Messages

Yeah, it's frustrating me too. It's not this server specifically, it's the whole subnet at my upstream host. I'm trying to get something done about it, but I've fought this like 10 times, and every time it gets fixed, the subnet ends up getting blocked again at some point.

My sincere apologies, the forums are supposed to email me when there's a reply to one of my comments, but I guess that broke. You're in, and I'll send you an email shortly with details.

I'm sorry I didn't see this until now. I'm pretty easy going about applications these days, but before I set up an account, I want to make sure you realize the services here are pretty low level. You get SSH/SFTP access and have to install things like wordpress or other web frameworks yourself. There's nothing point-n-click. Are you comfortable doing that?

Per the update above, I've again had to disable some accounts.

So the VM host we were currently assigned to at Linode was shared with other servers that were major IO hogs, causing major slowdowns to service here. I've upgraded/downgraded servers, effectively causing us to "bounce" to a new VM host with much lower IO demands, and this should vastly improve performance. So far, I'm getting astoundingly better benchmarks and results. That said, it may be necessary to do this again in the next day or three to explore other profiles. It takes an hour or two each time, so if you find xepher.net down, I ask for your patience. If it's down more than three hours though, something may be wrong, and please feel free to contact me. Try my xepher42 gmail address or any other way you know to contact me.

Sorry I didn't see this. Did you ever get it figured out. It shouldn't be much different, just might have to use a different program when uploading files. I don't use Mac myself, so the only things I know are basically from google.

Okay, your application is accepted! You should get an email shortly with login instructions, so keep an eye out for it, and make sure to follow them (especially setting your own password.)

Sorry I'm so slow to respond to this. It's been ages since someone last applied for an account, so the forum isn't nearly as active as it used to be.

Nice photos! You've clearly been at it a while!

That said, I'd like to ask what plans or needs you have that make xepher.net a better fit for your site than any of the services more directly dedicated to art/photography. E.g. what're you planning/hoping to do that you couldn't more easily do on sites like flickr, photobucket, deviantart, or even wordpress.org itself?

Secondly, the services here are pretty low level. You get file and shell access, but you'd have to install and maintain wordpress (and anything else you use) on your own. Do you feel you have the technical skill to be able to do that?

I sent you an email, and the site seems to be working, but just wanted to follow up here, see if you got it sorted.

PHP 5.6 is approaching its end of life, and is no longer receiving regular updates from upstream. That means it's time to move on to the next version, which is PHP 7 (6 was experimental and doesn't count.) I've updated the server to PHP 7.2, and if you're using older PHP software, you may notice errors appearing on your site. If you see messages about mysql (specifically mysql_connect being an "undefined function") then there's a temporary workaround you can add. In any PHP file you need to still use the old MySQL functions, you can add this line right at the start of the PHP section (just after the <?php tag ideally):

Code Select Expand

include_once("mysql-shim.php");

Ideally, if you didn't write the code, you should just update to a newer version that supports php 7 and not use this. But until this, this workaround might help. If you have other problems (or notice errors on any of the main xepher.net pages) please let me know. My own code is using this shim, as it's ANCIENT, and I don't have the patience to rewrite it quite yet.

:UPDATE:

Well, it's more than a year later, and a lot of accounts have fallen out of date again. I've disabled these. If your site has a notice that your Wordpress was out of date, email me and I'll unlock it, so that you can upgrade.

Note that the current version of Wordpress is now 5.6.2.


:UPDATE:
Just as everyone seems to have finally been updated, Wordpress goes and breaks their auto-update process.

https://wordpress.org/news/2018/02/wordpress-4-9-4-maintenance-release/

Everyone (in the world) needs to update manually and then make sure auto-updates are enabled again!


----
Over the New Year we had an account compromised (almost certainly through a MILDLY out of date WordPress install) and it was used to attack other servers, leading to a warning from my VM provider.

Going forward, I'm going to be requiring that all WordPress installs be maintained and kept up to date. To enforce this, I've written a scanner that will automatically find and check the version of any WP installs, and it will be emailing me any time someone is out of date. If you have WP on your site, please go update it NOW to at least version 4.9.1.

As WP is a very popular target, even an install a week out of date can be vulnerable, and so I will be disabling accounts if/when that happens. I've already disabled several, and sent emails of warning to many others. If your account was one that was disabled, email me, and I can release it and allow you to update things. Also, please make sure your offsite contact email is kept up to date so that I can contact you in cases like this. Too many times I have to resort to disabling accounts to get the owners attention, and I'd prefer to avoid that.

Sorry to have to be so strict about this, but with the potential to leverage this server to attack remote targets, the threat is serious enough that I have no choice. If you have any questions or thoughts though, feel free to ask below, or contact me directly if you prefer.

Thank you all for understanding!

It looks like scriptaculous (or at least a compatible version of it) isn't actually being loaded by another script, so the newsbox breaks. The "skip" option was only to skip it if you already load it on your own (or through another script) elsewhere. I suspect that, if it was breaking another script, it's for some other reason than it already being loaded.

Bottom line, you can skip the newsbox if you want, as I don't have the desire to debug it right now. :-)

Okay, it's done. I had a partially written script to rename accounts, but I haven't used it in a few years, so it broke and I did the rest by hand. The good news is I fixed the script so the next person that asks this should get a much easier (and quicker) response.

That said, I did fix some stuff by hand, so double check everything. Also, you have wordpress, so I modified your basic config to point to the new database name. Note that you may need to change other settings in wordpress to make it work with the new domain name. If you have trouble, just let me know.

Apologies for not replying sooner. I've been traveling far too much for work and haven't made the time to take care of this. I'm once again in an airport waiting on a flight, so won't be able to take care of it today either. That said, I'm happy to rename things. The question is, do you want any of the old site at all? If not, it's easier to simply delete it and create a new account under the new name. Note this will remove all content AND all email (if you used the xepher.net email system.) Let me know and I'll try to get to it in a couple days when I return home.

Ugh, somehow I completely forgot about this. Sorry! If you still want a site, let me know and I'll get it set up.