Tutorials – Official Blog

To use your domain in the Internet, you need to configure nameservers. The nameservers are needed to resolve the domain names into IP addresses. We recommend to use our nameservers (ns1.contabo.net, ns2.contabo.net, ns3.contabo.net) for your domains. We provide redundant servers in different data centers and you can easily manage your DNS zones over the customer control panel. But for several reasons it can be necessary to use your own nameservers.

This tutorial provides short instructions how to manage your own nameservers with cPanel and Plesk. For most domains extensions (TLD), it is necessary to use at least two different IP addresses for two different nameservers.

In this tutorial we are going to use the domain "yourdomain.com" and want to use the nameservers "ns1.yourdomain.com" and "ns2.yourdomain.com" with the IP addresses "1.1.1.1" and "2.2.2.2".

cPanel

To use an additional IP address for a second nameserver, you will need to add the IP address in WHM at "IP Functions" - "Add a New IP Address". The DNS server will be accessible on all configured IP addresses on your server. You can use different IP addresses for the nameservers than for your website.

To use the nameservers with your domains, you will need to add them in WHM at "Server Configuration" - "Basic Webhost Manager® Setup". At the end of the page you can enter the nameserver you would like to use. After you entered the nameserver, you need to select "Configure Address Records". Please enter the IP address you want to use for this nameserver and press "Configure Address Record". After this is finished you can close the windows using "Close". Please note, that in some conditions -- for example if the nameservers are currently configured on a different server -- the entries for the nameserver will not be updated immediately. After you have finished, please press "Save changes".

Now you can "Create a New Account" with your domain at WHM - "Account functions". The configured nameserver will be used in the configuration of your new account and the DNS zone will be created with default values. You can see all DNS entries at WHM - "Edit DNS Zone".

On this page you can manage all DNS entries of your domain. Most entries are for internal usage and should not be changed. To manage user defined values, we recommend to use the "Zone Editor" at "Domains" in the cPanel account.

At last, you will need to configure your domain settings at your domain registrar. You need to change the nameserver entries. If you want to use subdomains of your domain, for example "ns1.yourdomain.com" for your domain "yourdomain.com", you will need to configure so called "Glue Records". This means, the domain registrar does not only save the name of your nameservers, but also the IP address. In some cases it is required to configure the new IP addresses for the nameservers at the current DNS zone of your domain.

After you have finished the configuration, it can take up to 24 hours until the new settings are propagated correctly. To test your nameservers and the name resolution for your domain, you can use tools like intoDNS. This tool will test the settings at your DNS provider and of your nameservers.

Plesk

At first you will need to create your domain in Plesk. At "Websites & Domains" you can see an overview of your domains.

To use a second IP address for your nameservers, the IP address needs to be configured at "Tools & Settings" - "Tools & Resources" - "IP Addresses". The DNS server responds to all configured IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. You can use different IP addresses for your nameservers than for your websites.

All DNS zones in Plesk will be configured based on a DNS template. You can find the settings at "Tools & Settings" - "General Settings" - "DNS Template". In the DNS template you can configure all entries you need for all domains on your server. Beside some default entries and entries for internal services like webmail, the settings for the nameservers can be found here. By default Plesk creates two nameserver entries "ns1.yourdomain.com" and "ns2.yourdomain.com", but with the IP address of your domain. If you want to use the same nameservers for all your domains, we recommend to change the NS entries and the IP addresses of your nameservers in the template. If you want to use different nameservers, you can also change these settings later in the DNS zone of your domain. After you have finished the configuration of the DNS template, you will need to apply the DNS template to all domains.

Now you can see the new settings also in the DNS zone of your domain. You can manage the DNS zone at "Websites & Domains" - "yourdomain.com" - "DNS Settings". There you can add, edit and delete DNS entries.

At last, you will need to configure your domain settings at your domain registrar. You need to change the nameserver entries. If you want to use subdomains of your domain, for example "ns1.yourdomain.com" for your domain "yourdomain.com" as your nameservers, you will need to configure so called "Glue Records". This means, the domain registrar does not only save the name of your nameservers, but also the IP address. In some cases it is required to configure the new IP addresses at your current DNS zone of your domain.

Some of you might wonder in which situations an SSL certificate should be used. This tutorial will help you to find an answer whether or not you should upgrade your website or anything else by adding encryption.

The most important parts of a certificate are the public key and the private key.
The following image shows you what is happening when a client tries to establish an encrypted connection to some webserver.

First the client contacts the server and offers available encryption types, the server and the client come to an agreement on which type to use.
The web server sends the public key to the client so the client will be able to encrypt its requests. The webserver got his private key to decrypt all encrypted client requests. With the private key you are able to decrypt all client requests which were encrypted with the public key, that is why you should never hand out your private key to any third party.

To show you the advantage of using encryption, we created an HTML page containing a simple form which can be found on many websites. In the textfields we entered a username and password.

The username we chose: test@contabo.de

The password we entered: "unencryptedpassword"

To show the difference between encrypted messages and not encrypted messages, we captured some packets using a networking-tool.

Without any encryption we could easily extract the username and password used, we could also see which sites we visit.

With encryption enabled we could not find neither username nor password.
It just shows a packet containing some encrypted data, without the private key we cannot determine which data was actually sent.

If you are running a website, an email server or just an FTP server, it is always up to you to offer encryption or not. Offering encryption to your customers is the best way to act professionally.

There are many types of encryption, this post just handles certificates. Usually encryption algorithms have not changed for years, if you are going to optimize your server you will of course have to think about encryption types, etc.

The real meaning of those connection warnings:

If you are running a web interface (cPanel, Plesk, Webmin etc.) you probably encountered a warning as follows:

"The connection is not private", usually you should rethink if you really want to proceed. There is the possibility that some server got hijacked and you are redirected to the wrong website. In this case the warning pops up because the certificate is not valid for the domain we entered. On a web interface you will get a similar warning when using a so called "self signed certificate". Your browser got a list of authorities which it will trust, signed certificates by one of those authorities will not show any warning.

It can be really unwanted if that warning is showing to all of your customers, sometimes this warning is misinterpreted and the website will be left.

There is only one way to remove this warning, you need to get a certificate signed by some official authority.

Some official authorities, such as "Lets Encrypt", will sign your certificate for free, this is a nice option but not really recommended on a production environment. Usually the domain validated certificate or wildcard certificate is being used for production environment, those certificates usually are valid for 365 days (1 year).

There are some differences between single domain, multi domain and wildcard certificates. Usually you would want a certificate for "yourdomain.tld" or "www.yourdomain.tld". A single domain certificate will be valid only for one of those domains, a multi domain certificate alias UCC (Unified Communications Certificate) is valid for all domains included within that certificate. In case you want "www.yourdomain.tld", "yourdomain.tld" and "subdomain.yourdomain.tld" within a single certificate, a UCC should fit your needs.

There is also some extended validation available, some bigger companies take advantage of this (e.g. PayPal ). At this point I want to mention that the private key and certificate will always remain the same, there is no encryption change, the certificate will just get signed.

Right after you got your certificate signed by some official authority, everyone will be able to access your encrypted website without any warning.

Important:
Encryption is important, all services (email server, FTP server, web server, etc.) running on your server should offer a way to establish an encrypted connection. There is no need of installing a signed certificate on each service, for most services self-signed certificates are fine.

Plesk is a commercial web hosting platform developed by Parallels. It is available for Linux and Windows based operating systems and therefore for any operating systems offered by us.

Together with our partner Plesk, we are currently offering you Plesk Onyx one month for free. Simply select one of the below listed editions of Plesk Onyx and try it, before you buy and pay for it! Only available in combination with our VPS. Further information can be found in our news section: Plesk Onyx now one month for free.

The current version of Plesk is version 17 (Onyx) which we offer in three different editions:

Web Admin Edition: This edition is targeted at users who only want to administrate their own websites. Unnecessary features such as customer/reseller management are not included in this edition.
Web Pro Edition: With this edition, you can host up to 30 different domains. Also, all features apart from the reseller management are available in this edition.
Web Host Edition: With this edition, you can host an unlimited amount of domains. There are no restrictions on behalf of Plesk. The Web Host Edition is the most extensive of all Plesk editions. It includes every feature - from reseller management over security core features until automatic outbound spam protection.

This tutorial, however, is restricted to the basics you need to know. We will show you how to add domains, FTP accounts, databases and e-mail accounts.

At first, we log in at our Plesk webinterface. In order to do so, we use the browser and type in our IP address and port 8443 (e.g. https://198.51.100.3:8443).

We login with the login credentials we received via e-mail...

... and land directly on the main page of the Plesk webinterface. In our case there is already a domain added, in your webinterface the main page might look a little different.

Add a domain:

We click on "Add domain" on the main page and land on the following page:

We fill in all the text boxes. In the box "Domain name", we fill in our domain (without "www"). Our example domain is "example.com". As location for our new website we choose "Create a new webspace".

