I've been out of pocket for nearly two weeks. The webserver which host my site was down for about 36hrs. Apparently, it had been compromised and it subsequently launched an attack on another server on the internet. The data center staff decided to simply unplug the box to limit the damage and their liability. They later restored the OS and never bothered to figure out what caused the compromise.
Pretty unsettling, especially since there is no plan in place to prevent it from happening again. Anyway, I later discovered that my photo journal was broken. Luckily, all of the files are intact. I simply have to get the PHP stuff working again. I hope to have it fixed by the end of the weekend. I have new pics to share of my garden and my latest road trips. So stay tuned.
Wow.. you are paying a company to host your site and they cant even explain the root cause of the problem? Nor put preventive measures in place to mitigate their risk? Pulling the plug wont solve the problem! Suppose you were running a business.. would they reimburse you for lost revenue? Maybe you should closely vet the T's & C's of your contract.. surely you are owed some compensation or credit for the service interruption at a minimum. Better yet, this may be time to move to a hosting site that has more solid security, forensics and incident response measures in place.
Agreed. Unfortunately, I really don't have a sophisticated contract with these guys. My cash outlay is minimal. While I do get annoyed by the outages, my griping is drastically tempered. Under normal circumstances, I would be asking for refunds etc..
Hey Al!...Just curious...Is this webserver running Linux?
Yes, it was a RedHat box. The OS was reinstalled and its now up and running.