InterWorx – The Only Control Panel that Provides High Availability

September 28th, 2011 by admin No comments »

When it comes to true high availability, there is only one control panel that provides a proven high availability platform, and that is InterWorx. High availability refers to systems that are continuously operating for a desired length of time.  InterWorx, configured in a high availability cluster, will ensure that a server failure will never affect your website’s operation.

InterWorx is a control panel with a wide array of features for user and domain management as well as management of many other aspects of your virtual environment. If you are looking for a better way to manage your virtual environment, then InterWorx is one of the best control panel programs on the market, especially for high availability. Additionally, InterWorx provides a vast amount of other features and resource management options, such as configurable bandwidth usage and concurrent connections to vital services such as MySQL, IMAP, and other shared resources.

InterWorx may not be as well recognized as other programs on the market, but the feature set on this program is comprehensive and allows full management capabilities for web masters, administrators, or hosting providers. No matter what your management needs are in terms of high availability servers, an InterWorx license will provide you with all of the necessary tools that you need to completely automate and manage your control panel.

A high availability cluster is really only possible with an InterWorx license because there are very few control panel programs on the market that are equipped to handle high availability. An InterWorx license will give you access to all of the features that you need to effectively manage your virtual environment. Since the needs of each administrator, hosting provider, or webmaster will be different, InterWorx has anticipated this and designed a program that is scalable and adaptable, and the fact that it works well on high availability servers makes it an excellent control panel.

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Posted in Hosting, LIGHTBOX hosting, Linux sever, Managed dedicated server, Reseller hosting, Tutorials, VPS Hosting, Web Hosting Types

Plesk Takes Care of All Your Anti-Virus Needs

September 28th, 2011 by admin No comments »

Taking care of viruses after they have done the damage is the normal approach that most users have come to expect from their anti-virus providers. However, why not stop the virus BEFORE it gets to your users’ hosting accounts with a hosting anti-virus program. Plesk has made it simple to do this, and with Plesk Anti-Virus, you can easily detect and remove any viruses before they become a problem or start impacting your website negatively. The Plesk system is very advanced in terms of security, and hosting anti-virus protection is so critical to the long term stability of your website and servers. Plesk anti-virus can help protect your critical data and other valuable information so that it cannot be hacked and stolen by malicious users.

Many software programs offer security and hosting anti-virus protection, but it is simply not as comprehensive as it is with a Plesk License. In addition to Plesk Anti-Virus, you can also utilize the new health monitoring tool so that you can ensure that your system is protected from attacks on all sides. You can set up the health monitoring to occur at regular intervals or whenever you see fit, and this can let you automate the task of keeping your server secure. If you do encounter a problem, the Plesk health monitoring system will notify you immediately, and the Plesk Anti-Virus will work to resolve the issue and stop any infiltration into your system. For hosting anti-virus, Plesk is at the top of the industry.

Typically updates take hours to complete and slows the system down quite a bit during regular scanning. With the Plesk Anti-Virus, you no longer have to worry about this because it has the ability to detect over 100,000 viruses quickly and without affecting your server productivity. Security usually requires a multi-faceted approach so the Plesk Anti-Virus paired with the comprehensive health monitoring system is the essential combination to optimal safety on your virtual environment.

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Posted in Plesk 9 Tutorial, Plesk ASP.NET Tutorial, plesk setting, Plesk Tutorial, Windows Plesk Reseller, Windows Plesk Server

Change DNS in Plesk

September 28th, 2011 by admin No comments »

How to change DNS in Plesk ?

