PHP4Hosting News

Power outage

2010-07-06T15:07:00.006+01:00

One of our UK datacentres experienced a power outage. Servers currently coming back online.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Some servers are booting to read only. Currently working through them to get tham back to normal operation.

Awaiting information as to why generators took so long to kick in resulting in UPSs running out of power.

Thank you for your patience while we're bringing the servers back online. Hopefully not much longer now

Some servers requiring a final reboot to finish the process. 90% are back online.

Migration interruptions

2010-06-29T11:26:00.002+01:00

We are currently experiencing delays in th migration process which may be interrupting service to some sites, including UK23.

We are working as quickly as possible to resume normal servicee and apologise for any inconvenience.

UK4 Phase 1

2010-06-28T22:26:00.001+01:00

The UK4 Phase 1 changes are taking a little longer than planned so we will carry this over to tomorrow to finish.

Interim upgrades

2010-06-28T16:28:00.002+01:00

Moving everyone to the new cPanel platform is quite a task and will take some time to complete. To allow everyone to have more time to carry out this process we have opted to do the migration in 2 phases. The first of which will see your IP addresses change on the standard hosting and reseller accounts but you will remain with the existing system.

Once we have the UK complete we will then carry out the same process on the USA servers.

The second phase will allow resellers and standard hosting customers to migrate over to the new cPanel system.

There may be some downtime in this initial change but we feel that by doing it this way it will allow a much smoother change to cPanel allowing time for everyone to get things setup as you would like.

UK23 and UK4 will switch over tonight followed by UK1 and UK5 tomorrow.

Dedicated servers will have a physical move tomorrow night (Tuesday 29th) and IP addresses will remain the same.

Thank you for your patience while the work is carried out and if you have any questions then please email upgrade@php4hosting.co.uk.

PHP4Hosting migrations are under way!

2010-06-03T00:35:00.001+01:00

The billing systems have been incorporated into one which is managed by Asset ICT and we are working hard to upgrade all the servers to the latest technology. We will be working with all PHP4Hosting clients to ensure a smooth migration on to our cPanel based servers. This will give you much more control over your hosting account along with many new great features..

We contact every customer individually when your hosting account is due to be moved to the cPanel system so that we can work with you through the migration process ensuring minimal disruption..

Please contact upgrade@php4hosting.co.uk if you have any questions in the meantime.

We are upgrading....

2010-05-02T18:19:00.004+01:00

We are upgrading....

There have been various issues recently so we have put a plan together to iron these out.

Firstly all the servers are being upgraded to a new flavour of Linux

Most sites will be upgraded to MySQL5 / PHP5

Customers currently on the PHP4 servers will remain for the time being

Following this migration ALL UK domains will be re-tagged to a single Nominet TAG

All accounts will be migrated to a single billing/support system

All hosting customers will have the option of daily/weekly/monthly backup

Once the above has been completed we will be upgrading the majority of customers to cPanel servers. Dedicated server customers will have the option to keep the existing system or upgrade to cPanel (at a small cost due to license)

Note

IP Addresses will change

There will be at least two server changes

Clients will need to ensure their websites work with later versions of MySQL (at least v4)

Please use the email address upgrade@php4hosting.co.uk not the normal support email address

UK Reseller 2

2010-02-01T19:18:00.003Z

This server is currently off line, a support ticket has been logged updates will follow as we have them

-- UPDATE --
The server is now back up and running, the problem was caused by a customer's redirection file that caused a mail loop forcing the server off line

NS3 Update

2010-01-22T09:24:00.002Z

The server hosting our DNS server NS3 (NS3.PHP5HOSTING.CO.UK / NS3.ANON-DNS.CO.UK) has been relocated

The IP addresses have also changed as follows

NS3.PHP5HOSTING.CO.UK 77.92.76.210
NS3.ANON-DNS.CO.UK 77.92.76.211

Customers are reminded to use all three where possible to ensure as much redundancy as possible

UK Reseller Servers

2009-12-03T11:46:00.001Z

We are performing emergency security upgrades on the UK Reseller Servers. There will be some downtime of upto 45 minutes due to reboots and routing updates

US Hosting Servers Down

2009-12-01T21:25:00.004Z

Server4/11/14 are currently off-line.

