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11-22-2007, 06:41 AM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Nov 2006
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SWsoft support - what do you think about it ?
We are client of SWsoft since few years now and I open this thread to exchange your experience about swsoft support.
We have a lot of bad experiences with them. The last one is the following: we hired them to setup their SiteBuilder inside a virgin VPS, we paid for that service.
Later, our datacenter realize that a script had been exploited to setup/start a process which was attacking different networks.
In this VPS, the only PHP scripts we host (and from Rackspace, the exploit came from a PHP script) are scripts from the SiteBuilder.
At first we contacted swsoft and this is their answer:
The process 'valve' is Half Life server process. Perhaps somebody hacked your server. So it is administrative task deal with hackers. If you find any vulnerability in our scripts we solve it.
Which mean they dont really care. The datacenter tells us that a PHP script was exploited to install a HalfServer app but it is normal that the datacenter wont look into each SiteBuilder script to see which one has a vulnerability, this is the software vendor responsibility.
Since this VPS is exclusively hosting PHP SiteBuilder scripts we thought it was normal to inform and request support from SWsoft but they dont really care.
Despite the fact they dont care, we insist they look a bit more after the problem and they answer us:
I have accessed the server and performed an investigation on the basis of available information. The process you mentioned was belonging to the Half-Life dedicated Linux game server, which was installed on the machine in the past. This package is initially supplied as an option to Plesk, and could not function on its own.
This mean that someone has setup Plesk on this VPS. We are absolutely sure no one of our team ever setup Plesk on this VPS, the only technician that could be responsible for that mistake is SWsoft. We write them again a message telling that if someone ever setup Plesk on this VPS it was SWsoft since we paid them for the support of the SiteBuilder. Their answer:
Our engineer has performed rather detailed investigation on this VE. He has point to reason of appearing of 'vault' process on VE.
What can be done now is remove all unnecessary packages from this VE. This task should be performed by your system administrator.
Unfortunately this task does not covered by support program.
Installation of Sitebuilder by SWsoft was mentioned. We have found several invoices from you. You can provide us with its number but it is hard to determine for what service it was. It will be better if you provide us with ticket number. In this case it will be possible to find out what was done there. If there was installation of Sitebuilder, I suppose it has been installed only.
First their billing system looks very poor since they cannot find the details of an invoice, if SWsoft support really wanted to find a ticket we sent regarding the setup they could have done it, we found it within 5 minuts.
At the bottom line I guess one SWsoft tech setup (or started) Plesk on the VPS.. After few minuts he realized he did not setup the right software. Despite the fact it can alter the quality of the service we paid for, the technician did not clean his mess and simply setup the SiteBuilder.
To conclude I noticed multiple times SWsoft technician arrogance believing their software are bugs free...Last edited by sunray69; 11-22-2007 at 06:47 AM.
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11-22-2007, 07:00 AM #2Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Nov 2006
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I quote my own post here because while searching for that bloody SiteBuilder ticket in which they were supposed to install the SiteBuilder what was my surprise to discover that I was able to see tickets OF OTHER CUSTOMERS with important information !!!!
Here is a small example, SWsoft ticket ID 45535:
From: Aaron Conklin [mailto:websales_aaronc@ev1.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 10:42 AM
To: 'jlchafardet@hostingve.com'
Subject: FW: SiteBuilder License Key(s)
Please note, Plesk offers its SiteBuilder software for 1 year at a time.
Thank you,
XXXX XXXXXX
Client Advocate Manager
Sales - Customer Care - Fraudwatch - Domain Services
I have removed the name of this ev1 staff member. I must specify that I am not an ev1 staff, was never and I am not related to them.
Here is something else:
From:"Aaron Conklin" <websales_aaronc@ev1.net>To:<plesk-priority@sw-soft.com>Subject:[SWsoft #45535] FW: SiteBuilder License Key(s) - RS-173185 Date:Fri, 21 Jan 2005 10:24:11 -0600RT-Send-Cc:
Download (untitled)text/plain 3.1k
I am so glad to hear from you
I have spoken to the customer and you can use either:
admin/xxxxxxx or root/xxxxxxxx
Thank you,
XXXXX XXXXXXX
Client Advocate Manager
Sales - Customer Care - Fraudwatch - Domain Services
Direct: 713-579-2865
Main: 1-800-504-7873
www.EV1Servers.net
I have removed the root login information for respect of ev1 privacy ! Now if I am able to access other customer tickets using the SWsoft GUI I guess that other customers are able to see my tickets as well as YOURS, the logins / passwords I / WE send through their helpdesk.
