Empowering Media: Customer Service Blog» New Features http://www.supportem.com/blog Customers can get the most current information available about outages maintenance, or other known issues. Articles of related interest are also posted here. Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:48:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Email Control Panel for End Users Now Available! http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/325 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/325#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:11:27 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=325 Based upon our recent survey, it was a popular request.  We’ve listened to your requests and we took action.  You wanted the ability for your end users to modify their password or vacation message.  They can access it by visiting:

https://www.supportem.com/account/email/

To login, the user must enter their E-mail address and password.  Once logged in, they will have access to:

  • Modify their password
  • Enable/disable their vacation message
  • Their current disk usage
  • Their disk quota (if set within the control panel)

This is available to any HostASite.com, or HostCube account.  For HostCube customers, you must have valid SSL certificate installed in your DirectAdmin control panel.  Unfortunately this option will not work for unsecured control panels. Directadmin, the creator of the control panel, does not have a solution.

If you are a HostCube customer and want this feature, please contact billing to purchase a SSL certificate.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/325/feed 0 New warning Email for disk quotas http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/322 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/322#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:21:14 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=322 A not widely used feature of the control panel is each mailbox can have it’s own disk space quota.  Great to prevent one user from hogging your account’s disk space.  The previous warning Email we felt was not clear enough.  There was no mention future Email delivery would be affected once reaching your quota.  We have revised the message and I’ve included a sample of what it looks like:

Subject: WARNING: Mailbox near quota limit!

*** DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL ***

This message was automatically generated that your mailbox is near
its disk space quota limit of 80%.

Once your mailbox goes past this limit, you will not be able to
receive any new Emails!  Please remove or archive Emails offline to
ensure delivery of future Email.  This is the only notification you
will receive.

You also have the option to contact your administrator, and increase
the quota for your Email account.

If you haven’t setup quotas for your mailboxes now might be a great to do so.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/322/feed 1 VPS slices available in data center 2 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/215 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/215#comments Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:58:57 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=215 As mentioned on HostCube, Managed virtual servers are now available in data center #2.  If you want a new VPS placed specifically in data center #2, please add a comment in the ordering process.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/215/feed 0 Additional Security Defenses http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/200 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/200#comments Sun, 10 Aug 2008 17:13:18 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=200 We’ve added Rootkit Hunter and Osiris host integrity monitoring to our long list of security defenses.   All managed virtual servers, dedicated managed servers, shared hosting, and reseller servers automatically have been upgraded.  This update makes our service fully PCI DSS compliant.   We are constantly monitoring for any rootkits or unauthorized changes to the operating system. Not only important for E-commerce based site, but for any site.

On a related note, while we do alert customers being hacked, ultimately the customer is responsible for keeping their applications updated and secure.  We offer Installatron as a means to keep the many open source scripts updated.  Application security audits is an available option by Empowering Media.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/200/feed 1 Version control support http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/185 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/185#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:16:18 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=185 To aid in development best practices, we’ve added many of popular version control utilities.  Any server/VPS that runs the DirectAdmin control panel automatically includes the addition. We’ve added the following version control utilities:

Unfortunately, Subversion, Git and Mercurial are not available on any CentOS 3.9 install.  If you want version control software for any other server type, please contact support.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/185/feed 0 All HostASite.com plans upgraded http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/181 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/181#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 15:50:30 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=181 To celebrate our 8th anniversary, all HostASite.com plans have been upgraded.  Disk space, bandwidth and E-mails have all been increased, but with the same pricing. More details can be found on “The Dev Null Blog“.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/181/feed 0 SSH key login only available http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/180 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/180#comments Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:32:40 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=180 This option is available for any Managed HostCube VPS or managed server customer, and is not available on shared or reseller hosting. Enabling this option forces all SSH/SFTP logins to use SSH key authentication only. SSH keys are much more secure than keyboard interactive and should be used by every customer. SSH clients like Putty, SecureCRT and Mac’s terminal fully support SSH keys. Not only are SSH keys more secure, but if you have multiple accounts with us your login is automatic to every account.

For those not familiar with how to setup SSH keys please visit:

http://www.sshkeychain.org/mirrors/SSH-with-Keys-HOWTO/

http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/ssh-agent-forwarding.html

Shared or reseller hosting customers can still use SSH Keys to login and is the recommended method. On those servers we do not force SSH key only logins to accommodate customers who do not use them.

If you want this feature enabled please contact support.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/180/feed 0 Limiter added to vacation and auto response Emails http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/177 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/177#comments Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:12:03 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=177 Per request of a few customers, all vacation and auto response Emails are limited to once every 24 hours, per E-mail address.  This will prevent mail loops, or people who constantly send Emails while you are on vacation.  Great also for people who subscribe to mailing lists.  This feature will be deployed for all brands.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/177/feed 0 View software updates per server/VPS http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/176 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/176#comments Tue, 27 May 2008 19:32:53 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=176 Want to see what was updated on your server/VPS? If so view the log file that’s available on every managed server/VPS:

/var/log/updates

While we still will post blogs or create tickets for major upgrades, any minor updates will be logged to this file. While we have many applications, services and config files reporting to this file, we still do not have everything yet configured. In the coming weeks and months all updates will be reported to this file. The file is rotated weekly.

If something isn’t working correctly and you think it’s because of a change we made please create a support ticket. Eventually we will create a method to either securely RSS feed this report or a method to Email customers daily reports of server changes.

]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/176/feed 0 Email Updates http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/174 http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/174#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 19:15:23 +0000 Larry http://www.supportem.com/blog/?p=174 We have made many updates to our Email configuration.

  1. Any Email account you create a quota (not your account quota) will get an Email alert when it’s above 85% full
  2. Enabled SMTP AUTH for outbound email on port 2525 (already on 25 and 587 ports)
  3. Upgraded SpamAssassin to 3.2.4 with anyone not using our dedicated anti-spam service
  4. Enabled many of the options within SpamAssassin to improve catching spam
  5. SMTP Port 2525 or 587 (the pseudo standard) can now be used when port 25 is blocked by your ISP
  6. Can create command alias pipes “|” without creating duplicate Emails. Great to process incoming Emails with a programming script
  7. Enabled nightly updates to get the latest SpamAssassin rules
]]> http://www.supportem.com/blog/article/174/feed 4