FrontPage Extensions removed from all cPanel shared hosting servers

**eUKhost.com** · #1 (**permalink**) 04-06-2008, 00:14

Dear Customers,

With great regret, eUKhost has decided to discontinue FrontPage publishing on all of our cPanel hosting servers. This is because Microsoft has discontinued FrontPage extension support for the Unix platform and we have recently observed severe intrusion attempts using FrontPage vulnerabilities. These intrusions attempts could affect every user on our shared servers and we fully expect these intrusion attempts to continue in the future.

We are aware of the fact that many of our customers rely on FrontPage publishing support and we are also aware many of these customers would not consider the FTP based publishing option within the FrontPage client itself. However, security of our servers is and always will be our top priority and we will not be able to maintain security unless we take appropriate action to address these vulnerabilities.

FrontPage publishing support is still available with our Windows Hosting plans and customers who are reluctant to change to the FTP upload option should contact our support team to get their website hostings migrated to one of our windows servers.

We are all too aware that switching to Windows is not an option for some people and we have therefore setup a new cPanel server with FrontPage extension support. Customers can request for their website hostings to be moved to this server if they so desire but in order to provide this service, we have to make you aware of several things. Our normal SLA's will not apply on this server and we will accept no responsibility for any loss of data you experience due to injections.

Customers are encouraged to maintain DAILY backups of all their data and those customers in need of backup space can view our backup plans at Remote Backup Service. This server has all of our usual security patches applied but because of the FrontPage vulnerability, we don't class this server as secure. Customers wishing to move to this server do so at their own risk.

Please contact our support team from eUKhost Helpdesk if you wish to be either moved to a Windows Server or if you wish to be moved to the new cPanel server with FrontPage extension support.

**247h** · #2 (**permalink**) 04-06-2008, 02:24

Just to be absolutely clear on this Mark, it will be ALL your cPanel servers, including VPS Hosting and dedicated?

**eUKhost** · #3 (**permalink**) 04-06-2008, 05:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by 247h

Just to be absolutely clear on this Mark, it will be ALL your cPanel servers, including VPS Hosting and dedicated?

Hello,

At this point of time. it is only for the shared servers. We will keep everyone posted on the developments.

**247h** · #4 (**permalink**) 04-06-2008, 08:04

Thank you Nick — and therefore I request that you change the subject of this thread to better qualify what Mark actually means ...

You guys are sometimes laughable in your sloppiness for proof-reading — it seems you forgot to check your new Forum identity! Either that or I don't recognise this strange new word "Quaity"?

**eUKhost.com** · #5 (**permalink**) 04-06-2008, 14:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by 247h

Thank you Nick — and therefore I request that you change the subject of this thread to better qualify what Mark actually means ...

You guys are sometimes laughable in your sloppiness for proof-reading — it seems you forgot to check your new Forum identity! Either that or I don't recognise this strange new word "Quaity"?

it was to make everyone read what was posted. I would suggest you to remove FrontPage extensions from your Dedicated server as FrontPage extensions can be used to hack your server. You can contact our support staff and request them to remove FrontPage extensions.

**DPS Computing** · #6 (**permalink**) 06-06-2008, 20:57

Damn - this is a crying shame

. I wonder what has prompted Microsoft to make such a decision?

**flesso** · #7 (**permalink**) 06-06-2008, 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPS Computing

Damn - this is a crying shame

. I wonder what has prompted Microsoft to make such a decision?

What prompted Microsoft to build the horrible program that Frontpage is (IMO)?

**DPS Computing** · #8 (**permalink**) 06-06-2008, 22:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by flesso

What prompted Microsoft to build the horrible program that Frontpage is (IMO)?

FrontPage was a very good program, which wasn't even created by Microsoft. The core components and good feature set you see are thanks to the original developers.

But alas, Microsoft got there hands on it and played with it. A bit like GIANT Antispyware was a great spyware app that has gradually gone worse (or at least gone no better) since going to Windows Antispyware and fianlly Windows Defender.

The reason this is bad news is due to the fact the newer (and much improved) Expression Web also relies on these Frontpage Server Extensions.

**flesso** · #9 (**permalink**) 06-06-2008, 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by DPS Computing

The reason this is bad news is due to the fact the newer (and much improved) Expression Web also relies on these Frontpage Server Extensions.

Well that was a clever move Microsoft didn't think about.

**WelshTom** · #10 (**permalink**) 06-06-2008, 22:40

Frontpage sucks, and always will.

Stop trying to make obsolete old software good - because it's not.

**DPS Computing** · #11 (**permalink**) 10-06-2008, 17:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by WelshTom

Frontpage sucks, and always will.

