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Thread: 3 Month Review of Sentris.com
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10-09-2009, 02:16 AM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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3 Month Review of Sentris.com
This is an honest review of how I spent my summer dealing with trying to have a simple dedicated server setup with Sentris.com, and how they failed.... miserably.
I initially ordered the server from them because of an ad they posted here at WHM. The advertisement explicitly stated:
"Free Full Management with any Centos and cPanel/DirectAdmin or Windows 2003 with HC. We'll do security updates and fix any issues you may have, only on software we preinstalled. We'll even help installing any 3rd party software when requested. We'll also secure your server for free, installing things like Zend, mod_security, APF, BFD, Rootkits Protection, EAccelerator, ClamAV, etc. (some of them require a cpanel/whm)."
The ad from them is still posted and you can read it yourself. The key words in this paragraph is "Free Full Management".
I could give you a full blow-by-blow, detailed-by-date breakdown of everything that went wrong, but I've decided to just hit a few highlights since this post will be pretty long anyway.
By the way, this is the first time in my life I have ever posted a negative review about any specific company, product, or person. But I feel it is important to the WHM community that they are aware of how Sentris.com operates, since they are still advertising here.
1. The first thing that happened, was that the initial hard drive setup was incorrect. They put the two separate physical hard-drive into one volume. When I point this out, the answer was pretty much that it was my fault since I didn't specify that I wanted two separate hard drives. I should have run away from them right then. I posted about this here without naming Sentris by name.
2. Fantastico was not installed-- as per the initial order. When asked about that, they sent me a link to netenberg about how to install it myself.
3. The first days, the server was down-- a lot. Finally they replaced a cpu fan.
4. The server was still unavailable, and the reply to the server-down ticket, was that I should unplug the server from the network. (!)
5. Finally, they said they moved the hard drives "to a completely new server, with new motherboard and all". And a new IP, so of course, I had a lot to do.
6. They never DID get Fantastico installed, so I had the great folks at Platinum Server Management to do it.
After the move to a "new" server, things would run ok for a while, then it would go down. Then at the end of June they had a "Scheduled maintenance downtime because of "recent huge attacks we had in the last week".
The server itself was hacked at least twice and got spam reports. I and PSM, did all we could do to keep up with it. We changed the server's root password several times. But somehow....
Sentris' ticketing system is bizarre. They require the root password to be given on every ticket, and it's on a non-secure form/site. Also, the only way to look up past tickets is to send a request, and you're sent an email with a list of ticket numbers that you then have to lookup like a search. And sometimes prior tickets, and/or comment or answers just completely disappear. They sometimes answer a current question, on an old ticket also.
They use ModernBill for, well, billing, but put up a warning NOT to use ModernBill's ticketing system because they don't read them.
The one and only time I ever got ahold of anyone at MSN Live Chat (which they advertise) to report that my server was down, I was curtly told to submit a support ticket, and the person immediately signed off.
I never could get an actual human person using their phone support number.
I first started requesting credit as per their SLA in July. No response for weeks.
August was fairly ok with just periodic downtimes. In the first part of September, a phishing site was hacked into the server, and Sentris took the server offline. (Without any notice... no email, no nothing.) I do understand why it was a point of concern, but a little heads-up would have been appreciated. And whatever happened to "Free Full Managed" part?
After a couple days (when I finally figured out what happened) I canceled the server account 30 days in advance, just like their TOS demanded and paid the last invoice.
After many, many requests for credit for ALL the downtime I had had since the server first went live in June, they finally came back at me and said they don't give credit for scheduled maintenance, and attacks, etc. BUT they would credit my account with 25% of the monthly charge on the next month, since there was currently an open invoice and they couldn't change it.
I canceled the server on 09-06-09... via emails and a support ticket.
So far, I have rec'd two requests for payments for the October period. The latest email came in just this morning.
I emailed them again, telling them again that the server is CANCELED but I don't have any hope they'll notice. I even attached screenshots of the original cancellation ticket.
From these experiences, it is my belief that Sentris.com is more than likely a one-man operation that SLOWLY goes through "normal" support tickets to relay to the datacenter and farms out "server down" tickets to a different company that actually responds.
Not only has this experience been expensive, but is also the single-worst experience of any customer service I have ever experienced.
If you are really wanting a dedicated server with "Fulll Management" look somewhere else than Sentris. Well, really, if you wanting any kind of dedicated server I would suggest using someone other than Sentris.
In September, I got a dedicated server with Burst.net to replace this one. The pricing was equivalent, and I feel like I'm in heaven now, after being in H*ll.sohoUniverse.com - Premium Soholaunch HostingAUTHORIZED SOHOLAUNCH PROGRAMMING PARTNERA Proud Member of the Web Business Alliance
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10-09-2009, 07:07 AM #2Marketing Maestro
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- Dec 2007
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Hey,
Sounds like a pretty bad time you've had over there! I just want to step in and talk about point #1 though:
1. The first thing that happened, was that the initial hard drive setup was incorrect. They put the two separate physical hard-drive into one volume. When I point this out, the answer was pretty much that it was my fault since I didn't specify that I wanted two separate hard drives. I should have run away from them right then. I posted about this here without naming Sentris by name.