When choosing IPv4/IPv6 addresses, we choose the IP addresses which we want to use for our newly created domain. Choosing the username and the password are, of course, completely up to you.

The first step is already done now. After clicking on "OK", the new domain is added on our server.

Now we can upload the data for our homepage to the server. Usually, this is done via FTP. Luckily, Plesk already created an FTP account for us when creating the new domain. So all we have to do is opening an FTP client of our choice (e.g. FileZilla) and connect with the login credentials we just set for our new domain.

What is missing now is a database for our website. By clicking on "Databases" and "Add database", we can create a new database:

Again, we fill in all text boxes. In order to connect to that database, we have to create a new database user. Please note down its username and password, you will need it for your website later! When asked about access control, we choose "Allow local connections only".

After we created the database, the following screen will pop up:

Here, we could also import a dump of an already existing database. However, this tutorial is limited to the basics only.

Create an e-mail account:

What we need now is an e-mail account for our domain we just added. Plesk offers a comfortable way to do so as well. We click on "Mail" on the left side of the main menu and then choose "Create Email address":

After we filled in all the text boxes we click on "OK" in order to create the new mail account. Please remember to note down the access data, you will need them later!
Once the mail account is created, we can login on our mail webinterface on "webmail.example.com" for sending and receiving e-mails.

Sounds good to you? Great 🙂

If you are ready to try Plesk Onyx now, we would like to mention our current campaign with Plesk Onyx one more time. Get Plesk Onyx one month for free, in combination with one of our VPS. Select the model of your choice in our VPS overview and opt for your preferred Plesk Onyx edition during the configuration process.

Everyone knows the scenario, you want to analyze an issue of your server or local computer but where to find all those log files?

In the following tutorial we are going to analyze specific log files in Linux and logs in the Windows Event Viewer. An additional chapter will go through the log analysis via Systemd.

Linux log files

Unfortunately, it is quite different from distribution to distribution, which information can be extracted from specific log files. In the following we will analyze the log file structure of Debian 8 and CentOS 7.2. The first location to look for log files should always be /var/log/. Depending on their configuration, Apache, Nginx or similar applications write log files to this folder too. System log specifications and locations can be found in the file /etc/rsyslog.conf.

Debian 8:

/var/log/auth.log

Logs of successful and failed authentications to your system can be found in this log file. It is also logged when a user invokes commands via sudo.

/var/log/messages

This file contains log entries of general system information, amongst others, you will also find the system upstart logs.

/var/log/dmesg or dmesg

The kernel ring buffer can be read with dmesg. You will find information about the system upstart, runtime kernel module messages and many further messages according to the hard and software of your system. By default, dmesg shows the full ring buffer. However, the output can be customized by adding specific parameters. A thorough documentation can be found on the manual page (man dmesg).

/var/log/syslog

This is one of the most important log files in general. Every Linux process is free to log to the syslog by implementing the syslog interface. It also logs the system upstart and executed cron-jobs.

CentOS 7.2:

As the log file structure is quite similar to the one of Debian 8, we will just mention the differences.

/var/log/secure

This log file is the equivalent to /var/log/auth.log in Debian systems. All kind of authentications are logged here.

/var/log/messages

There is no separation of /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog in CentOS, all system logs of processes which implement the syslog interface can be found here.

/var/log/cron

Cron specific log files are not part of the syslog as in Debian. They can be found in the above mentioned file.

Log analysis via Systemd

Systemd is basically the standard Init system of nearly all major Linux distributions today. Since at least April 2015, when Debian and Ubuntu switched to Systemd, every Linux administrator or user has been in touch with Systemd. As Systemd is a complex system, we will only take a look into the log analysis functionality provided. Every process in Systemd is identified as a unit. All active units can be shown via the following command:

systemctl list-units

When appending the parameter --all, this command also shows all inactive units.

Logs being created by Systemd are managed in the so called Journal. These logs can be accessed via the journalctl binary. If journalctl is called without any parameter, it will print out the whole Journal. However, it is also possible to output the log entries of specific units only. In the following example, we are going to analyze the log files of the Apache web server.

journalctl -u httpd

It is also possible to restrict the output with the parameters --since and --until.

journalctl -u httpd --since "2016-11-01 20:00:00" --until "2016-11-03 20:00:00"

The above command will output the Apache log entries between 2016-11-01 20:00:00 and 2016-11-03 20:00:00. It is also possible to use keywords like "today" or "yesterday".

You can also output the log files of more than one unit at the same time. In the following example we will output all Apache and Nginx log entries which have been logged since yesterday.

journalctl -u httpd -u nginx --since yesterday

If the parameter -f is used, all desired log entries are shown in real time.

The above was only a slight view into the possibilities of journalctl, there are several other useful features which are described on the manual page (man journalctl).

Log analysis via Windows Event Viewer

In the above picture in the left navigation you can see the entry "Windows Logs". The following entries are most important.

Application

This entry will show the events of locally installed applications.

Security

Here you can see successful and failed login attempts.

System

This entry logs operating system internal events and errors.

Via the entry "Custom Views" -> "Server Roles" -> "Remote Desktop Services" you can see RDP related events and errors.

Potential hardware issues can be identified via "Application and Service Logs" -> "Hardware Events".

Useful for error analysis can also be the overview which can be seen via "Overview and Summary" -> "Summary of Administrative Events", it provides a summarized overview of the system status in general.

With this tutorial we will explain certain types of RAID levels to you.
Some of you might have already experienced a loss of data, no matter if it was an SD card holding some vacation photos or a hard disk holding important files. Losing data can be very costly if you try to restore them by some specialist. An expert is needed and the procedure takes a lot of time, the easiest way to avoid those costs is simply to avoid any data loss in the first place.

This overview is not relevant for any VPS, your VPS systems are already running safe on a RAID system monitored by experienced technicians.

Creating backups is still very important, a RAID does not replace any backup!

You can find further instructions within the following tutorial: Data loss and how to avoid it

There are some points which you should think about first, there are several results depending on your requirements.

How important is the performance?
How much data security should be provided by the RAID?
Are system resources available to manage the RAID, such as CPU and RAM

Depending on the results of the above questions and your budget, there are several options available:
A hardware RAID is always more expensive but provides the best performance and security (if combined with a battery backup unit).
A software RAID is the easiest way to go for a RAID, it is able to handle almost any type of RAID and can be set up within a few minutes.

An overview of available RAID levels is shown below:

RAID 0

The RAID 0 provides increased write and read performance, the data will be distributed to at least two disks. Since there is no redundancy all data will be lost in case one disk fails.

At least two hard disks are needed
No disk redundancy at all
Maximum (complete) storage capacity available
Improved read and write performance

RAID 1

The RAID 1 provides increased read performance (depending on the software/hardware controller used), all data will be mirrored to a second disk. There is also a RAID 1E available - in that case all data will be mirrored to additional disks too.

At least two hard disks are needed
n-1 disks can fail
1/n of storage available (n = number of disks, with two disks = > 1/2 of total storage)
Improved read performance

RAID 5

The RAID 5 provides increased write and read performance, the data is written to at least two disks, an additional disk is always used for storing parity data. The parity data has to be calculated for every write - so for very write intensive applications the RAID 5 requires a lot of performance due to the necessary calculations.

At least three hard disks are needed
One disk can fail
n-1/n of storage available (n = number of disks, with three disks = > 2/3 of total storage)
Improved read and write performance
Requires a lot of CPU time

RAID 6

The RAID 6 provides increased read performance, the data is written to at least two disks, two additional disks are always used for storing parity data. The parity data has to be calculated for every write - so for very write intensive applications the RAID 6 requires a lot of performance due to the necessary calculations. As there are two parity bits saved on the disks, the needed CPU time is very high.

At least four hard disks are needed
Two disks can fail simultaneously
n-2/n of storage available (n = number of disks, with two disks = > 2/4 (half) of total storage)
Improved read performance
Requires the most CPU time

RAID 01

A RAID 01 is a combination of two or more volume groups. Each volume group is configured to have a RAID 0, those volume groups are mirrored in a RAID 1. With a total number of four disks one entire volume group can fail with both disks and no data will be lost.

At least four hard disks are needed
Two disks can fail simultaneously if they belong to the same logical volume group
Half of total storage capacity is available
Improved read and write performance

RAID 10

A RAID 10 is a combination of two or more volume groups. Each volume group is configured to have a RAID 1, those volume groups are striped in a RAID 0. With a total number of four disks, two disks can fail simultaneously and no data will be lost - the failed disks must not belong to the same volume group.

At least four hard disks are needed
Two disks can fail simultaneously if they do not belong to the same logical volume group
Half of total storage capacity is available
Improved read and write performance

The difference between RAID 01 and RAID 10 is only visible with six or more disks, if you have six disks a RAID 10 will provide a higher calculated security rate. We do recommend using a RAID 10 instead of using a RAID 01 even if you do only have four disks. Some RAID controllers do not even support a RAID 01 anymore. RAID 5 and RAID 6 require the highest CPU time since a checksum has to be calculated on every writing process to the disk. Only a few enterprise RAID controllers do support RAID 5 and RAID 6, due to the need of calculating checksums the writing speed might suffer which might then cause problems when using write intensive applications.

