I was wondering if anyone used http://www.serverhost.com. They seem fairly good, but i have a reputation of picking the worst dedicated hosting providers.

March Server Special

* 750MHz Pentium 3 CPU
* 128MB SDRAM
* 20GB IDE Hard Drive
* 10/100 NIC
* Redhat 6.2 or FreeBSD 4.2
* 10GB Data Transfer (about 32Kbps average)
* Monthly average data transfer billing
* Unlimited IP addresses at no charge
* No contract required

$129 per month
$99 setup fee

I am also concerned they are limiting bandwidth (about 32Kbps average).

Thank You

<rant>
Who cares about unlimited hard drive space.... hey everybody has unlimited bandwidth.... top them all and offer UNLIMITED IP ADDRESSES!
</rant>

Unlimited IP addresses you say? Ok, I'll take 4 billion of them... oh wait a moment, are we talking IPv4 or IPv6? ;)

Come on now guys. I will admit that is worded badly, but there is no need to bash. We offer as many IP addresses as you can justify.

From our site:

We adhere to RFC 2050 guidelines and request that clients utilize 80% of their IP space before requesting additional IP space. IP Addresses are provided on an as-needed basis and in blocks. FREE IP Addresses with -every- contract.

Check out the RFC2050 guidelines at http://www.netgate.net.nz/nic/rfc2050.txt.

Also, the bandwidth is fully burstable, we just use 32Kbps as an equivalent to bill by.

Regards,

Thanks alot

Hi there,

Do you allow irc/shell accounts to be run on the March Special server plan? I'll need to use approx. 50 ips for vhosts as well.

CK: Not a problem on either question. E-mail me if you have further questions - jk@serverhost.com

Regards,

bot farms, ususally boxes with tons of eggdrops using vhosts get dos'ed a lot. happens to every shell provider which in turn affects the upstream provider.

Originally posted by teck
bot farms, ususally boxes with tons of eggdrops using vhosts get dos'ed a lot. happens to every shell provider which in turn affects the upstream provider.

Don't like the sound of that. :(

Regards,

Generally how long does it take to setup a server after it is ordered?

Generally one or two business days, depending upon how many orders we have ahead of you.

Regards,

I am a customer of serverhost.com mail me if you want more details.

Does anyone have any idea what Serverhost what pay for blocks of IP's? With a 20GB hard disk you could have 200 sites needing 200IP's, how much will it cost ServerHost to provide these IP's?

Ben,

They do not charge for IP's. You get them as you need them. If you can justify use on 200 IPs, there is not charge. If you can justify use for 2000 IPs, again, no charge.

My question about IP's is to see whether a deal with unlimited IP's can really work for them. In theory they can only offer free IP's if they recieve them without charge. Since they cannot recieve them without charge then the next question to ask is exactly what lose they are taking by offering then for free?

Not entirely true. The actual cost of leasing an IP address from ARIN is actually very minimal. They can run about $.05/ea. So what we do is turn around and give them to clients. There really is no incentive to charge for IPs unless you are getting charged yourself. And I look at being charged .05 for an IP as getting it for free.

You can get IP addresses directly from ARIN for $2500 per year for up to 32 Class C's, meaning about $0.31 per IP address per year, or about $0.03 per month. If we can justify the addresses to ARIN, it makes no since not to give them to you. If a customer gets more than 8 Class C's with us, we recommend that they get their own block directly from ARIN, since the administrative overhead (keeping justification for every IP address) for more than 8 Class C's is not economically feasible.

Regards,

As I have a had a couple of emails I will post here how I rate serverhost.com

I guessed people would ask but I didn't have time to do a detailed explanation earlier, busy day.

If I miss anything let me know.

Now before you judge them on the below remember I was told that they were backlogged before I ordered and they told me there might be delays.

Support via ICQ and email.
Well there is no ticket system so when I email support@serverhost.com I assume they get it but I don't always get a reply. I have found out serverhost.com is plusweb.com (they told me) and support@plusweb.com works much better, it is probably fixed by now.

