SWH Server Updates

As you can see from here:

http://selfwebhosting.com/update/11/site-transfer-order/

We have finished all the server-side intallations (OS, control panel, site builder, script autoinstaller, etc.) however the site transfer is only half done. The reason being that we are transferring one site at a time (to monitor which site might carry the Netbus worm) and we do it manually without using any site transfer script.

We are proposing a faster site transfer plan and we need your help…

We are going to set up a hosting account for each of the following domains:

1. chinasprung.com
2. hereisillinois.com
3. mooganinzambia.com
4. jeranon.com
5. nsonzi.com
6. kenten.com
7. tierpal.com
8. vince-coleman.com
9. kindacheezy.com
10. harmonicaresources.com

You will receive a welcome letter from our system whenever your account is created on the new server.

IF (yes it is a big if), you are like me in keeping a most upated copy of your site on your own computer, you can start uploading your site and setting up your email account(s) as soon as you receive the welcome letter. The FTP address for the uploading is the same as the shared IP address you receive in your welcome letter.

PAY ATTENTION TO THIS: IF you do not know how to do it or you do not have a copy of your site on your local computer, then we need you to login to the control panel as soon as you receive the welcome letter from our new server. Then you click the “Support Center” link under “Your Account” to submit a support ticket to request us to do the site transfer. Without specificly requesting for our help, we will not do the transfer for you until after the end of January.

So you have a week to decide on this matter. We require you to submit a support ticket in order not to create a conflict between you and us in terms of who is doing the site transfer during this period.

This also gives you an opportunity to decide if you would like to rebuild your site with siteZen site builder which is included automatically in your account. Since using siteZen site builder will overwrite files in the public_html folder, it is better to start fresh. This builder works with an IP based URL and it does not require your domain’s resolving to the new server as long as you do not publish it. So if you DO want to use the siteZen builder to build your site on the new server fresh, then you need to follow these guidelines:

(1) DO NOT update your domain DNS - let the general public access your existing site on the old server while we build your site on the new server.

(2) SAVE what you build with siteZen builder (from an IP-based URL) but DO NOT publish the content.

(3) Update your domain DNS and wait till it fully resolves to the new server and then login to your site builder and click the “PUBLISH” button.

Since most of you are very experienced webmasters, the do-it-yourself approach should speed up the site transfer process tramendously. However, please abide the following guidelines in uploading your site content…

(1) DO NOT upload the old server’s site backup file to the new server.

Yes, extracting your site content from this backup file saves you the hassle of having to examine and change the permission setting for each file, but it also carries over all the hidden files that exist on the old server.

So the bottom line is, unless you know how to remove these hidden files, do not take this route.

(2) DO NOT upload files located outside the public_html folder.

The new server uses DirectAdmin as the control panel and the old server uses cPanel. This means that the two systems have a complete different setup in terms of file/folder structure.

Luckily, the public_html folder on the new server functions the same as the old server. This means that as long as you upload files in the public_html folder on the old server to the new server’s public_html folder for your account, everything works fine.

(3) Please DO contact us if you need help to restore MySQL databases and make them work with your PHP or CGI scripts.

This is the hardest part of restoring your site on the new server and it does require some basic knowledge as to how MySQL works and how scripts interact with MySQL.

So hope this works better and faster. If you have any concerns about this approach, please do not hesitate to contact us or simply add a comment to this posting.

NOTE: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR THE STATUS OF THIS TRANSFER…

OK, just let you know how we are going to do it this time for the site transfer from the shared server to the dedicated server:

(1) We won’t copy your site from compressed backup, but directly do file to file transfer using FTP to ensure no hidden files get transferred.

(2) We will copy static html and image files first and then rebuild scripts and databases needed according to the active ones that are using - many people simply tried installing a script and then abandoned it without deleting files associated. Some leave 777 permission setting for certain files and even folders - this is dangerous!

(3) We are going to transfer site one by one. By this I means we will work on one site only until we are sure it is fully working on the new server (inlcuding working after domain DNS update and resolving), then we move onto the next site. This gives us the chance to pinpoint the issue when it occurs.

This method also speeds up the transfer time as far as a particular site is concerned.