For our dedicated servers it is always possible to order additional hard disks or RAID controllers, current prices can be found on our web site. If you need a special configuration, please contact our support team any day between 8 am and 11 pm (German timezone, UTC+2).

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It does not matter if you do website hosting, provide a gameserver or use other services, if you have no space left on your HDD/SSD problems will occur. Your websites might not be reachable anymore, your players cannot connect to your gameserver or all other services will not start.

To avoid this it is necessary to find big files on your system and to get rid of them. Today we will show you how to do this.

Linux:

1. Connect to your server using SSH

2. Execute the following code:

# Change into root folder
cd /

# Find the top 10 files. This may take a while:
find -type f -exec du -Sh {} + | sort -rh | head -n 10

Once finished, a list of the ten largest files will be displayed. Normally these files might be old downloads or big log files. Files that are no longer used can be deleted, of course. Before deleting log files you should check them for errors you can solve so that the issue will be permanently fixed.

3. Using the command below you can remove files

rm <path_to_file>

Windows:

In Windows you might not find big log files but forgotten downloads. To find them the following freeware is perfect:

http://www.jam-software.de/treesize_free/?language=EN

Once you downloaded and executed the software you can start scanning a partition. A list of all files will be displayed. Please make sure not to delete Windows system files 😉 .

You want to send and receive e-mails with your Windows server and connect to it by using your clients on PC, smartphone or tablet? In this tutorial we will explain how you can setup your own e-mail server on a Windows system with a static public IP. This tutorial will work for our VPS as well as for our dedicated servers. hMailServer is a free open source program, the setup is rather simple and can be done in just a few easy steps. Next to the default features like SMTP, POP3 and IMAP, the software is capable to detect spam and also a free virus protection like ClamWin can be added.

Installation

hMailServer needs NET Framework 3.5. to run correctly. Therefore you should add it to Windows before you install hMailServer. To do so, please open the Server Manager. The next steps will differ a little in the different versions of Windows Server. We will explain it by using the example of Windows Server 2012. Please click on "Manage" on the right upper side and choose "Add Features and Roles". In the window that opens you can click four times on "Next" and leave all the settings the way they are. Now you can choose the features you need to install. You just have to choose the NET Framework 3.5 like shown in the image. With "Next" again, you confirm this selection and "Install" will start the installation. As soon as the process is finished, you can close the window and proceed with the installation of your e-mail server.

Please download the latest version of the software from this site:

https://www.hmailserver.com/download

Please do not choose a version that is still in beta, since it might contain bugs and vulnerabilities. After you received the installation package, you can execute it and accept the terms of service.

You should leave the default installation directory as is and continue with "Next". Now you can choose the required products for installation. You will need the full installation, so please let "Server" and "Administrative Tools" checked and proceed with "Next". For an easy installation, we do recommend to choose "Use built-in database engine" in the next step. In the following window let the name be hMailServer and proceed. hMailServer will need a password for administrative tasks in the future. So please create a password you want to use to protect your service and write it down. The last step will be to start the installation. It should finish without error.

hMailServer Configuration

Please open the hMailServer Administrator. In the first window you have to activate "Automatically connect on Start-up" and click on "Connect".

In the next window, please go to "Domains", choose "Add..." and insert your domain you want to use for sending e-mails.

After the domain got saved, you can add new e-mail addresses in the menu "Accounts".

Now please go to Settings >> Protocols >> SMTP >> Delivery of e-mail. There, please add the local host name of your server that should be used for introducing your server to other e-mail servers. It has to be a valid domain and has to resolve to the IP of your server. So please add an A record to your DNS zone if necessary. You also should set an identical PTR for the IP address of your server. This can be done in the Contabo customer control panel. The host name should consist of three parts. That means it has to be an FQDN and it may not contain too many numbers, since it might seem to be generic. A good name for example might be: "mail.justanexample.com". When you are done, please save your new settings.

Firewall Configuration

The main configuration is done. But you still have to open all used e-mail ports in the firewall to make it work. Please open the Windows Firewall settings and choose "Inbound Rules". On the right side click on "New Rule". A window will open and you have to choose "Port" and click on "Next". In the next window please insert the ports 25, 110, 143 and 587, as shown in the image.

In the following window please choose "Allow The Connection" and after "Next", please check "Domain", "Private" and "Public".

In the last window you can enter a name for the new rule. For example "Ports for hMailServer". Please finish the setup and close the firewall settings.

Now you should add an SPF record to your DNS zone. Many e-mail servers will reject e-mails from your server if it does not exist. Therefore please add this TXT record to your zone:

justanexample.com 86400 in TXT "v=spf1 ip4:1.2.3.4 ~all"

"justanexample.com" has of course to be replaced with your domain and 1.2.3.4 with your IP.

You should also add an MX record to your DNS zone, if it does not exist already. The MX record should look like this:

justanexample.com 86400 in MX 10 "mail.justanexample.com"

The value "mail.justanexample.com" has to be replaced with the the host name you have chosen for your e-mail server.

The basic setup of your e-mail server is now complete. It should be able to send and receive e-mails as soon as the DNS changes are active and you can now connect with any e-mail client like Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail.

Client Configuration

Please use the following settings for your e-mail client.

ingoing server:

protocol: IMAP; port: 143; security: none; server: the IP or host name of your server

outgoing server:

protocol: SMTP; port: 587; security: none; server: the IP or host name of your server

Security

If you want to do some optimizations to the server security like transport encryption, spam checks and malware protection, please take a look at our second tutorial: E-mail server in Windows Server, part 2: Security.

This is a follow-up to the tutorial How to install an e-mail server in Windows, directed to those who already have an hMailserver and want to increase the security.

Spam protection

To activate the spam protection, please go to Settings >> Anti-spam in the hMailserver Administrator.

In the tab "General" you can leave the settings the way they are, as shown in the image. Of course you can adjust them later according to your needs.

In the second tab "Spam tests" you should select all four spam detection parameters:

- Use SPF (3)
- Check host in the HELO command (2)
- Check that sender has DNS-MX records (2)
- Verify DKIM-Signature header (5)

Malware protection

As already mentioned in the previous tutorial, you have the possibility to use different anti malware software in hMailServer. The most easy solution is to use the free ClamWin anti virus scanner. You can download it there:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/clamwin/

Please follow the installation wizard. Installing the browser extension is not required for your e-mail server. Normally ClamWin will now appear in the Windows system tray and start to update its database once a day. It will also protect your system from malware. You are of course free to change those settings individually in the ClamWin menu. The integration in the hMailServer is easy. Please go to Settings >> Anti-Virus >> ClamWin. The button "autodetect" will find the correct path to your ClamWin anti virus installation and you can finish the setup with "Save".

TLS encryption

To enable your clients to start an encrypted connection to your server, so nobody can steal your data, you have to enable this in your settings first. You will need an SSL certificate to achieve this. If you do not have already one for the host name of your server, you can create a self signed one on your own. Self signed certificates are free. But you will have to add an exception manually each time you set up a new client for your server. Most clients like Thunderbird or Outlook will ask you for that after the credentials got entered and they start the first connection. You can use XCA to create such a certificate:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/xca/

After the software got installed and opened, you have to create a new database on the upper left side. You can choose any name, you do not even have to remember the password. We will need this tool only once to create the new certificate. You can remove it again afterwards.

After the new database got created you can choose the tab "Certificates". In the following menu please choose "New Certificate" on the right side. A new window will open. In this new window please choose the tab "Subject" and add your host name next to "commonName". In our example screenshot this is mail.yourdomain.com. Now please create a key for the certificate by pressing the button "Generate a new key". The options in the window normally will be inserted correctly per default as shown in the image. You can finish the creation with "create".

The next step is to switch to the tab "Extensions". Enter a date until the certificate will be valid. You can be generous at this point. In our example we set a date in the year 2030 for "Validity not after". With the "OK" button in the bottom right corner you will finally create the certificate.

Now you have to export the certificate and the according key. Please choose in the tab "Certificates" the certificate and click on "Export" on the right side. You can let the path the way it is. In our case it is:

C:\Program Files (x86)\xca\mail.yourdomain.com.crt

In the tab "Private Keys" please do the same for the previously created key. The path should be:

C:\Program Files(x86)\xca\mail.yourdomain.com.pem

Please open the hMailServer Administrator and navigate to Settings >> Advanved >> SSL certificates and click on "Add". Now you have to add the previously exported certificate and key as shown in the image below and save the settings.

For the last step please go to Settings >> Advanced >> TCP/IP ports. There you have to modify the three entries below "0.0.0.0 / 25 / SMTP" as shown in the following images. At "SSL Certificate", please choose your recently created certificate. "0.0.0.0 / 25 / SMTP" has to stay in its original state as the only one. If you change it, your e-mail server will not work properly!