A software issue has taken the above three servers off-line, we are working to resolve the issue but as yet do not have an ETA on the fix.

-- Update 22:00 02/12/09 --

The servers are still off line, a failure in the Xen Host server has totally floored the hosting platform. New hardware is installed to replace it, however the issue we have is time.

The delay in restoring services stems from the initial time taken to get the old server into a bootable state to recover customers data, we have now recovered the data and are currently in the process of rebuilding the new Xen system and migrating the data to the new server. However due to the large amount of data this is taking quite some time.

Please be assured that we are working on this 24/7 in a bid to restore services ASAP

-- Update 11:45 03/12/09 --

All issues were resolved last night about 11pm and all services should be working

Domain Renewal Process

2009-11-22T11:15:00.002Z

Since the introduction of the new billing portal we have had issues with domain renewals.

We are in the process of a total overhaul of the PHP4Hosting services and billing procedures, however in the interim we have made changes to our domain renewal process.

Customers hopefully will find the whole process a lot easier and clearer

UK-Server4 (reseller server)

2009-11-10T13:24:00.002Z

The last 7 - 10 days have seen massive problems with mail on this server. We have strived to get to the bottom of the problem and resolve it however everytime we think we have fixed the problem it kept coming back.

Finally today after analysis of the logs we are confident we have tracked the problem down. A spammer had guessed the password of a POP3 account enabling them to use that account to send spam. This resulted in high loads, delayed mail and spam complaints.

There has not been a security breach of the server just a guessable password ("thomas")

Customers are reminded that password security is of great importance

Hopefully the problems are now resolved, some mail may have been lost or delayed and there may be some delays while spam filters reset the blocks on the IP address of the server however this will happen with time

Network Migration

2009-07-31T21:22:00.001+01:00

All UK servers are now powered down ready for the move
Regards
Darren
--
Support Dept
http://www.php4hosting.com

UK Network Power down

2009-07-31T18:07:00.001+01:00

We expect to power down servers around 730pm
Regards
Darren
--
Support Dept
http://www.php4hosting.com

UK Network Migration - Update

2009-07-29T13:25:00.001+01:00

It has now been confirmed that the UK network migration will take place on Friday 31st July 2009 (between 18:00 and 11:59)

We would advise all customers to back up their data prior to the network move, no IP changes will be required we are physically relocating all the equipment hence the advice to backup your data.

There will be no bandwidth restrictions for customers backing up their websites

The move will be completed as quickly as possible and the blog will be constantly updated with progress reports http://blog.php4blog.co.uk

UK-Server5 (Hosting Server) - UPDATE

2009-04-10T07:46:00.002+01:00

With the recent problems with this machine and constant problems we are taking using the holiday period to replace the machine.

The server crashed again this morning, so access has been organised to the data centre, we plan on migrating the server to a new much faster server today. There may be intermittent access for the early to mid part of the day while we do this.

US Network

2009-03-19T08:02:00.002Z

The final server is now running.

It seems the NOC had a total power failure, this caused all servers to reboot. Something servers generally don't like when they are not expecting it!

Our helpdesk was out of action as this sat on the one server that took the time to get running so sorry for any delays in support tickets. We will be progressing through these today in a bid to reply to all tickets by around lunch time.

Thank you and sorry

US Network

2009-03-18T15:24:00.001Z

There are problems connecting to the US Network

The NOC staff have been informed and will be aiming to resolve the issue as soon as possible

Server Upgrades

2009-03-05T08:52:00.003Z

We have installed an additional 5 servers in our UK NOC

These are running a combination of CPanel and Custom Linux, we are also rolling out additional CPanel servers in our US NOC

We will be moving towards a more control panel based hosting platform over the next few months although keeping the bespoke hosting options.