Note that your site on the shared server is fully working and we will not remove it from it until YOU and WE are absolutely sure there is no need for it. So just treat if as a fully functioning site (it is!) and keep updating it. We will contact you when it comes for us to copy your site onto the server. Then you can take a rest and let us do the transfer and continue update your site content when it is fully working on the new server.

Again, we are not going to rebuild your site on the new server based on earlier backup copy, but directly from your existing server. We do this to make sure nothing is missed during the transfer.

Here is a list of what we do on the server and the order of sites we are going to do the transfer work on (in the order of ease):

(A) Reinstall of OS for the server (DONE!)
(B) Reinstall of DirectAdmin control panel (DONE!)
(C) Reinstall of billing script (DONE!)
(D) Reinstall of siteZen site builder (DONE!)
(E) Reinstall of Installatron script autoinstaller (DONE!)

1. paceoilfieldhauling.ca (DONE!)
2. harmonicaresources.com (DONE!)
3. cochranephotography.net (DONE!)
4. ruminzhang.net (DONE!)
5. actionzambia.org (DONE!)
6. artreagous.com (DONE!)
7. ascensionlutherancalgary.com (DONE!)
8. burials-at-sea-by-captain.com (DONE!)
9. chinasprung.com (DONE!)
10. davesdelights.com (DONE!)
11. hereisillinois.com (DONE!)
12. mooganinzambia.com (DONE!)
13. jeranon.com (DONE!)
14. nsonzi.com (DONE!)
15. kenten.com (DONE!)
16. tierpal.com (DONE!)
17. vince-coleman.com
18. kindacheezy.com (DONE!)
19. shaneh.org (DONE!)

If your site is not listed, it is most likely on our Advanced package which is hosted already on a dedicated server - so do not worry.

We have a big problem with the new server!

After transferring all accounts over to the new server, we find that some worms get transferred together with our client accounts. While it is very hard to locate every one of them, the data center suggests that we must reinstall everything and not use any script to do server to server transfer. What does this mean?

(1) Don’t update your site DNS to this new server.

If you have done it already, then you need to change it back to:

NS77.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM
NS78.WEBSITEWELCOME.COM

This ensures that your site is visible from the old server. Very important!

(2) We will redo everything from beginning and transfer each site manually :-(

(3) We will not recreate scripts that may carry worms.

After the data center (for the new dedicated server) had finished the scheduled network maintenance, we had a problem with the siteZen site builder script installed on the server. Since this script is installed on the root level, we needed to reboot the server while we were fixing the problem.

Now the problem has been resolved and we have basically finished installing all scripts from the root level. This makes us to announce the next step - updating your site’s DNS servers!

In order to ensure the DNS update is smooth and fast, we need you to do it from your side. This is what you do:

(1) Login to your domain manager (where you purchased your domain name)

(2) Pick the domain that is hosted with us - this is done by putting a check mark in front of the domain and then clicking the “Set Nameservers” button if your domain registrar is MegiWeb or GoDaddy.

(3) Now enter the following custom name servers that will point your domain to the new server:

NS1.SELFWEBHOSTING.WS
NS2.SELFWEBHOSTING.WS
NS3.SELFWEBHOSTING.COM
NS4.SELFWEBHOSTING.COM

Make sure you enter all four name servers as they are located at several geophysical locations in the world to ensure your domain resolves properly and quickly to our server even after a server downtime.

Note that we have not touched your site on the old shared server. This means that even your domain has not resolved to the new server, your site is still available for everyone to see - they will not notice any difference!

Give the DNS change at least 24 hours to resolve to the new server. During this time, it is not a good idea to add contents to your site using a domain based URL. Use these IP-based URLs instead:

OLD SERVER (in case you want to grab something there):

Your site access: http://70.84.139.138/~username/
Control panel login: http://70.84.139.138/cpanel
FTP: 70.84.139.138

NEW SERVER (your site’s new home):

Your site access: http://82.103.130.19/~username/
Control panel login: http://82.103.130.19/config
FTP: 82.103.130.19

In order not to miss any emails that you will receive after you initiate the DNS update but before your domain actually resolves, check your emails at both servers - by logging into the control panel rather than using your email client program.

How do you know your site has resolved to the new server?