Now you have to open the new ports in your firewall. For that you can edit the rule from the previous tutorial. We called it "Ports for hMailServer" there. Please change the "local ports" from 25, 110, 143, 587 to 25, 465, 993, 995. (Windows Firewall with Advanced Security on Local computer >> Inbound Rules >> Ports for hMailServer >> Protocols and Ports)

The settings for your clients have changed too:

ingoing server:

protocol: IMAP; port: 143; security: SSL/TLS; server: the IP or hostname of your server

outgoing server:

protocol: SMTP; port: 587; security: SSL/TLS; server: the IP or hostname of your server

In Plesk Onyx, which we offer for our VPS and dedicated servers, you can comfortably manage your WordPress sites with the extension "WordPress Toolkit". The software enables you to set up a new WordPress site by only a few clicks, it can find already existing WordPress installations on its own and it will show them all in a list. There you can do administrative tasks like updating, installing plugins and much more on all installed WordPress instances at once. Therefore, the extension is very interesting for resellers but also for end users. The WordPress Toolkit is available for all three Plesk Onyx versions at no additional charges, but the range of functions in the Web Admin Edition got reduced in some points. For more information about the differences between the full version and the special Web Admin edition, please take a look on this site: https://www.plesk.com/extensions/wordpress-toolkit.

You can easily check if the extension has already been installed in your Plesk by changing to the following oversight: Server Management > Tools & Settings > Updates and Upgrades > Add/Remove components > Plesk extensions. You should see a green tick next to the extension "WordPress Toolkit". If there is still a red X shown, please use the "Install" function in the drop-down menu. With continue, you will proceed with the installation. You will find the extension afterwards below the menu item "Server Management" in the main menu of Plesk. It is called "Wordpress" there. In case you can not find those menus, you can also use the Plesk search bar. Maybe you are not using the Service Provider view then.

Here you can see a screenshot of the available options. You can increase the size of every image in this tutorial by clicking on it.

You can use those options selectively or on all WordPress instances at once. We will now explain those options from the left to the right.

Scan
There you can search for existing WordPress installations. They will be added to the list below automatically.
Check Security
There you can check your WordPress instances for elementary security problems. You will get a list with points that got checked and possible automatic improvements you can confirm.
Plugins
You will get a collection of the installed plugins and also an update check for those plugins will be performed. You can install and remove plugins for your sites there as well.
Themes
There you can manage your themes and exchange them for multiple WordPress sites at once.
Update
You can update your WordPress installations to the newest version here. Plugins are not touched.
Check for Updates
Here you can check if there are WordPress updates for your sites.
Auto-Update
There you can decide if your WordPress sites should get automatic updates in future.

If you want to install a new WordPress for one of your domains, you have to change the menu. Please go to "Hosting Services" and there to "Domains". If it does not exist yet, please add your domain now and open it in the list with all the available domains by clicking on the name of the domain. Next to the usual options, you can see the new one called "Install WordPress", as shown in the image below:

After the installation, you can directly log into the WordPress administration panel from Plesk. If you need the login data or want to change them, you can find this and further options in a dedicated management menu. To open this menu, please click on the name of the WordPress instance left to the direct log in button. We marked this in the picture below:

Sounds great, doesn't it? Give Plesk Onyx a try at Contabo and benefit from our one month for free promotion:

Simply order one of our VPS in combination with Plesk and you will get the edition of your choice one month for free!

We are often asked which panel we would recommend. Since there is a variety of different panels with different functions and focus, we cannot easily answer this question. Currently we offer cPanel, Plesk, LAMP und Webmin, which we will introduce here.

cPanel/WHM

cPanel is a webhosting panel which allows to administrate a great number of users in an easy way and configure the installed services. In order to avoid security breaches many settings are pretty restrictive, which may cause issues due to the demands of your software. In addition, without plugins from external developers, it would not be possible to use nginx as an example. The software cPanel is divided into two parts, the interface for users is called cPanel, the administration interface WHM (WebHostMananger).

The developers provide a really detailed documentation which explains nearly all functions cPanel/WHM provides:

https://documentation.cpanel.net/

If errors occur or special questions appear which are not answered within the documentation, it is always a good possibility to ask for this within the official forum:

https://forums.cpanel.net/

And for those who do not know cPanel/WHM or want to check out what was changed before updating the own installation, a demo and the changelog are available:

https://cpanel.com/demo/
https://documentation.cpanel.net/display/CL/Change+Logs

If you are a new user, you may check out their YouTube channel, too:

https://www.youtube.com/user/cpaneltv

Plesk Onyx

Plesk understands itself as a platform for developers, thus it has a lot of software already installed and software like Docker, Ruby, etc. can be installed with a few clicks. In addition to this, a lot of features can be installed, using free or paid addons, which can be installed with a few clicks, too. Nevertheless, it is even an alternative to start a webhosting. At the moment, three different versions are offered, all details regarding the differences and the official addons can be found within the following document provided by Plesk:

https://www.plesk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/plesk-onyx-licensing-guide.pdf

Plesk provides a detailed documentation, too:

https://docs.plesk.com/en-US/onyx/

In addition, a knowledge base with the most common problems and errors - and corresponding solutions - is provided:

https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us

Moreover, the developers and community are active within the forum and provide assistance in case of problems:

https://talk.plesk.com/

Webmin

Webmin is no classic interface for webhosting, it is a server administration panel which provides a graphical interface to configure the installed services with the goal making server administration easier. An overview of the supported services can be found within the official documentation:

http://doxfer.webmin.com/Webmin/Webmin_Modules

In addition to the supported modules it is no problem to add additional software via SSH or develop more addons for Webmin to extend the list of services, this is possible due to the fact, that the source code is provided via GitHub:

https://github.com/webmin/webmin

As already mentioned, Webmin is by default no webhosting interface like cPanel or SSH but there was an additional software stack developed which provides the functionality required for webhosting:

https://www.virtualmin.com/

If you only want to use the server as a mail server, cPanel, Plesk and even Virtualmin may be a little bit to heavy, you can think about Webmin, too, since there is an additional addon which provides the basic mail server software:

http://www.usermin.com/usermin.html

LAMP

LAMP has already been offered since a few years and is not a panel like the other ones already mentioned, it is a software stack which contains (Linux,) Apache, MySQL and PHP; this is the basic software to start with your own web presentation. We already published a tutorial about this called "LAMP made easy".

Webmin + LAMP

After we had started offering LAMP, we were often asked why it is not possible to select both Webmin and LAMP. Since we always note down your feedback, we started offering both solutions as one package, so that you can start directly with your webpage after we have sent out the login details to you.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are different Panels on offer and the decision, which one to choose, also depends on the chosen operating system: cPanel can only be combined with CentOS, whereas Plesk can also be used with Windows Server. By the way: You can test Plesk one month for free (available for our VPS) and get used to the many functions this panel offers!

Today we would like to give you some basic usage hints about our webspace packages. First of all, our webspace offers are based on cPanel which is well known and under active development. However, we would like to explain some points and present the most important features. In this post we will refer to the YouTube-playlist of the cPanelTV channel which contains many tutorials directly provided by the producer. You may also find it at the end of our explanations, so you do not have to search for the videos.

Concerning webspace packages there are few basic topics to be considered:

Make sure you use safe passwords. cPanel provides the option to generate a password according to chosen criteria and gives feedback of the security level of your password.
Installing updates: We maintain the hard- and software your webspace is based on, but do not have acess to your website. Therefore it is always important to keep the used CMS (content management system) up-to-date. Not only the visitors of your websites will thank you for not becoming a victim of possible attacks, but also us, as the risk of spamming via a hacked CMS can be minimized.
Commensurability: Our goal is to provide you with a lot of resources at a low price. Yet, you should consider whether a webspace is the best product for the intended purpose. A large online shop containing many products on a webspace is, for example, not recommendable. In case you are planning to host such a large online shop, kindly contact our customer support department and we will gladly assist you in finding the best hosting solution for your needs.

If you have other inquiries, our support will be at hand at the regular times as well. Just contact us!

But now we continue with the original topic of this tutorial, namely presenting some important and basic elements to operate cPanel.

Passwords

Earlier we mentioned safe passwords are important, unfortunately, even more will come with a webspace and add to your long list of already existing passwords. It is quite tempting to use the same password for all services, but this is absolutely not recommendable. An example: An attacker gets to know your administrator password using a security breach of your CMS. This password is also used for the login to cPanel, your email account, as database password and for ftp access. Therefore, the attacker will have access to all those services and will be able to send emails using your name, delete your data or upload illegal content. Unfortunately, this example is not hypothetical but rather common. Consequently our advice is: always use individual and secure passwords. Further examples are provided by cPanel in the video "cPanel Tutorials: How to change your password", where you will also find a tutorial how to change an existing password.

