Slicehost

The support staff here at Slicehost work tirelessly to help customers manage their slices and keep things running smoothly. They can be easy to overlook when you don't need their help, so I'll try to regularly highlight some of their more tangible efforts (the bits that are etched in HTML, as it were).

We published some articles to our repository recently that hopefully some folks will find useful.

Using ServerDensity to monitor a slice: How to set up a commercial monitoring service for your slice to try it out.

Installing munin: How to set up a free monitoring solution on your slice.

Barebones postfix install: Installing postfix on a slice with a minimal configuration.

How to use rescue mode: Using rescue mode from the SliceManager to fix a slice that's stubbornly uncooperative.

Speed up resizes: A two-part series on how to minimize downtime when resizing a slice.

Matiu from our support staff wrote a handy forum post last year that listed several server management consoles, and he updated it recently. Given that new slice customers are usually interested in their options on that score, giving the post some extra exposure in the blog seemed like a good idea:

Web Panel Options: Free and commercial administration panels.

Of course, that support staff is lurking in SliceChat twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Be sure and drop in if you have any questions for them.

Adding to last week's announcement, we are happy to introduce a 32-bit image for CentOS 5.4 that is now available in the SliceManager.

This image was created in the same manner as the previous 32-bit images and for this reason, will carry the beta label as well.

I want to thank Major from the RackspaceCloud Operations team in addition to Seth Vidal from the Fedora Project, for working together to make this image available.

If you have any questions or concerns, please visit with us in SliceChat at any time.

Following requests for 32-bit images I am pleased to be able to offer 32-bit images for Ubuntu Hardy, Jaunty and Karmic as well as Debian 5.0 (Lenny).

We had a discussion on our forums surrounding the images and we have labelled them as 'beta'.

The reason for the beta label is we have created a 64-bit Slice and kernel with a 32-bit userland. This means that if you installed apache with an 'aptitude install apache2', the 32-bit version will be pulled from the relevant repository and installed on your Slice. In addition, it also means you are able to natively run 64-bit executables.

Unfortunately, 64-bit versions of RPM-based distributions such as CentOS and Fedora do not have 32-bit ELF support in /sbin/init, so we are unable to offer similar images of these distributions at this time.

To add a 32-bit Slice, head to the Slicemanager and click 'Add a Slice' and select your preferred distro from the image dropdown.

As always, we are available 24/7 in our chatroom should you have any questions.

Cheers, Paul

Edit: I clarified the sentence regarding 32-bit ELF support as it was possibly causing some confusion

Yesterday we introduced the start of the product changes for 2010 and beyond.

One of those items we talked about was called Professional Services.

This is a Rackspace service that allows you to engage with a professional Linux Sysadmin team who will be able to install and configure your Slice in whatever manner you require.

Why?

A common request from the forums as well as emails and tickets, is to ask if we are able to help with the installation of a LAMP stack or if we can build a software based Load Balanced solution and so on.

Although the articles site is a great resource for newcomers as well as experienced sysadmins, this 'hands on' facility is something we are very pleased to offer.

Remember we have excellent members of the community who are also willing and able to assist with your needs. I encourage you to ask on the forums for help but for those that want to take advantage of this service, please let us know and we will be happy to assist.

The cost of the service will vary depending on your requirements but it's based on time rather than complexity of the task. There is an initial commitment of 5 hours but if the task takes an hour, you would only get charged for that hour.

How?

To engage the Professional Services team and to see if they are a good fit for your needs, please submit a ticket via the Slicemanager requesting a call back.

We will pass your details to the team who will contact you and discuss your requirements. There is no obligation and if you feel it is not suitable for your needs then please feel no pressure to utilise the service.

If you have any questions, please submit a ticket and we'll be happy to help.

Cheers, Paul

I am very pleased to announce the start of some major changes and improvements to the Slicehost product.

2010 is going to be a very exciting year for us and I hope you will join us for an amazing year.

