PHP4Hosting News

Domain Renewal Process

2009-11-22T11:15:00.002Z

Since the introduction of the new billing portal we have had issues with domain renewals.

We are in the process of a total overhaul of the PHP4Hosting services and billing procedures, however in the interim we have made changes to our domain renewal process.

Customers hopefully will find the whole process a lot easier and clearer

UK-Server4 (reseller server)

2009-11-10T13:24:00.002Z

The last 7 - 10 days have seen massive problems with mail on this server. We have strived to get to the bottom of the problem and resolve it however everytime we think we have fixed the problem it kept coming back.

Finally today after analysis of the logs we are confident we have tracked the problem down. A spammer had guessed the password of a POP3 account enabling them to use that account to send spam. This resulted in high loads, delayed mail and spam complaints.

There has not been a security breach of the server just a guessable password ("thomas")

Customers are reminded that password security is of great importance

Hopefully the problems are now resolved, some mail may have been lost or delayed and there may be some delays while spam filters reset the blocks on the IP address of the server however this will happen with time

Network Migration

2009-07-31T21:22:00.001+01:00

All UK servers are now powered down ready for the move
Regards
Darren
--
Support Dept
http://www.php4hosting.com

UK Network Power down

2009-07-31T18:07:00.001+01:00

We expect to power down servers around 730pm
Regards
Darren
--
Support Dept
http://www.php4hosting.com

UK Network Migration - Update

2009-07-29T13:25:00.001+01:00

It has now been confirmed that the UK network migration will take place on Friday 31st July 2009 (between 18:00 and 11:59)

We would advise all customers to back up their data prior to the network move, no IP changes will be required we are physically relocating all the equipment hence the advice to backup your data.

There will be no bandwidth restrictions for customers backing up their websites

The move will be completed as quickly as possible and the blog will be constantly updated with progress reports http://blog.php4blog.co.uk

UK-Server5 (Hosting Server) - UPDATE

2009-04-10T07:46:00.002+01:00

With the recent problems with this machine and constant problems we are taking using the holiday period to replace the machine.

The server crashed again this morning, so access has been organised to the data centre, we plan on migrating the server to a new much faster server today. There may be intermittent access for the early to mid part of the day while we do this.

US Network

2009-03-19T08:02:00.002Z

The final server is now running.

It seems the NOC had a total power failure, this caused all servers to reboot. Something servers generally don't like when they are not expecting it!

Our helpdesk was out of action as this sat on the one server that took the time to get running so sorry for any delays in support tickets. We will be progressing through these today in a bid to reply to all tickets by around lunch time.

Thank you and sorry

US Network

2009-03-18T15:24:00.001Z

There are problems connecting to the US Network

The NOC staff have been informed and will be aiming to resolve the issue as soon as possible

Server Upgrades

2009-03-05T08:52:00.003Z

We have installed an additional 5 servers in our UK NOC

These are running a combination of CPanel and Custom Linux, we are also rolling out additional CPanel servers in our US NOC

We will be moving towards a more control panel based hosting platform over the next few months although keeping the bespoke hosting options.

VAT Rate Change

2008-12-01T08:05:00.004Z

We have updated our systems to allow for the recent VAT rate change from 17.5% to 15%.

If you have already received your invoice the tax rate will be shown as 17.5% on your copy. However the internal records will have been updated so you will only be charged 15.%.

Customers who pay via standing order and have over paid will be credited the extra payment against future invoices.

Customers who owe back payments will have all payments due prior to the 1st December charged at 17.5% and all invoices from December 2008 charged at 15.%

UK-Server1 (Reseller Server) Migration

2008-10-24T23:48:00.004+01:00

UK-Server1 has suffered some issues over the past few days. This has caused mail problems.

We are on the last stages of the migration to the new hardware, the majority of the work is being undertaken over night. We are hoping to fully migrate the server on Sunday, this will result in 2-3 hours downtime of services. Updates will be posted here as they happen

-- Update 9:52am --
The upgrade is in progress, POP users will receive a notice telling them the upgrade is in progress and web users will see a holding page.

-- Update 3:21pm --
The upgrade has now been completed. The time taken was due to the amount of data that needed to be synchronised between the old and new servers.

Users have any problems please report them to the usual support contacts so they can be dealt with as quickly as possible.

UK Network Upgrade

2008-09-15T19:59:00.001+01:00

One of our UK racks will be rebooted tonight, this will cause some network disruption for a few minutes while power is reset to one of the border gateway routers. There will also be a small number of servers rebooted in the process

Everything should only take a few minutes

New Billing Portal

2008-09-12T23:43:00.002+01:00

The full migration from the old accounts system and the new one begun last week initially with the migration of reseller customers.

This will continue next week with the remainder of the reseller accounts along with the migration of hosting customers.

