Just go to http://buzz.google.com  then click the “Try Buzz in Gmail” button. Poof, instantly pushed it to my gmail account right then and there. After that it was available in my gmail account. Let me know if it works for you or not too…

Reseller hosting is a shared server setup, meaning your accounts will be placed on the same server as others from other customers. This is probably the number one thing to watch out for with reseller hosting. Since you have no control over the other customers, or their customers, you have to be able to trust that the provider is setting things up properly, securely and and monitoring/maintaining the server and network properly.  Things could go wrong if not done properly… insecure setups can lead to others getting to your data, a spammer could get onto the server leading to blacklisting, or an account could suck up all the bandwidth or cpu resources. These are just a couple examples of what could go wrong. Since you’re not in control of the server, you need to be able to rely on the provider to watch for it and fix it quickly should it happen.

Leaving the server administration is also one of the biggest advantages as well. This is especially true for new hosts who probably don’t have the experience or manpower to administer servers on their own. It is also considerably cheaper to go the reseller route. A decent reseller account can be had complete with control panel, possibly some billing software to handle collections from your customers, installation script, etc. for $10 to $15 per month.

When looking for a reseller account, be aware of the disk space and traffic (often incorrectly call bandwidth) that are included. Some reseller accounts can get so large in these stats that they rival small VPS accounts. When choosing you want to selection on that meets your needs and provides some growth room. You also want to make sure that the provider will upgrade the account without having to migrate and without penalty.

A nice feature, if you can get it, is a dedicated ip address or two for your accounts. This does a couple things for you. One it limits the impact if a spammer gets onto the server. Blacklists usually are at the single ip level unless it’s so rampant on a network that they block the whole network. It also does something else… The larger hosts probably have multiple physical servers.  By having your accounts to a single ip address, migrating the account, say for load balancing the servers, becomes significantly easier WITHOUT changing ip address. If your account shares ips with other accounts, that option is out the window…

If you’re serious about growing your business, a reseller account is a good way to get started with minimal cost.  But be sure to check with the company that they will support you should you need to move up to a vps or dedicated servers. That dedicated ip address can help there too. Once the vps is up and running they can copy the data over and move the ip to the new server. We’re talking minutes of downtime… a lot easier than if you had to backup the accounts, download the backup, upload to the new server and then change dns, and potentially wait hours for dns cache to die.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment here to ask or email me at rob -at- lagniappeinternet.com

So I was wondering what would some of the readers here want to read about?  What topics interest you?  My experience ranges from programming to building server class systems, from DOS (yeah real DOS I’m that old) to HP-UX, from MySQL & Microsoft SQL to Rocket’s (formerly IBM’s) UniVerse database system.  And I don’t know something about it, all the better… I do love learning and can usually relate 25 years of IT experience to the new information.

To understand the concept of Linux reseller hosting, it is very important to know about reseller hosting. The reseller is the one, who buys huge chunks of web hosting space for a parent web hosting company and then sell its to third parties. So if you are looking for small amount of web space to start your own web designing company then Linux hosting is the ideal plan for you. The best thing about Linux hosting is that it is cheap and easily available. For a host of reasons, Linux reseller web space has become a very popular solution for web hosting.

The main reason why Linux reseller has become the most preferred choice is because Linux operating system is considered to be very robust and stable and it also supports many open source application for the web. Generally websites run on Linux reseller platform have an extremely high uptime and the control panel, which h is basically, cPanel/WHM, is also known to be one of the best available in the market. You can get over 52 scripts and all can be easily installed with a click of a mouse.

Working with Linux has become extremely fast if your web hosting provide is having linux server setup on good configuration hardware. The Linux has become one of the preferred choices of hosting plan for users because it is comparatively cheaper than windows hosting plans and it is also convenient for both users and resellers.

Resellers selling Linux reseller plans don’t have to create multiple accounts that will help them to keep a track of their different clients. Since there are different user panels in Linux hosting at times it may seem that is very important to create multiple accounts but in reality it is not the case. In Linux hosting it is very easy to keep a track of the clients and it also helps you to save a lot of time.

Another important feature of Linux web space plan is that we can run any application, irrespective of the language, on it. This gives you an extra edge to run PHP or MySQL based websites as well as to run html, jsp, perl or cgi-bin applications. All these are found on the same server and are also operated with the same control panel. So what are you waiting for switch to Linux hosting plans and kick-start your web designing plans.

eBay is a great source for most anything… especially for computer releated items. For example, we’re often looking for a particular RAID controller, type of ECC memory, or other part that you won’t find down at your local computer shop. BUT eBay’s search function leaves something to be desired, at least until you start learning some of the nuances.