New Slice Sizes

Let's start with the new Slice sizes. Although upgrading a Slice is done with a click of a button and is usually complete within a few short minutes, one of the issues was having to double the Slice size. For example, from a 256Slice, the next available option was a 512Slice. This can mean a significant jump in resources and in how much you pay each month.

So to help with a smoother, more consistent upgrade path we are very pleased to offer our new 'Intermediate Slices'. They sit nicely between our most popular Slice sizes. We have introduced a 384Slice, a 768Slice, a 1.5GB Slice and a 3GB Slice.

The prices of the new Slices will also allow for an easier resize path - the new Slices start at just $25.

Bandwidth Increases

As you may know, we have pooled bandwidth across Slices since Sep 2008 but what if you don't have multiple Slices? Well, we agree you shouldn't have to worry about bandwidth overages so we have significantly increased the bandwidth usage for each Slice size.

You can view full details for all of the plans on offer on the main website: http://www.slicehost.com

Professional Services

There are also many requests from customers who would like help in setting up their Slice(s). Although there are many very able techs in the community who have done an outstanding job, we wanted to make this easier by offering another option. As such, we will also be introducing Rackspace Professional Services later this week. This allows you to hire professional, Rackspace Linux Sysadmins and Techs to install whatever you like on your Slice. Want a multi-Slice, load balanced, Nginx setup? No problem. Want a simple LAMP stack? No problem.

I hope you find this start to the Slicehost 2010 useful. Keep an eye out, a lot more is coming!

Cheers, Paul

A new kernel version, 2.6.32, is now available through the SliceManager to install on your slice. Please be aware that the process does require a reboot to complete.

This kernel has been fully tested to work on all of the images we provide. With that said, you will notice one small caveat in regards to the memory reporting of your slice.

As many of you are aware, we do use the kernels provided straight from the developers at Ubuntu. However, it seems there is a bug in the recent kernel that appears to provide your slice with a few more megabytes than you would come to expect. This is a purely cosmetic issue and does not effect the actual performance of the slice itself.

As always, if you run into issues or have any concerns, please visit us in SliceChat or send an email to support@slicehost.com.

Some new articles have been posted to the Slicehost Articles Repository to help customers manage their slices. If you haven't visited our articles site before, it's a collection of tutorials and advice ranging from setting up a new slice to juggling multiple domains on a web server. It's well worth a visit when you're trying to do something new with a slice or optimize a service you already have running.

From Lee we have a pair of articles on working with SSL certificates and keys after they've been created. They cover topics like organizing certificates used by a web server and testing and verifying certificates for common errors before deploying them.
Managing SSL Certificates #1
Managing SSL Certificates #2

Lee also created a series of articles designed to accompany our ebook on DNS administration in SliceManager. The articles describe how to use the "dig" command to test basic DNS configurations before and after they propagate to the Internet, as well as checking a domain using external DNS servers.
Verifying DNS configurations
Using dig with external nameservers
Getting more out of dig

An article written by Greg is a straightforward set of instructions for installing the Apache Tomcat application server for Java servlets and JSPs on Ubuntu Hardy Heron.
Ubuntu Hardy - Installing Apache Tomcat

Jered wrote a set of articles on installing a no-frills apache web server aimed at more experienced administrators that want to get a basic web server up and running with minimal instruction.
Barebones apache install overview

Also from Jered, an article discussing the Spamhaus Policy Block List, how it can affect new mail server installations on slices, and how you can remove a slice's address from the block list quickly and easily.
Removing a mail server from the Spamhaus PBL

Jered is a new face at Slicehost, and also the author of this blog post, so he'll stop talking about himself in the third person now. I'll be primarily responsible for maintaining the articles repository, adding to it, posting articles written by other members of the Slicehost team, and keeping the articles updated in general. I'm still getting my feet wet, but expect many more articles in the future.

