How to Secure a Windows VPS ?

Ans. VPS can be secured through ipsec , local security policies and Default windows firewall

How to enhance the security of a Windows VPS ?

Ans. The first thing that is strongly recommended recommended is to change the default login name and password to something of your preference and which is really tough to guess. A combination of upper/lower cases, alpha-numeric and special characters can be used for making a password hard to guess.
Secondly, turn off any anonymous FTP on the server.

We suggest to try and avoid browsing any unknown website from your VPS to avoid injections and intrusions on the server.

What are the additional security softwares that are available which would work on my VPS? Antivirus etc?

Ans. AVG can be used with HyperV VPS. You may alternately choose to use any other licensed versions of an Antivirus for securing your Virtual Private Server.

Are the VPS’s protected by a hardware firewall?

Ans. No, a default vps is not protected with hardware firewall. But, you can opt for a Software Firewall + AntiVirus at an additional cost of £5 GBP.

Can I change the default FTP port on my Windows VPS ?

Ans. Yes, it is possible to change the FTP port for your windows vps.

The disk space offered with a VPS is inclusive or exclusive of the space taken up by the OS ?

Ans. The space required by the OS files is inclusive of the VPS space. For example, if you order an entry level Cheap VPS hosting package that offers 20 GB of diskspace, the OS would ideally occupy 9.5 Gb (OS updates would need more space) approximately leaving 11.5 Gb free for your usage and installations of add-on services.

Can I host an IRC server on a Windows VPS?

Ans. No! We do not allow IRC to be hosted on our servers may it be any package.

Can I run A Game Server On a Windows VPS?

Ans. Yes, a VPS can be used for hosting Game Server. But, we would not recommend it, instead you can opt for a Dedicated Server for that purpose. Before placing an order you must first check the Games requirements, further you need to be sure about the total number of concurrent users you expect to use the server at a given point of time. Based on these factors an appropriate server should be considered.

Most of the times many reseller web hosting and vps hosting accounts are begin affected by unauthorised FTP uploads. Unlike vps and reseller hosting, on cpanel hosting accounts we are aware of the domains which are being created and can be altered directly from the systems. However, it is not possible with the vps and reseller hosting accounts as the clients has the flexibility to add any number of domains.

However, we can provide a method in order to secure FTP access to your website for a number of IP addresses or a complete subnet.

Primarily, you need to determine your own IP address first. One of the best way to detect your ip address is to visit www.whatismyip.com website. Once you visit this site it will show your ip address like “Your IP Address Is: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”. This is all you need to determine if you are on a static IP address. However, if you are assigned with a dynamic IP address, it means your ip will keep on changing, hence you will need to know the ip addresses you would be assigned.

If you have a static ip address assigned, visit the “Whatismyip” site and click on the “IP WHOIS Lookup” link on the left of the page and then simply click the “Whois Lookup” button. You will see a detailed information about your ip address on the middle of the page. In that information, you should see something like this:

inetnum : 128.0.0.1 – 128.0.0.53

The above figures is the range of the IP addresses you could be assigned.

Now, that you have the possible ip addresses, you can proceed with the following steps.

On your machine, create a file .ftpaccess in a text editor (make sure you put the (.) dot at the beginning of the file name).

If you have a static ip address assigned, put the following content in that file:

<Limit ALL>
DenyALL
Allow 128.0.0.1
Allow 1.2.3.4
</Limit>

The line “Allow 128.0.0.1” should be left in the file as a backup in order to enable you the access to the .ftpaccess file through the Filemanger in the Admin area.

If you are assigned with a dynamic ip address, then you will have to Allow the possible range of ip address based on the example “inetnum: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx – xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”. The file contents will look like this:

<Limit ALL>
DenyALL
Allow 128.0.0.1
Allow 1.2.3.
Allow 1.2.4.
Allow 1.2.5.
Allow 1.2.6.
Allow 1.2.7.
</Limit>

Now, as you are done with creating the .ftpaccess file, you just need to upload that file into the httpdocs, httpsdocs and cgi-bin folders on the server. It will restrict all the ip addresses trying to access your site via FTP accept those ip addresses which are Allowed in the .ftpaccess file.

The above change won’t stop blocks on SFTP or WinSCP, if you are going to use only these protocols you could create a file with the following contents.