When support (Tim_Greer, he is on these boards) or Jeff is online via ICQ problems usualy get sorted. Often in seconds :) but not always. I think there are other support people but I don't know their names.

Conectivity
Well don't rate their conectivity by serverhost.com domain and IP as it is always faster than myne. I don't understand the way packets are routed but they always take longer to get to my server then serverhost.com, yes I have been moaning at them loads about this. The second day my server was up everything was sloooooow. I asked on ICQ why everything is so slow and was told the network is under attack, working on it. Everything was still accessable just very slow. After less than an hour of me noticing I got an ICQ message saying should be fixed now and it was. The next day it all went slow again, I am not sure if it was my ISP or them or both, I tried from other places and they found it slower than usual but only about 100ms. Serverhost.com is in the same NOC, even on the same backbone. The last hop before my server often has a difference of 30ms so I guess their network is just overloaded.

As I have been moaning they have told me they are doing something about it, in their reply about what they are doing isn't exactly clear so I have re-asked and I await their reply.

My server
When they setup my server they put the wrong CPU in it, but they noticed before I got to use it and told me. So that added a few days. When that was sorted I logged onto it and it was RedHat6.2 and I had ordered 7.0. They aggreed it was wrong and said they would fix it, few more days passed. I moaned. Few more days passed, they got another server installed everything on it and got me another set of IP's.
Then told me the new box was up. It worked fine (still is) BUT it had the wrong CPU in it, anyway they offered many solutions and we have sorted that out so that they and I was happy :) They say the gap in fixing RH6.2 to 7 was delayed due to problems processing my credit card, it seemed to get stuck half way. Anyway when they finish fixing their conectivity and put it back like it was when my server first went online I will be happy :)


Things I would suggest serverhost.com could improve on.
Jeff you probably already know and are working on it.
Conectivity, stable fast would be nice. Ok so it is 9X% of the time and I haven't been with you long so it is hard to say if these events are 1 offs or not, also they have acknowledged this and are working on it.
When I send in an email read it all and reply even if some answers are I don't know or I will look into it and will answer later. When you answer a question it is a good response but you often miss things.
Set realistic time schedules, build in some time for unexpected events as they happen.


I have not posted the IP of my server as I haven't finished securing it and I don't want to advertise that fact.

lith when you email me don't leave the reply as "lith" <blah@blah.com> I doubt that is you.

Try a real email address and I might reply.

The only downside i have seen so far is slow email replies, its been 4 days and i have not yet recived a reply, i send off another email early monday morning, no reply yet... Jeffrey, whats your ICQ number? I want to setup WHM and CP on my server, can i still do that?

His number is 3000984

it is on http://www.serverhost.com/contact.shtml

Originally posted by _G_
lith when you email me don't leave the reply as "lith" <blah@blah.com> I doubt that is you.

Try a real email address and I might reply.

I'm so sorry about that, i was looking at my profile and relized. Sorry.

I have never used serverbost myself, but considering rally-really seriously of using their colocation service. Jeff has been really busy these past few days. I used to be able to talk to him (ICQ) quite a lot but not lately. From my experiences talking with Jeff, he seems to always willing work something out with you, no matter how small/big your request is. About his support? Somebody once told me that with Jeff, "support is quicker than sales, not the other way around". Hope my experience with serverhost will be a good one.

cheers,
:beer:

Here's my take on my time with serverhost so far (about 2 weks since initial order now). Some of the points below may not really be relevant, but I'm just listing them for completeness - they should not be interpreted as criticism of serverhost unless specifically stated. All times are in my local timezone, GMT.

I have their cheapest server plan - the February special at $59setup + $59/mth prepaid for a year (ie. $767).