Using Plesk hosting control panel, users can make amendments to their DNS settings of every added domain . Plesk administrator allows the user to make changes to the DNS settings, but it is crucial to have enough knowledge about DNS before proceeding with any changes.
WARNING : An inappropriate DNS setting can result in a malfunction of web, emails and the FTP services.
What are the Types of DNS Records ?
Five types of DNS records exist, namely :
A Address (Records) – This setting is responsible for translating the host name with the IP address.
CNAME (Canonical Name) – CNAME is required for creating additional host names or aliases or canonical names for hosts.
NS (Name Server) – It defines the relation between a domain name and the name servers that holds the information about the domain.
MX (Mail Exchange) – It holds the information about the delivery destination of emails originating from a particular domain name.
PTR (Pointer) – The PTR is responsible for defining the IP address and host name of individual hosts in the domain. Translates the IP addresses into host names.
Excerpt
The Plesk control panel is capable of retrieving the default DNS settings from DNS Server configuration. Users can make amendments to these values according to their needs and requirements. The following steps should be followed :
Step 1 : Log into the Plesk control panel that is installed on the domain for which you wish to amendments to the DNS.
Step 2 : Look for the DNS icon for accessing the DNS settings
Step 3 : You should be able to see the DNS Zone Status ie. either ON or OFF. By default the Status
is Switched ON.
Step 3a : You can make changes to the status by hitting the Enable/Disable icon.
Step 3b : Upon switching the DNS zone off, the page would get refreshed, after which the list of nameservers would be shown.
Step 3c : In-case you have remote DNS, and wish to switch the DNS OFF for a particular domain, it is necessary to create relevant NS entries for that domain and remove the irrelevant name server entries.
Step 3d : Users can make a quick test run on these NS by choosing any of them. Choosing any name server would perform an NSLookup and checks the DNS records of a particular domain on particular name server. NSLookup is used for verifying the A record for the domain, the CNAME record for www, and the MX record for ensuring if the records are resolved appropriately on the remote name server. Whatever the results may be, they are shown in the GUI.
Step 4 : To proceed with adding a DNS record, you must choose the type of record you wish to create and click Add Record. There are different setup procedures for different record types. To create DNS entries for a particular DNS zone, you need to include the name of the for every entry. For avoiding errors, there are certain fields that cannot be changed within this zone.
Step 4a : You must enter the domain name for which you wish to change/create the A record. In-case you want to define the A record for primary domain, you must let the field remain blank. While, in case you wish to defining an A record for a name server, you must enter the relevant details about the name server (ie. ns1). Further, you must enter the relevant IP address for which you wish to link up the domain. Select OK to save the entered details.
Step 4b : Enter the domain name for which you need to create the NS record. Do not populate the field if it is for the primary domain. Populate the fields with relevant name server details. You must copy and paste the details that have been provided. Hit the OK tab for saving the entries.
Step 4c : For changing the MX records, you must enter the domain name which you intend to create these records. Again, if it is for the primary domain, you are not required to add anything. Enter the mail server details ie. mail.domainname.com. Choose the priority of mail exchanger. Hit the OK tab for saving the entered details. For convenience, you can remember the rule of thumb “Lesser the value, higher the Priority”.
Step 4d : Regarding the CNAME record, populate the fields with the alias domain name for the one you want to create the CNAME record. Then, define the domain name within which you want the alias to reside. Hit OK for saving the entries.
Step 5 : For removing the DNS record, you are required to check the box against the appropriate entry and hit the Remove tab. Then, you are required to confirm the removal.

Change DNS in Plesk

For the purpose of restoring the DNS zone by the DNS template, the IP address can be chosen from the drop-down list for setting in the template, then enter the “www” prefix if necessary, then hit the Default tab for restoration.
You can contact our Support Department via. Live Chat or send an email to support@version-next.com for any assistance regarding DNS issues.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Hosting, plesk setting, Plesk Tutorial

How to estimate your website hosting needs

September 26th, 2011 by admin No comments »

I write this article especially for people who are new to web hosting. This is why I will only talk about the basic needs (in a shared hosting environment): space, bandwidth. Most of the people looking for advanced features (scripting, databases) already know what they want/need anyway.

So let’s start with the space. Web space (disk space) is the amount of data you can store on the hard disk of the web server. Each web hosting accound comes with a certain amount of space, usually over 50 MB and less than 1000 MB.

Obviously, the amount of needed space depends on the size of the website. Most websites are composed of html (text) pages with a few images (gifs or jpegs) or even a little bit of Flash animation. Text is very economical; it occupies very little space. Images and flash are more expensive; they require a lot of space. If you’re new to the web you might think it’s great to have a lot of colorful images to make your website really beautiful. Don’t make this common mistake!