File manager

After your order has been completed, you receive an email with all required information and login details, including a URL to cPanel. After you logged into the system the question you probably ask yourself is "How can I upload my website?". We can inform you that there are multiple ways to proceed:

The most common way is using FTP(S), which stands for "File Transfer Protocol (over SSL)" and is a standardized protocol to transfer files, the letter "S" for securing the connection by using SSL. We always recommend using FTPS, since this guarantees that the file transfer is encrypted, which is not the case if you use plain FTP. More details how you can create an FTP account can be found at the video tutorial "cPanel Tutorials: FTP".
The file manager included in cPanel: This is the easiest way and should work from nearly all sources, in addition, the file manager provides the possibility to edit files or check out the content. A video guide is available, too. It is called "cPanel Tutorials: File Manager".
Another option uses the so called "Web Disk" which uses WebDAV for file transfer and can mount the webspace as a drive within the local PC. Please check out the video "cPanel Tutorials: Web Disk" for more details.

MySQL and PHPMyAdmin

The two points MySQL and PHPMyAdmin need to be mentioned together, PHPMyAdmin is the software part which provides you with access to the databases with the login credentials you set. After you logged into PHPMyAdmin you are free to check the databases, delete records or perform any changes. In addition, you can upload or create a database backup using PHPMyAdmin, too. MySQL is the data base server installed by us. Nowadays nearly all content management systems require a database to save the information which should be shown on your website. A guide how you can create a database and a user ist shown within the video "cPanel Tutorials: MySQL Databases".

Domains

A webspace requires a default domain, which needs to be provided during the order process in order to create the account and provide you with the login details. But of course, additional domains can be added to your webspace. There are different ways to do so:

You can always order new domains from us, for details please consult our website at https://contabo.com/?show=domains.
You can transfer a domain from another provider to us using the auth code which needs to be provided by the current provider.
You can register domains at another provider and use them together with the webspace, but please keep in mind, that this requires that the nameservers are changed to the ones shown within the customer control panel and a DNS zone needs to be created. A few more details:
Under the menu item "DNS Zone Management" in your Contabo customer control panel at https://my.contabo.com you can create an unlimited number of DNS zones for your domains free of charge. Your domains can be registered by third party providers as well. The DNS zones are stored on our nameservers, and within these DNS zones you can define multiple DNS records such as the "A record", which makes a domain point to a certain IP address. You do not need to specify the DNS records individually when creating a DNS zone; just choose the correct target IP address, working DNS records will be set automatically. After the creation of a proper DNS zone and once our nameservers are assigned to your domain, you can use the domain on your webspace package in a very secure way. Please note that only the present domain provider is able to change the assigned nameservers, thus you will have to contact the domain provider directly, or optionally use an administration panel from your domain provider if there is any available. After all, you need to add the domain in your webspace package using cPanel. You can choose between adding it as an "Alias" (also known as "Parked Domain") or as an "Addon Domain".

An "Addon Domain" will have its own subfolder in your public_html directory. It will also have its own rights such as an independent FTP login and the option to administer email addresses for the new domain.

An "Alias", on the other hand, has no own subfolder, it is linked to the main folder. Creating redirections and email addresses is also possible with "Aliases", of course.

Email

Most likely a webspace is used for email purpose, too. Basically there is one major point which should always be kept in mind: Webspace plans are not designed to send masses of emails. The option "Email" offers quite a lot of different functions and we unfortunately cannot discuss them in detail, but most of them are explained within the cPanelTV videos linked below.

Please note, that the videos may include options which are not offered by us or are not available with all packages. In addition, it is unfortunately not possible to install additional PHP modules upon request. Should you require special modules, we recommend to check out our VPS and Dedicated Server offers.

Softaculous

In order to provide an easy way to use our webspace products, we have a feature included which offers you the possibility to install quite a lot of software packages without having to search for installers, uploading them and performing the manual installation. This feature is called "Softaculous" and you can check out more details by having a look at our homepage:

https://contabo.com/?show=webhosting
https://contabo.com/?show=webapplications

If you have any questions regarding the above mentioned points or other general requests we are available via email and telephone.

Please note: This tutorial focusses on Linux OS. Should you be a Windows user instead, please confer our respective tutorial on how to manage your RAID controller in Windows.

Monitoring a RAID array

A hardware RAID has certain advantages, but also a hardware RAID has to be monitored. We always rely on tried and tested hardware to minimize the risk of a hardware failure, but there is always the risk that hardware fails, therefore monitoring the hardware is even more important to guarantee that the server will keep running properly.

In the case of a software RAID, the operating system generates messages about the RAID; with a hardware RAID, the controller does it itself - but you need a special software to read these messages.

This blog entry shows the installation and use of the Adaptec and LSI software on Linux operating systems.
There are also graphical interfaces available for managing raidcontrollers, such as a web interface.

Please contact our support department in case you are not sure which controller was added to your server.

Please note: Updating the controller's firmware or the operating system's driver may lead to a complete loss of all data stored on that RAID!

For this tutorial some additional software is needed, for Ubuntu 17.10 it can be installed using the following command "apt install zip unzip net-tools"

1. Adaptec

An overview of available software for your Adaptec controller can be found here: https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/support/series6/index.php

1.1 Installation of the arcconf binary

Installing the binary with the Linux commandline is very easy, you can manage the controller using that binary afterwards.

A download link for the latest available binary can be found on the above mentioned website by clicking on the "Storage Manager Downloads" link.
The "arcconf" binary can be used for various Adaptec products, usually there is no need for additional software.
In this tutorial we are going to download the following binary: https://storage.microsemi.com/en-us/speed/raid/storage_manager/arcconf_v2_03_22476_zip.php

On your commandline just type:

wget http://download.adaptec.com/raid/storage_manager/arcconf_v2_03_22476.zip && unzip arcconf_v2_03_22476.zip

Now move the binary to your binary folder and make it executable:

mv linux_x64/cmdline/arcconf /usr/sbin/ && chmod +x /usr/sbin/arcconf

The "arcconf" command should be available now.

1.2 Monitoring the raidcontroller

Usually the RAID should have an "OPTIMAL" value, in case one HDD fails the controller will start to send an audible alarm signal. That signal will be recognized by our technicians working in the datacenter, in this case we will contact you and inform you about a possible hardware failure.

With the parameter "arcconf GETCONFIG 1" you will get all information regarding the 1st controller installed to your system. In case you have installed more than one controller you could display the information of the 2nd controller by typing "arcconf GETCONFIG 2".

A list of available options can be displayed by typing "arcconf getconfig".

The most important status can be filtered out by typing "arcconf getconfig 1 | grep Status" into the commandline.

root@contabo:~# arcconf getconfig 1 | grep Status Controller Status : Optimal Status : ZMM not installed Status of Logical Device : Optimal

"ZMM not installed" shows that this controller currently has no BBU (batterie backup unit) installed, a BBU can be installed at any time as an upgrade.

A "Degraded" status on a LD (Logical Device) indicates that there must be an issue.
root@contabo:~# arcconf getconfig 1 | grep Status Controller Status : Optimal Status : ZMM not installed Status of Logical Device : Degraded

To check if there is any failed drive (in this scenario the SSD failed), type in the following command and you will see the "State : Failed" information:

root@contabo:~# arcconf getconfig 1 PD Controllers found: 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Physical Device information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Device #0 Device is a Hard drive State : Failed Block Size : 512 Bytes Failed logical device segments : True Supported : Yes Transfer Speed : Failed Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,0(0:0) Reported Location : Connector 0, Device 0 Vendor : Model : Crucial_CT275MX3 Firmware : M0CR040 Serial number : 11111111111111 World-wide name : 500A075116639956 Total Size : 262321 MB Write Cache : Enabled (write-back) FRU : None S.M.A.R.T. : No S.M.A.R.T. warnings : 0 Power State : Full rpm Supported Power States : Full power,Powered off,Standby SSD : Yes Temperature : Not Supported NCQ status : Enabled

To replace a failed drive just contact us, we will immediately take care of it. To speed up the process you should provide us with the above output. It shows the S/N and the port that drive is attached to. In this case the S/N is "11111111111111" and the attached Port is "0".

As soon as the drive got replaced the rebuild should start automatically:

root@contabo:~# arcconf getconfig 1 | grep Status Controller Status : Optimal Status : ZMM not installed Status of Logical Device : Degraded, Rebuilding ( Rebuild : 1 % )

Depending on your RAID setup this will probably take several hours.