I submitted my order on Mar 7, at the end of the period during which Jeffrey said he would entertain orders from people who had enquired about the February special (would have ordered a few days earlier, but was waiting for replies to further queries). Knowing that they were deluged by a number of orders, I said that there wouldn't be a specific timescale which I required the server to be set up by. I also made a few specific requests which Jeffrey had already agreed to via e-mail: control of the reverse dns for my ips, installation of immunix 6.2 OS (a hardened redhat), and specific partition configurations.

On March 11, I mailed Jeffrey to request a change from Immunix 6.2 to simply Redhat 6.2. He replied on the same day (Sunday!) saying that my box had already been installed and he was just about to e-mail me my login information, but that he would get redhat installed ASAP, probably the same day.

On March 13, realising that a redhat installation will be compromised very quickly, I emailed him again asking for a few ipchains rules to be added to deny access to everyone except my ip so that I would have a chance to secure it before unleashing the script kiddies on it.
ipchains -A input -i lo -j ACCEPT
ipchains -A input -s ! <myip> -j DENY
ipchains -A input -j ACCEPT

March 14, Jeffrey sends me the login details of my box. I immediately telnet in on reading the mail 5 hours after he sent it, but notice that it has already been compromised by somebody from an ip in china. :( Requested reinstallation of the OS, and reiterated request for the firewall rules to be added in before the box is connected to the network. Jeffrey agrees to do this.

Over the next few days while waiting for the OS to be reinstalled, I poked around the system a bit. The plan I signed up for advertised a P3-667, I think, but my box had a P3-730... excellent! My 20gig IDE hard disk is a Samsung SV2042H with half a meg of cache... not so good, but understandable considering the rock bottom price I'm paying anyway. YMMV when you purchase a more expensive server :)

My server is being hosted in their Columbus Ohio facility, instead of their Grenville facility as I'd originally expected (though there wasn't any prior agreement for my box to be hosted in any particular facility). This is not the same place that serverhost.com is sitting on. _G_, this seems too obvious, but is your server in Grenville or Columbus? To anyone who likes running traceroutes, the last hop before me is s1-0.core1.cmh.ssmdata.net (157.130.110.58).

I don't appear to have been given reverse dns authority for my ip's. Have contacted both Tim (first) and Jeffrey (later) about this, but have yet to receive a reply on this (hear ye, users intending to run bot farms... which I'm not anyway). I'm uncertain how long this will take, because authority is currently being held by zooga.net/aotech.net. Perhaps a reason why response times with regards to physical issues like setting up servers has been somewhat lagged is because my server is in OH, whereas serverhost and Jeff are in SC?

One other niggling point is that my disk partitions are not exactly what I'd requested. My requested 25MB /boot partition is currently just living as a part of my /. Not a really big deal, but wasn't my full instructions :) The rest of the partitioning was as requested.

Anyway, the box was taken down on the evening of Mar 19 for the re-install. When I woke up the next day, I discovered that the installation had been completed, but the firewall rules I'd requested were not in place. The login information I was originally given had been changed, so I could not login immediately to secure the box. I e-mailed support about this, and after that spent a few minutes looking for a redhat 6.2 exploit. Perhaps five minutes later, I had broken into my own box, and made the preliminary firewall rules :)

To Jeff's credit, he replied in about 2 hours with my new login information (which were not valid anymore anyway), and also saying that the ipchains commands I furnished did not work (hmm...).

I poked around my box a bit, and it seems that I managed to break into my box before anyone else had, so I was fairly happy :)

Later, after further poking around, I noticed that 'server99' had logged into my box via the console (tty1). It would pretty much have to be the console anyway, since I had configured it to reject all but a select few IPs. Istarted wondering who the user 'server99' on my system actually belonged to. I'd first assumed that it was an account used for pre-installation, since it had a uid 500, before that of the admin uid 501 (though uid is not really an indicator of timelines).

