03/29/2024: DirectAdmin hosting plans now come with PHP 8.1 & ionCube Loaders & Softaculous script installers included and PHP 8.3 (without ionCube).
02/28/2024: A Debian 12 (bookworm) build with PHP 8.2 and MariaDB 10.11 is now available on our VPS servers.
10/18/2023: All our shared cPanel servers now also offer PHP 8.2 (including ionCube).
07/03/2023: All our shared cPanel servers have been migrated from CentOS 7.9 to AlmaLinux 8.8. PHP 5.6 and 7.1 are no longer supported. The migration was inevitable since the last cPanel version running on CentOS servers was version 110.0.7. cPanel upgrades would not have been possible without this migration.
02/17/2023: Popular in Europe, openSUSE is now also a supported VPS server OS at BASIC Networks.
02/14/2023: Developers will be delighted to hear that we now also offer .dev domain registrations.
12/06/2022: “RoundCube” is the new default email client for all cPanel hosting accounts. The “Horde” email app has been deprecated by cPanel. It relied on PHP 7.4, which reached its 'End of Life' (no further active development support) in November 2022.
11/18/2022: Frequently Asked Questions: Check out our new How-To Videos. You see the video sections marked as “(Videos)” in the left-hand “Categories” pane; they supplement our textual FAQs.
10/22/2022: Rocky Linux 9 is now ready for OS deployment for all bare-metal servers, while Rocky Linux 8 is available for VPS servers.
10/21/2022: AlmaLinux 9 and Ubuntu 22.04 (LTS) are now ready for OS deployment for (a) all dedicated servers, (b) and all virtual VPS servers.
09/23/2022: PHP 8.1 now compiled with ionCube Encoder 12.0 on all shared cPanel and DirectAdmin servers.
08/01/2022: Debian version for VPS: version 11 is now available (in addition to v. 8, 9, and 10).
02/02/2022: We now also offer the .cloud TLD for domain registrations. See our full list of TLDs.
11/23/2021: Fedora version for VPS servers updated to v.34.
06/18/2021: AlmaLinux 8.x now also available for VPS deployment (as a replacement for CentOS).
05/21/2021: AlmaLinux 8.x is now available for deployment as a new OS on all our dedicated servers.
01/04/2021: .app and .art TLDs available! BASIC Networks now offers the registration of .app and .art domains. And, of course, we also host them.
12/12/2020: PHP 8.0 can now be selected (in addition to versions 5.6, 7.3, and 7.4) by all our customers subscribed to cPanel or DirectAdmin hosting plans.
09/05/2020: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and Fedora 32 now also available on our VPS servers.
04/23/2020: The just released Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with a full 10 years of extended support is now available on our dedicated servers.
01/24/2020: New operating systems available: Dedicated Servers: CentOS 8, Debian 10; VPS servers: CentOS 8, Debian 10, Ubuntu 18.04.
08/24/2019: Two great service updates: (1) All shared hosting plans - cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin - are now coming with free SSL certificates! (2) From today all our shared DirectAdmin hosting servers run the LiteSpeed Web Server (LSWS); that makes your DA websites load several times faster!
08/01/2019: cPanel pricing and package adjustments: cPanel, now owned by Oakley Capital (which also owns Plesk), announced a rather massive price increase for September 1, 2019. They are going from a per-server licensing model to a per-server + per-hosting account pricing structure. This results in a drastic price increase for all hosters utilizing cPanel as a control panel. It has thus been unavoidable to change our reseller pricing for the "Web Designer" plan, and further to limit the number of hosting accounts that can be created within each reseller account. You will find our new cPanel reseller pricing details and limitations here.
05/18/2019: All shared cPanel and Plesk server plans: PHP 7.3 is now available (in addition older PHP versions).
02/24/2019: All cPanel servers: cPanel hosting users are now able, at the domain level, to (a) easily encrypt messages, and (b) to track the delivery of messages, in case of problems; (c) we now also have an "Email Deliverability" check that informs domain owners/hosts if problems are expected in how SPF, DKIM, etc. are configured.
01/06/2019: DirectAdmin shared servers: MySQL has been replaced by MariaDB, all DA servers now run version 10.2.x; ionCube has been updated to the latest version.
12/02/2018: In addition to credit cards, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies, BASIC Network now accepts several popular Chinese, Russian, and South American payment methods such as Alipay 支付宝, WeChat Pay 微信支付, Alfa-Click Альфа-клик, WebPay Plus, Banamex, etc.
05/25/2018: BASIC Network's Privacy Policy has been updated, bringing several essential changes. Our privacy policies are now governed by the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). No matter your country of residence, the new GDPR policies will be honored by us and most of our providers (e.g. ICANN regulated domain registries). In other words, these changes are not just applied to EU residents. In order to appropriately deal with the new regulations we also implemented several related features into our billing/admin panel. Please be aware that one of the consequences of honoring GDPR rules are major changes in how domain registrations, transfers, and registration data updates will be handled by the various registries. Many of the details of these changes have not fully been implemented as of right now, but sure will within the coming days and weeks. The public WHOIS databases, for example, will very soon disappear, or just reveal minimal information.
05/05/2018: Cryptocurrencies: BASIC Networks now accepts several more cryptocurrencies (apart from Bitcoin) as payment methods: Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Ripple (XRP), DASH, and Waves.
08/08/2017: BASIC Networks now offers G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Work), Google's suite of business web applications. Your G Suite account will give you access to Gmail on your own domain and 30 GB of Google Drive storage per user account. Through G Suite, you will also have access to several powerful Google applications such as Google Calendar, Hangouts, Gmail, Google+, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, Sites, Vault, Groups, Vault, Keep, and Google Cloud Search. Detailed Information.
05/19/2017: Our VPS and Dedicated Server customers can now utilize CloudStats' SERVER MONITORING script as a free service. Please find the "Monitoring" link in the main (top) menu of our billing/admin panel.