1.3 Installing an available Webinterface

For Adaptec there is the "MaxView Storage Manager" available, it can be downloaded here: https://storage.microsemi.com/de-de/speed/raid/storage_manager/msm_linux_x64_v2_03_22476_tgz.php

You could also just download it via commandline:

wget http://download.adaptec.com/raid/storage_manager/msm_linux_x64_v2_03_22476.tgz && tar -xzf msm_linux_x64_v2_03_22476.tgz

The installer is located within the directory called "manager" - that directory will be created when unpacking the downloaded archive.
For our system (Ubuntu 17.04) we will install the package using the following command:

dpkg -i manager/StorMan-2.03-22476_amd64.deb

Afterwards you should be able to reach the webinterface at https://<SERVERIP>:8443

2. LSI

2.1 Installation of the StorCLI binary

Download of the commandline Binary :

wget https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/raid-controllers/raid-controllers-common-files/1.21.16_StorCLI.zip --no-check-certificate && unzip 1.21.16_StorCLI.zip && cd versionChangeSet/univ_viva_cli_rel/ && unzip storcli_All_OS.zip

For our system we will install the Ubuntu package by typing:
dpkg -i storcli_All_OS/Ubuntu/storcli_1.21.06_all.deb
Create a link to make the "storcli" command available to your shell.ln -s /opt/MegaRAID/storcli/storcli64 /usr/sbin/storcli

2.2 Monitoring the raidcontroller

You can display the current status of the raidcontroller by typing:

root@contabo:~#storcli /c0 show

TOPOLOGY : ======== ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- DG Arr Row EID:Slot DID Type State BT Size PDC PI SED DS3 FSpace ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 - - - - RAID1 Optl N 255.656 GB dflt N N dflt N 0 0 - - - RAID1 Optl N 255.656 GB dflt N N dflt N 0 0 0 64:4 12 DRIVE Onln N 255.656 GB dflt N N dflt - 0 0 1 64:5 13 DRIVE Onln N 255.656 GB dflt N N dflt - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Example of a failed HDD:

TOPOLOGY : ======== ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DG Arr Row EID:Slot DID Type State BT Size PDC PI SED DS3 FSpace ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 - - - - RAID1 Dgrd N 255 GB dflt N N dflt N 0 0 - - - RAID1 Dgrd N 255 GB dflt N N dflt N 0 0 0 - - DRIVE Msng - 255 GB - - - - - 0 0 1 64:5 13 DRIVE Onln N 255 GB dflt N N dflt - ---------------------------------------------------------------------

root@contabo:~#storcli /c0 /sall show

Controller = 0 Status = Failure Description = No drive found! Detailed Status : =============== ---------------------------------------- Drive Status ErrCd ErrMsg ---------------------------------------- /c0/sALL Failure 255 Drives not found ----------------------------------------

To display the current status of the rebuild you can run:

root@contabo:~#storcli /c0 /eall /sall show rebuild

Controller = 0 Status = Success Description = Show Drive Rebuild Status Succeeded. --------------------------------------------------------- Drive-ID Progress% Status Estimated Time Left --------------------------------------------------------- /c0/e64/s4 0 In progress - /c0/e64/s5 - Not in progress - ---------------------------------------------------------

2.3 Installing an available webinterface

Unfortunately, there is currently no webinterface available for Linux.

Not long ago, we have shown you in a different tutorial how to manage your raidcontroller in Linux. Below you can find the respective guideline for Windows.

Monitoring a RAID array

In the case of a software RAID, the operating system generates messages about the RAID; with a hardware RAID, the controller does it itself - but you need a special software to read these messages.

This blog entry shows the installation and use of the Adaptec and LSI software on Windows operating systems.
There are also graphical interfaces available for managing raidcontrollers, such as a web interface.

Please contact our support department in case you are not sure which controller was added to your server.

Updating the controller's firmware or the operating system's driver may lead to a complete loss of all data stored on that RAID!

1. Adaptec

1.1 Installation of the arcconf binary

Open the Powershell as Administrator, you will start at the "Administrator" User folder.
Create a new folder and change to that folder, e.g.:

mkdir C:\raid; chdir C:\raid

The binary can be downloaded via Powershell as well, type in the following command:

iwr -URI http://download.adaptec.com/raid/storage_manager/arcconf_v2_03_22476.zip' -OUTFILE arcconf_v2_03_22476.zip; start arcconf_v2_03_22476.zip

(You could also download the binary with your webbrowser from here )

You should see some directories including the "windows_x64" directory, select that directory and copy it to "C:\raid\".

1.2 Monitoring the raidcontroller

Open the Powershell and change the directory using the following command:

chdir C:\raid\windows_x64\cmdline

You should be able to run the executable by using the following command: " .\arcconf.exe getconfig 1" - this will display all information.

You will get all information regarding the 1st controller installed in your system. In case you have installed more than one controller you could display the information of the 2nd controller by typing ".\arcconf.exe GETCONFIG 2".

A list of available options can be displayed by typing ".\arcconf.exe" .
The most important status can be filtered out by typing ".\arcconf.exe GETCONFIG 1 | findstr Status" into the Powershell.

PS C:\raid\windows_x64\cmdline> .\arcconf.exe GETCONFIG 1 | findstr Status Controller Status : Optimal Status : ZMM not installed Status of Logical Device : Optimal

"ZMM not installed" shows that this controller currently has no BBU (battery backup unit) installed, a BBU can be installed at any time as an upgrade.

A "Degraded" status on a LD (Logical Device) indicates that there must be an issue.

PS C:\raid\windows_x64\cmdline> .\arcconf.exe GETCONFIG 1 | findstr Status Controller Status : Optimal Status : ZMM not installed Status of Logical Device : Degraded

To check if there is any failed drive (in this scenario the SSD failed), type in the following command and you will see the "State : Failed" information:
PS C:\raid\windows_x64\cmdline> .\arcconf.exe GETCONFIG 1 PD Controllers found: 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Physical Device information ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Device #0 Device is a Hard drive State : Failed Block Size : 512 Bytes Failed logical device segments : True Supported : Yes Transfer Speed : Failed Reported Channel,Device(T:L) : 0,0(0:0) Reported Location : Connector 0, Device 0 Vendor : Model : Crucial_CT275MX3 Firmware : M0CR040 Serial number : 11111111111111 World-wide name : 500A075116639956 Total Size : 262321 MB Write Cache : Enabled (write-back) FRU : None S.M.A.R.T. : No S.M.A.R.T. warnings : 0 Power State : Full rpm Supported Power States : Full power,Powered off,Standby SSD : Yes Temperature : Not Supported NCQ status : Enabled

As soon as the drive got replaced the rebuild should start automatically:

PS C:\raid\windows_x64\cmdline> .\arcconf.exe GETCONFIG 1 | findstr Status Controller Status : Optimal Status : ZMM not installed Status of Logical Device : Degraded, Rebuilding ( Rebuild : 1 % )

Depending on your RAID setup this will probably take several hours.

1.3 Installing an available webinterface

For Adaptec controllers there is the "MaxView Storage Manager" available, it can be downloaded here: https://storage.microsemi.com/de-de/speed/raid/storage_manager/msm_windows_x64_v2_03_22476_zip.php

The installer is located within the directory called "manager" - that directory will be created when unpacking the downloaded archive.
You can start the installation by starting "setup_asm_x64.EXE" .
Afterwards you should be able to reach the webinterface on https://<SERVERIP>:8443 .

2. LSI

2.1 Installation of the StorCLI binary

Download of the commandline Binary :

iwr -URI 'https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/raid-controllers/raid-controllers-common-files/1.21.16_StorCLI.zip' -OUTFILE StorCLI.zip;explorer.exe .\StorCLI.zip\versionChangeSet\univ_viva_cli_rel\

A Windows Explorer should popup when using the above command. Now copy "storcli_ALL_OS.zip" to the "C:\raid" directory:

Now unzip that file.

2.2 Monitoring the raidcontroller

Go to your Powershell and type the following command to access the recently unpacked files:

chdir C:\raid\storcli_All_OS\storcli_All_OS\Windows\

You should be able to call "storCLI.exe", there is also a 64Bit binary.

You can display the current status of the raidcontroller by typing:

PS C:\raid\storcli_All_OS\storcli_All_OS\Windows> .\storcli64.exe /c0 show

Example for a failed HDD:

PS C:\raid\storcli_All_OS\storcli_All_OS\Windows> .\storcli64.exe /c0 /sall show

To display the current status of the rebuild you can run:

PS C:\raid\storcli_All_OS\storcli_All_OS\Windows> .\storcli64.exe /c0 /eall /sall show rebuild

2.3 Installation of a graphical interface

You can download the latest MegaRAID Storage Manager using the following link:

https://docs.broadcom.com/docs-and-downloads/raid-controllers/raid-controllers-common-files/16.05.04.00_MSM_Windows.zip

After downloading, unzip all files. You should be able to access the directory, just run the installation wizard.

Usually you will not have any LDAP authentication, in this case you have to unmark the checkbox when running the installer - otherwise you cannot connect to the manager.

A new shortcut will appear on your desktop, now run that shortcut and type in your login credentials. The following MSM interface should show up:

In this tutorial you will find a guide on how to establish a connection via SSH to your Linux server.

Please note that you will have to replace the place holder <IP Address> in the complete tutorial with the IP address of your server.

Linux

In case you are using a Linux operating system on your local machine you will just have to start a terminal.

To establish the connection to your server please type the following command:

The option -l defines the user which will be connected to. In this case we will use "root".
The option -p defines the port which will be used for the connection. Here we will use the standard SSH port 22.