For example, we’re always on the lookout for deals for certain series of Xeon processors we use. For example one of the servers will use several of the X3000 series quad cores. eBay has a nice feature that you can save searches and it will email you the results daily. But the search itself takes some practice. In  our example we’re looking for a Xeon X3210, 3320, 3350 or 3360 processor. But if you type “xeon x3210 x3320 x3350 x3360″ into the search box, ebay will politely tell you “Your search returned 0 items.”  But we know ebay has some of these on there, so how can that be. It’s the Boolean logic that eBay uses. It is searching for an item that has ALL of those terms in it, and there aren’t any.  What we really want is “xeon” AND ( “X3210″ OR “X3320″ OR “X3350″ OR “X3360″) and may want to narrow down which categories we search under, but we’d be pretty close to right on with just that alone. So how do we tell ebay to use “or” logic?   We put a “,” between them, but we also need to separate them out from the term “xeon” we do that with parentheses.  The resulting search string becomes “xeon (x3210, x3320, x3350, x3360)”  which as I write this results in 15 auction and 37 store items, of which all but a dozen of which are what we’re looking for. The others happen to be IBM X3350 servers which use xeon processors (but not the xeons we are looking for).

To get eBay to email you, use the “save this search” feature near the top. Sign in if needed, and tell it how often and logn to email you.

Failover process is the process in which the Master server is replaced by the Slave server in case the Master server faces downtime i.e. fails due to some problems. The user and the applications which are requested to the master server are automatically directed to slave server. One more process is involved which is known as the Restroration process.

If the master server fails and the slave server is replaced instead of it, then the slave server will have the data modified after the master server has failed. Restroration process is the process in which the data which has been modified is sent back to the master server which is said to be its original place. Since the data on the master server is already maintained in the slave server the data does not require each and every file to be selected and transferred.

The data on the slave server will be of great benefit if the master server has crashed due to a disk crash which results in the complete data loss on the master server. But as the data is present on the Slave server, it is very easy to get the data back to the master server. The slave server is always up to date due to the RSYNC software and when the master server is ready and can be relied upon, the two server will not have the same information as the slave server has the updated data right from the time master server was failed due to some reason. Restroration is the process of copying the updated data to the master server once the master server is set to come online.

This kind of adjustment is very beneficial for you and it has a lot of advantages. But as there are advantages involved, there are disadvantages involved also. Actually this cannot be called as the disadvantage as the only thing is the cost which is invoved in this process i.e. the mirroring of the servers. As mirroring requires two dedicated servers of the same configuration, you will have to spend double the cost of the dedicated server you select for your websites. If you can afford this cost of having two dedicated servers of the same configuration then you should go for Mirrored servers as they will always help you to keep your websites online. Some of the web hosting providers do not charge for this kind of service apart from the server charges, so you should look for these web hosting providers.

failover dedicated servers, mirroring solutions, what are mirrored servers, working of mirrored servers

In this article I will provide you my /etc/antivirus.exim config file which will help you to protect your servers from spammers. First off the default /etc/antivirus.exim has a couple different rule sets in it. The main ones are attachment filters to help stop email viruses from your users. They stop things like .src and .com and .exe attachments.This shows you some custom rules to stop spammers from sending out of your server, you can also use it to stop spam from coming in. I don’t really go into a lot of detail for filtering incoming mail since other applications like Spam Assassin handle that better IMO.

You will need root access to your cPanel server.

First off we need to create a special log file for these filters do this:

touch /var/log/filter.log chmod 0644 /var/log/filter.log

Now open up the configuration file vi /etc/antivirus.exim

Simply add this to your existing file, and save the changes and they take effect instantly.

# START # Filters all incoming an outgoing mail

logfile /var/log/filter.log 0644 ## Common Spam if

# Header Spam $header_subject: contains “Pharmaceutical” or $header_subject: contains “Viagra” or $header_subject: contains “Cialis” or $header_subject: is “The Ultimate Online Pharmaceutical” or $header_subject: contains “***SPAM***” or $header_subject: contains “[SPAM]”

# Body Spam or $message_body: contains “Cialis” or $message_body: contains “Viagra” or $message_body: contains “Leavitra” or $message_body: contains “St0ck” or $message_body: contains “Viaagrra” or $message_body: contains “Cia1iis” or $message_body: contains “URGENT BUSINESS PROPOSAL” or $message_body matches “angka[^s]+[net|com|org|biz|info|us|name]+?” or $message_body matches “v(i|1)agra|vag(i|1)n(a|4)|pen( i|1)s|asu|seks|l(o|0)l(i|1)ta|dewacolok”

then # Log Message – SENDS RESPONSE BACK TO SENDER # SUGGESTED TO LEAVE OFF to prevent fail loops # and more work for the mail system #fail text “Message has been rejected because it hasn # triggered our central filter.” logwrite “$tod_log $message_id from $sender_address contained spam keywords”

seen finish endif

# END # Filters all incoming an outgoing mail

# START # All outgoing mail on the server only – what is sent out

#Check forwarders so it doesn’t get blocked #Forwarders still work =)