04/07/2017: We have become a certified partner of Cloudflare Inc. Hosting customer can now enable their hosting accounts to work with Cloudflare directly from within the hosting control panel (at least so for cPanel and Plesk). The loading of Cloudflare enabled websites increases on average by ca. 50% while there are at the same time major enhancements in security and in protecting you and your customers from DDoS attacks. Incoming SPAM os also noticeably reduced. More here.
03/26/2017: Our shared DirectAdmin hosting accounts, both in the US and in Germany, have been moved to new, faster hardware.
11/14/2016: All shared cPanel servers now run the new PHP 7.1 version, in addition to versions 5.4, 5.5, and 5.6.
07/21/2016: Several important updates:
- All our shared cPanel and Plesk servers are now updated to MariaDB 10 (which is compatible to MySQL 5.6, but faster).
- Our shared Plesk
servers now allow each domain customer, and each reseller anyway, to switch between PHP 5.3, 5.4, 5.6, and 7.
- Almost the same now also applies to our shared cPanel servers; here it is between the PHP versions 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, and 7.
04/17/2016: All shared servers: PHP has been upgraded to version 5.6.20.
10/19/2015: All shared servers: PHP 5.4 stopped being supported in September 2015. No further security updates are provided by the PHP developers. We thus upgraded all shared cPanel, DirectAdmin, and Plesk servers to now run version 5.6. With an account on a Plesk server, though, there is an option to choose between PHP 5.3, 5.4, and 5.6 (for each domain's hosting account), and to alter the active PHP version with a mouse-click; the same functionality will also be available on our cPanel servers later this year or in early 2016.
08/14/2015: All shared servers: PHP has been upgraded to version 5.4.44.
02/26/2015: All shared servers: PHP has been upgraded to version 5.4.38.
01/04/2015: Updates -- (a) Plesk server software has been updated on all shared servers to the new version 12.0.18. Several other new hosting and email features were implemented. (b) PHP was upgraded to version 5.4.36.
12/06/2014: Year end service update: (a) We offer several new domain TLDs for registration now, such as .nyc, .berlin, .london, .link, .city, .town, .rentals, .house, .hosting, .wiki, .trade, and more -- altogether 100 different TLDs. (b) PHP has been upgraded on all shared servers to version 5.4.35. (c) 'Fantastico DeLuxe' has on all shared cPanel servers been upgraded to the new 'Fantastico F3' (version 1.9), now installing over 620 scripts with a mouse-click (while 'Softaculous' now installs about 350 scripts).
08/03/2014: (a) PHP has on all shared servers been updated to version 5.4.31. (b) We now offer the new .uk TLD for registration.
03/26/2014: We now offer the following additional new domain TLDs for registration: .today, .tips, .photos, .center, .sexy, .technology, .email, and .support.
03/15/2014: PHP has on all shared servers been updated to version 5.4.26.
02/03/2014: All DirectAdmin Servers: PHP has been upgraded to version 5.4.24. MySQL has been upgraded to version 5.5.
01/31/2014: Plesk Servers have been upgraded to Plesk version 11.5.30. — I m p o r t a n t : The default PHP version is now 5.4.24. Before it was 5.3.x. If you run *older* scripts then some of your scripts may not be compatible. In that case you can enable PHP 5.3.27 for those websites. Here is how:
Login to Plesk and go to the domain you want to use PHP 5.3. Click on "Hosting Settings." On the upcoming screen choose "FastCGI application" and afterwards set PHP version to "5.3.27". (NOTE that "5.3.27" does not work if you leave the first setting at "Apache module." SEE BELOW:
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11/30/2013: All cPanel servers: PHP has been upgraded to version 5.4.22.
06/07/2013: BASIC Networks is proud to introduce its very own domain reseller program — WHMCS Domain Reseller — for web hosts and Startups.
05/10/2013: We have added several more domain TLDs for registration, bringing the list of TLDs you can register with us to 70. You may now also register .ru (Russia), .ro (Rumania), .gr (Greece), .si (Slovenia), .cx (Christmas Islands), .no (Norway), and .is (Iceland).
05/02/2013: Direct Deposits from U.S. bank accounts are now possible: we have implemented Dwolla as one more payment gateway. Choosing the "Guest" option you can pay for our services directly from your bank account (without having a Dwolla account).
02/08/2013: All shared cPanel servers: Apache was upgraded from 2.2.21 or 2.2.23 to version 2.4.3. And PHP has been upgraded from version 5.3.21 to 5.4.11. Because of the PHP upgrade customers with "old" installs of Joomla, versions older than 1.5.26, need to upgrade to 1.5.26 or 1.7.2 or better (best 2.5.x). If only upgrading to 1.5.26, please see the how-to suggestions in a posting by user 'ern1001' in the following forum thread. This works fine, we confirmed this.
01/07/2013: PHP has been upgraded on all cPanel and Plesk servers to version 5.3.20.
12/30/2012 - 10:15 PM to 5:30 AM (on the 31st), local EUROPEAN time (that is 4:15 PM to 11:30 PM EST on the 30th): Major networking infrastructure updates, replacement of switches, and implementation of new security tools at our GERMAN data center were performed.
10/02/2012: All DirectAdmin servers: PHP was updated to 5.3.17, and with it ionCube PHP Loaders to v. 4.2.2. We also have an additional statistics program at our DA servers now, the popular 'AwStats.'
09/27/2012: All Plesk and cPanel servers: PHP was updated to 5.3.17, and with it ionCube PHP Loaders to v. 4.2.2.
08/01/2012: We are finally able to offer registrations to our Down Under customers in Australia and New Zealand, and that at great prices: .com.au and .net.au for businesses at $16.75, and .id.au for personal Websites/domains at $21.75 (USD that is); two year registration required by registry. .co.nz are unfortunately still more expensive: $57.75. Register here or on any of our sales sites.
