eApps Blog

Updated version of PostgreSQL 8.4.4 and Tomcat 5.5.30 are available!

bcoleman — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:19:53 +0000

Updated versions of the following applications are now available, all for CentOS 5 plans:

PostgreSQL 8.4.4 – https://support.eapps.com/release/postgresql
Tomcat 5.5.30 – https://support.eapps.com/release/tomcat557

See the links for the release notes. For customers that are not on the CentOS 5 operating system plans, contact sales@eapps.com for information on how to take advantage of the latest supported versions.

***** FOLLOW US ON TWITTER *****

http://twitter.com/eapps

Updated versions of Joomla 1.5.18, Drupal 6.17 & Tomcat 6.0.29 now available!

bcoleman — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:20:02 +0000

Updated versions of the following applications are now available, all for CentOS 5 plans:

Joomla 1.5.18 – htps://support.eapps.com/release/joomls
Drupal 6.17 – https:/support.eapps.com/release/drupal6
Tomcat 6.0.29 – https://support.eapps.com/release/tomcat6

***** FOLLOW US ON TWITTER *****

http://twitter.com/eapps

IP Addresses, are we really running out?

eApps Staff — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:00:33 +0000

You may have heard that we are running out of IP addresses. Well, it really is true. But there is a solution. Here is what it is all about.

Each device that is connected to the Internet must be assigned a unique number. This is analogous to a phone number, it identifies that specific device. The problem is that we are hitting the limit of the numbering scheme in use today. These numbers, called IPv4 IP addresses, are comprised of four “octets” which when combined yield a possible 4,294,967,296 unique values (almost 4.3 billion). With the increasing adoption of the Internet, and the explosion of mobile devices connected to the Internet this address space is very nearly exhausted. Over 90% of the available addresses have already been issued. In fact, it is predicted that the administrative organizations that issue IP address will run out before the end of 2011. Ruh roh. What happens next?

Fortunately there is a solution. A new numbering scheme was devised in 1998, called IPv6. This scheme has a huge address space, with a 128-bit address for a theoretical capacity of 3.4×1038 addresses compared to 4.3×109 or 4.3 billion possible addresses under the 32-bit IPv4 scheme. Let’s take a look at a sample IPv6 number.

For comparison purposes, here is an IPv4 IP address, consisting of 4 decimal numbers between 0 and 255 separated by decimal points:

64.213.43.198

The IPv6 address are longer and are written in hexadecimal and separated by colons (leading zeros can be omitted):

3ffe:1900:4545:3:200:f8ff:fe21:67cf

In addition to having a huge and perhaps inexhaustible address space, IPv6 addresses are more secure. The primary reason is that the huge, sparsely populated address spaces renders it highly resistant to malicious scans and makes it inhospitable to automated, scanning and self-propagating worms and hybrid threats.

So why are we waiting until the last minute? Well, creating a numbering scheme is the easy part. Actually implementing it is the challenge. The new scheme must be supported by every network device (switches, routers, etc) and every device that connects to the Internet. This is a huge change.

There are two parts to making IPv6 happen. First, the equipment must support the new scheme. Fortunately, the vendors of these devices and equipment have seen this coming for a long time and just about anything bought recently will support IPv6. Second, the network devices themselves must be configured to use the scheme. Most reliable hosting companies will transition to IPv6 smoothly. You can count on eApps Hosting to do so. Not every host will have it so easy however. Hosting companies that are relying on old equipment, or that have not invested the time and effort to properly configure their networks may be unable to support IPv6 and can find themselves unable to serve their customers.

At the present time we have an ample supply of IPv4 addresses for our customers. We will of course ensure that we are ready and able to continue to serve you once the transition to IPv6 is necessary.

eApps drops prices on SSL certificates

eApps Staff — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:52:44 +0000

Due to volume pricing we are pleased to drop the price of all SSL Alpha and GlobalSign certificates. The new prices are up to 33% lower than before! All certificate purchases include installation with 2048 bit RSA key support.

Please visit our store to see the new prices.

eApps Hosting

eApps Support Team is Unmatched

eApps Staff — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:18:11 +0000

Dear eApps Support,

Thanks a lot for the perfect solution and suggestion and the fast turnaround time. I must say that eApps Customer Support is the best in the industry, be it technical, be it billing or sales, you guys are awesome.

I have got several wonderful offers from other hosting service providers, I tried them, but believe me, the technical team of their’s cannot match yours. You guys are the best.

Keep up the great work and support. So very much thankful to you for all help and great solutions to our tickets.