Your aim should be to say as much as you can on a page while maintaining it’s size under 50-60 KB including images. The reason? There are still lots of people using slow dial-up connections of under 56 Kbps. For them a 150 KB will take more that 21 seconds to load. A 60 KB page will take more than 8 seconds to load. That’s still a lot of time! A good page size is under 30 KB. A maximum page size is 50-60 KB.

Considering an average page size of 30 KB, you can put approximately 33 pages on 1Mb of space. If you have 10 MB of space available, you could host 330 pages. I only wish I had so many pages to put online. Don’t worry, I’m working on it!

The idea is this: unless you run a busy forum your needs for space are likely to be rather modest. Just keep in mind to achieve an average of 30KB/page and you should be more than fine even with 10 MB of web space.

Bandwidth is the amount of data that you’re allowed to transfer per month. It includes all uploads and downloads regardless of the protocol used (HTTP, FTP, POP etc.). Bandwidth depends very much on the average page size, but it also depends on the number of visitors your website will have and the average number of pages they visit. For an average page size of 30 KB, 20,000 visitors per month and 3 pages per visitor your website will need about 1800 MB (1.8 GB) of bandwidth per month. Most low cost hosting packages include that amount of bandwidth. Not to mention that 20,000 visitors per month is only a dream for most websites. Most don’t even have 2,000 visitors per month.

I took you through all those numbers just to give you an idea how to estimate your needs. If you’re just launching your website you will not need neither a huge amount of space, neither a huge amount of bandwidth. For 99% of people a hosting account with 10MB of space and 1Gb is more than enough.

Conclusion: Unless you have reasons to believe that your website will definitely have lots of visitors and unless you’ll offer movies or music for download (legally of course ), I see little reason for you to worry about space and bandwidth.

Just make your own calculations and also try to make sure that the host you choose allows account upgrades. That is to make sure you will be able to get more space and/or bandwidth if/when you need it without going through all the trouble of changing hosts.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Cloud Computing, Dedicated Servers, Email hosting, Gallery Hosting, Green Hosting, Reseller hosting, VPS Hosting, VPS Windows Hosting, Web Hosting News, Web Hosting Types

Half of web designers are not considering mobile users

August 27th, 2011 by admin No comments »

According to research we recently conducted with the chaps at Design Shack, a lot of web designers are still not taking into account mobile web browsers. The survey of 500 web designers found that that only 50% are considering mobile web access when designing a new website. (If you think 500 doesn’t sound like a lot, it is worth pointing out that it is possible to apply the findings from a sample of that size to a population of 15 million*.)

Mobile phone web access has grown dramatically in recent years, rising from 0.2% of all web traffic in 2009 to 15% in 2011**. As more and more users start accessing the internet via their mobile phones, websites built for large monitors and high broadband speeds become more difficult to read and slower to load.

This increases the likelihood of a visitor bouncing before the page has finished loading, which in turn means the number of websites missing out on sales and returning traffic is also increasing.

Products such as goMobi have moved to fill this gap, offering users point and click mobile web builder tools. With the increasing prevalence of these Do It Yourself tools, professional web designers may be missing out on a lucrative source of revenue.

The volume of traffic accessing websites using mobile phones is only going to rise for the foreseeable future. Web designers need to start adding mobile usability to their list of services quickly, and those who fail to adapt to these changes risk being left behind.

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Posted in Web Designing

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Creating a New FTP Site Using IIS 7 Manager

April 30th, 2011 by admin No comments »

The new FTP service makes it easy to create new FTP sites by providing you with a wizard that walks you through all of the required steps to create a new FTP site from scratch.

Step 1: Use the FTP Site Wizard to Create an FTP Site

In this first step you will create a new FTP site that anonymous users can open.

Note: The settings listed in this walkthrough specify “%SYSTEMDRIVE%\inetpub\ftproot” as the path to your FTP site. You are not required to use this path; however, if you change the location for your site you will have to change the site-related paths that are used throughout this walkthrough.

