ElGaton

Hi Byron,

actually, it's not the sites themselves (they work fine), it's the Mailman administrative interface (see links in my first post) - I just rechecked (after cleaning my browser cache) and it's the same. Could you please have a look at it?

In the past days I have tried to access the Mailman administration page for some mailing lists I manage - one such page is http://stevie.heliohost.org/mailman/admin/amunaptra_alessandromenti.heliohost.org.

However, when I try to access it, the server gives me the following error message:

500 Internal Server Error

The request was not completed. The server met an unexpected condition.

stevie.heliohost.org/mailman/admin/amunaptra_alessandromenti.heliohost.org (port 80)

Please forward this error screen to stevie.heliohost.org's WebMaster.

The same goes for the list information page (http://stevie.heliohost.org/mailman/listinfo/amunaptra_alessandromenti.heliohost.org) and happens for all the mailing list I have set up on my account. Could you please check what went wrong?

Account data: my username is "amenti" and my main domain is "alessandromenti.heliohost.org".

Hi everyone,

I'm currently planning to move the mailing lists I've currently set up to another server - could you please provide me with a complete backup? (Mailing lists are not stored in the home directory and I don't have access to them).

This is my account data:

Username: amenti

Server: Stevie

Main domain: alessandromenti.heliohost.org (my mailing lists are on that domain as well as on alessandromenti.it)

Thanks!

Just a side note: now that StartSSL is now trusted by most browsers, djbob might want to use their Class 1 certificates (they are free of charge, valid for one year and they would eliminate the "Untrusted certificate" warning box).

EDIT: I forgot that StartSSL currently allows only one free certificate per domain (so if a certificate is issued for stevie.heliohost.org, no other ones could be issued for other subdomains, such as the one corresponding to the second server, johnny.heliohost.org). Shame on me.

Thanks - my site is fully functional again now.

Dear djbob,

may I request (again) a dedicated IP for SSL? After the DDoS attack you experienced I noticed my IP address is shared with others, preventing me from using SSL fully (in fact, I am sharing my certificate with some other sites).

My website's address is alessandromenti.heliohost.org and my cPanel username is "amenti".

Thanks in advance and keep up the good work

Thanks - everything works like a charm now.

Thanks - I generated the certificate and key and installed them but, when I open my site (http://alessandromenti.heliohost.org/), a message appears saying my account is queued:

You're seeing this page because HelioHost has not gotten about to installing and configuring your account yet. This process usually takes 24 hours, and once it is complete your website should show up properly. While the account is being created we suggest taking a look at your control panel.

Is that normal?

No, I'm going to create it using Comodo's InstantSSL or FreeSSL (I wanted to use StartCom's free certification services now that they are supported by major browsers, but subdomain certification is not allowed without taking at least Class 2 Validation...).

By the way, I forgot to mention my Web address and cPanel username - they are respectively "alessandromenti.heliohost.org" and "amenti".

Dear djbob,

would you be so kind to give me a dedicated IP and activate SSL on my account? I need it to protect a groupware area I created.

Thanks.

I need it because I want to create a shared groupware area and want access passwords be transmitted over an encrypted connection. In the future I'll create a Web update service for my programs (my software will send its version to my Web server and a PHP script will return whether updates are available or not), and I want these communications to be encrypted as well.

Would you be so kind to give me a dedicated IP address and enable SSL on my account? My cPanel username is amenti and my website's address is http://alessandromenti.heliohost.org/.

Dear djbob,

As I wrote in a previous thread (http://www.helionet.org/index/index.php?showtopic=3717), my account was lost during the transition from the old to the new server. However, the signup script continues that my username and domain have already been taken.

Is there a way to remove my account (elgaton) from the cPanel database, or at least unregister the domain name (the1stclass.heliohost.org)? I would not mind if I had to register with a new user name, but I do not want to use a new domain name, therefore changing my old website's address.

Thanks.

Try using another username. Your cPanel account cannot be reenabled - it has been lost.

After trying to use a different user name, cPanel says that my domain has already been taken, too. Is it possible to delete my domain and account manually? I want to preserve my old website address (the1stclass.heliohost.org).

Unfortunately, your account is now gone. There's nothing that can be done, as it was on the old server which was wiped 11 days ago.

 

Did you keep any backups of your site data?

 

PS: Can you please give me a link to your transfer request thread?

I have got backups of my Web pages (but, unfortunately, not of my MySQL databases - I will create them again). It seems that also my transfer request thread has been deleted from the forums, too

By the way, the signup page says that my username ("elgaton") has already been taken. Would you be so kind to enable my cPanel account again?

Dear administrator,

I am not able to access my site anymore. A traceroute on my domain name (the1stclass.heliohost.org) shows that "the destination host is unreachable". It looks like my account has been deleted.

My website's URL is http://the1stclass.heliohost.org and my CPanel account name is "ElGaton". I had already submitted a request for transferring my site to the new server, but I received no confirmation that the transfer has been completed successfully.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Does this check if a HelioHost subdomain has been taken, or if a TLD domain has been taken?

