Linux Hosting
Norfolk Internet hosting, provided on a Linux platform, is hosted at The London Hosting Centre in Docklands. This datacentre has fast connections to the internet.

Accounts are monitored by Alertra, which checks status every few minutes. Support staff are automatically informed when servers become unavailable.

Our Managed hosting accounts are also individually monitored 24/7 for page content - this is a valuable recently added service which is designed to keep hacking and defacement attempts on clients' sites at bay. We use a dedicated machine attached to our network, running specialist software which can detect changes in page content. Alerts are automatically sent via email if problems are detected, allowing us to quickly reinstate original content where required.

www	POP3 mail	SMTP mail	FTP

Current Problems
August 21, 2008 12:27 PM - Email problems reported on domains hosted on Linux (cannot send or recieve mail). This has been reported to tech support. Apologies for any inconvenience.
UPDATE 17.00 - Mail issue was resolved during the afternoon and the backlog is being delivered from the mail queue. No mail should be lost. If you are still seeing errors, please get in touch.

Planned Maintenance
This announcement includes extremely important information pertaining to some recent Linux server software updates.

An overview of the updates have been listed below.

Update to cPanel v11
Update to Apache 2.2
PHP 5.2.5 configured as the PRIMARY PHP version
PHP 4.4.7 configured as the SECONDARY PHP version
Update of Eaccelerator
Update of Zend Optimizer
Update of IonCube
Exim ACL updates
Frontpage End Of Life

Located below is more in-depth information specific to each individual update which has been performed.

Update to cPanel v11
The update to cPanel and WHM 11 brings an extensive update with upgrades in nearly every section of the control panel. Along with a ton of new features the update brings enhanced security, an improved design and enhanced usability. For more detailed information, release notes or data sheets please see the official cPanel website. (http://www.cpanel.net/products/cPanelandWHM/linux/cpanel11/index.html)

Update to Apache 2.2
All servers had been utilizing the Apache 1.3 web server and we have upgraded to Apache 2.2. Although the update does not include many new features, it does include a new code base which is faster overall.

PHP 5.2.5 configured as the PRIMARY PHP version
In May 2006 support staff installed PHP v5 in a testing environment in addition to the primary version 4 install. This allowed everyone to test compatibility between scripts in preparation for the upgrade to v5 as the primary in the future. Since February 2007, all new servers have had v5 as the primary install with no secondary and we're happy to report that there have been no issues reported or compatibility problems for anyone on this PHP version.

Due to the above, we have been upgrading all of our accounts to PHP version 5 as the primary version.With PHP announcing the end of official support for PHP4 at the end of this year, its inevitable that all hosting providers (including us) need to upgrade.

To confirm, if any clients are knowingly using scripts/applications that are not compatible with PHP5, please upgrade them now.

Please see the links below which provide additional detail on PHP5, script migrations, etc:

http://gophp5.org/
http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration5.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration5.functions.php
http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration5.incompatible.php
http://www.faqts.com/knowledge_base/view.phtml/aid/22154/fid/1150

PHP 4.4.7 configured as the SECONDARY PHP version
During the above work, PHP v4 was put into place as a secondary install but it must be remembered that this is a temporary measure and must not be relied upon. We do not have a set date for when the secondary PHP4 will be removed but it will no longer be maintained or supported after the PHP5 install so all clients need to do whatever necessary to use PHP5 (in most cases, nothing special is needed).

Update of Eaccelerator
Update of Zend Optimizer
Update of IonCube
Eaccelerator is a PHP accelerator, optimizer and dynamic content cache. It increases the performance of PHP scripts by caching them in their compiled state, so that the overhead of compiling is almost completely eliminated. Additionally, it also optimizes scripts to speed up their execution times. After the maintenance is complete will be posting graphs of our servers showing the significant effect that Eaccelerator, combined with our custom server configurations and optimizations, have resulted in. Along with this software, both Zend Optimizer and IonCube will be updated to the latest stable versions.

Frontpage EOL (end of life)
In mid 2006 Microsoft announced the discontinuation of FrontPage server extensions. The official end of life was reached on June 30th of 2006. Because of these circumstances we will no longer be supporting FrontPage extensions as they are no longer maintained by Microsoft. Any client that uses FrontPage extensions will need to find an alternative method to update their website(s). Options include, but are not limited to: continue using FrontPage but upload files via an FTP program, use a web design program other then FrontPage, use Microsoft's new Expression Web Design software.

Exim ACL updates
Lastly, we will be doing our regular update of spam filters to help combat spam and lower the amount that is received to your inbox.

Notes

AOL Users - IMPORTANT
Please do not use AOL's 'Report as Spam' feature on unsolicited mail forwarded from your domain. AOL's software is not intelligent enough to read the technical content of the emails correctly and assumes that the server hosting YOUR domain is the one sending the spam!

This will eventually cause your own website (and other sites hosted on your server) to become 'blacklisted' and any emails from domains on the server to many ISPs will be refused delivery.

Unfortunately, as this situation is potentially very damaging to our other clients, we may have to temporarily disable your domain if this practice comes to our attention - for the benefit of the majority. If you need clarification on this, please feel free to give us a call.

Perl Formmail: These type of scripts are allowed but there are restrictions in place so that these scripts are not abused by spammers.

Firstly, 'Matt's FormMail' script is banned and must not be used.

Secondly, you must rename your script so that it IS NOT called any of the following:
formmail.cgi
formmail.pl
formmail.php
upper/lowercase varients of the above
This makes life a little more difficult for automated scanners which search out and abuse vunerable emailing scripts for their spamming purposes. Anything with the filenames above will not work on the server regardless of whether they exist or not.

We recommend that you use the script 'nms-formmail' if you require a Perl 'form to email' script. Please visit http://nms-cgi.sourceforge.net/scripts.shtml to download the script. Email support if you'd like a tutorial covering installation and use on our accounts.

You may also use the cPanel formmail script but this has been renamed to prevent abuse. Instead of linking to it via '/cgi-sys/FormMail.cgi' you must use '/cgi-sys/PROTECTED-FormMail.cgi'.

Mailing in bulk via the server:
To prevent error messages and undelivered mail caused by flooding the mail server queue, custom 'mailing list' scripts should aim to send outgoing mail in batches of around 30/minute. We recommend the use of a third-party script called 'Dadamail', available from http://mojo.skazat.com/

Security Updates: