Account suspended. Suggestions needed...

[The Grinch]

Well, something unfortuntate happened today. Once of my domains, my main one, was suspended (read banned) from dathorn today for excessive resource usage. It came as quite a shock to me actually. I was hoping that some of you could make some suggestions on how I can keep myself from ending up in that boat in the future.

I am running phpbb as my forum. There are a total of about 59000 posts, about 500 users, and the average number of posts per day is 250. The number of users online ranges from 1 to 20. Somehow this combination was a recipie for disaster.

Apparently there were over 800 PHP/MySQL processes running at the time they caught it. I don't really know what would cause 800, or how servere that even is. There were quite a few mods done to the forum, including a spell checker. I'm not sure if that could be part of the issue or not.

Maybe I was being spydered to death? And with so many posts it could have been having a huge impact on things?

Anyhow... I could use any suggestions that you may have to hopefully avoid this problem in the future. In the meantime it looks like I will be shopping for a new home.

[KyleC]

mods, especially poorly written ones can cause major problems on boards...

[Chamish]

I had a problem like yours this l week .After I am transferred to new server ,one of my accounts suspended and closed 2 days(after I change the index site as under construction). I think it is a new policy with new servers. My costumer's site running phpnuke and they have 1100 members.
At the other hand I look for new homes. But I suggest you tell your problem at the beginning. Because every firm have a different policy. If you have a lot of sites like that. I suggest you select at least semi dedicated server or dedicated server. I know it is more expensive from a basic reseller account but it is more under control.

[The Grinch]

I am thinking of something larger for hosting. $200/mo is not in the budget, but $50-$60US is feasible. I'm not sure where to start. This is so unexpected, and I have no backup plan. Sigh.

...I was looking so forward to playing FarCry tonight. I just got it yesterday and love it. Now all I have to look forward to is a headache. sniff.

[DomainDog]

Well, silly me, but it seem that if a person TRULY didn't know they were causing a problem, and were not given a chance to rectify the situation, then maybe they should be given another chance?

I understand we have a TOS to abide by, but there are things that happen that are out of our control. The recent meltdown at The Planet is a perfect example. Should Andrew be blamed and condemned for that? Even though it was not his fault, most if not all of us experience disruption of some kind ranging from slight to nuclear.

This is not the first time someone asked what not to do, and probably not the first time someone was banned without deliberately doing something to cause it.

I don't know all the facts of the case, but this sounds quite different from placing adult material on a site or deliberately spamming.

Anyone else care to comment?

DomainDog

[Chamish]

Something’s learn with bad experiences Last two months everyday nightmare for me. First the downtime ,slow problems of cpanel07.Then server transferred. New and DNS setup problems started. First I send everyone an email to change their DNS. But some of my costumers out the date. And they forgot to make changes. They maked the changes but on new servers there is one week old pages. I try to fix them myself. After that when old server permanently down other part of my costumers call me because they didn't change the Dns .And I try to help then in 2(sites down) days. While I am started to relax that suspend problem happened. I am shocked but I can't do anything too. I understood that In dathorn I can't install a shopping site , portal or at least forum. It is a risk for me now. am looking for a new place too. But I believe that one time I will have downtimes and other problems again because every firm can have problems. But I looking less one.

I suggest you look in WHT . And If you can pay 50-60 don't thing anything select semi dedicated. Because in semi dedicated plans you can use the cpu, ram and etc sources. %10-%15 of total source. On reseller packages you can usually 2,5% or below.

[The Grinch]

Well, I'm not going to cry over spilled milk. It's happened and that's all there is too it. I've moved my forum over to my test server at home and it's running perfectly. (thank you Andrew for providing me the backup of my site)

I've logged a ticket to see if we can at least release the domain name from suspension so that I can put up a redirect page. Hopefully I will at least be granted that wish. I'll be happy with a 10 kb space, as long the DNS doesn't change.

[DomainDog]

So Grinch... for our benefit, would you mind answering these?

Did you have any idea you were causing a problem?
Did you receive any kind of warning or pre-notification of suspension?
Were you exceeding your allocated resources and not tracking it?
Have you requested re-instatement?

The reason I'm asking is, if it can happen to you without knowing, then it can happen to anyone. Again, it would be a really good idea to have a "What NOT to do" section, since apparently we can get banned with even knowing we were doing something to get banned for.

I don't mean to sound negative, but it's a little scary to find out our entire business can get shut down, without knowing why and with no recourse.

[KyleC]

if his entire reseller account was suspended, that is a disturbing problem...

but it its just the offending domain...well, that was the only way to stop the server abuse.

[Jonathan]

I must agree sometimes things are simply
beyond control and you assume are fine until they suspend you.

Like me, I admit I nearly used IRC!
I had downloaded, installed, and nearly
used this one "Java" chatroom for PHP-Nuke.

Right as about to press connect, my friend
remembered where he heard the name, and
said it was an IRC chatroom!!

Even on close inspection, I didn't see
anywhere it said it was an IRC front-end.

Then I tested on old host that
doesn't mind IRC, and IT WAS!!

So believe me, some things don't
tell you what it does, and you come
to find out its something against the TOS...

[DomainDog]

If it was only the domain, and not the account, that is a HUGE difference. Hopefully, one domain does not a business make. From Grinches woeful tone, I got the impression he was bug-zapped.

If not, what would it take to get zapped? (just so we know what to avoid!) Like is running a phpbb forum or a blog site going to eat so much resources and server time that you get it in the britches?

[Pedja]

If I recall well, keeping Java IRC client on site is not against TOS. Keeping bots or other similar sotware is.

[The Grinch]

Only the offending account was locked down. But in reality that is the only one I care about. I'm not reselling accounts. I run a local car club and dathorn looked like a good home for hosting it.

I was not given warning about the issue, but from what I have seen in the past, things are run on a zero tolerance policy here. So I'm not exactly shocked at the outcome, just shocked that it happened. The site was using about 22GB of transfer per month. So as you can see, the board was fairly active. The issue here seems to be a CPU load issue, not a transfer bandwidth problem. I don't know of any way that I can monitor that myself.

What is interesting is that I've moved the forum (the most used part of my site) to my home test server. It's a puny little PII-266 with 192MB of ram, running linux, and a home cable connection with an upload speed somewhere between 30-40KB/sec. So far everyone has told me that the forum seems to run fine, and isn't all that slow considering the bandwidth restrictions. So if it's running on such a small system without a hitch, why it was crippling the dathorn server is a mystery to me. My only thought is that it was a glitch, some kind of web attack, or I was being spydered big time. I really wish I new what it was so that it doesn't happen again anywhere else.

How would I be able to see how many MySQL or PHP processes that are running? I'd like to check this on my own server for reference.

[DomainDog]

So if it's running on such a small system without a hitch, why it was crippling the dathorn server is a mystery to me. My only thought is that it was a glitch, some kind of web attack, or I was being spydered big time. I really wish I new what it was so that it doesn't happen again anywhere else.

How would I be able to see how many MySQL or PHP processes that are running? I'd like to check this on my own server for reference.

A few very important questions for all of us to ponder. Answers would be helpful.

If this can happen to one person with knowing, it can happen to anyone.

[DomainDog]

If I recall well, keeping Java IRC client on site is not against TOS. Keeping bots or other similar sotware is.

As I recall it, Dathorn servers support neither Java (except client side apps) nor IRC in any form.

Check with Andrew to be sure.