Good luck with your next provider!
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10-09-2009, 11:39 PM #3Temporarily Suspended
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- Jul 2009
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- Manila
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I believe most server providers have their own standard partition. You as a customer should have specified what partition you would like in the server. In all honesty, that is not Sentris fault.
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10-10-2009, 03:30 AM #4Web Hosting Guru
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- Sep 2009
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- UK
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I think you waste your time while staying with them. Just find another one and move to them
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10-10-2009, 08:56 AM #5Temporarily Suspended
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- Jul 2008
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I have had 6 servers with them and was basically the same problems, the system for their support and a dustbin, msn does not exist and the hardware is common to be of low quality.
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10-10-2009, 09:03 AM #6Temporarily Suspended
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- Jul 2009
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- Manila
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i'm not having much problem with Sentris. chupaqueedeuva, just dont forget to give the IPs of your servers to the mods to make sure the review is legit
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10-10-2009, 11:17 AM #7Junior Guru Wannabe
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- Mar 2004
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- seattle
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First of all, sorry things did not work out between us. We've always try our best to satisfy all our clients.
We'll try to respond to these:
1. On partitions, unless you specify what you wanted, we'll just setup the default partition depending on your OS, on centos, it uses LVM and all partitions on one big / partition. We've now added the Custom Partition option on the order form in hope to eliminate such issue.
2. To install fantastico, we need the WHM configured first so we can't install it after server setup. Client need to contact us and ask to have us install fantastico, if you ask for us to install after you configured your whm, we will always install it for you. If you only asked why it's not install, we'll just send you instructions on how to install it. As it's an easy thing to do, it'd help us if you could do that yourself. But again, if you can not, just contact us back and we'll always install for you.
3. You complained about it on 06-10-2009 3:28am PDT, and we got your cpu fan replaced by 06-10-2009 5:37am PDT
4. We're not aware we ever told you to unplug your own server.
5. You complaiend about it being down again at 06-11-2009 4:43pm PDT, and we did reboot by 06-11-2009 5:36pm PDT, but then still down again, so by 06-11-2009 8:58pm PDT, we got you up on a brand new server. And NO, we never gave you new IP, it was still the same IP.
And on 06-19-2009 11:00am PDT, server went down again due to kernel panic during apache compiled. So we rebooted and got it up by 06-19-2009 11:58am PDT
6. What do you mean? I thought We did install fantastico for you and we even installed the wget to fix the fantastico issue.
When we received email complaint about phishing, we forwarded it to you, and after over 24 hours, you did not take action, we nullrouted the IP. We never disabled your server, you could still access the server via the other IP on the server.
After you removed the phishing contents on 09-3-2009 12:45pm PDT, we immediately got your IP unblocked by 09-3-2009 1:00pm PDT
Your server was used to send out spam and somehow when we forwarded you the complaints, you did not get them, we had to reply to one of your older tickets so you could finally respond. How is that our fault that your server was used to send out spam?
True, our helpdesk is not yet on secured HTTPS, but if you don't feel safe, you can always change your password. And if you want, you can always use our secure ticketing on the modernbill for any sensitive data like password, then notify us via the helpdesk ticket at http://helpdesk.sentris.com so we know to look for it.
It was unfortunate, but the end of June-July was not the month for us. We got huge ddos attacks and then some issues occurred with some major network upgrades we did to help prevent future ddos attacks.
Main thing here is basically, you asked for credit and we could not give it to you and that's when you decided to cancel, because the downtimes were caused by ddos. But we finally did it for you anyways, and on your Sept bill, you got the credits. If you're still getting invoice and you've canceled, you can just ignore it, we never take your money without your approval.Last edited by sentris; 10-10-2009 at 11:22 AM.
Sentris Network LLC - Since 1997 - 1-877-SENTRIS (206-686-3353)
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10-10-2009, 11:21 AM #8Temporarily Suspended
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10-10-2009, 11:23 AM #9Junior Guru
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- Oct 2008
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so sry to hear that, but anyway, you got out from there.
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10-12-2009, 12:54 PM #10Disabled
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- May 2008
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Pity, they have very good prices, I wish they were better
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10-19-2009, 06:12 PM #11Newbie
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- Jun 2009
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these are till sign up.next go your own way.
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12-12-2009, 03:54 PM #12Aspiring Evangelist
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- Oct 2000
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I was considering Sentris because of their offer, then I search for their review and read this thread, which kind of scare me.
Again, to be fair, as previously mentioned, you partition the HD is not their fault, you should tell them what you want in advance.
However, Fully Management is just that: for people like me who doesn't know a jack about the server, but still want the benefit of dedicated server. If Sentris can't even install Fantatisco, or to protect your server from being hack, or to have a quick measurement to stop the attack after it being hacked, then it's not fully management.
Btw, how easy is it to have SSL for a dedicated host provider?
Thanks for the warning, good review, it baffles me that the OP has fully management and still has to hire PSM to manage his server.
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12-12-2009, 04:38 PM #13Web Hosting Guru
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- Sep 2005
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- 250
Sorry to hear your review. I hope your new hosting provider can satisfy your needs!
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