I run what you could call a very small hosting service, hosting about 10 sites on a reseller host. They have always been very good to me in the past, and I hope I haven't been seen as a troublesome customer to them. So I was surprised with what they did today.

A few days ago one of my customer's accounts was suspended and "locked" in WHM - nothing I could to to unsuspend it. I thought, maybe a mistake or something, so made a support ticket and waited for their response...

Here's the ticket anyway.

Posted On: 16 Feb 2007 08:20 PM
Hi,

One of my hosted accounts, username xxxxxxx, has become suspended for some reason. I didn't suspend it and wasn't notified at all. I tried to unsuspend the account through WHM but it says it is "locked by the root user". Please could you let me know why this has happened and unsuspend the account.

Thanks,
xxxxxxxxxx
Posted On: 16 Feb 2007 08:26 PM
Hi,

The account was locked for overusage of CPU, it was using over 1 CPU to itself and on a shared server this is unacceptable.

The site will either need to lose 3/4 of its visits or be moved to a dedicated or VPS solution as the site is too large for a shared solution


Regards,

xxxxxxxxxxx


OK I thought, fair enough. I did talk to the customer in question who confirmed their account had had lots of extra visitors recently and it was probably a forum they installed using the extra CPU.


Posted On: 16 Feb 2007 10:41 PM
Hi,

Thanks for your response. I'm pretty disappointed that I wasn't contacted in any way about one of *my own* customer's accounts being suspended. I understand why you needed to lock the account, which is fine with me, but as I'm sure you can imagine I've had to deal with several frustrated messages from this customer and I've not even been able to let them know why their account was suspended in the first place.

Anyway, I have now talked to the customer and they are prepared to do anything to get their account back online (after which, as they've told me, they are prepared to move elsewhere). They have said to me that they expect the high CPU usage was caused by an unexpectedly popular forum they recently installed - I'm not sure if this is correct as you haven't let me know exactly what was causing the high CPU.

Would it be acceptable to reopen the account if the forum was removed? If it isn't the forum that's the problem, please let me know if you can what is.

Thanks,

xxxxxxxxx
Posted On: 16 Feb 2007 10:51 PM
xxxxxxxxxx,

It was the forum - you should have recieved an email about the suspension, or whoevers email is specified in WHM. If you give us the go-ahead, we will remove the forum and unsuspend the account. The other solution is to put them on a server of their own as this forum does use a lot of resources. At the end of the day it comes to the question, do they want the forum?

Regards,

xxxxxxxxxx


Posted On: 16 Feb 2007 10:58 PM
Thanks for your fast response again, much appreciated. I've just been emailing the account owner in question and they're perfectly happy to have the forum removed as long as that means their account goes back online - they are prepared to sort out hosting elsewhere for the forum and eventually the whole site. Please could you leave the database itself intact though so that they can get a backup.

Thanks,
xxxxxxxxxxxx

Posted On: 17 Feb 2007 12:50 AM
Hi,

The forum has been removed, SQL left in tact.

Account unsuspended.

Regards,

xxxxxxxxxxxx


As you can see above, my reseller's support identified the particular problem, the forum, and specifically tell me that removing it will be fine. After getting confirmation from the customer, I give my reseller the OK to remove the forum and unsuspend which they do as promised (seen in above ticket).

Fantastic, or so I thought. Situation dealt with. Support people (or I should say person, it was the same guy) was very helpful and fast. Obviously the particular customer wasn't too happy with their account being suspended for that time, but they did understand how and why it had happened and accepted that fortunately for me.

I talked to the customer and they let me know that they are happy to live without a forum until they can get some VPS or dedicated hosting or move somewhere else. I obviously let them know to be careful that they don't end up in the same situation with another shared host, etc, etc.

So I hope you understand my surprise today when the ticket is updated with this:
Posted On: 17 Feb 2007 04:08 PM
Hello,

This website has continued to use a ridiculous amount of CPU resources and hence has been terminated.
Regards,

xxxxxxxxxx [note, the head of the company, not the guy who helped me previously]

If you don't know, terminated means deleted completely from the server.

This ticket has been my only communication with them and it's completely honest - I'm not trying to hide anything or even make my reseller look bad, which is why I haven't mentioned their name at all. I am obviously very angry now.

What would you guys do in this situation? Is it acceptable for my reseller to terminate my own customer's accounts like this, without even warning me about it?

