Author: sblogadmin

Do you offer fixed / static IP addresses and dedicated IP addresses

Question :

Hi, I need to know if you can provide me a fixed IP. I need it because I want to conect to a xml web service, and they have to know my IP to give me permission to the web service.

Answer:

Hi,

Yes, your account will have a fixed IP.

Do you also mean a dedicated IP? We can provide that as well (no charge) but you’ll need to put in a request for it.

Do you support tar, gzip, zip, unzip, bzip, etc. ?

Question:

Just getting started with you. I’m migrating from another ISP. I have a tar file (sizable) with my site content. Do you have a tool on board for unpacking this? How might I use it?

Thanks.

Answer:

Hi,

No problem. All the standard unix tools are pre-installed. You can ssh to your account and use your account nearly exactly like a standard linux box (except that you do not have root access on it 🙂

All those tools are in :

/bin/

or

/usr/bin/

however your paths are set so you can just type the command and it will work for you.

Let me know if you need anything else!

Can I deny / ban an IP address from accessing my website?

Question:

I have collected the IP addresses of some people who have been causing problems on my website. Would you be able to tell me if they use dynamic or static IPs? Is there are way to block these IP addresses to my site?

Answer:

Hi,

There is no quick and easy way to tell if they are using dynamic or static IPs. You can research each IP and sometimes get an idea from the reverse lookup name. Even then it can be hard to tell.

Blocking, banning, etc. the IPs is easy though.

Here is how to block them from your site :

Create a file called

.htaccess

(that is dot htaccess – the file begins with a dot)

If you are having a hard time creating a file that starts with a dot, you can create the file as any filename, upload it to your server and then rename it in FTP to be .htaccess. The file will only work if it is called .htaccess (dot htaccess).

Inside the .htaccess file put these lines:

Order Allow,Deny
Deny from 192.168.1.10
Allow from all

Replace the address above (192.168.1.10) with the actual address you are wanting to ban.

Next add a seperate :

Deny from

line for each IP you want to deny.

If you want to block a range of IPs you can do this :

Deny from 192.168.1.

which would block everything in the 192.168.1.x range. For example:

192.168.1.1
192.168.1.2
etc.

I hope this helps you!

My SSL-encrypted website gives a warning stating that “there are both secure and non secure items”, how can I fix this?

Question:

I recently had you install a SSL certificate to my site. Now when I go to https://www.my_site.com/ I get a message stating there are both secure and non secure items and do I want to continue. If I click “yes” I lose the “lock” symbol. When I click “no” the lock remains. How do we get this message removed? Please advise.

Answer:

Check all your links on the page. What this means is that you have some links (probably to images) that link to your non-ssl page.

Usually you’ll find that you’ve linked to an image or page as :

http://your_site.com/directory/image.jpg

etc.

when all you really need is :

/directory/image.jpg

It is not illegal to specify the full URL, but when using SSL the browser will give that warning if you links/images/etc. that are linked in to your full site URL. As a side note, it is always better to link to items on your site as a reference to the root / directory and not the full URL. It makes the connection a bit quicker and it also makes it much easier if you ever need to move your site to a test domain for testing, etc (you won’t need to rewrite all the links!).

Another possible cause of the problem :

If you pull in images from a partner site, hit counter, etc. that is on a non-SSL site you will get this warning message too.

Basically, when a page is referred to via SSL the browser will demand that all the items inside the page are also SSL.

Blog comment spam

Question:

My blog has been constantly comment-spammed, causing the database to overload.
Could these spammers be blocked out to remedy the problem?

Answer:

I advise you check your blog software. Most have add-in modules to better block spam and moderate comments.

If you have the IP address where the comments are coming from we can firewall out that IP. However this is rarely a good long term solution. Most comment spammers change IP’s frequently.

The best solution is to go to the homepage of your blog software and look for a comment spam blocker. You might also want to check the user support forums for you blog software to see what solutions others are using. Usually there is a quick add-on you can make that will block most automated comment spammers.

I get an time out error when trying to send mail

Question:

I can suddenly no longer send mail – my website works and I can receive mail but I cannot send any mail. What is wrong?

Answer:

What is most likely happening is that your local ISP is no longer allowing you to send email out using any mail server except their own. This is a common practice that many ISP’s do now in order to attempt to better control their networks.

What you will need to do to get around this is either:

1.) set your outgoing / SMTP mail server to your ISP’s mail server. You may need to call your ISP to find out exactly what they use. Usually it is something like :

mail.your_isp.com

or

smtp.your_isp.com

If these do not work, you’ll need to contact them to find out what they use.

Make sure you DO NOT change your incoming / pop3 mail server name. It must stay the same so that you can still get mail from us.

2.) The other option is to keep you mail settings the same but change the SMTP port from 25 (the default) to 2525 . We run mail on ports 25 and 2525 so that clients whose ISP’s no longer allow outgoing mail can still send mail. In most cases, the ISP is only blocking mail the port 25 so if you set your mail program to use port 2525 you will be able to send again.

Random spam + viruses to undefined addresses on my domain

Question :

For some reason today I’m getting a lot of spam generated to random email addresses to and from my domain. I assume this is a virus scam or other net trick.
My catch-all is directing all these random address to my main account.

How do you elimate the catch all address or is there another solution?

Thanks

Answer:

Hi,

Unfortunatly this is becoming more and more common. I would recommend you delete the catch-all address. Catch-all’s used to be a very useful type of email address but now that spammers and virus writers are starting to bombard lots of random addresses at domains we are recommending people stop using catch-alls.

You can delete your catch-all by doing the following :

1. Go into your email control panel

2. Click on “Edit existing POP3 accounts”

3. Click on “Set catchall email deleted” near the bottom of that page.