After disabling the account, I looked in ~server99 and noticed in the .bash_history file the following actions, which by the timestamp took place before I'd gained access to my box:
ls
ssh -l keeb lo.st
ssh
exit

Of course, my questions now run along the lines of "who exactly is server99?", "have I actually been compromised before first logging in again?", "but server99 is logging in on the console/tty1, so must have physical access to the box, which means he's an authorised technician", "why wouldn't the technician realise that ssh to not included in redhat 6.2?", and lastly "why would a technician be ssh'ing to some dodgy server from a customer's machine?" Have asked support these questions using different words, but have not received a response yet.

This is the current history of my interaction with serverhost.

The pricing on my server is, IMO, quite unbeatable and support has been forthcoming so far, if rather slow. As far as support via ICQ goes I've yet to receive real-time communication with Jeffrey (which is what ICQ is usually intended to achieve), but then he is marked away, and he is pretty busy after all. I've been able to chat with Tim, but he's having some problems with ICQ and advised me that it would probably be better to email support@ instead.

Connectivity has been pretty good at the columbus facility. I've had some loss of connectivity, but this was due to problems in my provider Teleglobe rather than with ssmdata/zooga or whoever they are. I can manage transfers of about 250KBps from myself in the UK, which is very acceptable to me.

They'd kept misconfiguring my host's domain to "adverse" instead of "averse", but that's not really a problem and easily fixed in seconds :)

One last point is that a company as busy with orders/support as serverhost should perhaps work on the orders and support first over posting on WHT :) Jeff and Tim, in particular, are both regular and such prolific posters here that sometimes I get the feeling that the answer to a query would come faster if the query is made in a forum. This is surely not the right place to conduct support :)

In short, I'm pretty happy so far. My experience was marred with some security problems, but this was partly my fault for requesting something insecure like redhat 6.2 (though default 7.0 is not much better). If answers to support query came in hours or a day, I'd be a happy man :)

P.S. I don't know if some of the problems in obtaining support arise from the different time zones we're in.

I do apologize for the slow response times to this point. I'm working on e-mail every day, but it just seems that I can't keep up. I've just hired another sales guy, who should be starting soon, to help alleviate my work load, so I should be able to start responding faster. I will also be setting up a support ticket system for dedicated servers and co-location so that response time can be better.

As for the situation in Ohio, we've not been happy with the agreement we have with the folks there. We're working on getting a connection backhauled from Ohio to South Carolina so that we can move all of those customers to our location for quicker response times.

Please be patient with us - we're growing so fast that it's been hard to keep up! We want to service every customer to the best of our abilities, but sometimes people slip through the cracks. Be assured that we are working to correct all of our shortcomings as quickly as we can.

We are aware that our Greenville data center has been having slowdowns and packet loss over the past 24 hours or so, and we are working with BellSouth and our upstream providers to correct the problem. We think that something is screwed up between here and Atlanta, but finding exactly where that has proven to be tough (primarily because BellSouth is very difficult to deal with). Luckily, one of the loops has been operating properly, so we've had no down time. We hope that everything will be back to normal shortly.

As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to give me a call at the office or drop me an e-mail.

Thanks,

I ordered my server Sunday the 18, of march. I still haven't got a confimation e-mail or instrunctions on how to access it. Is this normal?

Yes, but it doesn't hurt to remind them or ask for an update. I think they get fed up with me keeping asking but if they mind they should give me a status report when it takes longer than they estimate.

Originally posted by jkehe

Please be patient with us - we're growing so fast that it's been hard to keep up!


One way to solve this problem is to limit the growth in the short term so that you can build a base of loyal customers in the long term.

Plusweb/Serverhost has been slow at responding the last week or so.
Hopefully they'll get some more people and SOON because this is getting very annoying.

The connectivity problem in Greenville was fixed through.

pyng, I'm sorry that you've had this non perfect experience. Obviously there were some delays and issues that were no fault of your own, nor did you have control over and I take full responsibility and apologize for the situation.

I don't want you to get the impression that I ignore technical support emails and spend time posting to these boards instead. I only post here when I have free time, and when I have no work to do or that is not in my field, etc. The reason why I didn't get your support emails, is because any support emails sent to serverhost.com do not forward to me.