With that in mind, please feel free to submit suggestions for additional articles. We have several in the works now, including articles on slice monitoring and security, and are always looking for new ideas.

We're happy to announce that we are now working with the author of Redis to allow him to test and optimize his excellent database product for use on our virtual private servers.

Redis is a key-value database that resides in memory, either replicating another database or standing on its own. It's similar to memcached but more versatile and less volatile, since Redis allows values other than strings and can periodically write database changes to disk while maintaining everything in memory for fast access. Redis also supports interfaces for a number of programming and scripting languages, including C, PHP, Python, Javascript and Ruby.

Redis is an exciting piece of software (if you have the memory for it!), and we here at Slicehost are pleased to be able to contribute to its ongoing development.

As some of you may have already noticed, there are a few new images quietly making their way into the SliceManager.

Our operations team has been working extremely hard to bring you the latest and greatest images out there for your slice.

Today, we introduced the following base images in the SliceManager for new builds and rebuilds:

• Gentoo 10.1
• Fedora 12
• RHEL 5.4

Please note that RHEL 5.4 is coupled with a new kernel. Therefore, if you decide to upgrade your previous RHEL installation through the command line, you will need to update your kernel in the SliceManager as well. If you rebuild or build a new slice using RHEL 5.4, it will automatically install the new kernel for you.

If you encounter any issues with either of these images, please shoot us an email at support@slicehost.com or swing by chat to let us know.

Additionally, please be aware that Fedora 10 will be removed from the SliceManager in two weeks time. Therefore, you will not be able to build any new images or rebuild a slice using our base Fedora 10 image after this time.

As we continue to grow, we strive to offer the awesome support and service for which we are famous. As such, I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome the newest member of our Slicehost family:

Purvesh joins us from Michigan and works from our St Louis office. Purvesh is currently completing his initial training this week and will be available soon thereafter to offer his support.

He will be working our third shift with the likes of Josh, Lee and Greg so if you stay up late in the US or get up early in Europe or, er, have a normal day elsewhere, then please do pop in chat and say hello!

While most of us in the United States are already busy filling up on turkey and enjoying quality time with our good friends and family, we wanted to let everyone know that work at Slicehost continues as normal.

Currently, we have Fedora 12 and Gentoo 10.1 images in testing. We'll need some time to run them through the gauntlet, but granted everything goes as expected, we should be able to have those images publicly available shortly.

As always, we will have 24 hour coverage so if you find yourself online, please do drop by SliceChat and show the support team your appreciation.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Mark

Today, we are pleased to announce that a CentOS 5.4 image is now available in the SliceManager for new slices and rebuilds. As such, we will be removing the CentOS 5.2 base image on Wednesday, December 2nd.

Please be aware that after this time, you will not be able to create any new slices or rebuild an existing slice using our base CentOS 5.2 image.

If you experience any issues with the newly available CentOS 5.4 image, please visit us in chat or email us at support@slicehost.com

You know, email can be a tricky thing to set up and run on a Slice. It does need maintenance and it can be a chore for some people.

I think things should be easy so we teamed up with the very nice people at Rackspace Email to offer an exclusive promotion code which will reduce the minimum monthly commitment from $10 a month to just $3 a month.

Let me explain:

Without the promotion code, the minimum commitment to have Rackspace host and serve all your email needs is $10 a month. However, I know a lot of Slicehost customers are just like me and only want two or three email boxes.

Using the promotion code means my minimum commitment is just $3 a month. For that, I get 3 Rackspace Email mailboxes. That's suits me fine. If I want more, I can add them, one at a time, as I need them, and pay for my usage.

I think this offer is perfect for many of you who just want two or three mailboxes. I hope you take advantage of the famous Rackspace Fanatical Support that Rackspace Email offers. I personally use them for my email needs (and not just because I work for Rackspace!).

Enough! Where is the code?