  1. Open IIS 7 Manager. In the Connections pane, click the Sites node in the tree.
  2. As shown in the image below, right-click the Sites node in the tree and click Add FTP Site, or click Add FTP Site in the Actions pane.
    • Create a folder at “%SystemDrive%\inetpub\ftproot”
    • Set the permissions to allow anonymous access:
      1. Open a command prompt.
      2. Type the following command:
        ICACLS "%SystemDrive%\inetpub\ftproot" /Grant IUSR:R /T
      3. Close the command prompt.

  3. When the Add FTP Site wizard appears:
    • Enter “My New FTP Site” in the FTP site name box, then navigate to the %SystemDrive%\inetpub\ftproot folder that you created in the Prerequisites section. Note that if you choose to type in the path to your content folder, you can use environment variables in your paths.
    • When you have completed these items, click Next.

  4. On the next page of the wizard:
    • Choose an IP address for your FTP site from the IP Address drop-down, or choose to accept the default selection of “All Unassigned.” Because you will be using the administrator account later in this walk-through, you must ensure that you restrict access to the server and enter the local loopback IP address for your computer by typing “127.0.0.1″ in the IP Address box. (Note: If you are using IPv6, you should also add the IPv6 localhost binding of “::1″.)
    • Enter the TCP/IP port for the FTP site in the Port box. For this walk-through, choose to accept the default port of 21.
    • For this walk- through, do not use a host name, so make sure that the Virtual Host box is blank.
    • Make sure that the Certificates drop-down is set to “Not Selected” and that the Allow SSL option is selected.
    • When you have completed these items, click Next.

  5. On the next page of the wizard:
    • Select Anonymous for the Authentication settings.
    • For the Authorization settings, choose “Anonymous users” from the Allow access to drop-down, and select Read for the Permissions option.
    • When you have completed these items, click Finish.

Summary

You have successfully created a new FTP site using the new FTP service. To recap the items that you completed in this step:

  1. You created a new FTP site named “My New FTP Site”, with the site’s content root at “%SystemDrive%\inetpub\ftproot”.
  2. You bound the FTP site to the local loopback address for your computer on port 21, and you chose not to use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for the FTP site.
  3. You created a default rule for the FTP site to allow anonymous users “Read” access to the files.

Step 2: Adding Additional FTP Security Settings

Creating a new FTP site that anonymous users can browse is useful for public download sites, but web authoring is equally important. In this step, you add additional authentication and authorization settings for the administrator account. To do so, follow these steps:

  1. In IIS 7 Manager, click the node for the FTP site that you created earlier, then double-click FTP Authentication to open the FTP authentication feature page.
  2. When the FTP Authentication page displays, highlight Basic Authentication and then click Enable in the Actions pane.
  3. In IIS 7 Manager, click the node for the FTP site to re-display the icons for all of the FTP features.
  4. You must add an authorization rule so that the administrator can log in. To do so, double-click the FTP Authorization Rules icon to open the FTP authorization rules feature page.
  5. When the FTP Authorization Rules page is displayed, click Add Allow Rule in the Actions pane.
  6. When the Add Allow Authorization Rule dialog box displays:
    • Select Specified users, then type “administrator” in the box.
    • For Permissions, select both Read and Write.
    • When you have completed these items, click OK.

Summary

To recap the items that you completed in this step:

  1. You added Basic authentication to the FTP site.
  2. You added an authorization rule that allows the administrator account both “Read” and “Write” permissions for the FTP site.

Step 3: Logging in to Your FTP Site

In Step 1, you created an FTP site that anonymous users can access, and in Step 2 you added additional security settings that allow an administrator to log in. In this step, you log in anonymously using your administrator account.

Note: In this step log in to your FTP site using the local administrator account. When creating the FTP site in Step 1 you bound the FTP site to the local loopback IP address. If you did not use the local loopback address, use SSL to protect your account settings. If you prefer to use a separate user account instead of the administrator account, set the correct permissions for that user account for the appropriate folders.