I'm not a full time employee, which is doing remote administration and support, etc., and all of the issues you informed me of personally, were all things that had to be done at the physical location. So, I can do 99% of the tasks, but I'm helpless to do anything that requires physical tech support at the server. Usually, once a server is set up, everything from there on can be done remotely. But, sometimes I'm of no help, if there is something that needs to be done at the server itself. I'm sorry I couldn't help in those instances and this is why I asked you to email Jeff directly. I hope that explains that much of it.

There's so many various means to better secure a system and that's not all done by default, especially if the user requests they do certain things themselves. It's a time consuming thing, but I also try and offer any help I can in that aspect, I simply didn't receive that request from you personally. When I did get the information from Jeff, he gave me the command you asked him to run to secure the system, but that command was invalid and didn't have the proper syntax. It seemed to be a mix of a forward deny and an input deny. I wasn't entirely sure what you wanted to accomplish and I didn't want to deny every IP but yours, as I assumed people would be accessing at least the web server portion of your server and possibly other things as well. I didn't want to alter anything in a manner that would make it worse for you, and ipchains alone don't do much in the way or security alone.

I informed Jeff that the commands you sent seemed confusing as to what it looked like you wanted, and I didn't want to assume anything and screw anything up for you or your site. Obviously there was some miscommunication in regards to the issue of you only wanting yourself specifically to access any area of the server and any protocol, or am I assuming incorrectly? I didn't want to assume this previously and block everything, because I thought that if that was your intention, you'd have simply done just that. I wasn't aware of the situation in regards to the new install and what you needed done, because I didn't get all the information. I'll take full responsibility for that and apologize for the error on my part for not fully understanding what you wished to have and in what manner, configured. I didn't want to chance it at the time.

I did get your ICQ about the reverse DNS, but I also thought that was an issue on the system that you were going to have reinstalled anyway. Again, my mistake. I didn't know what deal you worked out with Jeff or sales, since that's not my area, and I asked you to email Jeff about that as well. Mainly, I thought it'd be worked out after the new install. I feel horrible about that and I don't like leaving people without any help or answers I can possible provide to them, and if I can't or it's not in my area, I try to refer you to someone that does have that control. I looked over the DNS info on your server and I didn't see any reason or indication of why it shouldn't be resolving at the time and all the zone's and DNS files were configured to resolve. From there, I didn't know what deal was worked out, where it was supposed to be pointing to, etc. This is why I referred you to email support and/or Jeff, since I didn't have that information.

As for the 'server99' login, I don't have physical access to the system, again, and I imagine someone at the data center simply added it as a login to set it up and test it out. As I said, I don't get support emails sent to serverhost, so I didn't receive any email asking about that user login. It's not likely I could have helped with an answer anyway. I don't know why it was tested in that manner though, since i had no knowledge of it personally. Again, I do remote support and administration and when a new box is set up, unless I'm specifically asked to do something or even told about the box, I have no reason, nor would I have permission by you, to do anything to it. And, if I am asked, I need clear and specific and correct information, which again is certainly likely to be the result of me not understanding what you wanted and me not wanting to risk configuring it in a manner I assumed, which could result in adversely affecting access to your server by whomever you might wish to allow access, via any protocol, including http.

I apologize for the slowness in support, but I've not gotten any support requests beyond the ICQ messages you sent that one day to me, which was when I looked into the reverse resolution issue. I have only gotten a few ICQ messages about things that I basically had no way of answering or changing, since I didn't know what deal you worked out with Jeff or sales, nor did I have physical access to the server. I don't get the support emails, likely because of an oversight, or because most people with their own server's don't request much tech support, beyond general information that Jeff usually provides, and if something is requested, then I can and will do it... however, in this last case, the information was a bit misleading and confusing as per what was to be done. I once again apologize for that mistake.