There's a specific ettiquete to follow when suspending a user for resource abuse:

1) Notify affected parties in advance that the account may be suspended due to resource abuse. Give some proof, don't just say it. Proof is very, very easy to give.

2) Sometimes it is not possible to notify in advance because the problem may be too severe to let slide for a short amount of time. The notification should still go out to you, the reseller, who can then pass that notification on.

3) At all times, much like in point #1, provide proof. This is especially the case with resellers involved. When there is a reseller account involved, a company has to remember that there can be legal issues involved, most specifically the point that the end user is billed by the reseller and thus the reseller needs full proof that the act was taking place or they are liable for refunding the customer, and any other not-so-fun issues that can follow.

If your provider didn't follow that, and it appears they didn't, they screwed up.


Simon

Well I hope your customer has a backup of his site/files. Terminate does mean deleted off the system.

It looks like they haven't warned or gave you any notice regarding the suspension and termination. Or maybe they have, check your account details to make sure you have the correct email entered in. Your next step would be talking to your host directly and question them. Personally, I would sent out a notice/warning email before I do a suspension and if the same problem persists, I would send out another email, suspend the account again. Never would I terminate an account from the server without hearing from the client first. That's just me, others might handle the situation differently.

Well I hope your customer has a backup of his site/files. Terminate does mean deleted off the system.
Fortunately for both me and them, they did. Obviously though they are extremely annoyed. It's difficult for me because I have to explain actions that weren't my decision at all, and I know very little about.

It looks like they haven't warned or gave you any notice regarding the suspension and termination. Or maybe they have, check your account details to make sure you have the correct email entered in. Your next step would be talking to your host directly and question them. Personally, I would sent out a notice/warning email before I do a suspension and if the same problem persists, I would send out another email, suspend the account again. Never would I terminate an account from the server without hearing from the client first. That's just me, others might handle the situation differently.
That's exactly what I would have expected them to do. If the resource "abuse" was as much as they claim, and I won't doubt that because I really don't have that info, then I'm not too annoyed with them suspending the customer immediately without notice. It's the sudden termination that's really bothered me.

I have checked my email in WHM and it's correct. Possibly their suspended notification was caught in a spam filter - I'll assume that for their sake.

Do you think I should ask for more details about why the account was terminated? Exactly what was using the CPU? I find it difficult to work out myself because the account only had ~6GB of transfer and according to the user, it was only static HTML files (although with .php extensions) once the forum was gone.

It is a shame that this would happen. No hosting company should ever do this to a customer, or a reseller client. In MHO they should have atleast contacted you before anything was done to the account. If they are willing to do this to one customer after they "fixed" the issue who is to say they will not do this again to your account?

Do you think I should ask for more details about why the account was terminated? Exactly what was using the CPU? I find it difficult to work out myself because the account only had ~6GB of transfer and according to the user, it was only static HTML files (although with .php extensions) once the forum was gone.Depending on how PHP is setup, just having it parse through HTML can cause issues if it gets a lot of hits at one time. Also, bandwidth doesnt always equal CPU/memory usage. For example, if the host uses PHP as CGI each visitor starts a new CGI which takes at least 16 MB of memory and some CPU usage. Multiple that by 100 for example, and you have a good amount of usage just for static files. (Running PHP as apache module is best for that type of thing as it's always in memory and wont need a startup.)

Now, was it "to far" for the host to delete the account? Probably not if it was in their terms, but not many would do that I believe. I don't understand why it was terminated when a suspension could have solved it until they contacted you. So, there might be more to this then you know or have provided.

If I were you, I would move my business elsewhere. First, they should not have terminated the website when they themselves have assured you that the forum was causing the server load trouble. Secondly, if they can simply terminate a website without trying to work with you first, I will start worry about your other websites. By tommorow, perhaps you will have no websites left. Thirdly, this shows how poorly they know how to manage their own servers. You do not need to remove a forum to prevent the forum to be accessible. You do not need to delete (or even suspend) a site to prevent the site to be accessible. They are simply not smart enough to know how to resolve the situation with the minimum damage/effect to their own client. Unfortunately, control panel nowadays make everybody thinks they can run a hosting business when all they know is how to push buttons in the control panel.

Find a more suitable host that will value your business more than they do. Which host is this anyway?

