eHosted.com News

Latest News
- Feb 20, 2007 - New Site Online
- New FAQ Section Online!
- PHP 5.2 Upgrade notification (Read More)

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System updates; Maintenance;
November 9th, 2007 | Network maintenance in iAdvantage (Hong Kong)

Network maintenance is planned in our Hong Kong data center between 20:00 and 21:00 GMT on Friday, 2 November 2007.
During this time window our customers may experience about 15 minutes of intermittent connectivity problems.

System updates; General;
August 9th, 2007 | ENOM Huge Denial of Service Attack

One of the leading online providers of domain name registration worldwide, Enom encountered a major DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack today. When this occurs, it causes many of their customers to experience erratic or no connectivity for their email or websites with domain names registered with the company. Enom is working diligently to resolve the issue and to prevent future outages.

As of about 5pm EST, ENOM seems to have the attack under control. To read more of what a DoS attack is and how it affects millions of Internet sites, click here.

System updates; General;
July 26th, 2007 | IMPORTANT: PHP4 End-Of-Life announced.

The development team of PHP announced the End-Of-Life of PHP 4. There will be no more releases of PHP 4.4 after Dec 31, 2007. Critical security fixes will still be released on a case-by-case basis until August 08, 2008.

eHosted.com will continue supporting PHP 4 until possible, but we urge our customers to look for ways to make their PHP applications suitable to run on PHP 5. After the end of 2007, we may be forced to discontinue any support for PHP 4, in case of a discovered security vulnerability which may endanger the integrity of our hosting environment.

After Sep 10, 2007, we will start setting PHP5 as default PHP interpreter on our servers. This means that files ending with .php will be parsed by PHP5 by default. However, customers will still be able to set PHP4 as default interpreter, by using a directive in their .htaccess files.
The change will happen gradually on each of our servers and the exact date for each server will be announced later.

We advise our customers to take the necessary steps to make their PHP driven software completely suitable to run on PHP5. If the software is a third-party application, upgrading to the latest stable version should be enough, as developers of popular software (forums, blogs, CMSs) have already released versions, ready to run on PHP5.

System updates; General;
June 20th, 2007 | HTTP requests to xmlrpc.php files filtered

Due to a recent wave of exploits, our System administrators set a rule, which blocks HTTP access to files named xmlrpc.php.

This file contains a PHP module (PHPXMLRPC). It is a third party module, whose main purpose is to allow POST requests between applications (without a browser). Although the module is included in several popular CMS programs, it is not widely used/accessed.

Note that the vulnerability is not related to the server software, it is at a third-party application. The purpose of the applied filter is to protect customer sites (that contain xmlrpc.php) from being exploited/defaced.

In case you need to use this module on your site, you can remove the filter by creating a .htaccess file in the folder that contains the file, and adding the following lines to it:
<IfModule mod_security.c>
SecFilterRemove 114
</IfModule>

System updates; General;
March 12th, 2007 | IMPORTANT: Frontpage server extensions availability

This note is to inform you of the decision of Microsoft to discontinue the support for FrontPage extensions for UNIX. These extensions are necessary in order to utilize the FrontPage dynamic features on a UNIX server. We have been offering FrontPage extensions since 2001, and as we have many customers using them, we will not be stopping support for them immediately. Unfortunately, Microsoft have decided to discontinue any support for the extensions, and no further updates/bugfixes/patches will be released. Therefore, we will need to eventually stop offering FrontPage server extensions. For now, this is "in the distant future", but unforeseen circumstances, such as an unexpectedly released security exploit of the FrontPage extensions, may force us to fully discontinue them immediately. We will do our best to offer FrontPage extensions as long as possible.

Note that if you are using FrontPage to design and publish your site, you do not necessarily need FrontPage server extensions enabled and functioning. The extensions are needed only for certain dynamic features that can be developed in FrontPage, such as shared borders, forms, etc. If you do not use such features, you can continue using FrontPage indefinitely, and disable the extensions at any point in time. In such a case, you would be able to upload your FrontPage site via FTP.

