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  1. #1

    Recommendation for one time server setup

    Hi all, mm first post time so please make allowances for any newcomer idiocy!

    So I run an unmanaged dedicated server with 1and1. It's only £35 a month for a CentOS server with a Plesk license so I shouldn't really have been surprised that we get next to no support from them, which is fine! The majority of the time the server 'just works'. I know my way around terminal enough to fix the odd problem, but not quite enough to trust myself in upgrading and patching core services. My knowledge in this field is entirely self taught, and so almost certainly has gaping holes!!

    I take it this is the kind of thing managed hosting is good for, but as I am on a tight budget I'm hoping for more of a 'once over' service, for someone to come in and fix a few problems we've been having and install some monitoring software to make my life of keeping an eye on the server a little easier.

    Do such services exist? Can anyone recommend a company they've used for this?

    Thanks,
    Matt

  2. #2
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    Yes, there are some service companies put there called server management. But most of the time you can get your service provider to maybe do what you want for a fee.

  3. #3
    Does anyone know if 1and1 would offer this service? They don't advertise it anywhere on their website, I'm not sure if its really enough of an "easy money" service for them to offer it, and I think it might be prudent even if they do to use a more trusted service... I do after all have SSH root access to the server so there's nothing they can do that others couldn't do.

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    RubberDucky, can you at least tell us what the problems are? At least then we could recommend something to you. When you say a few problem, it might be HUGE problems or it might be a simple reconfiguration which you could easily do by yourself so telling us what the problem might be will help a lot.

    What do you mean by "once over"? What would you like the person to do in reality? Mind explaining a bit?

    Yes you can monitor your services on your server. It is very easy to install and it will even restart those services which has stopped or failed plus will email you a notification when that happens. I just gotta go look for it... darn, don't remember what it's called. But as you see here, you've already saved a little from asking them to install it for you and being charged more.
    Aaron Ong
    Dedicated Servers - 100TB Servers - 100Mbps Unmetered Servers - Web Hosting - CDN Network
    Servers in Central, East/West Coast USA, EUROPE and ASIA
    Welltodo Century
    - www.welltodocentury.com

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by aodat2 View Post
    RubberDucky, can you at least tell us what the problems are? At least then we could recommend something to you. When you say a few problem, it might be HUGE problems or it might be a simple reconfiguration which you could easily do by yourself so telling us what the problem might be will help a lot.

    What do you mean by "once over"? What would you like the person to do in reality? Mind explaining a bit?

    Yes you can monitor your services on your server. It is very easy to install and it will even restart those services which has stopped or failed plus will email you a notification when that happens. I just gotta go look for it... darn, don't remember what it's called. But as you see here, you've already saved a little from asking them to install it for you and being charged more.
    Sure thing, the things I want done (that come to mind right now)

    • Patch qmail to protect from backscatter
    • Set up SSL certificate in Plesk properly (no matter what I do it seems to fail to be valid)
    • Install and configure server monitoring software (I did try and install a comprehensive looking solution but there were cgi issues of some variety that I couldn't diagnose)
    • Potentially downgrade us back to Plesk 9 / try and get WHMCS working with Plesk 10
    • Any other "must have" security patches etc that being new to this I wouldn't know about


    This was prompted by a server compromise we had a few months back where a spambot got hold of someones user details somehow (probably dictionary attack, not really sure) and flooded the qmail queue with 400k emails before I noticed (got a call complaining the websites hosted on the server were being very slow!). I've since looked at the logs and got a tad frightened at the number of times there have been attempted attacks trying to guess email logins and root SSH password etc.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
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    Miami, FL
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    Here's what I got from a little reading...

    1. Try POSTFIX instead of qmail. That seems to be the general advice or if you really prefer qmail then try googling/checking for "chkuser".
    2. What's the real problem for your SSL setup? Do tell us the URL as well. I'll try to help as much as possible. Which SSL provider are you using?
    3. You might wanna go through this page... it will help you a lot!!!! http://www.webhostgear.com/cid_6.html
    4. Your WHMCS problem is discussed here http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1027068
    5. Others... you need to tell us before I could help you out.

    As for attacks... if you don't get it, I guess your site/server is totally USELESS!!! JUNK!!! Nobody over here can tell you that they do not get attacked by either BruteForce or Dictionary or etc. Its so usual that I don't really go caring about it anymore. As for the spam part of it, please advice everyone again to change their passwords for their email so that there's no simple words or etc in their password.

    And now you're done. Hmmm... can I charge for this?
    Aaron Ong
    Dedicated Servers - 100TB Servers - 100Mbps Unmetered Servers - Web Hosting - CDN Network
    Servers in Central, East/West Coast USA, EUROPE and ASIA
    Welltodo Century
    - www.welltodocentury.com

  7. #7
    Working my way through the list, thanks very much!

