BitFolk Announcements

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Debian 10.x (buster) now available for self-install

by Andy Smith

Hi, Debian 10.0 (buster) was released on Sunday. You can now use the self-installer to install it. From the Xen Shell type: xen shell> install debian_buster If this is not your first install you may wish to check that your architecture is set to x86_64 (64-bit). If it's 32-bit then you can change it with: xen shell> arch x86_64 I recommend that you do switch to 64-bit if you haven't already. The new Debian testing (bullseye) is also present but is still a work in progress. We'd still be interested in hearing about any problems with it. More info: https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Using_the_self-serve_net_installer https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Xen_Shell Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 4 months

The forthcoming Debian 10.0 (buster) release

by Andy Smith

Hello, Debian 10 (buster) is supposed to be released later today. Those who wish to upgrade to it in the usual Debian way should be able to do so after reading the release notes for any gotchas: https://www.debian.org/releases/testing/amd64/release-notes/ I am not aware of any gotchas that are specific to the BitFolk environment, but if you think you have found one please do let us know. If planning a clean install, the "buster" release has been available for some time in our Xen Shell, but under the code name "debian_testing", because right now it still is technically the testing release. If you issue the command: xen shell> install debian_testing now or at any time after the release of Debian 10 then I believe this should result in a working install of Debian 10. I just tested it with a minimal install (base system + openssh) and it seems to (still) work. It may be several days after the release before we can get around to updating the labels in the Xen Shell so that "debian_buster" is there and "debian_testing" gets you "bullseye". It does tell you what it's going to install so there should be no confusion. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 4 months

Intermittent packet loss today between 21:04Z and 21:23Z

by Andy Smith

Hi, Today there were some periods of intermittent packet loss on both IPv4 and IPv6 between 21:04Z and 21:23Z. For IPv6 it was more severe (not all customers, but if you were affected it was 100% loss) between 21:04Z and 21:13Z. Then there was a further period of intermittent IPv4 packet loss between 21:19Z and 21:22Z. This happened during some scheduled network reconfiguration on the part of our colo provider. It was intended to be non-service-impacting, but unfortunately multiple different problems were encountered. I took no part in what was going on (it was solely on their equipment) but I made sure I was online so that if there were any problems I could spot them and help diagnose them promptly. That helped things get resolved faster. The problems encountered were unanticipated and the colo provider apologises for the disruption, but I should also apologise because I admit I did not ask for a detailed plan of what exactly they were doing as beyond looking out for problems I had no involvement. Had I asked for a detailed plan, in hindsight I think I'd have decided it was pretty complicated and would have announced an "at-risk" window. The problems would still have happened, because as I say they were unanticipated, but at least you'd have been able to connect what you were seeing with the maintenance window. If you care for the details of exactly what went wrong let me know and I'll send them to you but they seem like a bit too much detail for this email. The initial work was completed at 21:22:48Z, and a second bit of work was carried out without incident at around 22:00Z. No more work is planned so no more problems are expected. Apologies again for the disruption. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 6 months

Security reboot needed, weekend of 2/3/4 March 2019

by Andy Smith

Hello, Unfortunately some security flaws have been discovered in the hypervisor software we use (Xen) so we will need to patch and reboot everything before the public release of the details on 5 March. We will do this work in the early hours of the morning (UK time) between Saturday 2 March and Monday 4 March. You should already have received an individual email confirming the hour-long maintenance window specific to your server(s). The actual work for each server is expected to take 10–30 minutes within that window. As before we should be able to do a suspend/restore of your guest if you have enabled that at: <https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/config/> Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 8 months

2GiB of backup space now included for free

by Andy Smith

Hi, Every VPS now includes 2GiB of backup space for use with our local backups service, for free. More info on the local backups service: https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Backups You still need to let us know what to back up before any backups will take place, so if you are not currently a user of the backups service and wish to enable it please follow the procedure here: https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Backups#Setup If you are already a user of the backups service then 2GiB has simply been added to your quota. There is now no excuse for important configs and data to not be backed up. ☺ Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 9 months

Billing role added to Panel

by Andy Smith

Hi, A Billing role has now been added to the address book in the Panel: https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/contacts/#toc-roles You might use this if you want invoices (and other emails about invoices) to go to different people, multiple people, and so on. Thanks, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 10 months

snaps unexpected reboot 2019-01-09

by Andy Smith

Hi, Host snaps unexpectedly rebooted approximately 15 minutes ago. I'm not in front of a computer at the moment so will have to investigate later. I believe it will be the same bug that has plaguedusers of "hen". If so then at least snaps has now booted with the settings that are hoped will avoid the issue in future. Apologies for the disruption. Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 10 months

"Data Transfer" role added to the address book

by Andy Smith

Hi, You can now add contacts to the "Data Transfer" role of the address book: https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/contacts/#toc-roles If you do that then these will be the only addresses that receive emails about your weekly data transfer stats, predicted overage, actual overage etc. I am also going through and rewriting documentation to reflect the new policy that no overage will be allowed without prior confirmation, i.e. we'll turn off your network rather than allow you to run up a bill, unless you indicate otherwise. If you spot any that's out of date after a few days from now, please do let me know. (Those handful of customers that regularly incur overage bills should assume that this will continue to be the case. I'm talking about for people we haven't spoken to about overage before.) I hope to get on to splitting out the billing functions into a billing role next. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 10 months

[andy@bitfolk.com: Re: [bitfolk] Host "hen" crashed again (Was: Re: Host "hen" unexpectedly rebooted 2018-11-26 22:24)]

by Andy Smith

Oops, I've just noticed that this only went to users@, not announce@. Sorry about the extra copy some of you are now getting. :( Cheers, Andy ----- Forwarded message from Andy Smith <andy(a)bitfolk.com> ----- Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2018 14:49:34 +0000 From: Andy Smith <andy(a)bitfolk.com> To: users(a)lists.bitfolk.com Subject: Re: [bitfolk] Host "hen" crashed again (Was: Re: Host "hen" unexpectedly rebooted 2018-11-26 22:24) User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Reply-To: users(a)lists.bitfolk.com Hi, This happened again a few minutes ago. IPv6 failover appears to have happened correctly due to some fixes since last time - hence no v6 outage until manual intervention. hen has now booted with some settings which it is hoped will avoid the problem in future. I'm not in front of a computer at the moment so later today I'll review what was logged. Apologies for the ongoing hassle. Cheers, Andy

5 years, 10 months

Disabling password auth for Xen Shell

by Andy Smith

Hi, There's a long-standing request to implement a way for customers to disable password authentication on their Xen Shell SSH accounts (i.e. ssh username(a)username.console.bitfolk.com): https://tools.bitfolk.com/redmine/issues/116 This has now been implemented¹, so if you go to: https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/security/#toc-allow-xen-shell-ssh-access-… you can set that if you wish. You will first need to have added at least one SSH public key, as that is the only way you'll be able to log in to the Xen Shell after that. I don't anticipate many people using this or it changing frequently, so I haven't bothered to implement immediate update of our SSH config. Instead you might have to wait up to 30 minutes for the sshd_config on the host machine to actually be updated. The other already existing way to further secure your Xen Shell login is to use 2 factor authentication, as described on the same page. Enabling that will require you to supply a code from a TOTP app such as Google Authenticator, 1Password, etc. Cheers, Andy ¹ 11 days short of 5 years since it was requested, woohoo! -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

5 years, 10 months

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