Should this be the first time you connect to the server, you will have to accept its SSH certificate by typing "yes".

Please insert your password, which you can find in our e-mail "Your Login Data". Kindly note that SSH will not display any letters or symbols when typing the password. You can also copy and paste your password by using the right mouse key (please make sure not to copy your password with blank characters at the end - you can check so by pasting the password into an empty editor file before using it).

Now, click the ‚Enter‘-key. Once done, you should get access to your server via SSH:

The connection has now been established successfully.

Windows

In case you are using a Windows operating system on your local machine, you will have to install a suitable SSH client first.

We recommend to use PuTTy as SSH client:

http://www.putty.org/

After installing PuTTy, open the client and enter the IP address of your Server. The port, in this case the standard SSH port 22, can be changed as well if needed.

Click 'Open' to initiate the connection. You can leave all options to default.

Should this be the first time to connect to the server, you will have to accept its SSH certificate:

Afterwards, you will see the following:

Please insert root (login as:) and your password, which you can find in our e-mail "Your Login Data". Kindly note, SSH will not display any letters or symbols when typing the password. You can also copy and paste your password by using the right mouse key (please make sure not to copy your password with blank characters at the end - you can check so by pasting the password into an empty editor file before using it).

Now, click the ‚Enter‘-key. Once done, you should get access to your server via SSH:

The connection has now been established successfully.

This tutorial will show you how to connect to your Windows VPS or dedicated server at Contabo via RDP from different operating systems.

The following scenarios will be covered:

Connections from desktop operating systems:

Establishing a RDP connection from WindowsOS (e.g. Windows 7, 8, 10)
Establishing a RDP connection from LinuxOS (e.g. Debian, Ubuntu)
Establishing a RDP connection from MacintoshOS (e.g. Apple MacBook)

Connections from mobile devices:

Establishing a RDP connection from Android based systems (e.g. Samsung Galaxy)
Establishing a RDP connection from iOS based systems (e.g. Apple iPhone)

RDP connections from Windows

on Windows 7: Please navigate to the "Start icon" of the taskbar and search for "Remote Desktop Connection"
bei Windows 8/10: Please navigate to the "Windows icon" of the taskbar and search for "Remote Desktop Connection"

The RDP client should start as follows:

Now you should be able to connect to your server using its hostname (e.g. "vmiXXXXX.contaboserver.net" for VPS or "mXXXX.contaboserver.net" for dedicated servers) or the IP address (e.g. "173.xxx.xxx.xxx"). The RDP session will be established within a few seconds automatically.

Alternatively, you might choose a few options beforehand (e.g. screen resolution and audio settings). Therefore, please click on the "Show Options" button:

Explanations:

The screen resolution can be individually modified using the slider
If you would like to pass through the audio signal to your local PC, you have to set the "Remote audio playback" function to "Play on this computer"
If you would like to make your local printer available on your server, please enable the "Printer" option at the "Local devices and resources" section (Important: The printer device driver must be compellingly installed on your server!)
The clipboard is enabled by default, so STRG + C / STRG + V will always work. It can be disabled by disabling its checkbox

Troubleshooting:

If you determine issues while connecting to your server, please find enclosed some information about how to fix them:

1. "Remote Desktop can't connect to the remote computer for one of these reasons":

Causes / Solutions:

Please check whether your server is responding to Ping (= ICMP) requests. If not, please try to reboot your server using your customer control panel: https://my.contabo.com/account/login
If you use a VPS, you can also connect to your server through VNC to check the server and firewall settings:
https://contabo.com/?show=tutorials&tutorial=vnc-connect-vps
If you use a dedicated server, please get in contact with us at support@contabo.com, if you do not have a KVM device attached to your server yet

2. "The remote session was disconnected because there are no Remote Desktop Licence Servers available to provide a license. Please contact the server administrator."

Causes / Solutions:

Obviously, a terminal service was installed on your server and no active licence server has been assigned yet. After the grace period of 90 respectively 120 days, all temporarily licences will be deleted and all further RDP logins will be rejected.

To fix this issue, you either have to delete the terminal service or the affected Windows Registry key

If you rent a VPS, you can connect to your server through VNC to perform the required steps:

https://contabo.com/?show=tutorials&tutorial=vnc-connect-vps

If you use a dedicated server and you do not have a KVM device attached to your server yet, please get in contact with us at support@contabo.com

* The required server role "Remote Desktop Services" can be deleted at the server manager ("Remove roles and features")
* The affected Registry key can be deleted at the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\RCM\GracePeriod

Important: Please be careful while changing settings at the Windows registry! Please create a full backup of the registry beforehand.

* Now please perform a reboot of your server and you should be able to login to your server afterwards again

RDP connection from Linux

Alternatively, you can also connect from Linux to your Windows server via RDP. There is a command line based program called "rdesktop" and it is usable for all available linux distributions.

Installation:

sudo apt-get install rdesktop

Start the RDP connection:

rdesktop <IP address>

Now the RDP connection has been established and you can login to your server using the initial login credentials.

Important information:

In order to be able to establish a RDP connection, your Linux system must have an X11 server available. It should be installed by default if you already use a GUI (graphical desktop environment - e.g. "Gnome" or "KDE")
Please note, it is generally not recommended to establish a RDP connection through SSH
Alternatively, there is another program called 'freeRDP', which can be used instead of 'rdesktop'. Please find more information about it at http://www.freerdp.com/

RDP connection from MacOS

In order to be able to establish a RDP connection from MacOS based systems (e.g. Apple MacBook), a RDP client is also required. Please find enclosed a download URL to get the latest RDP client version:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id715768417?mt=12&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Afterwards, you can start the RDP client following by entering the Windows login credentials (at the "Domain:" field, you can either use the server's IP address or the hostname):

Please always use the latest RDP client version from iTunes, so it is ensured that no errors appear during the connect!

Troubleshooting:

1. "Remote Desktop Connection cannot verify the identity of the computer that you want to connect to":

=> This kind of error message is mostly caused by an old respectively outdated RDP client version

Causes / Solutions:

Please make sure, that you are currently using the latest RDP client version (download-URL above)

RDP connection from Android-based systems

To establish a RDP connection from Google-Android-based systems (e.g. Samsung Galaxy) please use the following RDP client directly from the Google App store. You can always download the latest RDP client version here:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.rdc.android&hl=en

RDP connection from iOS-based systems

Last of all, we would like to inform you about the possibility of how to connect to your Windows server via an iOS-based system (e.g. Apple iPhone).

Please find enclosed the download URL to get the latest RDP client version:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop/id714464092?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Very important: In order to use the latest RDP client above, iOS version 8.0 is required at least!

If you have any further questions about connecting via RDP to your server or need help, please do not hesitate to contact us at support@contabo.com.

With RDP it is not only possible to connect to a Windows server. You can also mount local HDDs on the remote Windows server in order to directly transfer data. In this tutorial this process is described step by step.

By the way: In a separate tutorial, we explain how you can connect to your Windows server via RDP. Please read this first in case you are not familiar with RDP yet.

Open your Windows remote desktop connection:

In the sub-menu "Local Resources" you will find the "Local devices and resources" part. Using the "More" button you can choose the HDDs you want to mount on your remote Windows session.

After that you can connect to your server in the way you are used to. During the connection you have to confirm that you really want to allow remote desktop connections to access your local discs.

Once connected you can see the chosen discs directly in the Windows explorer:

The optional upgrade Full Monitoring from Contabo is an extensive monitoring tool for your VPS and Dedicated Servers. We are going to present the features of this tool in this tutorial.

Why Full Monitoring?

By the help of Full Monitoring, outages can be detected quickly.

The key benefit of this tool is the immediate notification via SMS (text message) and/or e-mail, should an outage of a server or of only a running service on a server happen. It is like an alert which signals a need for action! We all know and are aware, that a downtime is always a very unpleasant scenario. You can surely understand, that in such a situation it will be beneficial, if you are aware of it immediately. Full Monitoring enables you to react and to take necessary appropriate actions in order to recover all services as soon as possible. In addition other measures can be started, as informing your important customers, for instance.

The administration of services and functions is separated. The contacts - it does not matter if they are e-mail or SMS contacts - can be assigned to the services which are going to be monitored in any combination.

Furthermore the traffic graphs for VPS and Dedicated Servers can be displayed.

How does Full Monitoring work?

You will receive special login data for Full Monitoring. After logging into Full Monitoring, the screen could look as follows:

We already added two contacts who should be notified. It is only necessary to click on „Add contact“ under „Alert contacts“. You can choose the type of contact. Possible is „E-Mail“ and „SMS“ (text message). A person can be contacted by e-mail and/or by SMS. Please choose the appropriate communication after your requirements. Particularly, you can assign different contacts to the corresponding services. Under „Services“ you can add services after protocol and port. You can assign different contacts to the corresponding services.