If you are using dynamic components, we strongly encourage you to look for alternatives. For example, FrontPage Counter can be replaced with the counter offered at your online Control Panel -> Counter section. You can check your online Control Panel -> Scripts section also, where you can find alternatives to other FrontPage dynamic components (search script, email submission script).

System updates; Maintenance notifications;
March 6th, 2007 | PHP Upgrade notification

Please be advised that the PHP 5 version on the server, is scheduled for an upgrade to version 5.2.1 on Mar/15/2007. Along with PHP, we will be upgrading Zend Optimizer to version 3.2.2. Minimal to none downtime is expected during the upgrade.

IMPORTANT: A number of popular applications may require an upgrade to the latest version in order to continue functioning properly. Some of the affected applications include but are not limited to:
- Drupal, versions below 4.7.6 and version 5.1
- Wordpress, versions below 2.1
- MediaWiki, versions below 1.9.2
- ZenCart, versions below 1.3.7

If you are using one of the above applications, please make sure that you upgrade to the latest version provided by the vendor no later than Mar/15/2007, or some features may stop functioning properly. Other applications running under PHP 5 might be affected as well, so we advise that you check your software. Upgrading to the latest version provided by the vendor is always recommended. No applications running under PHP 4 will be affected.

General;
February 10th, 2007 | Fake maintenance alerts being sent to domain owners

In the last couple of days we have received several reports from customers about false security maintenance alerts being sent to them. The email message usually has a subject "Hosting Regular Security Maintenance" or similar and includes instructions how to upload and run a PHP script on their website.

The email message in question is not sent by our company, nor does it originate from our servers. It is a fake, fraudulent message with spoofed Internet headers.

eHosted.com will NEVER send you unsolicited files to upload to your web directory. Do not ever install a .php, .js or .html file that is sent to you by somebody you do not know as it may contain malicious code which allows other parties access to your account.

In case you receive such an email messages, please delete it and do not download its attachment.

Here is a copy of a sample fake message:

======Start of spoofed message========
Reply-To: security.admin@[hosting-server].com
Subject: Hosting Regular Security Maintenance
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:20:54 -0800
Dear valued Members

Regarding our new security regulations, as a part of our yearly maintenance we have provided a security guard script in the attachment.

So, to secure your websites, please use the attached file and (for UNIX/Linux Based servers) upload the file "guard.php" in: "./public_html" or (for Windows Based servers which use ASP) upload the file " guard.asp" in:

"./wwwroot" in your site.

If you do not know how to use it, you can use the following instruction:

For Unix/Linux based websites that use PHP/CGI/PERL:
1) Download the attachment named " guard.zip"
2) Extract file "guard.php"
3) Login to your site Control panel.
4) Open "File Manager" window.
5) Go through "Public_html" or "htdocs"
6) Choose "Upload Files"
7) Upload the file "guard.php"
8) Check its URL too "http://www.yoursite.com/guard.php", if it is ok

For Windows based websites that use ASP:
1) Download the attachment named "guard.zip"
2) Extract file "guard.asp"
3) Login to your site Control panel.
4) Open "File Manager" window.
5) Go through "wwwroot" directory
6) Choose "Upload Files"
7) Upload the file "guard.asp"
8) Check its URL too "http://www.yoursite.com/guard.asp", if it is ok

Thank you for using our services and products. We look forward to providing you with a unique and high quality service.

Best Regards
======End of spoofed message========

These fake email messages are being sent to the WHOIS administrative email address for the respective domain name.

Our System engineers and Abuse Department are already working on proper rules to block such fake email messages on a server level as well as we are in process of implementing several other security measures to restrict the number of users which might be affected by this fraudulent email.

We strongly advise that you doubt any email message with attachment you receive from an email address not familiar to you. ..