A simple method is to make a minor change to the home page of your site at the new server - so minor that only you can notice it. Then once a while after you make the DNS update, check your website (using the domain-based URL of course) to see if you are able to see the change.

I would like to use this opportunity to introduce to you several functions of the DirectAdmin control panel (including some usefull plugins):

Note that we give the IP-based URLs here . Once your domain resolves to the new server, you can replace the IP in these URLs with your own domain name. For example, an IP address like this:

http://82.103.130.19:2222/CMD_TICKET?domain=yourdomain.com

will become this after your domain resolves:

http://yourdomain.com:2222/CMD_TICKET?domain=yourdomain.com

Or simply this: http://yourdomain.com:2222/CMD_TICKET

Now the functions…

(1) Support Center
http://82.103.130.19:2222/CMD_TICKET?domain=yourdomain.com

This comes with the DirectAdmin control panel and is located right under “Your Account” after control panel login (or can be accessed directly using the URL above).

This will be used for us to support our existing customers for technical issues. Please use it to submit any support ticket as email is not reliable and is hard to keep track.

(2) siteZen Site Builder:
http://82.103.130.19/zen (before domain resolves)

We have enabled your site to use it without extra charge. The login info is the same as your control panel login.

You can play with it until the end of this month - we now only have an evaluation license right now. By the end of January this year, we will disable siteZen from
all accounts unless we receive a specific request to keep it - by then we will have to pay for a commercial license.

(3) Installatron
http://82.103.130.19:2222/CMD_PLUGINS/iTron

This is a DirectAdmin plugin we purchased and it is basically an script autoinstaller similar to Fantastico in cPanel. It allows you to install most popular scripts with a few clicks.

To know other functions of your DirectAdmin control panel for your site, please go to this wonderful site explaining every aspect of this new control panel:

http://www.site-helper.com

So much for this comminication. In the next few days we will be building our main site at

http://selfwebhosting.ws

We will also install a billing script and upgrade/integrate our existing affiliate script with this new site. By that time we will add a reseller hosting package which is fully commissionable for all affiliates.

After completing server to server transfer for sites in the Standard package, we have logged into each individual site to fix followings that were not handled properly by the site transfer script:

(1) Passwords for protected direcotries (if any)
(2) Passwords for MySQL databases (if any)

Now we have done what we can from our side and we are ready to proceed to the next step - update DNS servers for these sites!

But we will wait until the network maintenance is completed. Yes, this afternoon starting from 16:00 to 16:30 (MST, Mountain Standard Time), we will preform scheduled network maintenance. If you have already pointed your site to this server, you may experience short network outages during the given timeframe.

So if you do not know the DNS servers for this new server, do not ask for them until we finish our network maintenance at the data center.

We had some problem using a server script to transfer accounts on the shared server to our new dedicated server. That explains why our future main site (selfwebhosting.ws) was down starting yesterday evening. Now we have fixed the problem and all hosting accounts have been transferred to the new server!

If you are our existing customer, you will receive email from me shortly telling the IP address from which you can login to your hosting account control panel to see if everything is alright.

We will give you a few days to examine the transfer. If everthing is fine, then we will give you instructions as to how to update your domain DNS - we have investigated our earlier proposal of updating name servers from our side (so you do not have to do anything), but this proposal does not work for some sites. So to make things easy in the future, we require that you update your site’s DNS to the new server. You do not have to do it now - we will do it together when everyone is happy with the transfer we did from our side.

We have upgraded your account for the following settings - I am sure you are going to like it

Bandwidth: 10 GB / month
Disk Space: 2 GB
Addon Domains: 10
Sub-Domains: Unlimited
Email Accounts: Unlimited
Email Forwarders: Unlimited
Mailing Lists: Unlimited
AutoResponders: Unlimited
MySQL Databases: 25
Domain Pointers: Unlimited
Ftp Accounts: Unlimited
Anonymous Ftp Accounts: Yes
CGI Access: Yes
PHP Access: Yes
SpamAssassin: Yes
SSL Access: Yes
Cron Jobs: Yes
System Info: Yes

Please check your inbox for my email.

