Owner: Spry Blog URL:http://blog.spry.com Join Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:37:37 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Technology and hosting related news and information from the folks at Spry Hosting Site statistics:Click here
VPS Performance Monitoring: Going Over The top 2007-09-16 23:50:08 System resource monitoring is one of those ‘black arts’ in Unixland that many dabble in, but few really master. Few of us ever need to go beyond top to find out what’s affecting the performance of a server, but there are other aspects of monitoring system resource usage where top is worthless. In addition, a VPS presents challenges of its own in defining exactly what may be causing a bottleneck, and top really has no way of seeing them. So if you’re not sure where you’d start looking if your web server is responding slowly and your CPU usage were almost completely idle, this series is just for you.
I hear some of you saying, “They can have my ‘top’ when they rip it from my cold, dead server.” Believe me, I feel the same way. I’m not saying that CPU and memory resource monitoring aren’t worthwhile; on the contrary — for 95% of system resource issues I’ve run into, top has provided a quick and authoritative l Read more:Performance
, Going
PostgreSQL authentication 2007-09-12 16:01:32 When PostgreSQL is installed, it has its own user added, usually postgres or pgsql. By default, just this user will be able to connect to a datatabase, and without a password. If you are running as root, you can su to the postgresql user using ‘su - postgres‘, then run ‘psql databasename‘ to connect.
You may want to allow other users to connect with a password, or possibly you’d like to disable the postgresql user from connecting without a password. To do this, you need to edit pg_hba.conf, located in /var/lib/pgsql/data.
For example, to require postgres to log in with a password and only from the local machine, use the following line in pg_hba.conf:
local all postgres password md5
This means: on the local machine allow access to all databases for the postgres user with a password.
If you wanted to allow all users from host 10.2.4.100 to connect to database foo with a password, you would do:
host foo all 10.2.4.100 255.255.255.0 md5
For your changes
Will the real Domain Registrant please stand up? 2007-09-10 15:06:20 In recent weeks, I’ve seen many domain registrations come across my desk where the registrant provides false or incorrect contact information. Let me just get this off my chest:
PROVDING FALSE OR UNVERIFIABLE INFORMATION WHEN REGISTERING A DOMAIN IS AGAINST THE ICANN RULES!
There, now I feel a little better…
Let me break it down for you like this:
It’s quite simple, folks; ICANN wants to be able to reach you in case there’s a problem with your domain or if it happens to be trademarked, a duplicate or otherwise in violation of any of the ICANN rules and regulations. If you give false or invalid name or contact details, ICANN can take your domain and you will be left with nothing; no domain and no refund from your registrar.
Allow me to quote the Registration Agreement of one of the larger Registrars:
” ACCOUNT CONTACT INFORMATION AND DOMAIN NAME WHOIS INFORMATION: As further consideration for the Service(s), you agree to provide certain current, complete and accurate informati
Customer Service Philosophy - part 2 2007-09-10 15:05:07
Last week I wrote to you about my experience in the web hosting industry, focusing in particular on my observations about the range of technical support and customer service philosophies that I have had direct experience with. This week, I’d like to expand on those ideas by outlining the support philosophies that we have at Spry and at VPSLink. By way of a brief introduction to this article, I should mention that the support philosophy is one key difference between Spry and VPSLink. While VPSLink is an unmanaged VPS solution, Spry is a fully managed VPS provider. So while there are similarities among them, the actual customer experience will be quite different from one company to the other.
Core Principles
We share these core principles in both the Spry and VPSLink support and service teams.
1 - Accuracy. Above all else, provide accurate diagnosis and solutions to issues that the client has raised.
2 - Timeliness. Resolve all issues as quickly as possible, and provide time Read more:Customer
, Service
, Philosophy
, Customer Service
How to configure Apache to write its log files to a MySQL database 2007-09-04 15:58:19 After using Apache
for a while, you are probably tired of “less’ing”/”grep’ing” your log files
. You might want something a little more flexible and efficient. How about having the logs in a database table, one field per column? Now that would be an improvement. Several of your Virtual Hosts already use MySQL
, and it’s about time it does something useful for you.
The answer is called mod_log_sql.
Here are some instructions you need to get it running on a freshly installed VPSLink CentOS-4-LAMP VPS.
1) VPSLink OS templates are updated regularly, but do it too, it can’t hurt:
yum update
2) Install the required software:
yum install httpd-devel mysql-devel make bzip2
3) Download the latest stable version of mod_log_sql (was released on 11/15/2006):
wget http://www.outoforder.cc/downloads/mod_log_sql/mod_log_sql-1.101.tar.bz2
(NOTE BEFORE PUBLISHING: the link above will be replaced by another one using sprydisk.com before publishing)
4) Untar
Death of a Decade 2007-10-01 20:22:46 A few more years down the road, and the response to some of your stories to your children could be “What’s a GPS? Pager? MP3 player??”
Anymore it seems as though the cellular network has almost become the backbone of human existence. Forget oxygen my friends, without a cell phone (You know, that dangerous radioactive smoking gun that could spark your next nearest fuel explosion in your car) and you’re left high and dry.
