Monthly Archives: December 2006

LayeredTech Hosting

Reviews and Rants, Websites

For more than a year, I have been hosting my servers with LayeredTech. These guys are professional, efficient and affordable. Now, the following rant about them means nothing about their quality service; rather, this is about the miscommunication that occurred between the company and myself. The story goes something like this.

December 19th: Sometime in the afternoon, I take a look at the server email logs and notice that the log size has reached 8 megabytes in size. Upon examination, I realized sendmail was being used, resulting in an open-relay for spammers. I quickly delete the binary and symlink sendmail to Exim. I noticed the suspicious logging activity stop. This, of course, was an “error” on my part, as I didn’t then look at the Exim mainlog to make sure the suspicious activity had stopped completely.

At about 6 PM, my dad tells me he is receiving spam from the contact form page we had setup for visitors to download our programs from. I quickly shrugged it off and told my dad “I guess they’re just spamming us through the form, whatever.” Big mistake for leaving it at that.

At about 8 PM, my dad is still complaining, and he told me to come check it out in detail this time. I take a look at realize that the contact form was being used for spamming by a spammer. Without thinking twice, I rush downstairs to my computer and completely delete the form. *phew* I think to myself. I then realize there’s over 10,000+ emails queued up in Exim, ready to be delivered to poor folks. Quickly, I read the documentation on Exim on how to manipulate the queue! I come across a command called “exiqgrep” which allows you to go through the queue. Along with the main binary “exim”, I simply remove all the queue emails, whether they were good or bad. Note: I then realized there was a front-end script in Direct Admin control panel that manipulated the queue without needing for the command prompt.

Now that the queue was cleared, I decided it was time to hit the sack. Little did I know, however, that all this time LayeredTech was sending ME emails, warning about a disconnection that was about to take place in an hour or two. Of course, I didn’t get those emails because my server was smart enough to tag them as junk, resulting them being ignored. It also didn’t help that I was sleeping at the time, so no way in hell would I notice anything suspicious.

A few hours later, LayeredTech disconnects my server.

At 7:30 AM today (December 20th) I get a call from my site partner, only to realize myself that the sites and email accounts were not working. I shoot off an email to LayeredTech asking for a quick reboot, unbeknownst that my server was cut off by the Abuse Department because of the spam. I quickly get a reply saying to contact the abuse department. Shit.

Within half an hour, the situation gets resolved when I let them know that it was the contact form being abused that resulted in the spam. Thankfully, the staff at LayeredTech understood the problem and reconnected my server, stating that the support ticket will now close. All is well I thought.

At about 6 PM, after about 10+ hours the issue was closed, I get another call from my site partner. The sites and email accounts are down yet again. What the heck is it now?

I login the ticketing system setup by LayeredTech again and realize the spamming ticket issue is still open. I skim through the ticket to realize a technician had re-disconnected my server because the issue was still open, and he wasn’t sure if I deleted the contact form or not. Jesus, what do you think I did with the form, announce it to everyone about a vulnerability on my server? Frustrated and furious, I shoot off a few emails stating how I’m considering moving my business to another host since they shut my server down without any proper warnings. “At least call me” I tell them. Minutes later, the technician replies back saying he had sent me 3 emails and that was sufficient for a warning. To make it short, he reconnected my server and told me to check the support ticket portal next time.

This whole thing really ticked me off. It was after this incident I noticed that my server was blacklisting LayeredTech support emails, only because the email they sent me contained various spam terms, like “Viagra” and miscellaneous pharmaceutical garbage. Sigh.

Anyway, matter is done and over with. I told the host to contact my cell phone next time they decide to disconnect my server. I still love LayeredTech, of course.

That Great Site

Websites

I had a vision today in the car, so I must write this down before I lose the momentum and idea of it.

I must start the “That Site” network with my domains. I must also write a site detailing about the Starting Strength routine by Mark Rippetoe, as few people have been searching for it and coming to my site to see what it’s about. That information alone is worth quite a bit.

I need to buy some white boards to plan my ideas out in the basement. I plan to turn my work area into a think thank-like lab. Perhaps my friends can come over every now and then and make use of my basement this way. SaroMedia Labs, anyone? 🙂

I also need to work on Holiday Sources… the template system awaits.

More thoughts to follow.

Top Ten Things To Do In My life

Ramblings

This is a list of stuff I want need to will do in my life before retiring. Of course, some of these things can also be done when retired, but not when you’re dead. Without further ado, here’s the list.

  1. Run an evil corporation.
  2. Buy a BMW M3 or M5. No need for any other car. Maybe a 7-series perhaps.
  3. Have a Swiss bank account.
  4. Have a nice house next to the lake.
  5. Travel to Japan, Australia and all the European countries.
  6. Have more than 3 children; the more the merrier!
  7. Have a personal lodge at the Bell Centre during hockey games
  8. Finish this list

Weekend Update

Ramblings

I haven’t posted in a while because I have been thinking to myself this past week.

I flew to Toronto this past Wednesday to setup/network my client’s new office in the GTA. They are slowly starting to expand, which is great news for not only them but for my dad’s company. I actually enjoyed traveling alone among businessmen (and hot women) to do business. I felt like a million dollars while sitting in Economy class. Hopefully in the near future, I’ll be traveling all over the world to do this job in First Class. 😛

In other thoughts, I have decided I’m not going to let anyone else slow me down anymore. This is concerning relationships. I wonder why I even bother sometimes with them, as my enthusiasm dies down after a month of dating someone. The whole dating scene really discourages me. Maybe it’s the whole idea of going through the process of getting to know someone after X amount of time, only realizing that they’re really not for you. Now that I think about it, this is actually a good thing, since you figure out the problems before you dive in a serious/long-term relationship (or worse, getting married!).

I got a call from National Bank yesterday (Friday) concerning my debit card. Looks like someone attempted to withdraw 500$ from my account with a duplicated card. Supposedly they rigged an ATM machine to record down PIN numbers when a card has been accessed. I think one way to prevent this type of fraud to ever occur would be to implement RSA’s 2-Factor Authentication scheme involving a security token, where every client’s random generated number would be based on a unique algorithm with the server. Anyway, this is the second time in 2 months that my cards have been frauded. I need to be careful on where I do my transactions it seems. No more shady ATMs!

I finally got my full driver’s license, a whopping 15 points to spend on speeding tickets, missed stop-signs and miscellaneous violations. It sucks that the SAAQ has resorted to cheap, flimsy and low-quality cards as licenses. They’re no longer durable like the older generation cards.
Concerning the books I have been reading lately (Starting Strength and Think And Grow Rich) they have been progressing quite well. I’m almost done with the strength book while I’m only on Chapter 3 for Hill’s novel.  They’re great reads.

Finally, I’m still debating whether I should go to Resolution this New Years or not. While I have no problem going alone, the cost (100$) for a ticket doesn’t quite justify the amount of time I plan to attend. Perhaps I should just tag with my friends elsewhere and take it easy. The idea of partying until dawn isn’t really attractive anymore I’m afraid.

Weekend Update

Ramblings, Training

My reading of Starting Strength is progressing quite nicely. I’m almost done on the chapter of squats. A few days ago, I quickly went through the power clean section and couldn’t believe the wealth of information I absorbed. Mark Rippetoe is one hardcore mothertrucker. Everyone who trains at the gym should do themselves a favour and *must* read this book. For their own sake.

I started rereading Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich book today, and absolutely love it. I needed to refresh my memory about Dr. Hill’s secrets.

I got my license renewed this morning. 15 points under my belt now. Hoorah!