We have three portal:
* one that will deal with resellers, dedicated hosting customers and any bespoke solutions (Virtual Servers, Clusters, Bulk Mail services)
* One for hosting customers, billing in GPB £ only
* One for hosting customers, billing in USD $ only

The full migration is expected to take a month, once complete customers will be billed monthly and will be able to manage their domains.

If you receive an email from the new billing system and want to check this is valid, please email support@php4hosting.co.uk and we will validate the request for you.

All payments billed will be billed via our parent company PFL Worldwide Ltd. Its very important that when you receive the email informing you of your account creation that you log in and ensure all details are up to date and correct.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message

US Network Upgrades

2008-08-05T05:08:00.001+01:00

We will be performing a network upgrade on Aug 10th, 2008
starting at 02:00.

There will be a few brief interruptions as trunks are
established, routes are changed, and fail-over is tested. There will
also be one longer interruption (10 to 15 minutes) as servers are moved
to new VLANs.

We expect to be done by 05:00 PDT, with an additional last hour of the
window for testing, troubleshooting and rollback if necessary.

Window Start: Sunday 8/10/08 02:00 US/Pacific (GMT -7)
Window End: Sunday 8/10/08 06:00 US/Pacific (GMT -7)
Duration: Each customer may notice a few short interruptions, and one
longer interruption. Total impact for any one server should be less than
15min. But may be as long as 30 minutes.

US Network Upgrades

2008-07-01T18:41:00.001+01:00

Switchs are being replaced in the US network tonight, this may cause a few minutes of downtime to our US network services.

We will be performing a network upgrade on Tuesday night which will cause short interruptions over the course of a 4 hour maintenance window.

Window Start: Tuesday 4/1/08 22:00 PDT (Wed. 4/2/08 05:00 GMT)
Window End: Wednesday 4/2/08 02:00 PDT (Wed. 4/2/08 09:00 GMT)
Duration: Each customer may notice a few short interruptions, and one longer interruption. Total impact for any one server should be less than15min.

Server Migration - Server11 (Hosting Server)

2008-05-19T18:36:00.002+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server11, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed, customers using their own DNS servers will need to update their DNS servers once the migration is finished

-- UPDATE --
This migration has taken place. We have a TCP/IP redirect in place while the DNS updates

POP3/SMTP/Web services are being forwarded. Any problems please email support and they will be dealt with on a first come first serve basis

Server Migration - Server4 (Hosting Server)

2008-05-18T15:52:00.002+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server4, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed, customers using their own DNS servers will need to update their DNS servers once the migration is finished

-- UPDATE --
This migration has taken place. We have a TCP/IP redirect in place while the DNS updates

POP3/SMTP/Web services are being forwarded. Any problems please email support and they will be dealt with on a first come first serve basis

Server Migration - Server2 (Reseller Server)

2008-05-18T09:46:00.002+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server2, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed, customers using their own DNS servers will need to update their DNS servers once the migration is finished

-- UPDATE --
This migration has taken place. We have a TCP/IP redirect in place while the DNS updates

POP3/SMTP/Web services are being forwarded. Any problems please email support and they will be dealt with on a first come first serve basis

Server Migration - Server14 (Hosting Server and main website)

2008-05-17T14:52:00.002+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server14, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed, customers using their own DNS servers will need to update their DNS servers once the migration is finished

Server Migration - Server5 (Reseller Server)

2008-05-17T12:58:00.004+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server5, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed, customers using their own DNS servers will need to update their DNS servers once the migration is finished

-- UPDATE --
This migration has taken place. We have a TCP/IP redirect in place while the DNS updates

POP3/SMTP/Web services are being forwarded. Any problems please email support and they will be dealt with on a first come first serve basis

Server Migration - Server8 (Reseller Server)

2008-05-17T10:27:00.001+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server8, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed

-- UPDATE --
This migration has taken place. We have a TCP/IP redirect in place while the DNS updates

POP3/SMTP/Web services are being forwarded. Any problems please email support and they will be dealt with on a first come first serve basis

Server Migration - Server10 (Reseller Server)

2008-05-16T21:16:00.002+01:00

We are currently working on the migration of server10, this will result in downtime while we sync the user files before the switch over

The DNS will also be updated as the IP address's will be changed

-- UPDATE --
This migration has taken place. We have a TCP/IP redirect in place while the DNS updates

POP3/SMTP/Web services are being forwarded. Any problems please email support and they will be dealt with on a first come first serve basis

UK-Server5 update

2008-05-15T17:57:00.001+01:00

All services are now running
Regards
Support
--
Support Dept
http://www.php4hosting.com

UK-Server5

2008-05-15T16:35:00.001+01:00

This machine has a disk space error we are working on it now
In the mean time all services have been stopped

Regards
Support
--
Support Dept
http://www.php4hosting.com

Accounts System

2008-05-15T13:51:00.001+01:00

The current accounts system is being moved to another server so will be offline for about an hour pending DNS updates

This is in preparation of the new accounts system being installed