The mention I also made about ICQ, that I perhaps wasn't clear about, was important issues that are something of a nature that I can't personally be able to assist you with, are best sent to support email, rather than waiting a day or two for someone to turn on ICQ or respond via ICQ, for the important issues. ICQ is usually a quick manner to report things or ask things, but if people aren't around or don't respond right away, to please email, to ensure we get it, since I don't usually assume people will ICQ about important issues. And, the fact that ICQ doesn't always function properly for me and it quite often very slow. Added, that most of these questions and/or requests were out of my hands in the manner that I don't have physical access. And again, the one's that didn't require it, I looked into the most in-depth I could from where I am, or I didn't get a direct request at all. I.e., the ipchains issue.

I am glad you got in and got it to work and configured how you wanted it to be. I'm sorry you had to end up doing it yourself and I am sorry for the problems that transpired. I don't see any of this as your fault, and I want to be clear about that, I'm just explaining why I believe the problems happened. I understand, that you wanted to block other IP's from accessing certain protocols on the server, so it can be better secured in that aspect, until you got in there to do more and allow the one's you wanted. I might be wrong now about that assumption, but I couldn't assume that at the time. I think it's clear that I'm not involved in the set up of the systems or the initial configurations, nor do I have physical access to accomplish some of these things, which do make it difficult to assist people sometimes... but I will do what I can to repair or fix or configure something if I do have the information needed to do so.

I did not receive any ICQ or email from you since the day you asked about the reverse DNS, so I had no way or responding to you in an email or ICQ first, rather than in a web hosting forum, as I am now. If I get the email or ICQ, I will respond to it and certainly before I bother posting here, unless it's just someone having a general conversation with me about nothing of relevance to the job, and I don't recall you just talking about irrelevant issues when you ICQed me previously. I'm not at all saying you didn't make an effort, simply that, at this point, I am not getting emails sent to serverhost's support and I didn't receive any emails otherwise, nor any ICQ's, so I am posting here in hopes of explaining that. Sorry for any confusion on our part or miscommunications. Please let me know of anything via ICQ, or support (@plusweb.com) and I'll help you out, unless it's a sales question or something else that I'm useless to answer. :-)

I get a lot of people ICQing, calling or emailing me about things that I have no control or ability to fix or set up, and I'm not sure what else to do, other than to direct them to the proper contact that does have the control and/or ability to physically make changes to hardware or setups that can't be done remotely. I'm not sure what else to do, but I either try and help them, if I can, or I refer them to someone that can. This ranges from setups, servers and installs, to hardware and sales questions, as well as other aspects, but I still need an ICQ or email before I can even refer people. I thought I responded to any and all ICQ and emails you sent to me, and it's certainly not your fault for any of these problems, let alone to know that I don't get emails to the serverhost support email. I'm not authorized or in a position to offer deals, replace hardware, upgrades to plans, etc., but I can help out with any technical question, as long as I get it and it's clear, or I have an opportunity to ask for more details. I'm always willing to do that.

I can only assume the reasons above as to why that is, and further, that on shared hosting, if there's something that needs to be done, I do it, whereas dedicated servers are basically in control and in the hands of the owner of it, unless or until support is needed and to what extent, since people often configure and alter things to suit their needs, may bring down the systems themselves and all the other fun stuff that comes with owning and running your own server. Perhaps that fact might pertain to the reason why I don't just get support emails directly for dedicated servers, since it's a question of what we can or have promised to do, which is why I might not know, since that area is out of my field at this company and I need to be informed and told that I have been asked and have authorization to do just that and that it's been okayed, which I've yet to see it denied. Now, I should stop assuming and I will take into consideration the events that took place and how to prevent them in the future. Thank you.
--
Regards,
Tim Greer - Plusweb Support.
tg@plusweb.com


[Edited by Tim_Greer on 03-21-2001 at 07:02 PM]

tim... your ability to type sooo much has always impressed me :D

BTW, Tim... how can you get this "Typing Addict" title? Sounds cool :D

cheers,
:beer:

[Edited by dektong on 03-21-2001 at 08:59 PM]