<Limit ALL>
DenyALL
</Limit>

The above lines will restrict any FTP access to your website. This tutorial is applicable only for the Reseller Web Hosting and VPS Hosting accounts. If you are not familiar with above, you can simply raise a ticket at our support desk and leave the rest on our technical experts.

How to install Softaculous in cPanel ?

Softaculous similar to Fantastico is an auto-installer that holds multiple scripts within that can help users with installing applications, softwares with just few clicks. There are 194 scripts which include scripts for Blogs, CRM’s, Forums, eCommerce, social publishing, social networking, Wikis etc. that are included with Softaculous

Requirements of Softaculous

The basic requirement for Softaculous to be installed on your web hosting uk server is that, you are required to have a cPanel installed over the server. Moreover, you must have root/SSH access to be precise.

Furthermore, before proceeding with the installation of Softaculous you must get assured that Ioncube is enabled on the server. (At eukhost, Ioncube loader is enabled as a default feature on Dedicated Hosting Server, Cloud Hosting, Virtual Private Server and Semi-Dedicated ). Incase you find that it isn’t enabled, you can enable it through WHM. You must login to WHM >> Go to Tweak settings >> Enable.

Having done that, you can now proceed with the installation of Softaculous.

Step 1 : Login to the server as root and run the below commands.

[root@localhost ~]# cd /usr/local/cpanel/whostmgr/docroot/cgi
[root@localhost ~]# wget -N http://www.softaculous.com/ins/addon_softaculous.php
[root@localhost ~]# chmod 755 addon_softaculous.php

Step 2 : Login to WHM

Step 3 : Go to Plugins and hit the Softaculous options. Having done that a page stating “Congratulations, Softaculous was installed successfully” would appear. This confirms that Softaculous has been installed over the server.

The scripts included in Softaculous would be downloaded automatically. Against each successful download, you would see a check mark.

This concludes the installation of Softaculous over your web hosting server.

Rookit hunter which is also termed as the “RKHunter” is considered to be one of the very useful apps. for your Virtual Private Server (VPS).

What is a rootkit ?

The rootkit is similar to any other software, but has a different intention. Once installed, it can allow access to the computing machine without the knowledge of the admins of that machine.

Ideally, such softwares are used by individuals with evil intentions for example hackers, attackers etc. They would somehow find a way to install a rootkit on your machine as soon as they get an access to the root of your server. Once done, it enables the attacker with masking the ongoing intrusion and maintaining the access to the machine by bypassing normal authentication and authorization structure. There are unimaginable destruction’s that can be caused using rootkit, but the most well known is its use as malware that carries out the job of stealing passwords without letting the administrators nor the users know about it. Their major targets are firmware, a hypervisor, the kernel, or most commonly user-mode applications.

The detection of Rootkit is difficult as has the capability of subverting the anti-virus or anti-malware application that intends to detect it. The methods of detection include using an alternate, trusted operating system, methods based on the behavior, scanning the signatures, difference scanning and memory dump analysis. Usually, removing such a breach is next to impossible particularly if the rootkit is such that it is in the kernel. The only possible method to get rid of it is to Format the hard-drive partition and reinstall the OS.

Rootkit hunter is capable of notifying users for any rootkits are found present in the system, then you can take the necessary measures to get rid of it. It is simple to install the RKHunter.

How to Install Rootkit Hunter (RKHunter) on Virtual Private Server (VPS) ?

The following are primary steps to instal the RKHunter on your server :

Step A : Login to your server as root and run the below command to download rkhunter :

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/rkhunter/rkhunter-1.3.2.tar.gz

Step B : Unzip the downloaded file using the below command

tar -xzf rkhunter-1.3.2.tar.gz

Step C : Use the following command to alter the folder location, and install it on your web hosting uk server

cd rkhunter-1.3.2

./installer.sh

How to configure RKHunter (Rootkit Hunter) on a Cheap VPS Hosting server ?

Upon successful installation of RKHunter on your server, you can set the schedule for scanning the server. Also, you can set the schedule for upgrading it on its own.