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11-22-2007, 11:41 AM #3Web Hosting Master
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- Aug 2004
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- Shanghai
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How many times did I hear that "commercial solution have a better support than open source solutions". See the result... Reading this is in fact not very surprising, many people complained here about the support quality of SWSoft.
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11-22-2007, 11:59 AM #4Web Hosting Master
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- Mar 2003
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I used Plesk for a very short time and must admit that I was real dissappointed with the forum support angle. If you look at cPanel and even DA, there's a rather nice community behind them both. cPanel is very active in their forum and they do a good job of answering questions pretty quickly. I asked a couple questions about Plesk and they generally went unanswered with the exception of one thread answered by the one guy in the forum that seems to care.
I don't know, but having had this experience and then reading in the trade magazines about the weekly conferences and such of the Plesk owner, I think they're seeing dollar amounts and other caveats in front of them and aren't concentrating so much on their support infrastructure. I see them being more worried about churning out a new product than supporting existing ones.
Which, is a shame, because I do like a lot of things about the Plesk control panel.Denver Hunter | Webmaster | Library of Biz - Side Hustles, Small Business & Professional Growth
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11-23-2007, 12:14 AM #5Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Nov 2006
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Well regarding this SiteBuilder setup, one Head of Support answered me this morning, he reviewed our ticket history but did not carry out his investigation with objectivity, he claims the faulty RPM was setup on 4 of April 2005. In this ticket (date: 29 March 2005, the date is extremely important) we do ask them to setup the SiteBuilder on that particular VPS. Between 29 March 2005 and 4 of April 2005 it seems they try to clear our payment which they received days before but were unable to locate.
The facts:
-> On 29 of March 2005 we open a ticket for the SiteBuilder install on that VPS
-> Between 29 of March 2005 and 4 of April 2005 they try to locate our payment which was done already.
-> On 4 of April 205, they find a Plesk RPM setup and some misconfiguration in Apache
-> On 5 of April 2005 they setup the Site Builder because payment was cleared.
When we rewiew this list of events the important to know is when the faulty Plesk RPMs were setup on that VPS, the answer came yesterday from swsoft Head of Support:
-> 4 of April 2005
It is now obviously clear they did a mistake with our system because from the moment we sent them a ticket on 29 of March 2005 for installing the SiteBuilder, there was no reason for us to log into the system till setup is finally done. Despite that fact:
1) They wont apologize but rather that they blame us for that mistake while we are 100% sure they are responsible;
2) They are arrogant;
3) The Head of Office is asking our account manager to charge us 300 $ for 2 hours of investigation.
Of course I replied to him the way I should reply to someone that does not give a minimum of respect to a customer. Even if he think he is right regarding this matter, It is clear that we should at least have the benefit of the doubt since the succession of events show that from 29 March 2005 they got the node for install and they were responsible for it.
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11-23-2007, 10:23 AM #6Disabled
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- Jun 2006
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- 46
If I've to rate their support from 0 - 10 then I'll definitely give them -1 for that...
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11-29-2007, 06:23 PM #7WHT Addict
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- Nov 2007
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SWsoft support never worked. Used them for years and it just never worked.
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11-29-2007, 06:47 PM #8virtualizing the world
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- Mar 2004
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They tend to be very slow, but are effective when working on an issue. (This is based off my experience using their Virtuozzo product.)
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11-30-2007, 01:46 AM #9Registered User
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- Nov 2007
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I was evaluating Swsoft products, you got me scared here!
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11-30-2007, 02:46 AM #10Web Hosting Master
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- Dec 2001
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Wow, i was pretty much sold on the idea of waking up in the morning and buying VZMC outright for our next server..
I guess its back to the drawing board, ive never used any of their software and this was going to be the first with virtuozzo simply because i cant find an alternative.
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11-30-2007, 04:49 AM #11WHT Addict
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- Nov 2007
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A lot of times SWsoft would like access credentials to your server instead of answering your question. Giving root access to a server to someone at a third party company just never came to my head as a good idea.
No way for me to think I can put additional risk to my clients privacy and data.
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11-30-2007, 04:54 AM #12Registered User
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- Nov 2007
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- Pakistan
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I called SWSoft for their comments. There was somebody on that end I could hardly understand. Very strong accent and hammering. I think their support is based in Russia?
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11-30-2007, 06:01 AM #13WHT Addict
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Probably yes. I am from Russia and I can say that you can get a lot of girls with excellent voice and almost no accent. What typically is the problem is the VOIP technology and distance. Or of course bad HR management