The script can be easily adapted to satisfy both tasks. I think it basically needs to perform a WHOIS query. I did not put anything in the code sample just to show how the system may look like.

I thought the new HelioHost site needs a simple, user-friendly system to check whether a domain name has already been taken or not. I wrote a small script in PHP and a sample HTML page to show a possible way to do it. It's a button which sends a request to the server via AJAX and returns the result in the user interface. Of course, it is not shown if JavaScript is not enabled in the browser and/or it does not support AJAX. I've intentionally kept all the formatting to a minimum and commented the code.

The ZIP file is available as an attachment to this post. heliohost.zip

Usage: unzip the file, upload it to a PHP-enabled server, browse to index.htm using your favourite Web browser and enjoy.

Are those certificates trusted by most major operating systems?

Unfortunately, not under M$ Windows, IE and Opera. I do not know if they have been included in the latest releases of Konqueror or other Linux browsers, as I have a rather old installation (Slackware 10). Anyway, I think they will be included at least in open-source browsers.

Thank you very much, djbob - with these improvements you're really going to make HelioHost the most wonderful hosting provider on the Net. When I decided to transfer the site of our classroom (http://the1stclass.heliohost.org/) from another hosting provider (AlterVista.org) because of their limitations on space, bandwidth and MySQL queries per hour (!) and I found HelioHost listed on a free hosting directory, an ex-classmate of mine (and also ex-webmaster of the original site), looking at all the services you offer, said: "It's too beautiful to be true". After I had signed up, I admitted he was completely wrong.

I've got some suggestions about the improvement of HelioHost:

1) Ads

Ad revenue is a great way to support HelioHost's development. It would cover the costs of the new server, the Internet connection, energy (!), and so on. 448x60 banners are not so intrusive in a web site and will give you some money (even if they are only displayed and not clicked), as you suggested before. You may also give us some HTML code to let Google show ads in our pages if we want and contribute to this cause

2) SSL certificates for the mail server

You may apply for a free Class 1 SSL certificate at startssl.com for the mail server if you want - that would remove the "Untrusted certificate" warning (at list with Thunderbird 2 or later).

3) Downtime alerts

It would be just nice if you added a cPanel module (or a notification service) to alert HelioHost users of any planned server downtime via e-mail. This could also be achieved with a new topic in the HelioNet forum.

I've found another interesting post in the cPanel Forums:

http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread.php?t=69598

After a little browsing, I found the only solution seems to be editing the httpd.conf file by hand or to use dedicated IPs.

Looks like they aren't allowing unsigned SSL certificates. Signed certificates do require dedicated IP's... however, I'm not sure what's wrong with unsigned SSL certificates.

Nothing should be wrong with unsigned SSL certificates. Anyway, when I tried to import my certificate I put the CA certificate in the "CA certificate bundle" section.

EDIT: after many tries and searches, I've found that it is not possible to use SSL on Virtual Hosts. That happens because SSL session initialization requires to know the right host name in order to present the client the right certificate. Unfortunately, the only way to know the host name if the server is using the "virtual hosts" feature is to look for the "Host" header in the HTTP session, which starts AFTER the SSL session is initialized. It is a chicken-and-egg-problem.

Look at the Apache SSL FAQ for more information: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/ssl/ssl_faq.html#vhosts

Maybe it is... you could check at the cPanel forums at their site. This is a weird problem... maybe there are security risks involved in this.

I've found some interesting posts in the cPanel forums:

http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread.php?t=75062

http://forums.cpanel.net/showthread.php?t=50467

I don't think there are security risks involved in using SSL without having a dedicated IP. It seems strange that cPanel does NOT allow that...

I accessed the page, selected my domain (the1stclass.heliohost.org) from the list and clicked on "Install Certificate", but cPanel says "Sorry, you must have a dedicated ip to use this feature!"

I've got a private Apache server on my machine (I actually use it to test my web site before uploading changes to the production server), therefore I know very well I don't need a dedicated IP to enable SSL. In fact, you may enable SSL on single virtual hosts selectively with the <VirtualHost> directive... is cPanel broken?

djbob,

the SSL option was not shown in the "Security" section of the main panel, but the direct link does work.

However, after having generated a private key and a certificate on my computer and having uploaded them to the server, I do not see the link "Setup a SSL certificate to work with your site" which I have to click in order to enable SSL on Apache (see the cPanel manual at http://www.cpanel.net/docs/cpanel/cp11/Sec...TLS_Manager.htm, step 5).

Dear djbob,

would you be so kind to enable SSL on my website? Since I have got a reserved area, I would like to use that functionality in order to let users login in a secure manner (that is, without their passwords being sent in clear text over the Internet).

My website address is http://the1stclass.heliohost.org and my cPanel login name is "elgaton".

Thanks in advance.