Regards,

Nitin Srivastava
Velocity Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

eAPPS upDATE July 2010 Newsletter

eApps Staff — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 18:01:29 +0000

eAPPS upDATE Newsletter

July 2010

from eApps Hosting

IN THIS ISSUE:

News: eApps Cloud service! Beta program users wanted!

More News: dotDefender protection now available!

Even More News: Plesk 9.5 now available!

Promotion : FREE dotDefender service!

Meet eApps: Blake, Customer Service Representative and Marketing Specialist

Updated/New Applications: Updates: Drupal 5 and 6, SquirrelMail, Ant, PHP, OpenVPN, Tomcat 5, Java 6, Mod_jk, ClamAV

Article: Cloud Computing – A Primer

Tech Tip: Using dig command to check your DNS

News: eApps Cloud Service! Beta program users wanted!

We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of our state of the art Cloud hosting service, featuring superior technology provided by cloud.com. Cloud hosting is a new computing paradigm, offering customers significant control of their computing resources in a state of the art environment designed for extremely high performance and reliability. For more information on Cloud computing, please read the featured article, Cloud Computing – A Primer, below.

We are inviting eApps Hosting customers to try out the upcoming service at no charge during the Beta testing period. The requirements for participation in the Beta program are as follows:

be a current customer in good standing
be willing to provide timely feedback on your use of the cloud environment

To apply for the program, please send an email to sales@eapps.com with the subject “eApps Cloud Beta.” We expect to launch the program within the next few weeks. PLEASE NOTE that there are a limited number of applicants being accepted into the Beta program. We will do our best to accommodate all applicants but are limited by the capacity of the environment being configured for the Beta program.

More News: dotDefender protection service now available!

dotDefender, from Applicure Technologies, is a web security monitoring and firewall solution that helps detect and prevent hacking attempts through the use of Session Protection, Pattern Recognition, a Signature Knowledgebase, Data Leakage Protection (DLP), and Upload Inspection. eApps has chosen to offer dotDefender due to its ease of use, effectiveness and high industry adoption rate.

dotDefender runs in two modes, Monitor and Active Protection. Monitor mode will alert you whenever hack attempts are made against your VPS. There is NO MONTHLY FEE to run dotDefender in Monitor Mode. If you prefer to further protect your web resources, you can upgrade from the free dotDefender Monitor mode and request that dotDefender be enabled as a Web Application Firewall (WAF) in Active Protection mode. This powerful active protection can be deployed at a low cost, starting at $21 a month for VPS subscriptions. For more information contact sales@eapps.com.

Even More News: Plesk 9.5 now available!

Plesk 9.5 is the latest version Control Panel for Resellers from Parallels. This version has many exciting new features, including the following:

Billing Module – full featured module for billing and payment processing
Website Builder module – your customers can quickly create a web presence
Improved interface – faster and more intuitive navigation
User management – significant improvements for user access control
Resource Management – better control of resources for users
Postfix mail server – replaced Qmail server

Please read our News release for more information.

Promotion: FREE dotDefender service!

The eApps dotDefender service runs in two modes, Monitor and Active Protection. There is no monthly fee for Monitor mode and a low monthly fee of $21 for Active Protection mode. For both modes there is a one time setup fee of $20. You can upgrade from Monitor mode to Active Protection mode at any time without incurring an additional setup fee.

Through August 31, 2010, we are offering two promotions as follows:

1) Monitor mode promotion – Waiver of setup fee for Monitor mode

2) Active Protection mode promotion – One month free for Active Protection mode (includes waiver of setup fee also)

To take advantage of these outstanding promotions, please send an eMail to sales@eapps.com and specify which promotion you would like to choose. Note: If you start with the Monitor mode promotion, you can also take advantage of the Active Protection mode promotion through August 31, 2010.

Meet eApps: Blake, Customer Service Representative and Marketing Specialist

Blake was born in Montgomery, the capitol of Alabama and home to many Civil Rights leaders including Rosa Parks. After graduating high school, Blake moved to the middle of America to attend the University of Kansas. In addition to being the home of the state’s flagship university, Lawrence, Kansas is also a town with a rich history including Bleeding Kansas and college basketball.

Blake brings a fresh perspective to a technically heavy industry with experience in customer service and data research and analysis. Blake enjoys wearing multiple hats working as a Marketing Specialist and a member of the Customer Service/Billing team. She likes coming to work each day knowing there will be customers she can help and problems she can help resolve. eApps is a great place to work because the employees are all so unique and each brings something valuable to our company.

When Blake isn’t working, she enjoys cooking, live music, anything outdoors and playing with her puppy, Godzilla. Also, as an avid fan of the Kansas Jayhawks, she enjoys following sports, especially college basketball.

