BitFolk Users September 2020

users@mailman.bitfolk.com

14 participants
9 discussions

by Hugh Frostick

Hi, I am a (delighted!) relatively new BF user and run two dozen websites under Centos and Virtualmin, with no email as I keep email off my webserver. I am fed up with Cpanel in multiple ways and want to drop the server where I currently have all my email and mail forwarders. Is another VPS on Centos with Virtualmin a good route to manage my and my clients’ email? Or is there a better solution for a mail server? Cheers Hugh

2 years, 5 months

Virtualmin on CentOS 8

by Hugh Frostick

Hi All, Not sure if this is a valid thing to post here. Bit long sorry. I have a VPS running Virtualmin on Centos 8 here no probs: Linux version 5.7.10-1.el8.elrepo.x86_64 (mockbuild@072389ed160c4f05a56ad0894a89bf2f) (gcc version 8.3.1 20191121 (Red Hat 8.3.1-5) (GCC), GNU ld version 2.30-73.el8) I have a new VPS in New Zealand with a good supplier (call it NZS) - only a few levels behind Andy :-) When I set up Virtualmin on a new VPS there on CentOS 8, Virtualmin does not work. Linux version 4.19.144-rh174-20200910010734.xenU.x86_64 (tomcat(a)ci.build.***hosting.com) (gcc version 8.3.0 (Debian 8.3.0-6)) NZS has option to change kernel in their excellent customer control panel: Kernel Architecture Comments default-4.14.xenU.x86_64 x86_64 After a VM reboot, use the latest kernel in the 4.14.197-rh229-20200910022519.xenU.x86_64 series. default-4.19.xenU.x86_64 x86_64 After a VM reboot, use the latest kernel in the 4.19.144-rh174-20200910010734.xenU.x86_64 series. Booted on 4.19.144-rh174-20200910010734.xenU.x86_64 default-5.4.xenU.x86_64 x86_64 After a VM reboot, use the latest kernel in the 5.4.64-rh70-20200910022002.xenU.x86_64 series. 4.14.197-rh229-20200910022519.xenU.x86_64 x86_64 lts kernel 4.19.144-rh174-20200910010734.xenU.x86_64 x86_64 lts kernel, for both 64bit and 32bit installs 5.4.64-rh70-20200910022002.xenU.x86_64 x86_64 lts kernel, for both 64bit and 32bit installs VM installed kernel via PV Grub 4.7.2.pv-grub.x86_64 x86_64 64bit only. Lets you boot your own kernel. I switched to the 5.4 and no difference. I got onto NZS support with this message: *** I want to run Virtualmin under Centos 8 on my new VPS. (Currently I have a VPS running Virtualmin under Centos 7.) I have reinstalled a few times, full vps and also virtualmin manually and from your install package, and tried various things but get these issues: • SuExec cannot be used to run PHP scripts in CGI or FCGId modes : The Suexec command on your system is configured to only run scripts under /var/www, but the Virtualmin virtual server home directory is /home. CGI scripts run as domain owners will not be executed. • The following PHP-FPM versions cannot be used : 7.2.24 (Apache module mod_proxy is missing or not enabled) My searches finally turned up this: https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/installation/faq Q. "I installed manually or using packages from a third party source, and I have the following error after install: "The Suexec command on your system is configured to only run scripts under /var/www, but the Virtualmin virtual server home directory is /home. CGI and PHP scripts run as domain owners will not be executed” A. The Apache suexec command on your system is misconfigured for use in a virtual hosting environment, and needs to be recompiled or configured (on systems that provide a configurable suexec command) with the docroot set to /home. On Debian/Ubuntu systems, you can install the apache2-suexec-custom package, and modify /etc/apache2/www-data to include /home. On other systems, you will need to recompile the Apache package or the suexec binary. Or, you can use our automated install script, which insures a correctly configured suexec binary is installed. Am I on the right track here, and can you please help with suexec problem? *** Reply from NZS (wihtin 4 hours) " After a quick look through, this is more than just a couple bugs. There are some seriously broken things by default and it does not work, and is not easily fixable. Things that do not work out of the box are 1. Dav - easily disabled and not used often (HF: don’t care abotu this myself) 2. PHPFCGID - suexec. you need to use this or PHP-FPM, this is broken because the chroot is /var/www 3. php-FPM - this is the deal breaker, it needs mod_proxy, but even when enabled it fails to detect it , so that does not work At this stage I'm going to suggest we do not allow installers of the Centos 8 to have virtualmin install as an option since its far more broken than a small thing. I would suggest you move to a debian based distro (ubuntu or similar) and virtualmin, since we know these work well without issue." *** So now, looking for recommendations. Server has to be in NZ and with that supplier who I like. I know Virtualmin CAN work with CentOS8 because it does here. The options are: 1. Wait and investigate - but was hoping to move everything over from an old server this weeek before end of month renewal where I really don’t want the supplier to have any more money, they have gone really bad. 2. Choose Centos7 that works with their build - ony 4 years life though? Seems like I am making an unnecessary extra problem for myself? 3. Can I install my own distro same as Andy has, somehow? 4. Ideas? Cheers Hugh

