The authors of the Mailman mailing list software we provide for customers have recently released version 2.1.23 to fix several bugs.
We’ve upgraded the Mailman software on our servers as a result.
Users of Mailman lists shouldn’t notice any changes, but as always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or see any problems.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.0.10 and 5.6.25 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.0 and 5.6 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.
One of the features of our hosting plans is the ability for technically advanced customers to use the Unix (Linux) command-line shell.
Until now, there have been two ways to connect to the shell: you could use telnet, or use SSH (which stands for “secure shell”).
The older telnet method dates to 1969 (that’s not a typo) and is not secure: it sends your account password without any encryption, allowing it to be seen by eavesdroppers on your local network (such as other people in a Wi-Fi cafe).
SSH, as you can guess from the “secure” in its name, fixes this — and more: Anything you can do with telnet, you can do with SSH.
Telnet should never be used anymore. Everyone should always use SSH. We have a page explaining how to use SSH with your site.
Our logs show that almost all of our customers are already using SSH instead of telnet. Because of that, and because there are several ongoing “denial of service” attacks involving telnet, we’re disabling telnet as a shell connection method to increase the security of our servers. Please use SSH instead.
Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
Between 8:52 and 9:03 AM Pacific time today (August 10, 2016), some sites we host experienced an interruption of service. The problem is resolved, and will not recur.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.0.9, 5.6.24 and 5.5.38 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.0, 5.6 and 5.5 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Recently, security researchers announced a bug that affects many web scripts, called the httpoxy bug.
Sites hosted on our servers are not vulnerable to this bug, because we’ve added a security rule blocking all HTTP requests that contain a “Proxy:” header. This completely blocks all malicious “httpoxy” requests, and our customers don’t need to do anything else.
We’ve updated the AWStats software we use to generate website statistics. The statistics beginning today use the latest version 7.5.
This version has support for newer browsers, operating systems, and search engines, and is somewhat better at identifying and filtering out traffic from non-human visitors.
We should probably mention that if you’re relying on AWStats for information about the behavior of human visitors, you can usually get more accurate statistics using Google Analytics, which works in a different way than simply analyzing log data after the fact. We have a page explaining more about the difference between AWStats and Google Analytics.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.0.8, 5.6.23 and 5.5.37 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.0, 5.6 and 5.5 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.
The PHP developers recently released versions 7.0.7, 5.6.22 and 5.5.36 that fix several bugs. We’ve upgraded the PHP 7.0, 5.6 and 5.5 series on our servers as a result.
These changes should not be noticeable, but in the unlikely event you experience any trouble, don’t hesitate to contact us.
The authors of the PHP scripting language stopped supporting the PHP 5.3 and PHP 5.4 series some time ago.
Newer versions of PHP are generally more secure, have fewer bugs, and in some cases run far faster. Of course, that’s really just another way of saying that older versions of PHP are insecure, buggy, and slow.
Because of that, we are phasing out PHP versions earlier than 5.5 (we also offer the 5.6 and 7.0 series):
We have a page dedicated to explaining how, and why, to update PHP.