Stop trying to make obsolete old software good - because it's not.

But, as I said, Expression Web is not obsolete - and also relies on Frontpage extensions.

On the contrary - Expression Web is one of the newest developers tools out there. Maybe Microsoft will update EW and make EW extensions. Many people, especially beginners or people who want to get a web site hosting up and running ASAP, find this a very useful tool!

**fire13** · #12 (**permalink**) 09-07-2008, 21:48

I came here because of this thread.
I'm using EW so I assume I should alter it from Frontpage Server Ext to just FTP.
Would I need to then publish the whole web site hosting again? Sorry if it's a dumb question but I'm afraid I fall into

Quote:

Many people, especially beginners or people who want to get a web site hosting up and running ASAP, find this a very useful tool!

group.

Thanks in advanced.

**eUKhost.com** · #13 (**permalink**) 09-07-2008, 23:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by fire13

I came here because of this thread.
I'm using EW so I assume I should alter it from Frontpage Server Ext to just FTP.
Would I need to then publish the whole web site hosting again? Sorry if it's a dumb question but I'm afraid I fall into group.

Thanks in advanced.

Hi,

You don't need to upload your whole website hosting again if your website hosting is already working right now. Frontpage exntensions removal will only stop you from publishing website hosting directly from frontpage, but it won't trouble your existing webpages.

**fire13** · #14 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 00:04

Thanks for the reply.

I've altered my EW to just FTP but it now shows all my folders, pages etc are now unmatched....nothing on the remote website hosting. Do I just publish the whole web site hosting across & all is well or will it cause problems? Sorry can't be more precise with my question.

**eUKhost.com** · #15 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 17:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by fire13

Thanks for the reply.

I've altered my EW to just FTP but it now shows all my folders, pages etc are now unmatched....nothing on the remote website hosting. Do I just publish the whole web site hosting across & all is well or will it cause problems? Sorry can't be more precise with my question.

Please let us know your domain name or open a ticket for our support team. We will get back to you with details asap.

**247h** · #16 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 18:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by fire13

...I've altered my EW to just FTP but it now shows all my folders, pages etc are now unmatched....nothing on the remote website hosting. Do I just publish the whole web site hosting across & all is well or will it cause problems? Sorry can't be more precise with my question.

Not sure if this will help or not but I have within the last hour spoken to one of my customers who has been publishing his web site hosting from FP, using FP extensions and I walked him through the changes in setup. As you seem unable to see any of your remote web site hosting contents, I'm left wondering whether you misconfigured the connection and that you're not viewing the correct remote folder?

(I apologise if this is irrelevant to EW but) to configure FrontPage to connect to the remote server using FTP, you are required to give the address in the form ftp://domain.com as well as the FTP directory (/public_html/) and select whether or not to use Passive FTP (I did select it). Optionally you can leave the FTP directory empty and use remote server address of ftp://domain.com/public_html

Having selected OK to complete that stage you get a password challenge, but in typical M$ logic it offers your local machine account name in the login window! Simply use the same login credentials as your cPanel account's account name and password.

In FP you then have both local and remote folders displayed in adjacent columns with none of the files showing as being synchronised (of course) — I'm presuming/hoping that EW will have a similar arrangement? If not, then at least it might be useful to anyone continuing with FrontPage ...

**fire13** · #17 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 18:58

Yes 247h I think that's my problem.

I'll go & have a look.

I don't want to open a ticket eUK for something this simple.

**fire13** · #18 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 19:02

Well I've got the folders etc there now. Everything is in conflict, should I synchronize?

Thanks again.

**247h** · #19 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 19:41

Well, I suggest you first backup all the files and folders on your local copy. Remember that the remote files will probably always be newer than the local ones as when they were published they were assigned date/time stamps according to that of the remote server.

Compare all the folder contents visually as well as considering whether you have edited any files locally that have yet to be published. If you consider that all the remote files are up to date, I'd be inclined to remove all the local files/folders (after you backed them up) and then select to publish 'Remote to Local' which will repopulate your local copy.

Once you've done that you should have no conflicts and can synchronise as often as you like. Note that there will possibly be some remote files that do not exist on your local web site hosting (like .htaccess for example, if it exists) — it might also follow that some local files may not have been uploaded previously, whjich is why you should check thoroughly.

If instead you just publish 'Local to Remote' then be sure you're not going to overwrite remote files with outdated ones from your backup. Without knowing how you managed your web site hosting previously, or how/when you modified any files, I think it's safest to assume your remote files are the ones to work with ...

**fire13** · #20 (**permalink**) 10-07-2008, 20:34

Thanks for the input 247h.

I'll go & have a play as they say. Fingers crossed.