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  1. #1

    How do I deal with Chicago VPS?

    I've been with Chicago vps for 9 months now. Here's my brief review so far

    Problem 1:
    It started when the Open VZ hack came about. My VPS got hacked as well and my ip address was banned for sending spam. Can't blame Chicago vps for the hack but the least they could have done is to inform me of my ip address being banned. Found out a week/2 weeks later that my website was down.

    Problem 2:
    Complained and started anew on a new vps. Fixed some previous errors on my part, namely disallowing password based ssh logins and setting up external monitoring so that I know when my site is down. Monitoring turned out extremely useful. I got about 10-20 alerts in a month about downtime. Every single time, the VPS was shut down and I had to go in to the "client area" at chicago vps to start it back up again.

    Problem 3:
    After complaining again, my vps was shifted to a new ip address. I noticed this was by far the slowest of my vps'. I checked load and every thing seemed fine. However I noticed I couldn't get wget or ping working and brought it to chicago vps' attention again.

    Problem 4:
    The helpful guys at Chicago vps again suggested to move to another new ip address. They did fix the slowness but in return they deleted all my website data (and shut down my old vps). Now they are claiming that by agreeing to move to a new ip address, I gave permission to delete everything. I dont understand if they are incredibly stupid or I'm just have a great year with them.

    I'm now stuck at problem 4. My site has been down for days. I have a blank vps with no way to get back my data and chicago vps is refusing to take any sort of responsibility for their actions. I've tried to be understanding, but I'm incredibly frustrated right now. They stopped customers from creating central backups and the only backup they have is the last time I was allowed to take a backup (sometime in june).

    What do I do?

  2. #2
    Hello,

    The story is not good and both sides could be right. You should always create local backups. By example once per week or month, depending on your data. Maybe you will not have such problems if go for managed VPS hosting.

    Regards
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  3. #3
    They claim to make backups however as history has shown they don't backup all their clients and it's hit or miss if you're going to have backups or not. Just Google, 'chicagovps review' if you'll see others with the same worries.

    With that said, it's in your best interest to ALWAYS create your own backups. Whether you use a cheap lowend provider like chicagovps or a more reputable and expensive provider like liquidweb. Create your own.

    The rest of your review echoes what others have said. They'll blame it on you because they're too busy #winning to care.

    My advice? Seek refuge elsewhere. Lot of great providers who are ran by capable and competent folk.
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  4. #4
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    As others have mentioned, it really boils down to backups.

    Years ago I started using the phrase to friends, family, and clients: "The three B's of computing. Backup, Backup, Backup!"

  5. #5
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    I just want to clarify that when they say "backups" everyone here means "offsite backups". In other words, the backup files must be stored in a location that is completely independent of your VPS provider. It could be another VPS (from a completely different provider in a different location), a specialized backup service, or even your home computer if the data is small enough to support that. The backup must include everything you need to restore your system from scratch to an empty VPS at a different, new VPS provider.

    Doing that isn't easy, but it is necessary. Oh yeah, you gotta keep the backups current, too.

  6. #6

    Possible backup but still a pain

    there might be a way for me to get back most of my data as I used plugins to cross post to blogger. But still, it rankles me that

    1. They disallow customers creating backups
    2. They dont have a fall back for (what I believe is) their own mistake and keep blaming the customer.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by marsinvasion View Post
    1. They disallow customers creating backups
    Whoa, hold up! How do they disallow you from making backups, exactly? If you're renting a VPS with root access, you are free to do virtually anything you can imagine (within the terms of their Terms of Service).

    There ia nothing stopping you from using rsync, rbackup, etc.

    If you are refering to a backup mechanism in the vps control panel, that's a feature they don't have to offer you, as it typically requires more servers to use, thus increasing costs. Budget providers seldom offer that capability.

    If you don't know how to administer your VPS, maybe look into a Managed provider?

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by evohost Canada View Post
    If you are refering to a backup mechanism in the vps control panel
    Yep, I assumed that obvious. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

    Quote Originally Posted by evohost Canada View Post
    If you don't know how to administer your VPS, maybe look into a Managed provider?
    I don't know how that is useful at this point of time

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by vps_newbie View Post
    I just want to clarify that when they say "backups" everyone here means "offsite backups". In other words, the backup files must be stored in a location that is completely independent of your VPS provider. It could be another VPS (from a completely different provider in a different location), a specialized backup service, or even your home computer if the data is small enough to support that. The backup must include everything you need to restore your system from scratch to an empty VPS at a different, new VPS provider.