Log into the Slicemanager and you will see the promo code in the left hand menu. All you need to do is go to the Rackspace Email website and sign up using the promo code.

To help explain the process, Mark (our wonderful Support Manager) has created a couple of articles:

Email article 1 (Initial sign up process)

Email article 2 (Rackspace Email MX Records)

It is worth noting that the signup process will not show the discount. It will still say $10 a month but rest assured, you will only be charged $3 a month (assuming you only use up to 3 mailboxes of course). If you have any concerns once you have signed up, check with Rackspace Email support and they can confirm you have entered the promo code.

They also have a 14 day trial so if you feel icky and don't want to continue, just cancel before the end of the 14 days.

If you have any questions about Rackspace Email I recommend you chat to the great support staff on their website. If you have questions for us at Slicehost, come and chat!.

Paul

UPDATE:

I forgot to add that there is a very convenient DNS Zone creator you may want to use:

Slicehost and RS Email DNS Zone creator

Note that the site is not officially sponsored by Slicehost so YMMV but I think it will save you time and typing.

Paul

As many of you with Slices in our Rackspace DFW Datacenter are painfully aware, there was a power outage in the early hours of Tue, 3rd Nov.

Firstly, it goes without saying that I personally apologise for the outage and I want to explain what happened. Although this will not change your experience, I hope it will go some way to easing concerns about a repetition of last night.

Secondly, it has taken much of today for me to get accurate information. For those that know me, you know I am a straight talker (to say the least) and I wanted facts before I approached you with details.

So, what happened?

At around 12:29am CST this morning, the DFW data center experienced a power outage during a routine (non impacting) maintenance. Clearly, this non-impacting maintenance became impacting and many Slicehost customers in the DFW DC experienced downtime.

Power was restored within five minutes and most Slices were up and running in a good timeframe. However, some of you did experience lengthy delays while we restored your Slice. We had the Systems team working from the moment we knew something had occurred and they did not stop until everyone was up and running again.

The issue was further complicated by internal DNS issues which were caused by the unexpected power outage.

However, this does bring up a couple of specific points I would like to discuss:

We did not post a notice about this maintenance. Until now, we have restricted notification of maintenance windows to those that might, under normal circumstances, have an impact. We didn't expect this period to be impacting and so we did not post a notice.

This turned out to be very wrong and, as a result of this, I will be posting more routine maintenance warnings on our status blog.

The second point is that I feel our communication lacked in a couple of areas. We did not keep you informed as regularly as we should have done. Even if there was no specific news, I feel regular updates are essential so you know we are dealing with the issue. I have already changed our procedures and there is a clearer, more defined, route for communication.

I make no excuses for what happened. It reflects on us badly and it affected you negatively. This is not something I find acceptable and I will continue to work to provide the best service for you.

I know you will be concerned and if you have any questions then please email us or come to our chatroom.

Paul

Wow. We've had a mad 24 hours but we are very pleased to announce we have a shiny new Ubuntu Karmic Koala Slice image up and running.

If you want to try it, then log into the (Slicemanager) and fire up a new Slice or you could rebuild your current Slice with a fresh Koala image (remember a rebuild will wipe the Slice though!).

The kernel issues we talked about yesterday have been solved by the wonderful Systems Team. If you happen to be in our IRC lounge (Freenode, #slicehost) then do send a wave of thanks to RackerHacker and Ant. They have worked their little socks off on this one and have done a great job.

I think you know we don't recommend upgrading a distro from the command line but, hey, if you want to, then the latest kernel will allow you to do just that.

For those that do decide to go the command line route, then you will want to upgrade the kernel, via the Slicemanager, before you upgrade the distro. Good luck!

Thanks for your patience and support while we sorted out the kernel issues. It goes without saying (although I'll just go ahead and say it anyway) that if you have any issues then let us know. The best ways of getting in touch are to open a ticket via the Slicemanager or to join us in our chatroom 24/7.

Cheers, Paul