OK, our upline provider has finished the final touch for the recovery of last week’s server downtime - that explains why your site was again down for 30 minutes or so. Turned out that a wrong drive was used at the data center Now they have recovered everything, including your cPanel login pwd

About the setup of our own new dedicated server, it is now running! So far two sites are already running on this server:

www.selfwebhosting.ws
www.ecovergenerators.com

The first one above is the future home of our main site and the second one is a site we use to test the transfer of it from our shared server to this new dedicated server.

Now we have finished installing a control panel for sites located on this server. No, we are not using cPanel. The control panel we use for this server is called “DirectAdmin” and it is much easier to use than cPanel To learn more about this control panel, please go here:

http://www.directadmin.com
http://www.site-helper.com

The DirectAdmin site provides demo for admin/reseller/user level. Run the demo there for the user level as it will be the same level you get after we have transferred your site to this new server.

We have also installed the popular siteZen site builder on this server so that all of you can use it to build/rebuild your site with it. To learn more about siteZen builder, please go to:

http://www.sitemagix.com

Make sure you check their live demo to see how it works.

We are now in the process of transferring all sites on the shared server to the new dedicated server. Do not worry, you do not need to update your DNS now and your site visitors will not notice this transfer as everything is hidden now. We keep your existing accounts on the shared server unchanged. We just make a copy of your site on the server and this new copy can only be accessed from an-IP based URL.

We expect to finish all the site transfer within 24 hours as we have found a script to do it semi-manually

Once we finish the transfer and test to make sure everything works fine on the new server, then we will update the name servers we have registered from our side. This approach saves your trouble having to update DNS from your side. So basically you do not need to do anything. We will let your access your site on the new server (based on an IP address) before we update DNS from our side. This way you have a say whether you would like your site visitors to see your site on the new server

If you have any questions or concerns, please write to us or add your comments here (by clicking the comment link). Thank you!

We offer two-tier affiliate program for our hosting services. All services are commissionable including reseller hosting that is being developed right now. For more information about our affiliate program, please visit the following link:

http://www.selfwebhosting.com/affiliate-program.shtml

You may have noticed this already if you keep track of your site status.

Yes! Thanks to the hard work of our host technicians, the server hosting our Standard Package accounts is now up and running!

Please check your site to see if we have missed anything.

Note that you may not be able to login to your cPanel and FTP because we have reset all the passwords during the recovery process.

Despite this good news about this shared server, we are determined to replace it with the dedicated server we are installing. We will keep you updated about this new server.

Because of the increasing problem of email spams, we highly recommend that you subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog so that you automatically receive our important updates such as Server Status and Maintenance notices.

You can use any of the subscribe buttons displayed on the right menu to add the feed of this blog to your favorite platofrm. Or you can read on for ways to automatically receive an update whenever we add it to this blog.

Here is how to do it using Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client program (Outlook Express does not have this feature yet )

If you have already had a “RSS News & Blogs” account in your Thunderbird, you should use these simple steps to ADD this blog feed to it:

1. Find and right-click the name of this “RSS News & Blogs” account from the left menu.

2. Select “Properties…” and a new window will pop up

3. Click on the button “Manage Subscriptions…” and another smaller window should pop up

4. Click on the “Add” button and you will be able to enter the RSS feed URL of this blog: http://selfwebhosting.com/update/feed/. Note that this is the feed URL for all categories. If you would like to get the feed URL for a particular category, just move your mouse over the category link and copy its hyperlink. When you ready to paste the link to the RSS feel URL field, just append /feed/ to the end of the link. Take for example, the link to the Server Status|Maintenance category is http://selfwebhosting.com/update/category/server-status-maintenance/ so its feed URL is http://selfwebhosting.com/update/category/server-status-maintenance/feed.

5. Select “Show the article summary instead of loading the web page” and then click “OK” - done!

If you have just downloaded and installed Thunderbird, following the steps below to create a “RSS News & Blogs” account where you can store our updates:

1. Click from Thunderbird menu in this sequence: File > New > Account

2. A new account setup window pops up. Select “RSS News & Blogs” and click “Next“

3. Enter an account name, say, “RSS News & Blogs“

4. Click the “Finish” button to save and exit

Once you have created a “RSS News & Blogs” account this way, you can follow the above steps to ADD our blog feed URL to your blog subscriptions.