The below method can be followed to schedule the scans on a daily basis :

Note : You must be logged in as root to run the following commands

i. vi /etc/cron.daily/rkhunter.sh (To edit the file, you need to hit ‘shift + I’ )
ii. (/usr/local/bin/rkhunter –update && /usr/local/bin/rkhunter -c –cronjob 2>&1 | mail -s “RKhunter Scan Details” email@yourdomainname.com) – (change the email@yourdomainname.com to your own email address)
iii. Hit ‘esc’ and enter ‘:wq’, to save the file
iv. chmod 700 /etc/cron.daily/rkhunter.sh

This concludes the steps for configuring the RKHunter to daily scan mode.

Q. What is Offsite Backup Hosting ?

Ans: The Offsite Backup Hosting is a remote backup solution based on the R1Soft’s Continuous Data Protection (CDP) which ensures continuous protection of all your website data stored on the server. The R1Soft’s CDP Solution is an advanced backup software application that allows disk-based data protection and disaster recovery for servers and workstations which are running the operating systems like Windows and Linux. Our CDP server protects disk volume data through replication & synchronization over the network storing point-in-time snap-shots into disk-based storage. The backups can take seconds to minutes to complete.

Q. Under which hosting packages can I perform the Offsite Backups ?

Ans: The offsite backups can be performed under the Hyper-V based Virtual Private Server Hosting, Dedicated Server Hosting and Cloud Server plans only. It is not possible on the Virtuozzo based VPS, because it uses the nodes Kernel and doesn’t have its own. The offsite backup is only possible on the Hyper-V and VMware based VM’s as they have their own Kernel. Backup plans from eUKhost can be ordered as an add-on with the above mentioned web hosting plans.

Q. Which systems are compatible to perform Offsite Backups ?

Ans: eUKhost’s offsite backup plans are compatible with both Windows and Linux servers based on Hyper-V and VMware. These Offsite backups are not compatible with Virtuozzo based servers as mentioned above.

Q. How does backing up data affect the operation of other services on the server ?

Ans: While the disk sector synchronization is executed on an online server, it doesn’t interrupt the input and output requests or the operation of other services even if the server is busy.

Q. Does Offsite Backups put a heavy load on the OS ?

Ans: No, the offsite backup process is carried out very smoothly and doesn’t put any heavy load on the operating systems.

Q. What is included into Offsite Backup solution offered by eUKhost ?

Ans: eUKhost’s Offsite Backup Hosting solution offers unlimited bandwidth, disk based data protection, disaster recovery, differential backups, incremental backups, scalability to upgrade backup plans, end-to-end strong encryption, point-in-time snapshots and ability to restore specific files/folders.

Q. Where the backed up data will be stored ?

Ans: The backups performed using the R1Soft’s CDP backup software will be stored on the offsite servers.

Q. Every time do I have to perform Offsite Backup tasks manually ?

Ans: No, the offsite backup tasks cannot be performed manually. You can schedule the backup tasks Daily, Weekly or Monthly according to your requirements. You can also set up a recovery point as per your needs, so that the backups are recovered accordingly.

Q. Is it possible to compress or encrypt the backup data ?

Ans: Yes, It is possible to compress or encrypt the backup data. When scheduling the backup tasks you can decide and enable whether to compress or encrypt the data.

Q. Are the Backup Plans scalable ?

Ans: Yes, all of our backup plans are fully scalable, so that you can experience the flexibility of upgrading your remote backup plan very easily.

Q. Is R1Soft Backup Software difficult to setup and use ?

Ans: The R1Soft’s CDP Backup Software would be installed and taken care by our technical experts.

Q. Can Offsite Backup solution be used for home backups ?

Ans: No, the R1Soft’s backup software is used only for backing up the data on the servers and cannot be used for home backups.

Q. Do you offer technical support for Offsite Backup solution ?

Ans: Yes, we do offer technical support for the Offsite Backup Hosting solution.

Q. Do you offer trial on Offsite Backup plans ?

Ans: No, we do not offer any trial on the Offsite Backup Hosting plans.

There has been a strong competition between vBulletin forum application and the IPB application since longtime. These are two of the widely used forum applications chosen by webmasters. The following information offers a brief understanding and the difference between the two, which must help you choose an ideal solution for starting your own forum based website.