Originally posted by dektong
tim... your ability to type sooo much has always impressed me :D

BTW, Tim... how can you get this "Typing Addict" title? Sounds cool :D

cheers,
:beer:

[Edited by dektong on 03-21-2001 at 08:59 PM]

I had to bribe kunal. :-) Isn't it just fitting for me? *L*

Originally posted by Tim_Greer
Isn't it just fitting for me? *L*

indeed! :D

cheers,
:beer:

Tim: I'm wondering why I haven't received response for my last two mails. At least it would have been good to hear about the connection problems you had (an update on the issue maybe?) as I was quite annoyed by it as I had just gotten the server.

I also talked to you about problems with my IP's and sent a mail about that as well.

Both mails were sent almost two days ago and they were both mailed to support@plusweb.com as Jeff suggested as well. Still no reply...

Maybe you can email Tim directly? Questions like this seem better suited for email than discussion.

Originally posted by Tox
Tim: I'm wondering why I haven't received response for my last two mails. At least it would have been good to hear about the connection problems you had (an update on the issue maybe?) as I was quite annoyed by it as I had just gotten the server.

I also talked to you about problems with my IP's and sent a mail about that as well.

Both mails were sent almost two days ago and they were both mailed to support@plusweb.com as Jeff suggested as well. Still no reply...

I ought to have gotten emails to support@plusweb.com, definitely. I can only assume the network problems resulted in a lack of delivery. I asked someone else to re-send their email as well. That hasn't happened before and shouldn't happen again (the connection problems), and I didn't get your email due to them. I did get your email today. Anyway, I've been ICQ with you the last few minutes, so I'll end this post. :-)

Regards,
Tim Greer - Plusweb Support.

Just to make things clear, I am not unhappy with the way things turned out. A lot of what happened to me is simply not the fault of serverhost, Jeff or Tim.

Slowness in setting up a server or reinstalling an OS is a perfectly acceptable thing. Slowness in support enquiries isn't nearly so. But I've always received prompt responses when ICQ'ing Tim. I daresay I might receive prompt ICQ responses when ICQ'ing Jeff too, if only I chose to do so at a time when he's not marked away. I guess the best thing to do would be to send e-mail to support@, or better still to wait for the ticket system Jeff's putting up.

Security of standard redhat installs are simply not good, and since the standard redhat install was what I'd requested, I surely can't blame anybody for that.

I do fully realise that you simply can't help with things that require physical access to the system since you aren't there. And of course, things like partitioning and configuration before hooking up to the network fall under these categories.

My ipchains commands were indeed meant to deny access to everyone until I got in to secure things to my liking, but perhaps I didn't make this clear enough to Jeff. I'm pretty sure that the commands were correct though, because those are the same commands I eventually used :) [err. after checking, I've realised that I did indeed make a typo in the mail I sent Jeff. this means more mistakes I'd made, and the issue is all my own fault :)]

With a dedicated server, of course I understand that all administration is my own responsibility, unless I want to hire somebody at $85/hour 8)

I wasn't aware that Tim wasn't receiving mail to support@serverhost.com.

Anyway, the whole point is that I'm NOT unhappy, and that some of the faults of my experience lie with me.


[Edited by pyng on 03-23-2001 at 09:56 AM]

Thanks for letting me know about your feelings on this. And, yes, RH is an insecure enough system, by default, and RH 7 is the worst of all of the versions. :-) The command I was told to do, was a one line command, which as I said, seemed to have some deny for input and forward, but couldn't be used for both. The one's you posted in the post above, weren't the ones I was told to do. That's what caused the confusion and delay. Sorry again for that.

To any "outside" I would like to state as well that I'm not unhappy and Tim did fix everything yesterday.

BTW - I have never seen Jeff being other than "Away" on ICQ :) (but does responds anyway)

Update:

All of my problems with serverhost.com have been solved and everything is working and fast :)

You were right dektong Jeff worked everything out :)