mail/auth/client-info')dnl
FEATURE(`always_add_domain')dnl
MASQUERADE_AS(`yourdomain.net')dnl
GENERICS_DOMAIN(`yourdomain.net')dnl
FEATURE(`allmasquerade')dnl
FEATURE(`masquerade_envelope')dnl
MAILER(`local')dnl
MAILER(`smtp')dnl
here is an example config file
 
 
Note: What to do if no authentication needed?
In case no authentication is needed or necessary in your smarthost setup.
This how-to can be used as well. In that case, just simply skip the paragraph 
Configure authentication and only add the line define(`SMART_HOST', )dnl
to the /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file. All the rest of the how-to applies as well. 
 
 


To prevent sendmail from sending messages for local recipients through the smarthost,
you'll have to tell sendmail which domains are locally processed. This can be done by
inserting all local domains in the file /etc/mail/local-host-names, like in the example below: 
localhost
mylocaldomain.com
myotherlocaldomain.com
 
Of course, the domains mylocaldomain.com and myotherlocaldomain.com need
to be replaced by your actual local domains. 
Now, again this file /etc/mail/local-host-names needs to be translated into a format
sendmail understands. Us the make command to do so, like shown below: 
 
sudo bash -c "cd /etc/mail && make"

 Restart sendmail and check the configuration 
 
To make sure your configuration is all right, restart sendmail
To restart sendmail, use this command: 
sudo /etc/init.d/sendmail restart

sudo bash -c "cd /etc/mail/auth/ && makemap hash client-info <>

sudo bash -c "cd /etc/mail/ && m4 sendmail.mc > sendmail.cf"

/etc/init.d/sendmail reload 


this solved the following problems for me
Apr 13 23:20:07 ubu sendmail[8640]: m3E6K5Rq008640: from=, size=1221, class=0, nrcpts=1, msgid=<027201c89db4$0287afa0$6402a8c0@experience>, proto=SMTP, daemon=MTAv4, relay=[192.168.2.100]
Apr 13 23:20:07 ubu sendmail[8659]: m3E6K5Rq008640: to=, ctladdr= (1000/1000), delay=00:00:01, xdelay=00:00:00, mailer=relay, pri=121221, relay=64.202.165.58, dsn=5.1.2, stat=Host unknown (Name server: 64.202.165.58: host not found)

(reason: 550 Host unknown)

550 5.1.2
Host unknown (Name server: 64.202.165.58: host not found)
Host unknown (Name server: 64.202.165.58: host not found)



If you have gone through all of this and you still cannot figure out what is wrong, try going to your /etc folder and find nswitch.conf
this is what mine looks like:
# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# Example configuration of GNU Name Service Switch functionality.
# If you have the `glibc-doc-reference' and `info' packages installed, try:
# `info libc "Name Service Switch"' for information about this file.
#hosts: dns files mdns4_minimal mdns4 [NOTFOUND=return]

passwd:         compat
group:          compat
shadow:         compat

hosts: dns [NOTFOUND=continue] files
ipnodes: dns [NOTFOUND=continue] fileshosts: dns [NOTFOUND=continue] files
networks: files

protocols:      db files
services:       db files
ethers:         db files
rpc:            db files

netgroup:       nis


and your /etc/resolv.conf file should look  like (with your own nameservers/dns servers)
nameserver 68.87.69.146
nameserver 68.87.85.98
nameserver 192.168.2.1
sendmail.zip

Error: No space left on device - PHP, IIS, Win2K3

Today I went to upload on one of my client's sites and realized that the uploads were not working.

After looking at the directories and permissions to ensure that they were not deleted, I went back to see that the directories that were suppposed to be created with each upload where not being created.

I went to turn error reporting on the php script:

error_reporting(7);

this error appeared on the IIS 6, Windows 2k3 Box.

Warning: mkdir() [function.mkdir]: No space left on device in E:\Domains\www.domainname.com\html\upload_new.php on line 75

I checked and there was enough space left on the device. I moved the upload to different drive and that seemed to work. But no matter what I did on the upload directory permissions wise, I was still receiving the same error.

After going crazy for a while, I found a post online that could be very helpful in debugging if my post does not solve your problem.

It ended up being that the IUSER_XXXXX ran out of space for their disk quota and was not being allowed to write to the disk. There are a few ways that you can fix this, but I don't need quota's turned on for this machine and I don't care if they go over the quota, so I chose to just turn the enforcement off. You could easily delete files to go back under quota or raise the users quota.

You can change your quota rules by going to your volume or drive (e: in my case) and right clicking and selecting properties. There you can see a quota tab. There are a few options here (which I will not get into), but to fix the problem you can easily just click a checkbox which will stop the system from enforcing quota rules (it will stop disabling people if they go over the quota). Likewise, you can change your quota limitations on this screen.

If you find this useful, please digg me, link me, or click on a sponser for which you find legitimate interest.