3 years, 7 months

Reboots will be necessary to address security issues, probably early hours 19/20/21 September

by Andy Smith

Hello, Unfortunately some serious security bugs have been discovered in the Xen hypervisor and fixes for these have now been pre-disclosed, with an embargo that ends at 1200Z on 22 September 2020. As a result we will need to apply these fixes and reboot everything before that time. We are likely to do this in the early hours of the morning UK time, on 19, 20 and 21 September. In the next few days individual emails will be sent out confirming to you which hour long maintenance window your services are in. The times will be in UTC; please note that UK is currently observing daylight savings and as such is currently at UTC+1. We expect the work to take between 15 and 30 minutes per bare metal host. If you have opted in to suspend and restore¹ then your VM will be suspended to storage and restored again after the host it is on is rebooted. Otherwise your VM will be cleanly shut down and booted again later. If you cannot tolerate the downtime then please contact support(a)bitfolk.com. We may be able to almost-live migrate you to already-patched hardware before the regular maintenance starts. You can expect a few tens of seconds of pausing in that case. This is still a somewhat experimental process and also requires you to opt in to suspend and restore. Cheers, Andy ¹ https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Suspend_and_restore -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting _______________________________________________ announce mailing list announce(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/announce

3 years, 7 months

Pushover notifications now available (beta)

by Andy Smith

Hi, I make use of Pushover myself: https://pushover.net/ A customer asked for non-email notifications from BitFolk's monitoring and I suggested Pushover for them too. I've now added the necessary bits to generalise it for any customer. If you would like Pushover notifications then please mail support(a)bitfolk.com to ask for them. When you ask please: - supply your Pushover User Key (visible in your Pushover dashboard) - state whether you want it for just host notifications (is the host down or unreachable?) or for service notifications as well (is service X on host Y in a non-OK state?). Services might generate quite a few notifications. If you only want SOME services to generate these notifications, you can let us know what those are too. Limitations: - Will only send a notification on a non-OK state, so you won't receive RECOVERY/OK notifications. This is in the interest of not deluging you with notifications. - Priority is always set to 1 (high), which means it will try to make a noise and vibrate your mobile device. You can override that in your mobile device. The full API does allow an emergency priority which would require you to acknowledge it, and three quieter options, but I'm not ready to support any of those yet. - You can't currently have Pushover notifications without email notifications too. - You can't tell monitoring to stop sending you Pushover notifications but carry on sending email ones. Anything you'd usually do to stop notifications will stop both kinds. If more than a few people request this then I will integrate it with the address book in the panel so you can get Pushover notifications by adding a contact with a Pushover key there. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting _______________________________________________ announce mailing list announce(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/announce

3 years, 7 months

What do you expect to happen when you authorise a Direct Debit mandate?

by Andy Smith

Hello, There is a frequent cause of confusion with Direct Debit. The way Direct Debit works is, first you authorise an organisation to make Direct Debit requests. This is called a Direct Debit mandate. That gets sent to your bank. Once your bank accepts it the organisation can then request funds from your bank. At present BitFolk only requests funds by Direct Debit when there is a mandate in place and: a) A new invoice is created, or; b) You go into the Panel and select one or more invoices to pay by Direct Debit. Notably what does NOT happen ever is that invoices which already exist are suddenly submitted by Direct Debit. So what happens quite often is: 1. Invoice for ongoing service is created and emailed to customer. 2. Customer ignores this for some period of time. 3. A nagging automated email is sent saying this is going to be due soon. Quite often ignored for some time. 4. A more strident yet still automated nagging email is sent saying that it would be a really good idea to consider paying this now as otherwise there might be a loss of service. 5. Customer decides that Direct Debit would be convenient and does authorise a Direct Debit mandate now, but doesn't actually pay the outstanding invoice(s) by any means because they think they have now told us to take payments by Direct Debit and that it will just happen. 6. Invoice is now weeks overdue and an automated email is sent out saying that the service is now going to be suspended for non-payment. 7. Since non-payment suspensions are manual, we think to check if the customer recently authorised a Direct Debit mandate. If they did then we consider it likely that they thought that would do the job, so we have to contact them and explain and ask if they did actually want this existing invoice paid by DD. This is annoyingly manual, takes time, and is sometimes hard to explain. There have been a non-zero number of occasions where we have forgotten to check for a mandate in step #7 and have suspended the customer's service for non-payment. There have been many occasions where customers have received the "you're being suspended for non-payment" email of step #6 and contacted us in a panic. Every time there is one of these misunderstandings I explain why this happened and ask how they would like it to be changed so that it doesn't happen any more, but sadly I have never really received any concrete suggestions even from the people it has happened to. I'm pretty sick of this happening so I want to do something about it. So, I shall ask all of you, how would you expect it to work? a) As soon as a mandate is authorised, just charge all existing invoices immediately Very tempting. Very simple. I fear there will be at least one person that will claim they never expected that to happen, and a returned Direct Debit has caused them to incur an eleventy billion pound penalty charge from their bank, their mortgage payment got rejected, and now there are men outside in shiny leather jackets. b) As soon as the mandate is authorised, if the customer has existing invoices that are unpaid, there is a very noticeable message on the screen like: You seem to have unpaid invoices: #41234 £107.88 #41239 £1.92 Pre-existing invoices won't be automatically submitted for payment by Direct Debit. You can <a href="…">pay them now</a> by a one-off Direct Debit or any of our other supported payment methods. I like (b). I am open to other ideas if you have any. I can't really think of any. I understand that many people will be happy with (a), but I feel it's one of those things that when there is someone that is unhappy, they are very unhappy, and that wipes out the good feelings from the many more people that never had a problem. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