VAT Rate Change

2008-12-01T08:05:00.004Z

We have updated our systems to allow for the recent VAT rate change from 17.5% to 15%.

If you have already received your invoice the tax rate will be shown as 17.5% on your copy. However the internal records will have been updated so you will only be charged 15.%.

Customers who pay via standing order and have over paid will be credited the extra payment against future invoices.

Customers who owe back payments will have all payments due prior to the 1st December charged at 17.5% and all invoices from December 2008 charged at 15.%

UK-Server1 (Reseller Server) Migration

2008-10-24T23:48:00.004+01:00

UK-Server1 has suffered some issues over the past few days. This has caused mail problems.

We are on the last stages of the migration to the new hardware, the majority of the work is being undertaken over night. We are hoping to fully migrate the server on Sunday, this will result in 2-3 hours downtime of services. Updates will be posted here as they happen

-- Update 9:52am --
The upgrade is in progress, POP users will receive a notice telling them the upgrade is in progress and web users will see a holding page.

-- Update 3:21pm --
The upgrade has now been completed. The time taken was due to the amount of data that needed to be synchronised between the old and new servers.

Users have any problems please report them to the usual support contacts so they can be dealt with as quickly as possible.

UK Network Upgrade

2008-09-15T19:59:00.001+01:00

One of our UK racks will be rebooted tonight, this will cause some network disruption for a few minutes while power is reset to one of the border gateway routers. There will also be a small number of servers rebooted in the process

Everything should only take a few minutes

New Billing Portal

2008-09-12T23:43:00.002+01:00

The full migration from the old accounts system and the new one begun last week initially with the migration of reseller customers.

This will continue next week with the remainder of the reseller accounts along with the migration of hosting customers.

We have three portal:
* one that will deal with resellers, dedicated hosting customers and any bespoke solutions (Virtual Servers, Clusters, Bulk Mail services)
* One for hosting customers, billing in GPB £ only
* One for hosting customers, billing in USD $ only

The full migration is expected to take a month, once complete customers will be billed monthly and will be able to manage their domains.

If you receive an email from the new billing system and want to check this is valid, please email support@php4hosting.co.uk and we will validate the request for you.

All payments billed will be billed via our parent company PFL Worldwide Ltd. Its very important that when you receive the email informing you of your account creation that you log in and ensure all details are up to date and correct.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message

US Network Upgrades

2008-08-05T05:08:00.001+01:00

We will be performing a network upgrade on Aug 10th, 2008
starting at 02:00.

There will be a few brief interruptions as trunks are
established, routes are changed, and fail-over is tested. There will
also be one longer interruption (10 to 15 minutes) as servers are moved
to new VLANs.

We expect to be done by 05:00 PDT, with an additional last hour of the
window for testing, troubleshooting and rollback if necessary.

Window Start: Sunday 8/10/08 02:00 US/Pacific (GMT -7)
Window End: Sunday 8/10/08 06:00 US/Pacific (GMT -7)
Duration: Each customer may notice a few short interruptions, and one
longer interruption. Total impact for any one server should be less than
15min. But may be as long as 30 minutes.

US Network Upgrades

2008-07-01T18:41:00.001+01:00

Switchs are being replaced in the US network tonight, this may cause a few minutes of downtime to our US network services.

We will be performing a network upgrade on Tuesday night which will cause short interruptions over the course of a 4 hour maintenance window.

Window Start: Tuesday 4/1/08 22:00 PDT (Wed. 4/2/08 05:00 GMT)
Window End: Wednesday 4/2/08 02:00 PDT (Wed. 4/2/08 09:00 GMT)
Duration: Each customer may notice a few short interruptions, and one longer interruption. Total impact for any one server should be less than15min.