    Doing that isn't easy, but it is necessary. Oh yeah, you gotta keep the backups current, too.
    Quote Originally Posted by marsinvasion View Post
    there might be a way for me to get back most of my data as I used plugins to cross post to blogger. But still, it rankles me that

    1. They disallow customers creating backups
    2. They dont have a fall back for (what I believe is) their own mistake and keep blaming the customer.
    I believe you are referring to the Backup button in SolusVM. Many providers do not support it. Whether or not your VPS provider offers and support a backup system, my point was that VPS customers should login to their VPSs and offload backups onto another independent, external system, completely outside their VPS provider.

    There is no reason that Chicago VPS or any other VPS provider would disallow you from creating your own backups outside their system, as long as you stay within the disk and bandwidth limits of your VPS. It is normally not an issue. I have never heard of any VPS provider specifically excluding external backups from their terms of service or acceptable use policies. I would be very surprised if you can show me one who does, including Chicago VPS.

    You may be completely justified in being angry with Chicago VPS if they promise to maintain backups and then they cannot recover your VPS after accidentally deleting it, but that was not my point.

    My goal is to make it clear to other readers that everyone needs an independent, external backup outside their VPS provider, regardless of whether the provider offers a backup service. Provider-offered backup services are convenient, but I see a new thread about lost data several times a month. In most cases, the OPs expect their VPS provider to help them recover their data, and the providers cannot or will not support them.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by marsinvasion View Post
    I've been with Chicago vps for 9 months now. Here's my brief review so far

    Problem 1:
    It started when the Open VZ hack came about. My VPS got hacked as well and my ip address was banned for sending spam. Can't blame Chicago vps for the hack but the least they could have done is to inform me of my ip address being banned. Found out a week/2 weeks later that my website was down.
    Just to clarify, it was a SolusVM vulnerability that led to your VM being compromised--not the OpenVZ technology itself.
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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by marsinvasion View Post
    there might be a way for me to get back most of my data as I used plugins to cross post to blogger. But still, it rankles me that

    1. They disallow customers creating backups
    2. They dont have a fall back for (what I believe is) their own mistake and keep blaming the customer.
    I do daily control panel backups. I find that satisfactory, since I prefer a fresh OS & control panel install after a disaster anyway. The fact is that it takes me less than an hour to lease a VPS account, load CentOS, load the control panel, and apply a control panel backup restore. I can't get DNS to propagate that fast anyway, so a VPS restore wouldn't really get the server back up any faster anyway.

    But that's just the way I operate. You can operate any way you wish. One thing I'll tell you for sure is that if you count on somebody else for backups, you'll get caught without a backup when you really need it.

    Honestly, ChicagoVPS is the best service I've ever had in the affordable VPS market. Nobody matches their resources and reliability.

    Since you aren't taking your backups, I'm also wondering what other security measures you might not be taking. Are you running a firewall? Do you have your own DDoS protection in place? Virus protection? Do you scan for rootkits? Do you keep your packages & OS up to date?

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post

    Honestly, ChicagoVPS is the best service I've ever had in the affordable VPS market. Nobody matches their resources and reliability.
    Honestly, almost everyone I've seen singing their praises turns out to be a hosting provider who buys their servers at a big discount from either ChicagoVPS or UGVPS.

    IP Information for 198.46.158.52
    OrgName: Warfront Cafe LLC
    ...which is UGVPS

    ajonate, could you provide the moderators with the IP of your VPS at ChicagoVPS so they can verify that you actually have a VPS at CVPS.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    ... Honestly, ChicagoVPS is the best service I've ever had in the affordable VPS market. Nobody matches their resources and reliability. ...
    I am a little surprised to see you say that, considering all the negative comments posted about ChicagoVPS at LowEndBox.com and LowEndTalk.com.