Updated/New Applications:

Updated versions of the following applications are now available, all for
CentOS 5 plans:

Drupal 5.22
Drupal 6.16
SquirrelMail 1.4.20
Ant 1.8.0
PHP 5.2.13
OpenVPN 2.1.1
ClamAV 0.96
Tomcat 5.5.29
Dkim 2.8.3
Java 1.6
Mod_jk 1.2.30

If you are interested in moving to the new CentOS 5 environment, please contact billing@eapps.com.

Article: Cloud Computing – A Primer

By now, nearly everyone has heard of the term Cloud Computing. In fact there is such a buzz about it, that many hosting companies are claiming that they offer Cloud hosting, even when nothing has changed in their offering. This article is a short primer on Cloud Computing to help you cut through the clutter.

What is true Cloud Computing? – It is generally agreed that Cloud Computing must have the following characteristics:

On demand, self service – users must be able to quickly and automatically create and deploy computing resources without waiting for approvals, order processing, or manual provisioning
Broad network access – the cloud computing resources must be fully enabled to interact with the Internet and private networks
Resource pooling – the environment must support the sharing and pooling of resources to allow for optimal usage
Rapid elasticity – the environment must allow for increasing and reducing the capacity of computing resources quickly to handle changes in demand
Measured service – computing resources are billed based on usage (utility billing), allowing for optimal matching of computing power to demand

Why should you care? – A true Cloud Computing environment puts the power where it belongs, with you. Users have the freedom and control to construct the optimal set of computing resources to meet their unique needs. These resources can be scaled vertically or horizontally (load balancing). Also, a true cloud computing environment employs advanced technologies for shared data storage and server management as a pool of computing power, allowing for a much higher degree of up-time, performance and reliability than the conventional single server computing paradigm. An API is also available which provides an automated means for customers to manage and control their cloud.

What does it cost? – Cloud computing requires the latest, greatest mass storage systems for data, high capacity network devices and servers, advanced software tools, and highly trained technicians. For this reason, the underlying cost structure is higher than prior approaches. However, a large portion of these higher infrastructure costs are offset by the fact that the cloud environment requires less technical and administrative labor to operate. In addition, customers can increase or decrease capacity as needed, so are less likely to have to pay for excess idle capacity. Cloud Computing offers significant efficiencies and benefits to the hosting provider and the customer. The bottom line is that Cloud hosting can be offered at little or no price premium, depending on the usage profile of the customer.

Tech Tip: Using dig command to check your DNS

In our previous newsletter we offered a tip on Using Apache mod_status – real time detailed access and resource stats for your web server. This month we offer the following tip:

Using dig command to check your DNS and reverse DNS

dig is a command line tool for querying DNS servers for information about a domain. This tech tip shows how to check the DNS settings and reverse DNS for your domain from the command line of your VPS. Understanding how to check your DNS settings can be useful in troubleshooting connection problems to your VPS or sites.

First, connect to your VPS using SSH. See the SSH User Guide (http://support.eapps.com/hsp/ssh) for more information if needed. Once connected, run the following command to see the existing DNS settings for your domain or domains (this example uses the site of eapps-example.com, please substitute as required).

dig domain.com

This command shows the following result. The important sections are the QUESTION SECTION, ANSWER SECTION and AUTHORITY SECTION.

QUESTION SECTION – shows the domain that was queried

ANSWER SECTION – shows the DNS A record for this domain, which is the IP address of the domain. If nothing is reported for the A record, then DNS does not find a valid IP address for your domain.

AUTHORITY SECTION – these are the name servers that were queried to provide this result. If you are using eApps DNS, these should be the eApps name servers, as listed below. If you are not using eApps DNS, these will be your custom name servers. If you are expecting to see the eApps name servers, but see other name servers instead, then this could be a problem with your DNS or domain registration.

[root@eapps-example ~]# dig eapps-example.com

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4-P1 <<>> eapps-example.com

;; global options: printcmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 63410

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;eapps-example.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:

eapps-example.com. 350 IN A 69.89.6.54

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:

eapps-example.com. 350 IN NS ns6.eapps.com.

eapps-example.com. 350 IN NS ns1.eapps.com.

eapps-example.com. 350 IN NS ns2.eapps.com.

eapps-example.com. 350 IN NS ns5.eapps.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:

ns1.eapps.com. 497 IN A 216.154.208.2

ns2.eapps.com. 258 IN A 64.57.252.2

ns5.eapps.com. 377 IN A 67.23.10.164

ns6.eapps.com. 317 IN A 67.23.5.74

;; Query time: 0 msec

;; SERVER: 216.154.208.4#53(216.154.208.4)

;; WHEN: Wed Jun 16 09:55:45 2010

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 193

To check the Reverse DNS, use the following command:

dig -x IP_ADDRESS

To find the IP address of your VPS, log in to the Control Panel, System tab, Server Info – the IP address is listed there. You can also ping the domain name to find the IP address.