3 years, 7 months

Re: [bitfolk] What do you expect to happen when you authorise a Direct Debit mandate?

by Rob Smith

Hi Andy, Another vote for option b. Regards Rob Every time there is one of these misunderstandings I explain why > this happened and ask how they would like it to be changed so that > it doesn't happen any more, but sadly I have never really received > any concrete suggestions even from the people it has happened to. I'm > pretty sick of this happening so I want to do something about it. > > So, I shall ask all of you, how would you expect it to work? > > a) As soon as a mandate is authorised, just charge all existing > invoices immediately > > Very tempting. Very simple. I fear there will be at least one > person that will claim they never expected that to happen, and a > returned Direct Debit has caused them to incur an eleventy > billion pound penalty charge from their bank, their mortgage > payment got rejected, and now there are men outside in shiny > leather jackets. > > b) As soon as the mandate is authorised, if the customer has > existing invoices that are unpaid, there is a very noticeable > message on the screen like: > > You seem to have unpaid invoices: > > #41234 £107.88 > #41239 £1.92 > > Pre-existing invoices won't be automatically submitted for > payment by Direct Debit. You can <a href="…">pay them now</a> > by a one-off Direct Debit or any of our other supported > payment methods. > > I like (b). > > I am open to other ideas if you have any. I can't really think of > any. > >

3 years, 7 months

A naming contest has begun for two new servers

by Andy Smith

Hi, We seek to name two new servers. Customers may enter suggestions on this wiki page, in alphabetical order under the "Current naming contests" header: https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/BitFolk_server_naming#Current_naming_contests Log in to the wiki with your usual BitFolk credentials in order to be able to edit pages. See the rest of the article for rules about what will be accepted. Some time in the next week the competition will be closed and two names will be chosen. They will be chosen by some random person¹ — who knows nothing about BitFolk, servers or you — who will be asked, "which of these words do you like the best?" Cheers, Andy ¹ This used to be my partner but when she found out that her selections were a competition she told me it was too much pressure disappointing those of you whose suggestions weren't selected, so it has been random persons for the last couple of years. -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

3 years, 7 months

BitFolk's bank details changed (but the old ones will still work)

by Andy Smith

Hi, If you don't pay us by bank transfer or standing order then you can ignore this email. BitFolk's bank details have changed. The old ones should still work but next time it is convenient it would be good if you would update to the new ones. The new bank details are listed on every invoice generated after 1600Z today, and also in your Panel at: https://panel.bitfolk.com/account/invoices/#toc-bank-details Despite Barclays assuring me that I would still be able to log in and download a final statement after the old account was closed, it appears I cannot do that so I'm unable to see any bank payments made in the last couple of days. I expect I'll get a final paper copy of the statement through the post in the next week and will be able to mark those payments as settled then. So if you made a bank payment in the last few days but the invoice is still marked as outstanding, do not worry. Get in touch if you start to receive late payment reminders about it. Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting _______________________________________________ announce mailing list announce(a)lists.bitfolk.com https://lists.bitfolk.com/mailman/listinfo/announce

3 years, 7 months

rngd using high cpu

by Hugh Frostick

Hi All I have a VPS on Centos 7.8 with Virtualmin which is ok. I have a new VPS on Centos 8.2 with Virtualmin (and different purpose set up - principally has Dovecot) which has this process using 60-95% cpu: /sbin/rngd -f --fill-watermark=0 Just rebooted and it simply carried on again. Grateful for any tips where to look to sort this out. Cheers, Hugh

3 years, 7 months

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BitFolk Users September 2020