Depending on how PHP is setup, just having it parse through HTML can cause issues if it gets a lot of hits at one time. Also, bandwidth doesnt always equal CPU/memory usage. For example, if the host uses PHP as CGI each visitor starts a new CGI which takes at least 16 MB of memory and some CPU usage. Multiple that by 100 for example, and you have a good amount of usage just for static files. (Running PHP as apache module is best for that type of thing as it's always in memory and wont need a startup.)
Ahh, thanks for that. They may well be running it as a CGI actually, didn't think of that before. I checked phpinfo and it says the gateway interface is CGI/1.1 and doesn't mention an accelerator (which would normally be used when running as a module, right?), so I think you may be right.

Now, was it "to far" for the host to delete the account? Probably not if it was in their terms, but not many would do that I believe. I don't understand why it was terminated when a suspension could have solved it until they contacted you. So, there might be more to this then you know or have provided.
I also find it difficult to see why they'd just terminate the account like that. It seems to me it was done almost out of anger. But I don't know at the moment because they never told me - all I have so far is their replies to the ticket, which are all posted above.

If I were you, I would move my business elsewhere. First, they should not have terminated the website when they themselves have assured you that the forum was causing the server load trouble. Secondly, if they can simply terminate a website without trying to work with you first, I will start worry about your other websites. By tommorow, perhaps you will have no websites left. Thirdly, this shows how poorly they know how to manage their own servers. You do not need to remove a forum to prevent the forum to be accessible. You do not need to delete (or even suspend) a site to prevent the site to be accessible. They are simply not smart enough to know how to resolve the situation with the minimum damage/effect to their own client. Unfortunately, control panel nowadays make everybody thinks they can run a hosting business when all they know is how to push buttons in the control panel.
I am definitely considering moving elsewhere unless they have a very good explanation and just haven't told me yet. I'm hoping they can explain, because until now I've had very few issues with them at all. The problem is that I have so little income from this and about half of the sites I host on my account are actually just my own personal ones.

I actually bought this account a while back on ebay. Yes, I know now, a definite no-no, but then I was short of money and experience, and never planned to really make a business or money out of it (and haven't to this day). But anyway as I've said, until now things have generally been fine, and after reading other people's experience on here I've considered myself quite lucky...

The hits to the site (no doubt looking for the forum) is probably what caused the high server load.

The account termination makes no sense what so ever. Simply suspending the account stops the issue and allows for the user to fix the problem. I have NEVER seen any provider of hosting or dedicated servers terminate an account. Suspending I've seen...but even when spam is involved, it has always been a suspension. A notice is a good idea and I will do this from now on for my clients but simply terminating an account is quite confusing. Thanky goodniess they had a backup. I would contact ths host and demand compensation. even though their TOS probably does not cover terminations theyshould give you a refund based on the inconvience they caused.

I don't think there is a reason why they did this other than bad policy or accidently going to temrinate instead of suspend. A move to another host is probably not a bad idea. Even if this is an isolated incident.

Robert Davis

The hits to the site (no doubt looking for the forum) is probably what caused the high server load.
Generating 404's or redirects does not cause resource spikes.


Simon

Deleting an account under the Reseller is out of bounds.
The Reseller is the contact, period. If an account needs to be shut off, deal with the reseller.

This sort of behavior comes from not respecting the client. The resold account belongs to - is the property of ; the reseller.

I have experienced something similar!

My first reseller hosting did it to one my clients which tried to put some cracked serial numbers and things like that. Of course I wasn't aware of that and I was shocked with the fact that the customer is asking why you have banned my account?! I was like what?? me?? I checked it and I found it suspended. Contacted them immediately and they answered blah blah violation of rights etc... I said ok at least tell me that this is happening or ask me to suspend the account otherwise you'll do it. They said we can't wait till you wake up and shut it down. Anyway, I said ok they want to pull their files and go to some other house, bring it back for a few hours and then I'll delete the account. And guess what, they refused to unsuspend it even for 5 minutes.

That's strange behavior of reseller people. Because, since I'm your reseller and I'm the gate to the customer, you MUST ask ME to apply the rules and deal with me not with the customer!!
As our friend suggested, I was to explain a decision which was not mine!

That was completely un called for on your host side. They should have contacted you before making the decision to terminate YOUR customers off of there server. It's a very helpless situation you are in, and unfortunatly many have faced this problem before. I am also very surprised they suspended this account in the first place without your consent, let alone terminated it, without having atleast a backup. I hope things look up for you,
James

My first reseller hosting did it to one my clients which tried to put some cracked serial numbers and things like that.

And guess what, they refused to unsuspend it even for 5 minutes.