## FINANCIAL FAKE SENDERS ## Log all outgoing mail from server that matches rules logfile /var/log/filter.log 0644 if ( $received_protocol is “local” or $received_protocol is “esmtpa” ) and ( $header_from contains “@citibank.com” or $header_from contains “@bankofamerica.com” or $header_from contains “@wamu.com” or $header_from contains “@ebay.com” or $header_from contains “@chase.com” or $header_from contains “@paypal.com” or $header_from contains “@wellsfargo.com” or $header_from contains “@bankunited.com” or $header_from contains “@bankerstrust.com” or $header_from contains “@bankfirst.com” or $header_from contains “@capitalone.com” or $header_from contains “@citizensbank.com” or $header_from contains “@jpmorgan.com” or $header_from contains “@wachovia.com” or $header_from contains “@bankone.com” or $header_from contains “@suntrust.com” or $header_from contains “@amazon.com” or $header_from contains “@banksecurity.com” or $header_from contains “@visa.com” or $header_from contains “@mastercard.com” or $header_from contains “@mbna.com” ) then logwrite “$tod_log $message_id from $sender_address is fraud” seen finish endif

## OTHER FAKE SENDERS SPAM ## Enable this to prevent users using @domain from addresses ## Not recommended since users do use from addresses not on the server ## Log all outgoing mail from server that matches rules logfile /var/log/filter.log 0644 if ( $received_protocol is “local” or $received_protocol is “esmtpa” ) and ( $header_from contains “@hotmail.com” or $header_from contains “@yahoo.com” or $header_from contains “@aol.com”

) then logwrite “$tod_log $message_id from $sender_address is forged fake” seen finish endif

## KNOWN FAKE PHISHING ### Log all outgoing mail from server that matches rules logfile /var/log/filter.log 0644 if ( $received_protocol is “local” or $received_protocol is “esmtpa” ) and ( #Paypal $message_body: contains “Dear valued PayPal member” or $message_body: contains “Dear valued PayPal customer” or $message_body: contains “Dear Paypal” or $message_body: contains “The PayPal Team” or $message_body: contains “Dear Paypal Customer” or $message_body: contains “Paypal Account Review Department” or

#Ebay $message_body: contains “Dear eBay member” or $message_body: contains “Dear eBay User” or $message_body: contains “The eBay team” or $message_body: contains “Dear eBay Community Member” or

#Banks $message_body: contains “Dear Charter One Customer” or $message_body: contains “Dear wamu.com customer” or $message_body: contains “Dear valued Citizens Bank member” or $message_body: contains “Dear Visa” or $message_body: contains “Dear Citibank” or $message_body: contains “Citibank Email” or $message_body: contains “Dear customer of Chase Bank” or $message_body: contains “Dear Bank of America customer” or

#ISPs $message_body: contains “Dear AOL Member” or $message_body: contains “Dear AOL Customer”

) then logwrite “$tod_log $message_id from $sender_address is phishing” seen finish endif

# END # All outgoing mail on the server only – what is sent out

The log file will have the logging format like this: /var/log/filter.log

2006-05-10 12:05:13 1Fds7S-0002Sa-MV from smooth595@gmail.com contained spam keywords 2006-05-10 14:18:47 1FduCn-0006GV-1r from dayton.nowellu7xn@gmail.com contained spam keywords 2006-04-27 15:44:35 1FZDLn-0005Mo-5z from nobody@ocean.wavepointmedia.com is fraud 2006-04-27 16:37:40 1FZEB9-0002KQ-VP from nobody@ocean.wavepointmedia.com is phishing

Date and time, the Exim message ID, the sender and the section of the filter, like phishing, fraud or spam. You can check the mail message by grepping the exim_mainlog for it like this

grep 1FZEB9-0002KQ-VP /var/log/exim_mainlog

Fortunately, there’s help! DigiCert put together a small javascript page that gives you the command you need. See it here: https://www.digicert.com/easy-csr/openssl.htm

One you get the command you’ll log into your server and run it. It will generate 2 files – the key and the csr. You’ll need both. You can use the csr at any of the certificate authorities to get a SSL cert issued not just digicert.