[root@eapps-example ~]# dig -x 69.89.6.54

; <<>> DiG 9.3.4-P1 <<>> -x 69.89.6.54

;; global options: printcmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 33049

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 10, AUTHORITY: 2, ADDITIONAL: 2

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;54.6.89.69.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR

;; ANSWER SECTION:

54.6.89.69.in-addr.arpa. 600 IN PTR eapps-example.com.

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:

6.89.69.in-addr.arpa. 1037 IN NS ns2.eapps.com.

6.89.69.in-addr.arpa. 1037 IN NS ns1.eapps.com.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:

ns1.eapps.com. 473 IN A 216.154.208.2

ns2.eapps.com. 237 IN A 64.57.252.2

;; Query time: 679 msec

;; SERVER: 216.154.208.4#53(216.154.208.4)

;; WHEN: Wed Jun 16 10:06:10 2010

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 372

Again, the important sections are QUESTION, ANSWER and AUTHORITY. In this case, the ANSWER SECTION shows that the IP address of 69.89.6.54 maps back to the domain name of eapps-example.com.

Many other service providers, such as AOL and Yahoo! use the reverse DNS to verify that a domain is legitimate. Domains without a reverse DNS can find that their e-mails sent to organizations like AOL and Yahoo! will be rejected.

If you do not have a correct reverse DNS entry, please contact eApps Support (support@eapps.com), and we will create a reverse DNS for you. If you do not use eApps DNS, you will need to contact your DNS provider to set the reverse DNS for you.

Follow us on Twitter!

@eapps for news, updates, and exclusive offers

@eapps_status for eapps network status

Click Here for info about Free Trial of iContact, used to generate this Newsletter!

Updated versions of Sendmail 8.14.4, Apache Web Server 2.2.15, Apache Ant 1.8.1, Apache Derby 1.6.1.0, eAccelerator 0.9.6.1 available now!

bcoleman — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:14:05 +0000

Updated versions of the following applications are now available, all for CentOS 5 plans:

Sendmail 8.14.4 – https://support.eapps.com/release/sendmail
Apache Web Server 2.2.15 – https://support.eapps.com/release/apacheweb
Apache Ant 1.8.1 – https://support.eapps.com/release/ant
Apache Derby 1.6.1.0 – https://support.eapps.com/release/derby
eAccelerator 0.9.6.1 – https://support.eapps.com/release/eaccelerator

***** FOLLOW US ON TWITTER *****

http://twitter.com/eapps

Plesk 9.5 is now available

bcoleman — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:59:28 +0000

eApps Hosting is pleased to announce that we now offer the Plesk 9.5 control panel in our Reseller plans. Version 9.5 has many new features designed to provide hosting resellers the ultimate power, security and flexibility needed to deliver world class hosting services.

We at eApps are committed to helping our Resellers achieve their goals by offering excellent 24/7 support and the best technologies, including the new Plesk 9.5 control panel. Some of the key new features that are now available in Version 9.5 are as follows:

Billing module – the low cost “unlimited domains” add-on includes a complete billing solution for resellers
Website Builder module – the low cost “unlimited domains” add-on also includes this tool for reseller’s customers
PCI Compliance tool – this utility helps Resellers attain PCI compliance
Migration utilities – improved support for Plesk version upgrades and migrating from cPanel
Improved interface – navigation is now easier and faster
More control – Resellers have more control over the user hierarchy and access rights
Resource management – better control and administration of resource allocations
Postfix mail server – now supports this powerful and preferred mail server

A full list of new features can be found at http://www.parallels.com/products/plesk/new/.

Plesk 9.5 is available now in the eApps Store. Existing customers that want to upgrade to Plesk 9.5 should contact support@eapps.com for instructions.

Updated Version for MySQL 5.1.57 now available

iisac — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:16:25 +0000

Updated versions of the following applications are now available, all for CentOS 5 plans:

MySQL 5.1.57 – https://support.eapps.com/release/mysql

For customers that are not on the CentOS 5 operating system plans, contact sales@eapps.com for information on how to take advantage of the latest supported versions.

***** FOLLOW US ON TWITTER *****

http://twitter.com/eapps

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 10:07 AM and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Your Support Staff Is Incredible

eApps Staff — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:42:37 +0000

I don’t hand out compliments often. Your Support Staff Is Incredible.
Your company has my full endorsement and business going forward.
Thank you

Erik Minor
StoneCastle Partners, LLC