Logging in to your FTP site anonymously

  1. On your FTP server, open a command prompt session.
  2. Type the following command to connect to your FTP server:FTP localhost
  3. When prompted for a user name, enter “anonymous”.
  4. When prompted for a password, enter your email address.

You should now be logged in to your FTP site anonymously. Based on the authorization rule that you added in Step 1, you should only have Read access to the content folder.

Logging in to your FTP site using your administrator account

  1. On your FTP server, open a command prompt session.
  2. Type the following command to connect to your FTP server:FTP localhost
  3. When prompted for a user name, enter “administrator”.
  4. When prompted for a password, enter your administrator password.

You should now be logged in to your FTP site as the local administrator. Based on the authorization rule that you added in Step 2 you should have both Read and Write access to the content folder.

Summary

To recap the items that you completed in this step:

  1. You logged in to your FTP site anonymously.
  2. You logged in to your FTP site as the local administrator.

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Posted in FTP Tutorial

Keeping dedicated server safe

April 7th, 2011 by admin No comments »

Dedicated server саn bе аn vital раrt οf business growth.  Yουr information іѕ easily accessible tο аll people wһο һаνе tһе rіgһt tο view аחd υѕе іt.

Tһеrе аrе different operating logic scale, depending οח уουr needs. Fοr example,Windows operating logic optimization, networking аחd collaboration, wһісһ mау bе wһу tһеу аrе tһе mοѕt well lονеd.

Bυt, wһаt wіll happen іf уουr server below attacks? All уουr information wіƖƖ bе lost οr relentlessly hυrt, wһісһ іח turn саח affect tһе performance οf уουr business operations. Many people dο חοt take preventive measures tο try tο keep tһеіr dedicated server security guard wаѕ attacked. Tһе following іѕ tο keep уουr information reliable ѕοmе οf tһе tips.

1. Mаkе sure уουr software іѕ up tο date аחd patched

2. Disable a service tһаt уου dο חοt υѕе. Tһе space саח חοt bе wasted

3. Fixed audits οf уουr logic log, search fοr suspicious activity οr errors

4. Mаkе a firewall саח check IP addresses within tһе specified time

5. Complexity οf уουr password, change tһеm еνеrу 3 months

6. SCHEDULE [fοr Windows] consistent anti-virus аחd [fοr Linux] check rkhunter

7. Back up аll data regularly, bυt bе careful חοt tο save tһе backup οח tһе server

8. Oחlу installed οח tһе server authenticated аחd certified applications

9. Track security alerts frοm Technological Cyber іח case tһеу apply tο уουr systems/programs

10. Apply аll οf tһе above tο аחу οtһеr hardware used tο log іחtο уουr server аחd аחу server fοr уουr application development

11. Regularly audit your system logs, searching for suspicious or erroneous activity.

Tһаt’s іt. If уου give a close attention tο tһе above matters, уου саח increase tһе safety οf уουr server significantly.

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Posted in Dedicated Servers, Linux sever, Managed dedicated server, MS SQL Dedicated Server, MySQL Server

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About email autoresponders.

April 5th, 2011 by admin No comments »

Email autoresponders can become a vital feature of your online marketing plan. In order to use them effectively, it’s important to understand the different options available, and methods of increasing their effectiveness.

There are important features to look for when choosing your autoresponder program or service. These include:

  • Allowed length: be sure to check whether the service limits how long sales letters can be.
  • Response time: how long do customers wait for an answer when they visit your site for information? They should be receiving an email from your service immediately.
  • Options: you should be able to choose between HTML and plain-text versions of emails, and subscribers should be able to “opt-out” or unsubscribe if they don’t want to receive further emails.
  • Daily Reports: since your autoresponder emails are part of your marketing program, you’ll want to know how successful it is (and which ones are working!) by being able to view stats on subscribers, unsubscribe requests and other information. This information will help you target your marketing efforts, and drop or change the emails that don’t generate a good response rate.
  • Flexibility: make sure that you can change or personalize your emails, free of charge. You will want the option of making changes to emails, since most marketers like to “tweak” their copy from time to time.

