UKC

How to: Transfer your Web Site to UKC

transfer-iconTransferring your Web Site to UKC without Downtime

Moving your site from an old host to a new host might sound complicated but it is actually very easy.

Our technicians are moving all types of sites (self built, WordPress, Joomla, shopping carts) on a daily basis. Leave the complexity to us.

We will help you transfer your web site, data and mysql databases to our hosting service and minimise (if not eliminate) the need for any downtime whatsoever.

Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Order your new hosting plan from UKC. Do not cancel your old hosting plan (yet).
  2. Is your old host using Plesk? If so, all you need do is run a full backup in Plesk Backup Manager and provide us with the backup file. We can restore from here.
  3. You will now have access to two hosting accounts.

What we need from you

In order for us to successfully transfer your website, we need the following:

  1. A backup of your hosting account run from your old host (if you have one)
  2. The panel login details of your old hosting plan
  3. The FTP details of your old hosting plan
  4. If you have SSH with the old host, then these details can also help

From here we can take care of the transfer of all of your site data and databases.

Going live without downtime

We will transfer all of your web site, data and mysql databases before the “going live” date which we will agree with you beforehand.

Once we go live, the switch will simply be a name server change on your domain name. At this point, your web site will now be live using a UKC hosting plan. Once you are happy with the operations of your new site you can then proceed to cancel your old hosting plan.

If you have any questions now (or along the way) simply contact the Helpdesk who are there to help.

Emails sent to me are being returned as SPAM. Can I stop this?

emailEmail blocking problems

Occasionally, someone who has sent you an email may receive a message saying that a mail they sent you hasn’t been delivered. The email they sent has been blocked, and the full message is:

senderdomain.com 12.34.56.78 is listed at bl.spamcop.net. Contact tech support enclosing a copy of this error message on email address.

The message will contain a full email address in place of email address. There may also be another address in place of bl.spamcop.net.

Only the sender will receive the message. You will not receive notification that an email to you has been blocked and you will be able to send and receive other messages as normal.

The message is part of our effort to block spam sent to email addresses hosted at UKC.

We check the IP address of the server each email has been sent from against several lists of addresses, one of which is maintained by bl.spamcop.net. If the IP address is on any of these lists then we block the email.

Although this stops lots of spam getting through, it does mean legitimate messages occasionally get blocked too. If this is happening to someone trying to send you email, it’s easy for them to stop it occurring in the future.

How to fix it

The person who sent you the email should forward the message they received to the address shown in it. We’ll put the relevant IP address onto our list of allowed addresses, so future mails from that person come through to your inbox.

If the message mentions spamcop.net, they can also enter the IP address in the message (e.g. 12.34.56.78) into the Lookup IP box at Spamcop.net. This will remove the IP address from their list and should ensure that other email providers using the list stop blocking messages from that person.

Priority Server Upgrade: MICROLITE10

Scheduled for weekend 12/13 September 2015

We are pleased to announce that MICROLITE10 is being upgraded to our new UKC Super Server high performance hardware range this coming weekend. We are rolling this new model out across the entire range during the latter half of 2015.

During the weekend 12/13 September, we will be migrating all client data from the current hardware (5.77.60.40) to completely new hardware (5.77.36.144).

There will be no downtime for your web sites or email services. We will switch the new server into production only after it has passed our comprehensive data migration and validation testing.

Notice: Please refrain from making significant changes to your web site during this period. The migration of the data will take many hours. We request that you put off any changes until the upgrade is complete to avoid an inconsistent transfer of your site and data.

Thank you for your patience,

UPDATE: Monday 06:30

The migration of all MICROLITE10 accounts to UKC06 Super Server is complete.

UKC06 has fully “absorbed” MICROLITE10. The new Plesk URL and name servers for MICROLITE10 accounts are:

Plesk Panel: https://ukc06.uk:8443 (replaces https://www.microlite10.com:8443)

Name servers:

  • ns.ukc06.uk (replaces ns.microlite10.com)
  • ns2.ukc06.uk (replaces ns2.microlite10.com)

Please note the following:

  • The old Plesk server name MICROLITE10.COM and old name servers ns.microlite10.com and ns2.microlite10.com will continue to function as normal.
  • There is no urgent need to change all the name servers on your domain names however we recommend using the new name servers for good housekeeping purposes.
  • Using the old MICROLITE10 Plesk URL may give a security error in your browser which you can safely ignore.
  • The server IP address has changed from 5.77.60.40 to 5.77.36.144
  • If you have any problems, we can remigrate you account from the old server again upon request. Simply log a ticket and ask for a re-migration of your account from MICROLITE10 with your domain name. Your account as it stood at 06:30 Monday will be re-migrated.