In the screenshot you can see that the VPS is online. The services RDP 3389 and http 80 are online, too.

In the following screenshot we reproduce the worst-case scenario when the server is down.

In this example, we would send an e-mail to max.mustermann@contabo.com to alert him. In addition we would send a text message to 4912345678.

As a consequence, the services rdp and http would be down, too. We would inform max.mustermann@contabo.com via e-mail and would send a second text message to 4912345678 that RDP is down. In addition we would text a person at 497654321 that the service http is not working.

Given only the webserver is down, but the server is online, we would only send a
text message to 498754321 in this example.

For Dedicated Servers already known, we can provide traffic graphs for VPS now as well! In this screenshot you can see the graph for different periods: Daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. For each period you can see the consumed bandwidth for in- and outgoing traffic.

We hope we could introduce this upgrade well and you can see the advantages it has. Could we awake your interest in Full Monitoring? Our whole team would be very pleased to answer your questions. You can find this upgrade during your online order under „Services and upgrades“. You can order the upgrade together with your server online, but it is also possible to order it at any time later by e-mail. For any inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact our customer support team.

Definition of an SRV record

With a Service Resource Record (short: SRV record) you can make services, which are usually available via an IP:PORT combination, reachable using a DNS host name. Important to note regarding SRV record is the fact, that they only work if an application has been specifically programmed to make use of them. Examples for this are TeamSpeak3 or Minecraft. SRV-Records can not be used to point a DNS name to an IP address/port combination for arbitrary use by any application.

Example - Teamspeak:
Usually TeamSpeak is using the protocol UDP over port 9987. If you are running a TeamSpeak instance with the IP 123.124.125.126 every client that wants to connect has to enter the IP:port combination of 123.124.125.126:9987. If you change the port or the server IP, you have to inform everyone about the new combination. With SRV records it is possible to connect to TeamSpeak using a DNS host name like ts.mydomain.com

In general every SRV record contains the same information:

_SERVICE._PROTOCOL.yourdomain.tld 86400 IN SRV PRIORITY WEIGHT PORT SERVER

In this example:

_ts3._udp.ts.mydomain.com 86400 IN SRV 0 5 9987 ts.mydomain.com

Values for priority and weight can usually be left at their defaults, they are only used if two or more SRV records with the same name exist. Please note that for the data field, you cannot simply add an IP address here. Instead, you will have to add a valid DNS host name which in turn resolves to an IP address by using an A record, so make sure that the host name you set there exists.

How to create an SRV record at Contabo

Log in into your Contabo customer control panel using https://my.contabo.com
Using the menu item "DNS Zone Management" you can edit a DNS zone and create a new record
The type has to be SRV
Fill in the form. An example can be seen below (please click on the picture in order to increase its size):
The finished record should look like this:

From now on your users can connect to TeamSpeak using only the subdomain ts.mydomain.com

For Minecraft, the record may look like this:

_minecraft._tcp.mc.mydomain.com 86400 IN SRV 0 5 25565 server01.mydomain.com

Please make sure to consult the documentation of your service or application regarding whether SRV records are supported and what scheme they should use.

Softaculous offers a huge number of scripts which can be installed by the popular „Auto Installer“ under the Plesk and cPanel administration. For Plesk you can activate Softaculous only on a Linux operating system. The free version gives you access to more than 50 scripts whereas the fee-based, fully-licensed version offers around 450 scripts. An overview of the supported scripts can be found here.

Procedure under Plesk

For Plesk 12.0+ versions

The installation of Softaculous under Plesk can be performed by just a few clicks. Please login to your Plesk Control panel with your root user. Afterwards go to the "Server Management -> Extensions" page and click on the "Extensions Catalog" tab. Once done you can search for Softaculous and click on the "Install" button.

Once you have finished the installation of Softaculous you can find it under the "My Extensions" tab.

Please take note that the free version of Softaculous is installed per default. In case that you need the full license for Softaculous, you can order it directly in the "My Extensions" tab next to Softaculous under the "Buy" button.

For older versions of Plesk please use the following procedure for the installation of Softaculous:

1. ionCube loader activation

Befor you start with the activation of the ionCube loader, you have to check if this one is not already installed and enabled on your server.

To check the ionCube version please connect to your server via SSH as root and use the following command:

find / -name 'ioncube_loader_*'

To check if the ionCube loader is activated you can use the following command:

php -m | grep -i ioncube

2. Installation of Softaculous

When the ionCube loader is activated you can continue with the installation of Softaculous. Therefore please take care that you have enabled POSIX. You can check this by executing the following command:

php -m | grep -i posix

In case that POSIX is not enabled, you can enable it in „Tools & Settings“ → „PHP Settings“ → Please select the related PHP handler and continue with the next steps. Once you have taken care that POSIX is enabled, please connect to your server via SSH as root and execute the following commands:

wget -N http://files.softaculous.com/install.sh
chmod 755 install.sh
./install.sh

Once the commands are executed the installer will start with the installation process of Softacoulous. During the installation scripts will be downloaded and the download activity will be shown on the screen. Afterwards you can select Softaculous in your Plesk administration.

Procedure under cPanel/WHM:

1. ionCube loader activation

To activate the ionCube loader on your cPanel administration please follow the steps below:
* Login to WHM (root)
* Got to Server Configuration → Tweak Settings → PHP
* Select „ioncube“ check box for „cPanel PHP loader“
* Click on „Save“ button.
* That's it. This will enable ionCube for you in 3rd party PHP binary.

2. Installation of Softaculous

Once you have activated the ionCube loader you have to connect to your server via SSH as root and execute the following commands:

wget -N http://files.softaculous.com/install.sh
chmod 755 install.sh
./install.sh

Afterwards go to WHM > Plugins > Softaculous – Instant Installs

The following webpage should open if the installation was successful:

There you can purchase the fully licensed version, if required.

General information about Softaculous

More detailed information about Softaculous and an overview of the current apps can be found using the links below:

https://www.softaculous.com/
https://www.softaculous.com/softaculous/apps

The migration of a website is always a challenging task for the webmaster. Beside a loss of reputation and ranking on search engines, dead links or famous 404-errors, there are some other risks during such a migration. But often it is more dangerous to leave the website on an old server, since old software can become a serious security risk.

Plesk Migrator

If you want to migrate from a current Plesk server with an outdated operation system or an EOL Plesk version, cPanel, Confixx, Helm or DirectAdmin server, Plesk provides the Plesk Migrator.

The Plesk Migrator is an extension which needs to be installed first. Within Plesk navigate to "Extensions", search for "Plesk Migrator" and then you can install it.

After the installation you can open the "Plesk Migrator" at the tab "My Extensions".

The next step is to "Start new Migration" and select the panel type, from which you want to transfer the data. Important: For this you need root access via SSH to the source server. Beside password authentication you can add an SSH key to the server.

If SSH access is not available and only FTP is possible, please see the next chapter Site Importer.

After you have entered the login data, the connection to the source server is started and depending on the server, different migration options are shown.

On a Plesk-to-Plesk migration you can see the subscriptions, customers, reseller and hosting plans.

In addition you can either migrate the customers of a reseller or assign them to a new reseller. After everything is selected, you can continue with a click on "Migrate". At first there are some checks on Apache modules or PHP versions. If there are no errors or you want to ignore possible hints, the migration will start and you can watch the status of the migration.

In case you want to restart the migration after some days, you can click on "Restart Migration".

You can find further information in the Plesk Migration Guide and also in a support article.

Site Importer

In many cases, you already have a running website and want to migrate it with a few clicks. Likely examples are: you have just started with Plesk, you manage your website using a different panel like cPanel or DirectAdmin, or you have a server with a pure LAMP installation.

In this case, Plesk offers an extension called Site Import.

This is also an extension which needs to be installed. Therefore navigate to "Extension" in your Plesk and search for "Site Import", which can be installed then.

There a two different ways to import your website with the Site Importer:

You can login as server administrator and open "Site Importer" at "Extension" - "My Extensions". Alternatively you can navigate to the subscription and select "Website Importing". In the next step, you need to enter the login data for SSH or FTP.

After you entered the login data and clicked "OK", the connection to the source server will be started and the necessary information will be gathered.

If the file structure can not be detected automatically, you can enter additional information like the location of the home directory.

Website software like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal und PrestaShop are recognised automatically and the import is easy. Further information can be found in the Plesk documentation.

Beside websites, this useful extension can also import email accounts. For this choose "Mail Importing" in the subscription. After a click on "Import mail messages", you need to enter the login data and destination email account. If the the email server can not be detected through the login data, you can enter the necessary details at "Show advanced options". With a click on "OK" the import starts.

Additional information is also available on the Plesk website.

Conclusion

We cannot eliminate the risks of a website migration, but minimize them since Plesk offers some useful tools to make a migration easier and reduce the human factor. But the most important thing for a successful migration is a detailed and well thought out planning.

Order a VPS from Contabo and you get the Plesk edition of your choice one month for free! You can also find further information on our Plesk information site.