Incident reports;
January 6th, 2007 | Savvis datacenter network problem

On Jan/2/2006 there was a major failure within the network of our upstream provider SAVVIS, which caused their Boston datacenter to be isolated from the rest of their network. As the server that hosts your account is located in this datacenter, your site was affected by the outage, which lasted for about 7 hours.

Although the uptime of the server was not affected, during the outage it was inaccessible from outside locations.

The outage affected all companies hosted in the same datacenter, including Lycos Mail, Tripod, the websites of the magazines CIO and CSO and others.

We are aware that this is a serious problem and we will review all redundancy and recovery procedures of Savvis to ensure that such issues will not occur again..

System updates;
September 26th, 2006 | PHP Upgrade notification

General;
February 10th, 2007 | Fake maintenance alerts being sent to domain owners

In the last couple of days we have received several reports from customers about false security maintenance alerts being sent to them. The email message usually has a subject "Hosting Regular Security Maintenance" or similar and includes instructions how to upload and run a PHP script on their website.

The email message in question is not sent by our company, nor does it originate from our servers. It is a fake, fraudulent message with spoofed Internet headers.

eHosted.com will NEVER send you unsolicited files to upload to your web directory. Do not ever install a .php, .js or .html file that is sent to you by somebody you do not know as it may contain malicious code which allows other parties access to your account.

In case you receive such an email messages, please delete it and do not download its attachment.

Here is a copy of a sample fake message:

======Start of spoofed message========
Reply-To: security.admin@[hosting-server].com
Subject: Hosting Regular Security Maintenance
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:20:54 -0800
Dear valued Members

Regarding our new security regulations, as a part of our yearly maintenance we have provided a security guard script in the attachment.

So, to secure your websites, please use the attached file and (for UNIX/Linux Based servers) upload the file "guard.php" in: "./public_html" or (for Windows Based servers which use ASP) upload the file " guard.asp" in:

"./wwwroot" in your site.

If you do not know how to use it, you can use the following instruction:

For Unix/Linux based websites that use PHP/CGI/PERL:
1) Download the attachment named " guard.zip"
2) Extract file "guard.php"
3) Login to your site Control panel.
4) Open "File Manager" window.
5) Go through "Public_html" or "htdocs"
6) Choose "Upload Files"
7) Upload the file "guard.php"
8) Check its URL too "http://www.yoursite.com/guard.php", if it is ok

Thank you for using our services and products. We look forward to providing you with a unique and high quality service.

Best Regards
======End of spoofed message========

These fake email messages are being sent to the WHOIS administrative email address for the respective domain name.

Our System engineers and Abuse Department are already working on proper rules to block such fake email messages on a server level as well as we are in process of implementing several other security measures to restrict the number of users which might be affected by this fraudulent email.

We strongly advise that you doubt any email message with attachment you receive from an email address not familiar to you. In case you are not sure if it is safe to open a certain email message, please do not hesitate to contact our support department.

System updates;
September 26th, 2006 | New DNS Manager utility

We have introduced a new DNS Manager utility in the Control Panel. DNS management allows you to manage the DNS records of your domain name(s), and is normally required in order to point subdomains or email to a different server.

Please keep in mind that the improper use of the DNS Manager utility may result in inaccessibility for your web site or email service. If you need any assistance with the DNS Manager, you can always e-mail us for support.

System Updates;
March 21st, 2006 | PHP 5 Now Available

After extensive testing of the new PHP 5 branch, we have implemented it in our hosting environment.

To resolve various compatibility issues, we decided to support both PHP 4 and PHP 5. By default, files with the .php5 extension will be parsed by the PHP 5 interpreter, and files with the .php extension will be parsed by PHP 4.x interpreter.

If you prefer to have .php files parsed by the PHP 5 interpreter, you can add the following line in a .htaccess file:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php

Additionally, the dom, dom-xslt and dom-exslt extensions are now available for PHP 4 and PHP 5.