07/23/2012: All Plesk servers have been upgraded to Plesk version 11 (from 10 before). This also includes an upgrade of PHP from version 5.2 to 5.3.x and of MySQL from 5.0 to 5.1.
07/02/2012: We are now offering several new domain TLDs, amongst others .asia IDN domains (.asia domains in native East Asian characters).
03/08/2012: All electricity for our Hamburg Level(3) racks is now produced using 100% certified renewable energy ("Grünstrom-Zertifikat" was issued), from Clean Energy Sourcing GmbH (http://clens.eu). Further info here.
02/29/2012: All cPanel servers: MySQL has been upgraded to version 5.5.x -- is much faster now than the older version.
01/20/2012: All Plesk servers have been upgraded to version 10.4.4 of Plesk.
01/11/2012: Verisign has the authority to increase .COM prices by 7% every year, and other TLDs such as .NET are allowed to rise even 10%. Such a price increased is being applied now to COM, .NET, .ORG, .BIZ, .INFO, .US and .NAME domains. We had therefore no other choice but to hand this on to our customers. New pricing has been applied to domain registrations, transfers and renewals today.
08/16/2011: Now also offering CentOS 6.x and Scientifix Linux 6.x as OS for dedicated servers and VPS systems.
08/03/2011: Implementation of a new VPS hosting system, now using a slightly enhanced SolusVM control panel system that allows for double backups of all customer VPS (vServers), more speed and easier control functions. New servers are available in the U.S. and in our German data center.
05/12/2011: All our shared Plesk servers have now been upgraded from version 9 to version 10.2. Plesk 10.2 brings structural changes. The roles of domain owner, administrator, reseller have been changed. To summarize these changes in one or two sentences is hard to do. But you can read a good and clear explanation at the following page in the new Plesk 10.2 User Guide here. And the new 10.2 Reseller Guide is here.
The same in GERMAN and SPANISH:
German Plesk 10.2 Benutzeranleitung des Control Panels here, and German Reselleranleitung here.
Spanish Plesk 10.2 Guía del usuario del panel de control here, and Guía del revendedor here.
01/02/2011: We have changed our credit card processor and are now working with CDG Commerce. You're welcome to signup.
10/30/2010: All DirectAdmin server operating systems were updated to CentOS 5.5.
08/19/2010: "cPanel Master Reseller" system introduced -- for now only with one server. cPanel/WHM Reseller owners can create and manage other cPanel/WHM reseller accounts.
05/11/2010: All Plesk servers updated to version 9.5.2 Plesk control panel.
01/18/2010: All Plesk and DirectAdmin servers: "Softaculous" script installer has been installed. This allows you and your customers to install over 130 scripts with a mouse click.
01/09/2010: All cPanel servers: in addition to "Fantastico" we installed the script installer "Softaculous." This allows you and your customers to install over 130 scripts with a mouse click.
10/27/2009: The transfer of customer accounts to our new billing and admin gateway has successfully been completed.
07/03/2009: Our credit card processor, Authorize.net, had problems with its Seattle-based data center servers on July 2 and 3, resulting in failed transactions for about 15 hours. New orders were auto-rejected during that time; recurring orders were processed 24 hours late.
04/03/2009: "ghzdns" cPanel server: hardware test will be conducted at midnight.
01/25/2009: "ghzdns" cPanel server: hardware problems, the primary hard drive as well as the entire server hardware were replaced
10/30/2008: "eu-server" cPanel server upgrade completed. One small remaining issue, if you have phpBB forums ... in case you get an error message when trying to access your forum, set the file permissions (via FTP) of the "cache" FOLDER whithin the forum's main folder to 644 and all will work fine -- or send us an email with the URL to your forum/s.
09/18/2008: We are now offering .me, .mobi, and .asia domains for registration.
09/03/2008: With exception of "server-1" all Plesk servers have been upgraded to Plesk 8.6.
01/19/2008: We now have a new script installer program running on all Plesk servers. In addition to the Plesk "Application Vault" programs (Plesk has been bad in updating them!), you can now use INSTALLATRON to install over 50 scripts. INSTALLATRON scripts are updated on a very regular basis, and the new installer also allows you to update your own installs (as long as you used it to install the original version). You will find the INSTALLATRON icon in the domain level Plesk control panel.
01/02/2008: Upgrade of Plesk servers from Plesk 8.2.1 to 8.3. More bug
fixes, additional functionality, additional applications in "Application
Vault" installed. See new Plesk User Guides: (a) Domain
Level, (b) Reseller
Level.
01/01/2008: Security upgrades of all VPS server kernels. Servers were
rebooted.
10/01/2007: Upgrade of Plesk servers from Plesk 8.2 to 8.2.1. This version
update fixed several bugs.
09/08/2007: Upgrade of Plesk servers from Plesk 8.1.1 to 8.2. Several new scripts added to the 'Application Vault.'
07/20/2007: 14:30 PM, server-9 (cPanel), hardware problem, we are working on it. - UPDATE: problem has been fixed.
04/23/2007: server-1 (Plesk): we had to run a manual FSCK disk check
& repair to fix a hardware problem.
03/20/2007: VPS servers only: Virtuozzo software was updated, new more
secure kernel and other fixes.
02/04/2007 - All cPanel servers: Apache has been recompiled with phpSuexec
'enabled.' We had to do this as a spam control measure. In case you are
running a phpNuke site or another PHP script that has files set to global
write/read permissions (0777), please change these folders and /or files
to 0755 if you encounter any problems. Further info here.
(a) Script permission and ownership: scripts should be
owned by <user>:<user> and should, generally, have permissions
of 0644. (b) Directory permissions & ownership (not
including public_html): script's directory should be owned by <user>:<user>
and have permisssions of 0755. (c) .htaccess: remove
any php-related settings from within .htaccess files. These will always
cause an HTTP 500 response.
01/24/2007 - (a) Our billing and account managing software was upgraded:
login here.