Those two go hand and hand. If a company allows continued access to such materials, depending on where they and the servers are, they could be committing a crime or be an accomplice to the crime, or at least DMCA violations if in the US. Even allowing access to the files after the fact would be bad for them. It's like you see someone killing someone, you stop them, ask what is going on, they tell you and then you let them continue on. At that point you're, depending on local laws, an accomplice after the fact since you could have stopped them.

That's strange behavior of reseller people. Because, since I'm your reseller and I'm the gate to the customer, you MUST ask ME to apply the rules and deal with me not with the customer!!
As our friend suggested, I was to explain a decision which was not mine!
Well, again, if they allow the continued access after being made aware of it they could be held liable for it. Now, it's not good business practice, in my opinion, not to alert the reseller to such actions when it's done. For example, when we suspend a resold account, we usually note down why it's being suspended and both the reseller and their customer get the notice. (With no information about us in the notice, heck it uses the reseller's email templates.) (This is with hsphere.) So, there's no explanation required as both you and your customer get the same information.

I am also very surprised they suspended this account in the first place without your consent[...]. I'm always wondering how other companies will handle such things. So, James, how would Trexhost handle this? A customer of a reseller is causing the server to crash and/or be slow for all others on it.

Does Trexhost do:
Suspend, notify
Notify, wait
Notify, wait x time and then suspend -- if this one how long is to long? 2 hours, 2 days?
Remember, you have other customers on the server that are now complaining that the server is down or it's slow.

I'm not part of a police or security forces to be able to apply the legislations! If somebody in my territory does something illegal, at the time the action is done I cannot do anything to undo that!
So, if somebody puts illegal contents on my space as a reseller who is responsible for his account I am the one who should suspend the account and if not, they should do it.
So.. being reseller means the owner should interact with me not with my customers.

I agree only if you have given them an updated contact email.
Also I as a reseller am checking twice a day how the use of bandwidth is on my clients.
If you have done that you would see that this account was far over.
I make on all my accounts for each customer a automatic suspend when exceeded over their limit.

When i suspend one of my clients clients i instantly e-mail both parties to let them no about the issue

What your comapny did was verry rude and unfair!

Which is the company that did this?

I'm always wondering how other companies will handle such things. Remember, you have other customers on the server that are now complaining that the server is down or it's slow.
The way we would handle it is to use the contact info we have for the reseller. If we cannot make contact using all means available, we will temporarily suspend the site.
When we finally do make contact with the reseller, they are reminded of complying with our TOS. They are given a choice then to take appropriate, immediate action on their own or we take action with them - not the offending client.

Taking action with them means that their entire reseller account is suspended until the terms of our agreement are met. If that means that they do not choose to comply with our TOS and consequently get shut down entirely, then so be it.

The other customers wil not be allowed to suffer.

I would expect an account to be suspended (not terminated or deleted) if it had illegal content on it.
First, the files could be deleted without deleting the entire site.
Second, if the content was bad enough that contacting the authorities was merited, they could preserve it as proof of the crime.

Any Reseller should be notified immediately when there is a problem with one or more of their accounts. Failing this is like dismissing the relevance of the reseller and it interferes with their right to do business.

Now, if the problem site was deleted by the reseller, that would be a different thing. But I can not think of a good excuse for a provider to interfere in their customers business.

Once you remove your sites to a new provider, I think you should share with everyone the name of the host that did this to you and your client.

There are ways and ways. Suspending is the easy one: you harm one and save the rest. And it is common policy around to just suspend first and ask later.

However, if you are the suspended one, you don't like it, right? Sometimes we (I include myself, yes.) are too fast suspending, blaming the fault on the customer, and we fail to put ourselves on the customer's mind. What the customers thinks, whishes? Most likely the customer will feel not knowledgeable enough and will just rely on you helping him. He does not know about cpu. He knows he would like a succesful forum with tons of hits. And he is relying on us to help him, or at least on explaining to him that, what he wants, requires a dedicated.

Ask yourself what you want to build. A business that provides a %ofcpu, space and bandwidth or a business that focus on the customer?. At the end, you need to resell from a host that does what you want to provide to your customers.

So, at the end, it's more about your strategy than about just this customer forum. Try to get an step back and ask yourself: does it fit your long term strategy? If it does, good. If it doesn't, you should find another host.

Q

PS: To anybody that thinks that overuse cannot be solved in any other ways, a list of other options that we apply depending on the case
* chmod the offending file(s) or folders
* scan the site for bad php scripts that have loops
* use modsec limit visits
and, overall, email the reseller such as he warns the user. Keep him in control.