    Is it safe to run a straight "yum update"? I don't know if its unjustified paranoia or not but I foresee a situation where an updated X breaks Plesk and I have no idea how to roll back...

    (PS. I have 208MB worth of updates to install, including kernel updates!)

  8. #8
    Join Date
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    Quote Originally Posted by RubberDucky View Post
    Working my way through the list, thanks very much!

    Is it safe to run a straight "yum update"? I don't know if its unjustified paranoia or not but I foresee a situation where an updated X breaks Plesk and I have no idea how to roll back...

    (PS. I have 208MB worth of updates to install, including kernel updates!)
    Sure, yum is pretty reliable. The updates won't change configuration. The bigger risk is accumulating vulnerabilities in your server.

    I do it unattended when cron daily. Since there are often conditional questions during the install, unattended yum updates need to use the "-y" parameter to automatically answer yes and continue with the updates. Enter the command in cron like this.

    yum -y update

    When you do it unattended there is one other problem that rears it's ugly head, and that's errors while yum polls mirror servers for speed. If you get too many of those errors the update will fail. That is extremely common. To prevent that from happening you should disable the fastestmirror option in yum. To do that open the following file to edit.

    /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/fastestmirror.conf

    Change the "enabled" parameter from 1 to zero.

    enabled=0

    Save & exit. You do not need to reboot the system for that change to take effect.

    By the way, you will need to reboot for any kernel updates to take effect. You will want to do that after updating, since it will take you to CentOS 5.6.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Miami, FL
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    Hey RubberDucky,

    Can I charge you for the list of things you asked for? It would be nice if you said yes. I would appreciate it a lot.

    I'm just kidding. Glad that you could save a few extra bucks. By the way, as ajonate says, "yum update" is totally fine to use. Nothing is wrong with it and nothing will be changed in your Plesk settings. It just updates the files or etc to better, more secured ones.

    Then again if something breaks, you can always come here and ask again. Or you could pay me for advice? LOL...

    Have a wonderful day!
    Aaron Ong
    Dedicated Servers - 100TB Servers - 100Mbps Unmetered Servers - Web Hosting - CDN Network
    Servers in Central, East/West Coast USA, EUROPE and ASIA
    Welltodo Century
    - www.welltodocentury.com

  10. #10
    Yum update succesfull! And rebooted without dying (though it did take a while, had me scared!) I'll adjust cron in the morning thanks again for all the help! And must admit I'm glad you're joking about the charges

    I've done nearly everything you've advised thus far! The one issue I've run into is installing the SSL certificate with Plesk:

    I use Plesk to generate a CSR, all good
    I add the certificate, but get an error about it not matching the private key (which I can't change in Plesk!)

    or.... as I have it at the moment

    I don't generate a CSR
    I add the certificate, all good
    I add the CA, all good
    When I check on the certificate in the browser, all is valid (green padlock in chrome) but there is an error of "The certificate was signed by an unknown authority". Which I think is caused by the lack of a CSR, but as I said, I can't upload the certificate with a CSR generated!

    And on that note... Have a wonderful evening!

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by RubberDucky View Post
    When I check on the certificate in the browser, all is valid (green padlock in chrome) but there is an error of "The certificate was signed by an unknown authority". Which I think is caused by the lack of a CSR, but as I said, I can't upload the certificate with a CSR generated!
    Interesting. Who did you purchase the certificate from?

  12. #12
    Join Date
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    If you created your own certificate (i.e., it's a self-signed certificate) then the "unknown authority" warning you got is to be expected. When you purchase a certificate then the "authority" will be the company you bought it from, and that message should go away.

  13. #13
    It's Geotrust, not self signed, and is recognised as such in the browser...

  14. #14
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    I would ask Geotrust. Send them the error and see what they say.

    I wish I could be more help, but I don't use Plesk.

  15. #15
    Shall do, thanks for your help nonetheless. Just in case it does help this is the URL where you can see the error:
    https://rdhosts.co.uk/

  16. #16
    Join Date
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    Green Padlock? I see blue, no green. Haha... Green bar only appears if it is with EV. Example is True BusinessID with EV. Then it will show green. Other than that, it will only show a Blue Bar.

    To tell you the truth, you have installed the SSL correctly. Everything seems fine on my end and I've tried it on 3 different computers. Everything is perfect.
    Aaron Ong
    Dedicated Servers - 100TB Servers - 100Mbps Unmetered Servers - Web Hosting - CDN Network
    Servers in Central, East/West Coast USA, EUROPE and ASIA
    Welltodo Century
    - www.welltodocentury.com

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by RubberDucky View Post
    Shall do, thanks for your help nonetheless. Just in case it does help this is the URL where you can see the error:
    https://rdhosts.co.uk/
    It verified by GeoTrust Inc. fine from here.

    (Running Firefox 4.0, Win7 Home Premium)

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