Now you are able to set domain redirects etc. at the registry level and
also to cancel unwanted domain registrations etc. (b) Confixx servers
upgraded to latest version and to PHP 5.
01/17/2007 - All cPanel servers: PHP has been upgraded to version 5.2.0.
Zend Optimizer was upgraded to 3.2.2.
12/18/2006 - There are various Email issues that concern
customers who one way or the other send, redirect, or forward mail to
Hotmail accounts. NOTE that these issues are caused by
Hotmail's change of spamming policies, and not by anything on our servers.
Any forwarded/redirected mails to Hotmail seem now to be classified as
spam by Hotmail. Details here: http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread.php?t=61689
12/17/2006 - Our U.S. based Plesk servers were upgraded to Plesk 8.1.
You can now use AWstats, in addition to Webalizer.
11/03/2006 - kernel and other security software updated for all VPS servers. Server reboot.
08/17/2006 - PHP 5 & osCommerce
and other scripts -- there is a PHP bug: If you have a problem with osCommerce
or other PHP scripts, please see your error logs (accessible in Plesk
as well as from cPanel control panel): if you see some entry like this
-- "Cannot re-assign $this" then look for a solution here: http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=27659
... simply comment out the line
$this = null;
in the file referred to in the error logs. So it looks like this:
// $this = null;
In case of osCommerce this is the file .../classes/upload.php
08/15/2006 - 19:30 PM - server-3 is continuously being mail-bombed. We
are changing all IPs, shared IPs and naemserver IPs. Please expect serveral
hours downtime. There is unfortunatly no other solution to this.
08/12/2006 - server-2 and server-7: All accounts restored on new hardware.
08/05/2006 - 8:20 AM, server-3 hardware was replaced (HDDs were swapped).
Please let us know if problems continue. / server-2 and server-7: we still
see problems creating new hosting accounts -- working on that.
07/29 to 07/31/2006 - Major upgrade: Plesk servers "server-2"
and "server-7" will be upgraded, hardware as well as OS, Plesk
version, and PHP version. Hardware: 3.2 GHz Intel P4 to then 3.8 GHz Intel
P4; OS from CentOS 3.6 to CentOS 4.3; Plesk version from 7.5.4 to version
8.0.1; PHP from version 4.4.2 to version 5.1.4. Please watch this page
for further details about date and time.UPDATE 2: (07/30/06) server-2
upgrade finished, except 'Application Vault' programs.
07/22/2006 - server-4 (Plesk) was upgraded to Plesk 8.0.1 and PHP 5.0.4.
07/18/2006 - all Plesk servers: the "Application Vault" auto-installers for many programs (b2evolution, myBloggie, WordPress, e107, Drupal, Joomla, phpWebSite, ZenCart, and others) have been updated, and we have added two new installers for Vanilla Forum and Textpattern.
06/10/2006 - server-9 (cPanel) hardware upgrade: server-9 hardware upgrade completed. See last week's email for further details.
05/26/2006 - cPanel server (all) upgrades: PHP from 4.4.2 to 5.1.4, and MySQL from 4.1 to 5.0.21.
05/12/2006 - We are now also offering discounted dedicated Linux servers with basic support at: L3server.com, SPECIAL OFFERS section: cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, and Confixx are available as supported hosting panels.
04/02/2006 - About 40 new exciting scripts such as ATutor, CraftySyntaxLiveHelp, Jetbox, NoahsClassifieds, OpenBiblio, phpCOIN, Serendipity, Siteframe, and ZenCart have been added to all Plesk servers' "Application Vault." All our Plesk plans now come with 78 Web applications pre-installed ... more than any other host offers.
03/25/2006 - server-1 (Plesk) - server hardware updated to new faster P4 server with 2 Gig RAM and OS upgraded to CentOS 3.6 (from RedHat 9 before).
02/20/2006 - all Plesk servers: PHP updated to 4.4.2. osCommerce, SpamAssassin, and several security scripts updated.
02/11/2006 - eu-server (cPanel), server's operating system upgraded to CentOS 4.2, with new 2.6 kernel; new security software and patches implemented.
02/09/2006 - Virtuozzo VPS systems upgraded on U.S. and European VPS servers to version 3.0. All kernels upgraded to 2.6 for faster performance.
01/23/2006 - PHP upgrade for all cPanel and DirectAdmin servers: now version 4.4.2.
01/10/2006 - BASIC Networks is now also offering dedicated servers in
Europe (with special security patching, for businesses and others concerned
about security) and VPS (virtual private server) plans in both the United
States and Europe. Our new server and VPS sales site is at: http://L3server.com.
12/07/2005 - server-3 (cPanel) OS update completed.
11/16/2005 - PHP on most servers updated to version 4.4.0 or 4.4.1. This was a security update. Three more servers to follow Saturday (11/19/05).
11/14/2005 - server-4 (Plesk), hardware upgrade completed.
11/10/2005 - cPanel server-3, primary HDD replaced
11/08/2005 - all cPanel servers: there is a problem with the Fantastico server -- the server that the programmer of Fantastico uses to check on licening etc., and because of this problem it seems that there are various problems with Fantastico installs. />>>> fixed now!!
08/29/2005 - all Plesk servers upgraded to Plesk 7.5.4
06/26/2005 - server-9 operating system upgraded from RedHat 9 to RedHat Enterprise 3. RHEL3 runs faster than RH9 and is also much saver.
06/19/2005 - Worked on several more issues with the server-1 restore,
this time also exchanging entire server hardware with new server.
06/18/2005 - 11 PM -- We will have to do further work to fix server-1
after yesterday's restore. Server will be off-line for 4 hours starting
now.
06/18/2005 - server-2 was upgraded to Plesk 7.5.3 (see below info for
Webmail login change).
