I hope this is in the right section :) If not please move it to the right place.

About two months ago, I contacted Steve @ rack911 regarding some administrative/security work. I had needed a fairly new machine secured and there pricing was competetive and liked what they had to offer for the money spent. I had already done some of the security (firewall, apache modifying, etc), but wanted something more extensive completed, so I worked out a custom deal with Steve, the features and price both worked so I went ahead and had him take care of it.

He really spent alot of time doing the work, i'd say it took him about three or four hours to finish everything up, which was nice to see from my perspective. He was taking his time and telling me each time he installed something, what it does, how to modify and work with it. After the installation, I went in and checked out the work he performed, a good bit of it i've performed in the past on servers, and he setup absolutely everything properly, he did a great job.

Couple weeks went by, each week Steve would contact me on AIM and let me know of new security updates, patches, which was really nice of him to do.

Unfortunately about a month later, we were hit with the t0rn exploit, which was not possible to prevent as per installed security by Steve, can't defend against some exploits if you don't know how they are getting in. Luckily despite this factor, the security installed by Steve prevented the t0rn exploit from being completely installed. Their was some mild damage to the server, and Steve was eager to help out and assist us with the OS reload and recovery, despite the fact the t0rn exploit had nothing to do with him, it was Cpanels fault clearly. We knew this, and he Knew this, despite the fact that his security worked flawlessly, he was outgoing and wanted to help us in anyway possible recover from the t0rn exploit. We had an OS reload completed, and steve was up working on restoring everything until the late night hours, he busted his chops, didn't even want to be paid.

So with that said im very happy with my experience with Steve @ www.rack911.com. If your looking for a great level of service, with a guy who really knows his stuff when it comes not only to security, but administration, definately contact Steve, can't go wrong here.

Nice to read a good review:)

I have him guide me in fixing some problems on our servers once in a while and he has been helpful :)

I had a bad time with steve from rack911. I had hired to do an account transfer for me from one server to another. I went to sleep while he finished working. When I woke up, accounts were transferred but there were some really messed up server configurations and I had to hire someone else to fix it for me. He did a poor job and I lost contact with him. Since that one night of the account transfer, i've been unable to contact him. Not sure what happened but I would not reccomend them..

Interestingly enough, most people give great reviews to Rack911. However, I have shared a smiliar experience with RaineTech where after contacting them, and agreeing on something, or asking any questions about their service, I lose complete contact with them. He never returned PMs or e-mails.

Originally posted by l0ck_up
Nice to read a good review:)

Took the words out of my mouth after I read the post.

steve has also done work for me, he does very clean work, and the price is right, kudos steve

Newbie here, hired Steve to do security plan one and some other stuff like install some PHP MySQL software. Without his help, I may have given up on this Linux stuff.

His work was performed as advertised. A great help as far a some really beginner type of questions from me. I would and will use his services any time.

DB

Ok, time to post my review.

I first hired Steve to do security on my server, kernel upgrades and security package. I got a fair price and a great package for my server. Ever since then I have maintained a business relationship with Steve and all I can say is amazing work. I don't trust anyone else with my server but him. He always does a great job and keeps me pleased and it's great to have someone who knows how to do what is needed!

-Max

I tried to email and never got a reply.

tony, i looked at your posts to try to get an idea of who you are. and you are the cihost guy, i did indeed email you back, i remember that one.

If you dont mind...Steve whats your response to Raine's and Felix's posts ?

the raine one i dont want to get into, me and him were not on good terms anyways and was related to a medical set back i had, and i dont quite remember the xfelix one, i do remember 1 pm where he asked if i was going to answer him and i repiled and he repiled he just wanted to see if was going to answer. That was the only pm i remembered reading.

I haven't worked with Steve for a few months, but when I did all of his work was great. No complaints here. :)

thelinuxguy, just because you don't "remember" the PMs, doesn't mean they weren't there lol.

It doesn't matter, either way, I had someone else do the job, and it came out wonderful.

I just remember being very dissapointed when the famed thelinuxguy failed to respond to my PMs and what not when I was looking for him to do some work for me. It's ok though. Overall, I still know several people that I talk to daily that still say you're a great guy.

future reference sales@rack911.com is the best way to get a hold of me.