With ever developing technology and/or the copying of it, it would appear as though the cellular companies are actually going to outdo any technical gurus that play in the same electronic market. If it talks, the cell has it. If you can record the video, yup, your cell has it. If you want to share your life photos, that’s right, your cell has it. So why stop there? Who said we have!
Some of you may already be walking around with cell phones that can now track you via a GPS link and let your friends & family know your latit
The ‘Remote’ Market 2007-10-01 12:19:43 It’s no secret the internet realm has expanded over the last ten year period, so should it be very complicated nailing a good ‘Remote
Contractual Position’ working from your own office? If you aren’t familiar with the way of the world, then in reality yes, it’s that difficult.
For starters, most people in todays workplace feel that anyone who works from home so to speak, is a slacker. It’s just not a commonly accepted practice and one that people tend to look upon as being a ‘bum’. If you think about it, the stereotype is correct, because in one sense people can be very lazy staying at home, or home office. Being a person who’s relied upon to get a job done, and do it well from home, that means you must be that much more responsible. Lets face it, no company wants a star employee taking a Young and the Restless break every 30 minutes right?
Now let’s find the job for you. Since there are so many positions online thanks to the net’s expansion, it’s Read more:Market
VPSLink launches XEN VPS 2007-10-03 14:30:43
We’re proud to announce our newest product offering on VPSLink, XEN VPS accounts! After a month long beta we’ve ironed out the issues, and are ready to release this product to all of our users. XEN is a virtualization technology that provides several new features to our users:
Swap Space
Full control of iptables
Ability to load kernel modules
Enhanced Java support
Console access for troubleshooting
Users will manage their XEN VPS via our tried and true Control Panel. Our CP interface allows users to manage all functions of their VPS including:
Start/Stop/Reboot VPS
Install / Re-Install your VPS
Manage DNS records (including reverse DNS entries)
View your used bandwidth
File support tickets
VPSLink will continue to support OpenVZ VPS as our flagship product.
Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon VPS now available 2007-10-20 15:54:20
We’re happy to announce the availability of the newest release of our Ubuntu
VPS. Ubuntu released the official availability of Gutsy Gibbon
just a few short days ago. We have three versions of Ubuntu for you to pick from: default server image, Ruby on Rails, or LAMP. Our Ruby and LAMP stacks include everything you need to start serving your dynamic websites right out of the box! Ubuntu is now available
on both OpenVZ and XEN.
Happy Halloween from Spry and VPSLink 2007-10-25 11:53:45
Abby and Tyler from DomainTools were kind enough to carve us a beautiful Spry pumpkin for Halloween
. The staff of Spry would like to wish each of you a safe and happy Halloween!
Read more:Happy
, Happy Halloween
Links for 11/14/2007 2007-11-14 10:24:30
VMWare Server Beta 2
Oracle releases ‘Oracle Virtualization’ built on top of XEN
Redhat announce Appliance OS
New features available for VPSLink customers 2007-11-13 18:04:36
There are several new features
for VPSLink customers
inside of our cp interface
Clone VPS This feature allows you to duplicate your existing VPS environment hosted at VPSLink. This is useful for scaling applications by creating another active server, for creating an environment to test on, or for active/standby backup reasons.
VPS Transfer Have a Virtuozzo or OpenVZ VPS hosted at another provider that you’d like to migrate to VPSLink? Now all you need to do is shut down your databases on the remote end, and give us SSH access to the server and all of your files and settings will be automatically transferred. No more tarring up files, no more attempting to re-create a working environment.
Order New Server Now you can easily provision additional servers into your account.
Network Monitoring Free service monitoring is now available
for your VPSLink servers. Enter an IP and port number that you’d like to monitor, and an email address that you’d like notification sent to
Security Breach 2007-11-14 18:33:48
A very important update for everyone! It appears that earlier today a third party gained access to our mywebpayment.com billing system. Upon determining that there might be a security breach we immediately terminated the access to everyone by disabling the billing website. At this time we’re still uncertain as to the total scope of the data they accessed. We are going to be as transparent as possible about what happened, what our plans are to correct it, and also how we plan to make sure that this never happens again.
To start with it appears that the breach was made through some malware/spyware installed on an employee’s office computer. His username and password for the billing system were stored in a document unencrypted on his computer. This information was used to access parts of our billing system that, in retrospect, should have been protected better. There are many tools that we can use to limit the access to sensitive information, unfortunately the measures we had Read more:Breach
VPSLink Promotion: 10% Lifetime Discount Coupon for Unmanaged VPS Hosting 2008-03-04 19:41:16 Coupon Code: VPS0308Valid to March 31st, 2008
We are pleased to announce a 10% lifetime discount coupon for new orders at VPSLink.
Want in on this deal? Pick a plan and enter VPS0308 when prompted for a coupon code to get started (this offer is good for OpenVZ or Xen VPS hosting, any plan, any billing cycle).
If [...] Read more:Lifetime
, Discount
, Coupon
, Hosting
Coming Soon: New Gentoo OpenVZ Linux OS Template at VPSLink 2008-01-25 17:42:45 We are very pleased to announce the upcoming release of a new OpenVZ Gentoo template with VPSLink’s Gentoo VPS Hosting. This template was prepared by Daniel Robbins, the founder and former Chief Architect of the Gentoo Linux
project, and President of the Gentoo Foundation. We believe that Daniel’s efforts promise to provide a stronger working [...] Read more:Coming Soon
VPSLink.com Site Updates 2008-01-02 19:00:54 We have updated the VPSLink.com site to reflect some of our newest offerings (including the Rails v2.0.1 stack) and improve usability by showing which VPS hosting plans are compatible with different options (like our LAMP stack OS templates and the WHM / cPanel reseller control panel).
We’ve also added a new section to the site [...]
Join Us at LinuxFest Northwest 2008 2008-04-04 18:45:42 Visit LinuxFest Northwest
’sOfficial Site >>
Do you live in the Pacific Northwest?Do you love Linux?Join us at LinuxFest Northwest 2008!
You will be in good company if you can make it to this formidable gathering: there will be a wide variety of presentations geared toward developers and Linux enthusiasts, and it’s likely that there will be about [...]
Announcing the Link-7 at VPSLink: A New Record for VPS Hosting 2008-04-08 14:47:58 There’s a good chance that you have never heard of Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
Gaston will be remembered by history as the man who set the world’s first land speed record: on December 18th, 1898, he reached the speed of 39.24 miles per hour in his electric Jeantaud Duc.
The present land speed record stands at a scorching, [...] Read more:Record
, Hosting
, New Record
Announcing the Link-7 at VPSLink: A New Record for VPS Hosting 2008-04-08 14:47:58 There’s a good chance that you have never heard of Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat.
Gaston will be remembered by history as the man who set the world’s first land speed record: on December 18th, 1898, he reached the speed of 39.24 miles per hour in his electric Jeantaud Duc.
The present land speed record stands at a scorching, [...] Read more:Record
, Hosting
, New Record
Join Us at LinuxFest Northwest 2008 2008-04-04 18:45:42 Visit LinuxFest Northwest
’sOfficial Site >>
Do you live in the Pacific Northwest?Do you love Linux?Join us at LinuxFest Northwest 2008!
You will be in good company if you can make it to this formidable gathering: there will be a wide variety of presentations geared toward developers and Linux enthusiasts, and it’s likely that there will be about [...]
VPSLink Promotion: 10% Lifetime Discount Coupon for Unmanaged VPS Hosting 2008-03-04 19:41:16 Coupon Code: VPS0308Valid to March 31st, 2008
We are pleased to announce a 10% lifetime discount coupon for new orders at VPSLink.
Want in on this deal? Pick a plan and enter VPS0308 when prompted for a coupon code to get started (this offer is good for OpenVZ or Xen VPS hosting, any plan, any billing cycle).
If [...] Read more:Hosting
, Lifetime
, Discount
, Coupon
Coming Soon: New Gentoo OpenVZ Linux OS Template at VPSLink 2008-01-25 17:42:45 We are very pleased to announce the upcoming release of a new OpenVZ Gentoo template with VPSLink’s Gentoo VPS Hosting. This template was prepared by Daniel Robbins, the founder and former Chief Architect of the Gentoo Linux
project, and President of the Gentoo Foundation. We believe that Daniel’s efforts promise to provide a stronger working [...] Read more:Coming Soon
VPSLink.com Site Updates 2008-01-02 19:00:54 We have updated the VPSLink.com site to reflect some of our newest offerings (including the Rails v2.0.1 stack) and improve usability by showing which VPS hosting plans are compatible with different options (like our LAMP stack OS templates and the WHM / cPanel reseller control panel).
We’ve also added a new section to the site [...]
Security Breach 2007-11-14 18:33:48 A very important update for everyone! It appears that earlier today a third party gained access to our mywebpayment.com billing system. Upon determining that there might be a security breach we immediately terminated the access to everyone by disabling the billing website. At this time we’re still uncertain as to the total scope of the [...] Read more:Breach
Links for 11/14/2007 2007-11-14 10:24:30 VMWare Server Beta 2
Oracle releases ‘Oracle Virtualization’ built on top of XEN
Redhat announce Appliance OS
New features available for VPSLink customers 2007-11-13 18:04:36 There are several new features
for VPSLink customers
inside of our cp interface
Clone VPS This feature allows you to duplicate your existing VPS environment hosted at VPSLink. This is useful for scaling applications by creating another active server, for creating an environment to test on, or for active/standby backup reasons.
VPS Transfer Have a Virtuozzo or [...] Read more:available
Happy Halloween from Spry and VPSLink 2007-10-25 11:53:45 Abby and Tyler from DomainTools were kind enough to carve us a beautiful Spry pumpkin for Halloween
. The staff of Spry would like to wish each of you a safe and happy Halloween! Read more:Happy
, Happy Halloween
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