06/17/2005 - server-4 and server-7: Plesk upgraded to 7.5.3.NOTE that
the Plesk Webmail login is now at:
http://<YourDomain.com>/webmail/
06/16/2005: server-1 (Plesk): because of a hard drive problem, indirectly caused by an electrical problem in the server, the main HDD was replaced.
06/06/2005 - Server-3 hardware upgrade finished. Server has now a 3.2
GHz fast Intel Pentium 4 processor, new HDDs etc., Dell server. Let us
know of possible problems.
NOTE: If you see an "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" page where you expected
your's, simply delete the "index.html" file from the public_html
folder, so that your own index.htm, index.php, default.html, etc. shows
first.
05/22/2005 - server-1 was upgraded to 7.5.3
05/11/2005 - PHP was upgraded to version 4.3.11 on servers 2, 4, and 7. Other security updates where also performed.
03/30/2005 - eu-server accounts were being moved to our new cage
in the Hamburg Level(3) datacenter.
03/29/2005 - server-2, server-4, and server-7 were upgraded to more powerful Dell servers (3.2 GHz, Intel P4).
03/19/2005 - 13:00 EST - server-2 emergency: Yesterday the server crashed with a Kernel Panic. Details by email.
03/19/2005 - All server-4 accounts have been transferred without major
problems to the new server.
02/23/05 - On March 1st we will open our new datacenter in Hamburg, housed within the huge Level(3) datacenter there. We will now also offer dedicated server hosting and co-location services with Level(3) bandwidth.We decided for a Level(3) facilty because their networks are widely recognized to be the most reliable and fastest ones in Northern America and Europe. By mid-March all Amsterdam hosting accounts (eu-server) will have been transfered to Hamburg. We will notify you by email about the day and time of this transfer.
02/03/05 - All Plesk servers updated to Plesk 7.5.2 Reloaded.
01/24/05 - Today we saw the reoccurance of yet another generation of the phpBB worm "Santy," being active on server-2 (Plesk). But it could have well been any other Plesk or cPanel server, because this latest generation is active even with the updated phpBB and PHP install. The only protection we found, other than disabling phpBB all together, is to create a .htaccess file (in TEXT format) with the following code -- or to add the following code to it if you already have a .htaccess file. The best way to edit .htaccess (which you will not see in FTP) is to use the control panel file editor. We have edited the .htaccess files for the domains having installed phpBB on server-2 already. We suggest you edit your own if you are on another server. For a discussion of this worm and code see here. Code follows:
RewriteEngine
On
# prevent access from santy webworm a-e
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)highlight=\%2527 [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)rush=\%65\%63\%68 [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)rush=echo [OR]
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)wget\%20
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://127.0.0.1/ [R,L]
# prevent pre php 4.3.10 bug
RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE}% s:(.*):\%22test1\%22\%3b
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://127.0.0.1/ [R,L]
# prevent perl user agent (most often used by santy)
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^lwp.* [NC]
RewriteRule ^.*$ http://127.0.0.1/ [R,L]
01/14/05 - After PHP 5 upgrade *some* installs of phpWebSite stopped working on RH9 servers, and upgrade of phpWebSite also failed if calendar option was activated. We thus keep PHP 4.3.10 on the RH9 boxes until the problem has been solved by developers.
Christmas 2004: Happy Holidays! phpBB message boards on server-9 caught,
like many thousand other servers around the world, the Santy worm. We
upgraded both PHP (to 4.3.10) and the installers for phpBB. After that
we updated the code of each installed phpBB board. Furthermore, Plesk
servers are now also upgraded to PHP 4.3.10.
Santy worm in the News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4117711.stm
12/16/04 - All Plesk servers have been upgraded to version Plesk 7.5.1
Reloaded. On server-7 we've now replaced Horde IMP Webmail with Squirrelmail,
same as with most other Plesk servers, because of compatibility issues.
With Plesk 7.5.1 you now have the following exciting advantages (among
other improvements):
1.
There are now over 30 (!!) site applications in the "Application
Vault" that any domain owner,
if enabled by the reseller, can install with a few mouse clicks. These
include AdvancedPoll,
b2evolution, DocFAQ (DocBase), GTChat, Mambo, Nexellent SiteBuilder, OpenBiblio,
osCommerce
phpAds, phpBB, PhpMoney, phpWiki, TUTOS, TYPO3, WebCalendar, and others.
2.
Firewall included (server-wide).
3.
401 (unauthorized) HTTP error page is now customizable.
4.
It is now possible to set FTP password management permission for domain
level users.
5.
Mail to nonexistent user can be rejected as well as bounced or catched.
6.
Seven new pre-installed Plesk control panel skins added.
12/14/04 - All cPanel servers were upgraded to version 9.9.9. New anti-spam protection and detection scripts installed.
11/02/04 - Webmail problem on server-7 fixed.
10/31/04 - (1) We have now upgraded
all Plesk servers to 7.1.5 Reloaded.
(2)
Plesk server-2 and server-4: We have replaced the default Webmail program
IMP
Horde with Squirrelmail. The reason for the change is of a
technical nature, not
because
of program functionality (both programs are nice!). Under Plesk 7.1.5
Reloaded
it
is, in short, either a higher version of PHP (now 4.3.9) or Horde Webmail.
After
consulting
with SW-SOFT (Plesk) technicians we decided to keep the higher PHP version,
which
should also be in the interest of those hosting customers using PHP code.
10/12/04 - PHP upgraded on all cPanel servers to version 4.3.9; Apache also upgraded.
10/10/04 - All cPanel servers upgraded to cPanel Pro 9.9.x.
08/09/04 - eu-server was undergoing a DDoS attack. We had to shut down most functions to control the attack. Server up now.
07/21/04 - 9:30 PM - server-4, corrupted psa database restored
07/14.04 - 4 AM - All cPanel servers were upgraded to new more secure Apache version; PHP now version 4.3.8.
07/10/04 - Server-7 (Plesk) has been restored. Please let us know of any problem.
07/04/04 - Apache was upgarded on server-2 (Plesk) to fix a security vulnerability.
07/03/04 - Resellers create and sell reseller accounts: We are very excited to offer you reseller accounts that allow the reseseller to create other resellers in real time — at this time for cPanel servers only; Plesk should follow in late winter. You will even be able to create reseller accounts on more than one server; e.g., you can create reseller accounts in Europe or in the U.S., thus guaranteeing your customer the best possible network connection. All resources for the reseller account you create are taken from your own account resources — create as many sub-resellers as your space and bandwidth resources allow.
06/25/04 - We now have over 500 Website templates available. All existing hosting customers can download these for free. Please use the SUPPORT REQUEST form (linked to from our 'Contact Us' section) if interested.
06/21/04 - Our new 2.8 GHz fast Intel Pentium 4 server with cPanel interface is now live: "server-9".
06/09/04 - 3:00 AM - Apache and PHP were recompiled on all cPanel servers, replaced with newer more secure versions. PHP is now version 4.3.7. cPanel was upgraded to version 9.4.
05/25/04 - 4:40 AM - This morning server-4 had a problem with sub-domain creation and starting of 'named'. Fixed.
05/22/04 - All cPanel servers are now running Exiscan and ClamAV anti-Virus programs on a server level, a highly effective anti-Virus setup. The anti-Virus database is being auto-updated every 4 hours.
05/21/04 - We now offer free eNom domain registration accounts, a better deal than what you'd get at eNom directly (unless you are a high volume registrar).
05/15/04 - We apologize for the Apache Webserver problems on server-4 this morning. The problem was caused by an attack of virus infected messages to several accounts on the server. We have now changed server settings to better deal with this situation.
05/14/04 - All Plesk servers are now running qscanq and ClamAV anti-Virus programs on a server level. These two in combination seem to work more effective than our earlier solution. The anti-Virus database is being auto-updated every 4 hours.
05/12/04 - All cPanel servers: We did an emergency upgrade to cPanel version 9.3 because of an email security problem with 9.2. As a side effect you will now see a somewhat different graphical interface. We also installed more WHM themes to choose from ... have a look.
05/10/04 - All Plesk servers: we fixed a Plesk 7 bug (or better: limitation) that would not allow the creation of domains (and related email accounts) starting with numerals. It seems Plesk had introduced this with version 7 because such names are against RFC rules; but then, such rules are not governing. Anyway, you can now again create domains starting with numbers.
04/21/04 - All Plesk servers are now running PHP 4.3.5 or 4.3.6 (latest).
04/15/04 - Horde Webmail problem on server-7 fixed.
04/13/04 - All data from server-1 was moved to a new server because
of a serious hardware failure early this morning. The server's motherboard
died. After several tests we also found that some of the data was corrupted
(as a result of the motherboard malfunctioning). The new server is a complete
new build and we only transferred the data from the old server, not the
system install--today's data. You may experience a few more reboots tonight
as we are still reinstalling things on the new server. Please let us know
of any problems (using the REQUEST SUPPORT forms)
Server-7, after applying a Plesk patch has some problems with Horde
Webmail. A technician is working on the problem.
All cPanel servers: Zend Optimizer has been updated to version
2.5.1 -- phpbb message boards are now working correctly again.
04/10/04 - server-1 was updated to Plesk 7.
04/08/04 - Working with PerlDesk slowed down our Support too much (we only tried that for four days). We now have another system via email, almost as before. Yet, we ask you all use the "SUPPORT REQUEST" form for existing customers. Depending on the "Dept." you check it will go to the appropriate person/s. The basic acct. info from that form will help us to work on your request more efficiently. Thanks.
04/04/04 - 5:45 PM ... server-4: A buggy file, part of OpenSSL, was causing
restart problems for apache (apache is the Webserver). We recompiled and
upgraded OpenSSL, but on the way, as it was not at all clear what the
cause was at first, we also upgraded and recompiled apache itself and
PHP. PHP is now at version 4.3.5, the latest. We do not see any need do
update PHP on other servers at this time (where PHP is at 4.3.4).
03/09/04 - U.S. and Amsterdam cPanel servers: Firewall software was installed for better protection from DoS attacks and outside spammers. Please report any possible problems.
03/07/04 - All Plesk servers: new backup/restore utils for Plesk 7 were installed (so you can again use the backup function in Plesk!). Also, Plesk 7.0.1 patch was applied. This patch fixed some bugs and address security issues.
02/26/04 - We have, for the time being, disabled the trouble ticket system
within Plesk. Within a few days we will introduce another trouble ticket
system, using PerlDesk as software. We'll see if we can have the ticket
system within Plesk work with this.
02/22/04 - The server-2 software + hardware upgrade needed
to be postponed to Sunday night (today); we have been working on it.Please
note that any changes you make to your websites today will be lost, as
the backup files we use are from early Sunday morning (EST).
02/20/04 - server-4 and server-7 were upgraded to Plesk
PSA 7. What's new? SpamAssassin (can now be enabled on domain basis with
your own settings), osCommerce shopping cart, Trouble Ticketing System,
PostNuke, phpBB, phpBook, bbclone, SiteBuilder. .... Enjoy!
02/19/04 - Because of reliability problems with server-2,
which is simply getting old, we will upgrade hardware and software for
this server over the weekend, starting Friday evening. We will go with
a faster Intel Pentium 4 processor (now Intel Celeron) and the latest
Linux version.We will also upgrade to Plesk 7 at this point, which gives
you some extra tools such as SpamAssassin (to be enabled on a per account
basis) or SiteBuilder. However, the main reason for this upgrade is really
that the server has become less reliable in the past weeks, and that our
fixes do not really solve all problems. Please do expect several hours
of downtime on Saturday. The downtime for websites during upgrade will
be less obvious (shorter) then it will be for email. This is because all
sites will have been transferred to the new server when we change the
DNS settings (nothing to change on your end) -- so the downtime you will
experience will be caused by the DNS change. We do the upgrade as a transfer
because this is the savest way to ensure that all sites are set up okay
on the new server. This leaves us the option to delay the DNS update if
something should go wrong without causing more downtime.
02/06/04 - We will be ready to offer accounts on one or two Linux/cPanel
servers in EUROPE (Amsterdam) from around February 14th. Why Europe?
Network connections should be up to 40% faster for Web surfers accessing
your sites on these servers from Europe (as compared to connections from
Europe to our U.S. servers). If your cliental is mostly in Europe, then
you might want to consider this offer. Also, we would not do any maintenance
work during the (European) business day, as has been the case until now
as most of our customers are located in North America, and because of
the time difference (8 to 12 hours) this has been a minor problem.Support
will be provided from both our Netherlands and U.S. offices.
02/05/04 - UPGRADES: Plesk servers #1, # 4, and #7 are now running
SpamAssassin and ClamAV, a new anti-virus program (in addition to BitDefender).
ClamAV is also running on server-2 (but not SpamAssassin). Servers #1
and #4, the two RedHat 9 boxes, also have Squirrelmail installed, in addition
to Horde Webmail.
SpamAssassin
is the most efficient anti-Spam tool available. On our cPanel servers
each user can run it with his/her own settings -- but Plesk doesn't yet
allow this option. We installed it and set the Spam score to 8.0. A score
of 5.0 would label 99% of all incoming Spam messages as such, but it would
also label some non-Spam messages as Spam; "8.0" is a less radical
setting, but it may still happen now that no-Spam messages are labeled
as Spam if they contain certain terminology, all-CAPS, etc. SpamAssassin
will NOT delete any message, it will only mark messages that it detects
as Spam with "[Spam]" in the message's subject line.You can
decide what to do with them ... e.g. to have Eudora or Outlook filter
them out, or to simply ignore them.
Squirrelmail
is another Webmail program; many people like this better than Horde Webmail.On
servers #1 and #4 you can access it at: http://webmail.[your-domain.com]/sq/
01/09/04 - "Fantastico" script installer now available for all cPanel plans. Fantastico allows you to install over 30 Open Source scripts with a click of the mouse, from within cPanel (please choose the "x" skin [theme] and look for the Fantastico icon).
01/08/04 - cPanel server's kernel upgraded to latest secure version.
12/28/03 - We forgot to mention earlier that the absolute path to your
web files and cgi-bin folder has changed on server-4. Before it
was
/usr/local/psa/home/vhosts/YourDomain.com/ ...
...and now it is:
/home/httpd/vhosts/YourDomain.com/ ...
Some cgi scripts might use the absolute path -- so please open your scripts
in case they don't function anymore.
cgi and perl are working fine in general ... see the test files here:
http://server-4.com/cgi-bin/hello.cgi
and http://server-4.com/hello.cgi
A general tip: If you can't get a cgi script to work, try adding the option
-w to the first line in the script:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
12/26/03 - Because of security concerns we are upgrading Apache on server-4.
Websites might be up and down, but email will work without interruption.
Please be patient -- hackers have become the main problem to the hosting
industry. In the last couple of months we have seen very "violent"
attacks.We begun this Apache update last night but do have some problems.
Because of the situation with the old server-4, we could not get all this
done before this replacement server was online.
You will also noticed that we jacked up security for passwords for both
domain accouts and emails. Please make sure to select GOOD passwords that
none of the hacker dictionary programs can crack (combine letters + numbers,
e.g. Gr2Z9&qs). The system will not anymore allow you to use dictionary
passwords.
12/23/03 - Spammer attack on server-4: Server has been replaced with
new server and OS. The new server is a 2 GHz fast Intel Pentium server
with 1 Gig of RAM, 2 hard drives.
Main IPs -- depending on your account type, either 66.98.228.63 or 66.98.228.132.
Namenerservers as before, but new IPs (There is no need to change these
with your registrar!!! Just note these for newly created domains):
ns1.server-4.com (66.98.228.134)
ns2.server-4.com (66.98.228.135)
12/19/03 - server-2: Email problem ... passwords stopped working, and with some accounts emails would bounce. It took a while to find the problem (Plesk bug!) and a solution. We apolgize. The problem seems to happen a lot (see here and here, if interested) -- it really is a Plesk bug. We finally solved this by deleting and recreating all 'mailnames' for all e-mail accounts on the server -- a solution that Plesk (SWSoft) was not aware of, which is why it took us a while, trial-and-error fixing, in this case.
11/12/03 - server-7 had a problem with a bad partition table (hard drive), causing data to be written onto the HDD with errors, which again caused server overloads and crashes. This had caused the server to be unstable. The problem was taken care of this morning.
10/30/03 - new Plesk production server brought online: server-1 (2.4 GHz fast)
10/22/03 - 2:45 to 4:45 AM (EST): All Plesk servers are being patched to version 6.0.2.
10/13/03 - Apache on server-2 was down 3 times for several minutes during the night and morning. It turned out that the old drive that had been replaced 10 days ago (but is still in the server) had been mounted - by mistake - and couldn't be accessed correctly. We've taken care that this won't happen again.
10/05/03 - new backup system implemented on all Plesk servers; domains can now easily be backed up and restored to/from domain owner's or reseller's PC hard drive; new security patches applied to all servers
10/05/03 - server-2 upgraded to Plesk PSA 6.0.1; please consult the PSA
6 online GUIDE if you have any questions as regards to the functionality
(linked to on our support page). For a listing of new features scroll
down this page to the 07/11/03 entry.
NOTE that your client (reseller) LOGO should now have the size 558 x 50
pixels ... so you should change this and re-upload your logo
10/03/03 - server-2 and server-4 restored from backup; hard drives exchanged; server-2 upgraded to RedHat 7.3; PHP upgraded on both servers to version 4.3.3
09/24/03 - California's new anti-SPAM law: From January 1, 2004,
if you send SPAM to OR from California the penalty is "$1,000 per
e-mail and $1 million per incident." Note that this also applies
to owners of SPAM advertised sites -- that is, if you hire a third party
to SPAM-advertise your site. More
here.
08/18/03 - cPanel/WHM upgraded to version 7.4.x on server-3
08/04/03 - server-4 : PHP upgraded to version 4.3.1. All services up.
08/03/03: server-4 successfully upgraded to Plesk PSA 6.
07/22/03 - apache was recompiled on cPanel/WHM server-3 because of a security breach
07/17/03 - RAM memory for server-7 upgraded to 1 Gig ... server was down for about 8 minutes.
07/14/03 - cPanel/WHM upgrade:
cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) have been upgraded from version 6.x to
version 7.2. Server was down 5 minutes. NOTE that we also had to migrate
you over to the new X-skins in order to allow you to access the full functionality
of version 7.2.
07/12/03 - PSA 6 was successfully installed on server-7 (only). Server
was down for about 1 1/2 hours.
We have postponed the install on server-4 for another 7 to 10 days because
of some unexpected problems during the attempted install. .... Note that
you will have to create a new LOGO (if you use your own logo) for the
reseller account, as Plesk has changed the size to now: 558 x 50 pixels....
Further related issues will be posted here.
07/11/03 (updated) .... - RE: Plesk servers, PSA 6 upgrade:
A few days ago Plesk, now SWsoft, released a major new upgrade of its
control panel software -- PSA 6. We will be upgrading all servers but
server-2 to PSA 6 this weekend, the night from Friday to Saturday (July
11/12 -- more exactly: July 12, from 2 AM, EST. This is a major
upgrade that requires the servers to be down about one to two hours.
As for server-2, which runs RedHat Linux 7.1, we will try to upgrade at
a later point, as this upgrade would require to upgrade Linux as well,
which is a more complicated affair.
Note that new PSA 6 user guides for resellers
and single domain owners will be available right after the upgrade is
complete from the our SUPPORT page.
What's new in Plesk PSA 6.0
=========================================
[+] Ability to restrict access to Plesk control panel by IP added.
[+] Enhanced traffic accounting by services added.
[+] New OS versions are supported (RedHat Linux 9 and FreeBSD 4.7)
[-] Older OS versions are no longer supported (RedHat Linux 7.1 and FreeBSD
4.4).
[+] Plesk interface is textual from now on.
[+] Ability to define a shell executable string for some Plesk events
added.
[+] Ability to apply changes to several clients/domains at once added.
[+] Plesk comes bundled with six default skins.
[+] Support for hard disk quotas on ext2, ext3 and XFS file systems added.
[+] Ability to manipulate domain skeletons via Plesk interface added.
[+] Ability for mail users to login into Plesk control panel and change
mail options added.
[+] Ability to safeguard domain information by creating and restoring
backup files via Plesk interface added. (Requires backup utilities to
be installed.)
[+] More than one IP for Name Based Domains supported.
[+] Ability to use external mail server for domain added.
[+] SSL Certificates management is now centralized.
[+] Ability to send notifications to any e-mail address added.
[*] Security for directory permissions improved.
[+] MAPS feature updated to allow for multiple MAPS servers.
[+] Ability to restore default DNS zone and DNS template added.
[+] Ability to rename domains added.
[+] Admin Apache server log rotation added.
[+] Logrotation settings added to the domain templates.
[+] Plesk CP password reminder added.
[+] Advanced sender/recipient identification in Plesk notifications added.
[+] Admin password change is forced now upon first login.
[+] Admin's ability to define a list of Plesk events which should be logged
and log viewing capability added.
[+] Ability to set expiration date for client account/domain added.
[+] Mailing lists support through mailman added.
[+] PostgreSQL and phpPgAdmin support added.
[+] Python CGIs & mod_python support added.
[+] Domain user has a possibility to select the localization from now
on.
[+] System V IPC semaphores are no longer used.
[+] Both "user@domain" and "user" mail login formats
now supported.
[+] Ability to manage cron functionality through Plesk interface added.
[+] Ability to have more than one "admin" logged into the interface
at once added.
[+] Clients templates added.
[+] Mail aliases are now displayed (optionally) in the mail names list
for domain.
[+] Any person who can login to Plesk CP can now select a skin from the
set of skins installed by the Plesk administrator.
[+] Admin can now control clients permissions to manage Anonymous FTP
and shell access.
[+] The domain summary report is now provided with the resources usage
information.
[+] Information about psa.key can now be viewed in the Plesk interface.
[+] WAP hosting support added.
[*] SMTP starttls extension and SMTPS is now supported through Qmail patch.
[+] Plesk autoinstaller added.
[+] Independent SSL/non-SSL protected directories are supported.
[+] Centralized IP management interface added.
[+] Ability to manage minimal Apache server restart interval added.
[*] Separate configuration file for webalizer included into Plesk.
[*] Plesk now creates self-signed SSL certificates with unique serial
numbers.
[*] Admin's Apache now uses mod_ssl instead of Ben-SSL.
[*] A great number of components upgraded.
07/09/03 - Reseller Resources Upgrade
Resources (disk space + bandwidth) for all existing reseller accounts
have been upgraded. You now have more resources for the same flat monthly
fee you paid before. See our website for details. NOTE that we weren't
unable to apply those resource upgrades to a couple of reseller accounts
where owners had set disk space or bandwidth to "unlimited"
(which, in theory, should not be possible anyway -); .... those concerned,
please contact us to get this straightened out.
06/21/03 - RE: server-2
server-2 hardware upgrade: server-2 has now been upgraded to a 1.7 GHz
processor ... actually, it is an entirely new server -- Intel Celeron,
that carries the harddrive of the old server-2. Server was down for 15
minutes.