    Read the comments posted in their latest offer at LowEndBox:
    http://lowendbox.com/blog/chicagovps...j-la/#comments

    Other offers and several threads at LowEndTalk.com are also very negative. Do your own web search. Ajonate may be getting great, reliable service from ChicagoVPS, but many people do not share his experience.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by domainbop View Post
    ajonate, could you provide the moderators with the IP of your VPS at ChicagoVPS so they can verify that you actually have a VPS at CVPS.
    Sure. Both of these IP addresses are my Chicago VPS accounts.

    198.144.180.11
    198.46.152.126

    But I'm not fan if UGVPS. They are suffering some outages and I just migrated out.
    Last edited by ajonate; 10-07-2013 at 11:19 PM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by domainbop View Post
    Honestly, almost everyone I've seen singing their praises turns out to be a hosting provider who buys their servers at a big discount from either ChicagoVPS or UGVPS.



    ...which is UGVPS

    ajonate, could you provide the moderators with the IP of your VPS at ChicagoVPS so they can verify that you actually have a VPS at CVPS.
    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    Sure. Both of these IP addresses are my Chicago VPS accounts.

    198.144.180.11
    198.46.152.126

    But I'm not fan if UGVPS. They are suffering some outages and I just migrated out.
    I won't go as far as claiming CVPS owns UGVPS or anything, but the owner of UGVPS does work for ChicagoVPS and Colocrossing. Just search Google for 'UGVPS ChicagoVPS' and you'll find it. Thomas Leonard Dale owns UGVPS, but you may have interacted with as 'Thomas Leonard' or 'CVPS_TLeo' from ChicagoVPS or 'Thomas Dale' from Colocrossing. Comparing the two companies does little as they both operate from the same locations and utilize some of the same employees.
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  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by MannDude View Post
    I won't go as far as claiming CVPS owns UGVPS or anything, but the owner of UGVPS does work for ChicagoVPS and Colocrossing. Just search Google for 'UGVPS ChicagoVPS' and you'll find it. Thomas Leonard Dale owns UGVPS, but you may have interacted with as 'Thomas Leonard' or 'CVPS_TLeo' from ChicagoVPS or 'Thomas Dale' from Colocrossing. Comparing the two companies does little as they both operate from the same locations and utilize some of the same employees.
    I just communicated through the ticket system. I'm not sure who serviced the tickets. All I know for sure is that my operation is too sensitive to outages for the failures that UGVPS was having. The ticket replies varied from "it's back up now" to "we monitor our server heavily and have observed no outages at all." I'm sympathetic to hardware problems, but I don't have time for games.

    I don't pretend to know what was going wrong at UGVPS, but whatever it was ChicagoVPS isn't having the same problem.

    I don't know of any compelling reason to avoid Colocrossing data centers.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by ajonate View Post
    ChicagoVPS isn't having the same problem.
    I'll be surprised if I'm the only having issues with them. They closed my ticket without a reply and the vm going offline is now affecting my new node as well. I just had to go to the client area to boot it up again (thanks to external monitoring).

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by marsinvasion View Post
    I'll be surprised if I'm the only having issues with them. They closed my ticket without a reply and the vm going offline is now affecting my new node as well. I just had to go to the client area to boot it up again (thanks to external monitoring).
    You are free to monitor my IP addresses, since I provided them. I suspect you'll find them to be solid.

  19. #19
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    @ajonate You need to restart Kloxo on one. Hasn't been restarted since installation. Or map a domain to it. Do you really want people to know the control panel you are running that easily?

    The other seems to be down for me no pings or response to Chrome.
    Will Rogers said, "there's 3 sorts of people in this world, those who learn by books, those who learn by the experiences of others, and those who just have to pee on the electric fence every now and then."

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by lazyt View Post
    @ajonate You need to restart Kloxo on one. Hasn't been restarted since installation. Or map a domain to it. Do you really want people to know the control panel you are running that easily?

    The other seems to be down for me no pings or response to Chrome.
    Something is wrong at your end. I get ping replies from both IP addresses.

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...50/chiping.jpg

    The Kloxo server at 198.46.152.126 is running fine. Here's a client site to view (wordpress site, to demonstrate application processing).

    http://westvolusiachorus.org

    The server at 198.144.180.11 is not a hosting server, it's a VOIP server. But you can see the login panel at port 2775.

    http://198.144.180.11:2775
    Last edited by ajonate; 10-09-2013 at 10:23 AM.

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