I sent a few e-mails there. After the initial response, there was nothing. I don't believe I had spoken with you though via the sales e-mail. Maybe it was? Either way, like I said, it really doesn't matter, and there are still a great deal of people that think very highly of your services. I'm sure they're great.

They are great ;-) he is doing some more work for me as i type this post.

I tried talking to the owner, thelinuxguy, he said i have an attitude? because i msged him on msn a couple times and at the end i gave up and said their sales is horrible. Also i emailed their sales and never got a reply. now thats what you call a great salesman. He needs some attitude adjustment.

Well, sometimes its hard to entertain everybody, up and down. If the negative feedback is less than positive, I would say its a relatively good company.

Originally posted by TheTrance
I tried talking to the owner, thelinuxguy, he said i have an attitude? because i msged him on msn a couple times and at the end i gave up and said their sales is horrible. Also i emailed their sales and never got a reply. now thats what you call a great salesman. He needs some attitude adjustment.

Fact is msn is not a form of sales, you keep pushing on msn, and saying what a terrible company it is and such not cool. MSN is not a form of sales for me, and msn is running on one of my boxes 24/7. Does not mean i will be on the box to answer your question. Which is why sales@rack911.com exists and you messaged sales@rack911.com right after you said my sales is horrible. Which is why you never got a reply back since i wasen't going to do the work for you.

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
...Which is why you never got a reply back since i wasen't going to do the work for you.


you weren't? then why would you tell me to email sales@? well, just to show how big of a liar you are i checked the date i sent the email. Wed 3/31/2004 9:01 AM. That was before me getting pissed at you for not replying. I did apologize to you after, even though it wasnt my fault. grow up buddy

ooo if only i had msn timestamps and you have no right to get mad MSN IS NOT A FORM OF SALES and i have no turnaround guarantee for sales inquiries.



you weren't? then why would you tell me to email sales@?


you kept pushing on msn and like i have said before, msn is not sales.

emailed you 9 am. talked to you in the afternoon. does that ring a bell? heh

Originally posted by thelinuxguy
ooo if only i had msn timestamps and you have no right to get mad MSN IS NOT A FORM OF SALES and i have no turnaround guarantee for sales inquiries.




you kept pushing on msn and like i have said before, msn is not sales.


well, you'r not in a position to tell me what my rights are. But you could've told me to email sales not "I don't like your attitude". I'm not going to argue with you anymore.

I emailed Steve yesterday afternoon to inquire about having a new kernel compiled and installed. He responed within 10 minutes and things were completed within an hour of my first email. He did a great job and was easy to deal with.

Josh

There was one point when I was trying to get hold of TheLinuxGuy for about 3 days, but had no luck, but after that when I speak to him he replies - this could have been the time that he had a medical problem.

May I ask why many fools are trying to trash a thread giving praise to TheLinuxGuy?

I know very little people that are willing to spend time to help someone else out for free, and on top of that just talk about experiments that they are doing.

TheLinuxGuy has done no work for me as I have no server, but I do ask him Linux based questions online, and if he is online (Time difference) then he replies with easy to understand answers - this is all that matters. And I know if I needed anyone to do some administration for me I would go right ahead and hire TheLinuxGuy.

Plus he has a good name - Steve :P, but that’s not the point.

TheTrance, if you go into your local super market and start flapping your gob off like it sounds like you did towards Steve, then you will not be served and the entire store employees will be told to ignore you, there is no difference here to what there is with what Steve did, in fact Steve could have given you a bad name by posting your rudeness and whatnot on here - then you would have got a bad name, so how about hushing that gob of yours and think before you speak - and I do not just mean about what you are going to say - think about it in his views!

Regards

Steve (DislexiK)

Steve, just ignore them :) Let the praise do the job for you and need not prolong this arguement in your nice thread.

People who is rational will know who to listen. :P

lol UUN (Can I call you UUN?)

hehehehe

Regards

DislexiK

I am thinking to work with Rack911. I don't see a better company.

Steve is a great Admin, in fact he is the Senior Server Admin @ Shelltopia. Steve has always been their when myself, staff or customers need him.