We hope you enjoy the enhanced performance and security of your new UKC Super Server!

Protect against WordPress Pingback Vulnerability

How to Neutralise a Pingback DDOS Attack

sshThe WordPress Pingback Vulnerability is used to maliciously attack your WordPress site via the Pingback service.

If the attack is heavy enough then not only will your site be seriously slowed if not inaccessible) but your server will also be overloaded with requests thus risking your shared hosting account altogether.

This type of attack is usually instigated via a botnet of many hundreds (if not thousands) of different IP addresses so a simply blocking the IP address of the attacker is not practical.

If you are under attack right now then there are actions you can take to minimise (if not nullify) the effect of attack.

Disable the WordPress XMLRPC Service

We can do this by adding a “deny” to “xmlrpc.php” in your .htaccess file. This will disable the your WordPress site from participating with the pingback requests.

Add the following to the top of your .htaccess file:

<files xmlrpc.php>
order deny, allow
deny from all
</files>

The attack will now have less effect on your server load.

Once the attack is over, you may remove deny code if you need XMLRPC services active on your WordPress site. There’s a 95% chance you can leave it there with no noticeable effect at all.

Blocking the DDOS Attack using CSF

If you use CSF, you may still want to block the IP addresses of the attacking botnet. It’s quite easy to do.

Here is a bash one-liner that will do the job for you in real-time:

tail -f /var/www/vhosts/yourdomain.com/logs/access_log | grep "\"WordPress/" | grep -v "POST " | awk '{print $1}' | while read IP; do /usr/sbin/csf -td $IP 7d BlockPingback; done

There is some satisfaction in having the IPs permanently blocked. You can add the resulting IP block to your deny files on all servers and accounts.

It does make sense as all the attacking WordPress sites are clearly compromised and will no longer be a problem (for you at least) if permanently blocked from your server.

Priority Server Upgrade: MICROLITE8

Scheduled for weekend 5/6 September 2015

We are pleased to announce that MICROLITE8 is being upgraded to our new UKC Super Server high performance hardware range this coming weekend. We are rolling this new model out across the entire range during the latter half of 2015.

During the weekend 5/6 September, we will be migrating all client data from the current hardware (5.77.60.33) to completely new hardware (5.77.38.140).

There will be no downtime for your web sites or email services. We will switch the new server into production only after it has passed our comprehensive data migration and validation testing.

Notice: Please refrain from making significant changes to your web site during this period. The migration of the data will take many hours. We request that you put off any changes until the upgrade is complete to avoid an inconsistent transfer of your site and data.

Thank you for your patience,

UPDATE: Monday 06:30

The migration of all MICROLITE8 accounts to UKC05 Super Server is complete.

UKC05 has fully “absorbed” MICROLITE8. The new Plesk URL and name servers for MICROLITE8 accounts are:

Plesk Panel: https://ukc05.uk:8443 (replaces https://www.microlite8.com:8443)

Name servers:

  • ns.ukc05.uk (replaces ns.microlite8.com)
  • ns2.ukc05.uk (replaces ns2.microlite8.com)

Please note the following:

  • The old Plesk server name MICROLITE8.COM and old name servers ns.microlite8.com and ns2.microlite8.com will continue to function as normal.
  • There is no urgent need to change all the name servers on your domain names however we recommend using the new name servers for good housekeeping purposes.
  • Using the old MICROLITE8 Plesk URL may give a security error in your browser which you can safely ignore.
  • The server IP address has changed from 5.77.60.33 to 5.77.38.140
  • If you have any problems, we can remigrate you account from the old server again upon request. Simply log a ticket and ask for a re-migration of your account from MICROLITE8 with your domain name. Your account as it stood at 06:30 Monday will be re-migrated.

We hope you enjoy the enhanced performance and security of your new UKC Super Server!