System updates;
October 28th, 2005 | SMTP on port 587

We have enabled SMTP service on port 587 for all our servers. All clients who cannot use SMTP on port 25 due to limitations imposed by their ISPs, can use SMTP on port 587 instead. Users can authenticate against the SMTP server on port 587 with the same username and password as the ones for the incoming mail server.

Maintenance notifications;
October 19th, 2005 | Savvis maintenance

October 29, 2005 05:00-09:00 GMT
Our upstream provider Savvis will be performing a scheduled network maintenance. Savvis engineers will be turning up several new backbone circuits in North America. This new capacity will provide greater redundancy and better overall backbone performance. Customers may experience latency or other connectivity issues as this work is completed in this window.
The maintenance will affect US based servers.

General;
August 17th, 2005 | SMTP Auth

Following an extensive period of testing, we have implemented and deployed SMTP Authentication on your hosting server. The "SMTP Auth" module runs in parallel with the current POP-before-SMTP authorization method, thus adding functionality without sacrificing any of the existing features that we offer. The old POP-before-SMTP mechanism requires you to log into the incoming (POP or IMAP) mail server and check for new messages, before being able to use the outgoing (SMTP) mail server to send mail. The new SMTP Auth method allows you to skip the first step by logging into the outgoing mail server directly. To start using the new method, you need to change the options in your e-mail program to use the SMTP Authentication method. The login credentials are the same as for the incoming mail server.

Maintenance notifications;
June 10th, 2005 | Savvis maintenance for 11-Jun-2005, 04:00 - 09:00 GMT

In this window, Savvis engineers will be reloading several Customer Service Routers. Customers may experience a service outage, latency, or other connectivity issues as this work is completed in this window. This action has been scheduled to occur between 04:00 and 09:00 GMT on 11-Jun-2005.

General;
June 6th, 2005 | 404 Error Document Re-designed

In order to improve usability and design, we have changed the appearance of the default 404 Error Document on the hosting server.

The 404 page shows up if a user has followed a broken or bad link.

Please, note that only the server default 404 document has been affected by this update. If you had already created your own 404(Not found) page or if you had modified the missing.html page in your site main directory, it should not be affected by this change.

You can modify the appearance of your site 404 page at your Control Panel -> Error page section.

General;
April 18th, 2005 | 50% more webspace, 40% more bandwidth and more!

Today we have added more power to our web hosting plans.
All features have been upgraded at no additional cost to you: web space, monthly transfer, databases, ftp users, subdomains, and parked domains.

You get more for the same price. Yes, that's right! For the Personal plan and the Business plan you have more web space, traffic and resources for your web site.

- All Personal Hosting Plan users will now enjoy 500MB of webspace and 7GB of monthly bandwidth for their web sites.

- All Business Hosting Plan users can have up to 1500MB of webspace and 21GB of monthly bandwidth - more than enough space and traffic allowance to meet the requirements of any content-heavy and dynamic business site.

In addition, all other features of the web hosting plans are upgraded as follows:

- 6 Databases for the Business plan and 2 for the Personal
- 27 FTP users for the Business plan and 9 for the Personal
- 21 Subdomains for the Business plan and 7 for the Personal
- 9 Parked domains for the Business plan and 3 for the Personal

All existing hosting accounts have been upgraded automatically for free.

General;
April 12th, 2005 | A Web Hosting News system has been launched

In our efforts to provide better services to our customers, we have launched our Web Hosting News system, integrated into the online web hosting Control Panel. Server software upgrades, scheduled maintenance events, configuration changes, new features and improvements, server and network incidents, and all other related events will be announced there.

System updates;
March 21st, 2005 | MySQL upgraded to 4.0.24

Following a standard period of extensive testing, the MySQL database management system has been upgraded to version 4.0.24 on all of our servers.

Recent News:

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