Raines, how can you say you don't know where to find him? He idles in our IRC channel ( #shelltopia on irc.efnet.net ) 24/7 and you been in the channel many of times over the last month.

Originally posted by DislexiK


TheTrance, if you go into your local super market and start flapping your gob off like it sounds like you did towards Steve, then you will not be served and the entire store employees will be told to ignore you, there is no difference here to what there is with what Steve did, in fact Steve could have given you a bad name by posting your rudeness and whatnot on here - then you would have got a bad name, so how about hushing that gob of yours and think before you speak - and I do not just mean about what you are going to say - think about it in his views!

Regards

Steve (DislexiK)

1- I have my own beliefs and views on whats right and whats wrong, or how things should be done, specially in case of sales and technical support. I do it myself and i never treat anyone like he did. His immaturity is obvious to me. so please dont lecture me on that.
2- posting MY rudeness? again, don't comment on something you have no clue about. I tried contacting him for 4 days, through his MSN, he did not even reply. He could've simply said, contact sales. So my last msg to him was, your sales is horrible. so stop taking sides because hes your friend or whatever.

Originally posted by UltraUnixNET
Steve, just ignore them :) Let the praise do the job for you and need not prolong this arguement in your nice thread.

People who is rational will know who to listen. :P

Don't talk to me about rationality. If you were rational, you wouldnt even say what you just did. One whos rational respects others opinion, not... f$ck em, your the best


All im trying to say is that i had a bad experince with this guy. End of story so do not comment on my posts anymore.

Wow thread is getting long and that is good, I use Steve on a daily basis, for monitoring and server security. Even though my servers are with ThePlanet and SM, I always call on Steve to help me if something looks out of line, that is if he hasn't already contacted me first.
I am very happy with his service, even contacted another one recently to have a back up plan and see what they had to say about their service and I can tell you I won't be changing to them.
I have also been with Steve long enough to know that he will be there and if he can't he lets you know.
Don't even think twice when it comes to your server, just contact Steve and he will get back with you Asap, if he doesn't then he either just got a bunch of servers to work on or he is managing someone's crisis, like the last cpanel crisis many went through.
I will be posting every month that I use Steve and if his service is ever not up to par I will be the first to say so, he hasn't given me anything but the best and at the oddest times too, I don't think he ever sleeps.
So Steve, keep up the good work buddy and I hope you stay busy.:)

Steve at Rack911.com is a great guy. I contacted Steve to do security scan on our server as well as to upgrade some software and implement a firewall. Steve offers great security scans and plans, and doesn't charge a whole lot to do them either. I believe $45 is very affordable for what Steve can offer you. $45 is definately worth saving your server from hackers!

If you want more information about what Steve did for us, or have questions for me about Steve, please contact me!

He's a great guy and I would and will suggest him to anyone and everyone!

Great job & thanks, Steve!

I didnt know about rack911 , after i saw this post i contacted them and talked to Steve and he was a very nice person and i ordered the security packages . He was fast and efficient and kept me updated about what he was doing.

Great to deal with him :)

I contacted Steve the night before last to ask for some help. He was on the case immediately and his informative email after the work was done. I would have spent hours and hours faffing about trying to install the stuff Steve has done for me. And i would have made a mess of where it was all located on my box.

Thanks Steve for your help. Im sure I'll use his services again in future.

Richard

Just look at the prices, and you'll know why.

If i ever need a server secured ill be the first to ask rack911

Steve I havent used your service yet but from all that I hear about the service you offer I cant wait. I know your some people are angry or upset but just keep up the good work. My motto is your not going to win every girls heart (other people you helped).

I have to say that Steve was a great help in moving accounts from server to server and also setting up and securing the server. He was kind and had a great sense of humor in my opinion.

I have paid for his services and it was the best investment I have made so far. He still offers help and conultation and we still have a few laughs here and there. I have never had a problem getting a hold of him in the three months that I have worked with him.

I use Steves services now and will continue to use Steves services until I no longer need a server (which wont be anytime soon) or until I can teach myself Linux inside and out.. You are always going to have disgruntled customers no matter how good you are. All I have to say is that for every one bad thing I have heard about Steve, I have heard ten good things. So keep up the good work Steve!