Advantages : vBulletin vs IPB Forum application

Disadvantages : vBulletin and IPB Forum application

Both these applications are supported with our Cheap VPS Hosting packages. You can contact our sales team via. Live Chat or send an email to sales[@]eukhost.com stating your requirements.

Q. What is included in a VPS hosting plan ?

:- The only programs that come pre-installed and set up on each of our VPS hosting plans are:

* The Operating System
* Anything included with a basic install of that Operating System
* The webserver for that Operating System (e.g. Apache on Linux, IIS on Windows)

If you opt for cPanel/Plesk control panel with your VPS, then the installation will include PHP and MySQL but any non-control panel VPS will not include any extra applications such as PHP and MySQL. All of these can be installed by you and configured as they need them. They are both available free of charge from their vendors.

http://www.php.net/downloads.php

http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/

What can I install on my VPS?

A VPS is similar to a dedicated server in terms of features and access level it offers. This means you can install pretty much any applications or add-ons that you need, and set them up exactly as per your requirements. You will have full administrative/root SSH access to the VPS which would allow you the flexibility to do so. The only restrictions which You would need to bear in mind are the physical limitations such as disk space, RAM, CPU allocated to your VPS.

Q. What is burstable RAM in VPS Hosting?

Ans. Burstable RAM can be provided to users of Virtual Private Servers. Each Virtual Private Server has a guaranteed amount of RAM that it’s able to use at all times. At times it is possible that the usage may exceed the allotted amount of guaranteed RAM available, this is when Burstable RAM comes into play. Burstable RAM is provided to the user during times of high usage or traffic. This RAM is not in use by any VPS on a server and can be allocated to any VPS that may need it as long as it is available. So as long as those resources are available, you as a user will be able to go over that limit of guaranteed RAM.

In other words Burstable RAM is the RAM your VPS has the ability to use but it isn’t guaranteed to. Basically it’s for spikes in usage not consistent usage like Guaranteed RAM. For Example your if VPS has 384 MB Guaranteed RAM, and 1024MB Burstable RAM. This means that after you have used up your guaranteed ram, there is still 640MB Burstable RAM available for burst usage. For this reason we always keep some extra memory available on each server at all times as Burstable RAM.

Burstable RAM is never guaranteed to be available and should not be constantly depended upon for Virtual Private Server operation. If your VPS constantly requires greater resources than your package guarantees, we can quickly arrange an upgrade for you to a VPS Hosting plan with greater guaranteed resources.

Q. Can you give me some advice on what to choose, VPS Hosting or Semi Dedicated Hosting

Ans. Whether to choose VPS Hosting or Semi Dedicated Hosting depends upon what are you planning to host/run on the server. Our Semi Dedicated Hosting servers fill the gap between VPS Hosting and Dedicated Server Hosting. So if you need more resources than a Virtual Private Server but aren’t quite ready to upgrade to a dedicated server yet, eUKhost’s Semi Dedicated Server is the answer for you.

We setup only 6 Semi Dedicated Hosting accounts on one server which maximizes each client’s access to server resources, and since you have only a percentage of the server, you will only pay a fraction of the cost over a dedicated server. All Semi Dedicated Hosting accounts are hosted on Quad Core Intel Xeon processor web servers which are much more powerful than a Single Core or Dual Core Xeon processor web server. The servers come with 12 GB RAM which ensures that each account hosted on the server gets at least 2 GB of Guaranteed RAM.

Semi Dedicated servers are an ideal solution for Web hosting data such as resource intensive websites or business application software. They provide a secure environment for client data and clients can also enjoy the full power of the processor and hardware. The clients retain complete control and remote access to the server at all times.

Q. Which can be used as good game server, is it VPS or a Dedicated Server?

Ans :- We do not recommend using a VPS as a game server since memory and CPU allocations for a VPS are far lesser as compared to a physical dedicated server. You can try out one of VPS Hosting plans for 1 month to see if it supports games. We generally do not recommend a VPS to be used as a Game Server as most of the games are big on resources, which will dramatically slow down the server, which in turn would not be worth the money you would save.

We provide assistance with game installations at no additional cost for our dedicated server customers. CPU resources are shared in case of VPS hosting and we do not offer any support for games hosting on a VPS. Our network backbone is of 15gbps and each dedicated server gets minimum 1gbps uplink as well as downlink speed which ensures best performance for online gaming.