Making Autoresponders Part of Your Marketing plan

Autoresponder emails can be an integral part of any business CRM (Customer Relationship Management plan). Autoresponders let you contact your customers, but without paying for human manpower, and can literally add fuel to a good web site in gathering sales.”

autoresponders are an important part of online marketing, but adds that they don’t replace other methods. “They’re an addition, not really a replacement. Each sale does generally require a “human touch,” however there are some times that the autoresponders will close a deal by itself. They are our “automated follow-up” mechanism, and do that extremely well.”

1) Drive qualified hits to the site.
2) convince a prospective customer to sign up for a free trial account.
3) Send out auto-responder messages frequently.
4) Personal follows up by telephone / email as soon as reasonably possible.

Email autoresponders are an integral part of the follow-up process in this marketing plan.

You do need to make sure that you set up your autoresponder to prevent inadvertently Spamming people. IT HAPPENS! Sometimes autoresonders can hurt you too, so you need to be careful when using them. ”

So How useful Are Autoresponders?

While it’s impossible to generalize completely since email copy varies widely, as well as methods of sending them out (monthly, weekly, or series of ten versus a one-time mail), overall autoresponder emails stack up favorably against other methods of marketing. In fact, they can be less expensive and generate better results than some of the more traditional methods such as direct mail.

In general, direct mail averages about a .5 to 1 % response rate. Email responses are usually higher, around 1.5 to 3% with a decently strong email; some of the really good ones can get a response rate of up to 10%!

Autoresponders are an integral part of the sales process, and yes, they’ve increased sales. Being a small shop, it generally takes us 3+ days to respond to new signups. In the meantime, potential customers are being reminded of our services on a daily basis – each sales letter explains the benefits, new ways to use the service, and gives more bonus items when they purchase. Currently, we are closing about 10-20% of our qualified leads with the auto-responders and new sales method. Before, we were doing about 1 in 100.

In today’s online market, email autoresponders are being used more frequently for a simple reason: they work, and help to save valuable hours in customer follow-up. According to our web marketing experts, it definitely pays to understand how this effective marketing tool works, and to add it to the items that you use to generate inquiries and sales.

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Posted in E-mail marketing, Email hosting

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Starting reseller hosting business.

April 5th, 2011 by admin No comments »

The world of reseller hosting may be a little confusing to some. Though with the right tips in hand anybody can be a reseller hosting success. In a nut shell, reseller hosting is a form of web site hosting where the account owner has the ability to use their allotted space and bandwidth to host their own or a third parties’ web site.  The account owner can sell the allotted space and bandwidth to the third party in question, and (in most cases) make a profit.

To help you get started in the world of reseller web hosting, here are a few tips you may look into or follow:

1. Act as a referral partner for the parent company.  This is a safe and easy option for reseller hosting, since it doesn’t involve you having to run customer accounts.  Instead, you earn commission for every customer you refer to the parent company who then signs up.  The downside to this option is that you need to have an online marketing presence, through a review website or ad campaign

2. Start small.  One of the great advantages of reseller hosting is that you only need a computer and an internet connection to get started – you don’t need to invest lots of money or get to grips with complicated technical applications.  For that reason, you should start by concentrating on reselling web space.  This is simple and straightforward, and a good way to earn whilst building a client base and gaining experience.

3. For the same reason, it’s also a good idea to start with shared hosting, since this is the simplest form of web hosting that you can resell.   As your business expands, you can look at offering more advanced reseller services, such as dedicated and co-located hosting, domain name registration and merchant accounts.

4. Work towards getting your own server.  This will give you a greater share of the profits over time.  However, it also involves greater responsibility for maintenance, back-up and repair, so you should only consider this option when you are confident that you can handle these technical requirements.

5. Don’t neglect your marketing and sales strategy.  Your reseller business won’t make money if nobody can find you.  So be very clear on who your target customers are, and how you can reach them.  This means constructing a well-optimized home site for your reseller hosting business, and running a well-targeted ad campaign.

6. Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for help, guidance and customer feedback.  There is plenty of free advice available on the web to help you decide on the approach that will best suit your purposes.  Remember, you may need to try several approaches before you find the reseller hosting strategy that works for you.

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Posted in About Web Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Linux sever, Managed dedicated server, Reseller hosting

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Server security tips.

April 1st, 2011 by admin 1 comment »

There are few tricks and tips that one should take care of with their servers. Here are some useful tips that can help you:

SO now you have a new server, what to do with it? The sky is the limit! Or is it? Naturally, and logically, there are restrictions. But a little extra attention for some details goes a long way… Let’s go over some of them.

Security: This is important, and cannot be stressed out enough. THEY ARE OUT THERE. Sounds dramatically? It is! If you want to keep the bad guys away start spending quality time on the firewall before activating services such as MySQL or Postgresql. I am not exaggerating. In the first night my server was active (I hadn’t even discovered these forums yet) I got 16 logon attempts from a total of 3 different IP addresses. Where the heck they came from is beyond me, but this is common behavior (this isn’t a surprise for me; been here, seen this before). They are out there! Trust me on this.

By default you might feel safe, no icky things in your logs, everything seems in order… Yes and no. Go Daddy charges you for used up space, and doesn’t risk default processes gobbling up your disk space without you knowing it. I think this is a very fair business policy, but it comes with a price. Namely that you’re probably left in the dark about your security. Do you have a “/var/log/secure” file telling you details on login attempts, failed login attempts and such?

If the answer is no then this is most likely because you do not have the “syslog” package installed (“sysklogd.i386″ to be exact). Want it? Then do (as root): “yum install sysklogd.i386″. And wham, in no time you’ll see what’s happening on your box. Careful: This comes at a price. Not a big one, but those log files do take up disk space no matter how you put it. Fortunately not all is lost.

If you installed that MC program mentioned earlier now is a good time to use it. Go to the /etc/logrotate.d directory. Here you’ll find a file called “syslog”. Press ‘F3′ to view it. Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything in there. What counts here is the first line. Notice stuff like “/var/log/messages” and “/var/log/secure”?

As the name suggests this is a configuration file telling a program on your server called “Log rotate” to actually rotate the files being mentioned in the config files which you find in that “/etc/logrotate.d” directory. So what does this mean? That every day (assuming default behavior) the system will archive your logfile and tell the main system to start using a new one. So, for example, let’s focus on “/var/log/secure”. A very important file in my opinion. If you wait a while (and I suggest not doing this behind your computer, but getting some sleep too) you’ll eventually notice 2 ‘secure’ files. One called ‘secure’, the other called ‘secure.1.gz’. What is this? Simple.. The first (’1′) of the compressed (‘gz’ stands for ‘gzip’ which is a compression program on Linux) logs. Still didn’t get MC? Shame on you! If you are on the console you can still easily view this file, just use something like: “zless /var/log/secure.1.gz” (you need to be root). ‘Space’ goes to the next page and ‘q’ quits. Using MC you simply press ‘F3′.

To conclude a personal comment: Go Daddy, I really hope you’ll consider using some ‘preview’ option. It really makes life easier (I know I could ‘edit’ my post, but still… “A good preparation goes a long way”).

Creation of Backup – Regular backups are necessary as we do not know when a failure can occur. It is a good practice to take backups of all documents, images and database and make sure it is stored in the right place.

To perform regular kernel security updates and keep all software’s up-to-date and secure.

Easy script installations such as Fantastico or Softacolous can be useful in daily installation requirements and keeps you safe from unwanted server errors and bugs.

Control Panels can make your life easier when you are about to manage their sites.

Frequent update of passwords is important to increase security of your dedicated servers.

Monitoring is a good habit which helps you to understand your dedicated server better. This mainly can be through monitoring software or a remote panel offered by your hosting provider.

Use only that is required. You should leave more space for your CPU, RAM and disks to deliver better.

Maintenance should be taken seriously as this increases your dedicated server lifespan and mainly include software updates, software upgrades, migrations, service checks, security monitoring.

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