--Another Satisfied Customer

Originally posted by Shelltopia
Steve is a great Admin, in fact he is the Senior Server Admin @ Shelltopia. Steve has always been their when myself, staff or customers need him.

Raines, how can you say you don't know where to find him? He idles in our IRC channel ( #shelltopia on irc.efnet.net ) 24/7 and you been in the channel many of times over the last month.

Steve has helped me a lot at shelltopia. He has taught me quite a bit of IRC, and even helped recompile it.

Just got through asking Steve to do a kernel check on one of my servers. First he was giving me directions on how to fix it, but my incompetence on kernels caused us to get no where, so he offered to do it. About 5 emails were exchanged in the conversation, and for each, he took about 1-2 minutes to reply to. After he was done, he then kept an eye on the server. Overall, I'd just like to say Steve is great -- many problems consisted in the first server I got, since I had no clue what I was doing, I messed up a lot of settings. Steve basically saved that server from exploding. (<--exaggerating just a tiny bit. :) ) But, I paid him once throughout the course of 3-4 months of help, he didn't ask for anything in return. This time, though, I insisted on paying him.

All in all, Steve is great, he's just a great guy, really nice, fast response, and he's one of the few people I would trust to go into my server.

I've never had to use R911's services (for obvious reasons), but I've had a few conversations with him over the past few months. If there's anyone else I'd recommend other than myself it'd be Steve. He's got a solid head on his shoulders, he's always known the answer to individual questions when he's been asked that I've seen, and he's smart enough to know when he doesn't know something and find the answer.

As far as Raine, I'd suggest that you stop trying to trash your competition here and spreading falsities. For the most part this is probably because of the whole irc thing, which, quite frankly, Raine, you need to get over.

Steve has provided a valuable service to the community, many times without charging individuals. I think that says enough about him right there. Don't let 'em get ya down man.

I will get in this line as well. :)

After being rooted after the cPanel fiasco last month, I realized that I am totally out of my league in trying to manage my own server. Unfortunately, my site traffic demands it as I run a large message board. Based on recommendations, I also hired Steve and have been very pleased with him.

Not only has he been more accessible than I can ask for, he is VERY proactive about monitoring and fine tuning. The box is running like a champ, and I can sleep at night without having to worry about staying on top of stuff that is out of my league as a programmer with limited OS knowledge.

Best move I have made after choosing my host.

:)

did he make something to optimize your board?? was it something general or directly in the PHP code or so?

mp3sattack,

I did alot more then optimize but yes i did optimize the server.

ok for me been reading this post for some time, i think now is the time to drop a line here.

He never worked for me at all nor i have any realtion with him, but as we say a book is known from the title, it is enough to follow up his posts here and maybe some other forums, which will make thing clear for you that he deserve the nick name even thelinuxguy.

bashing him here wont do any good the guy is well known, but what to do kids are all around.

thelinuxguy man keep moving you are doing just good :)

mp3sattack,

Yes, he hardened it and optimized it before I went live (among other things), and then on go live, he monitored the usage and fine tuned the settings even further to accomodate my traffic/usage/needs.

:):

Question for Steve,

I will be in the Dedicated server market pretty soon, and you are on the top of my list. I noticed you use RH9, are you planning on changing when they stop updating it? This is more out of curiosity as you seem a good source to ask on the matter. Sorry for going off topic, but I think it's clear he's good :)

Originally posted by Jhorra
Question for Steve,

I will be in the Dedicated server market pretty soon, and you are on the top of my list. I noticed you use RH9, are you planning on changing when they stop updating it? This is more out of curiosity as you seem a good source to ask on the matter. Sorry for going off topic, but I think it's clear he's good :)

Why not PM him or e-mail him directly. This has nothing to do with this thread.

Sirius

Off topic yes, but I was hoping to get some other opinions as well as his. If these 4 pages aren't enough to convince someone he provides good service then nothing will.

If it really is a big deal I can start a new thread.

Personally i think the RHE editions of linux, ruined redhat. There are many bugs in it, and its not compatable with alot of software. RH9 will always be my os of choice for servers.

Is there much security risk involved now that they aren't updating it?

No, you can update all software packages manually via tarball or use fedoralegacy.