eHosting.ca down for 12 hours - what's up? - Knowledgebase

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eHosting.ca down for 12 hours - what's up?

Posted by webble, 07-22-2007, 04:33 AM
Well....It's now hour 12 of an outage at www.ehosting.ca. The office isn't staffed on weekends so it's understandable why no one will get back to me, but this seems to be impacting several sites (not just mine) and Cpanel and even the ehosting estore are down. I'm surprised this outage has gone on so long. Over the last 2 years there have been a few minor outages here and there but generally they've been a good low-budget Canadian host, until now. Last edited by webble; 07-22-2007 at 04:36 AM.
Posted by glace, 07-22-2007, 07:46 AM
How can they have no stuff around on the weekend ?? That's impossible for a host...They can't even respond to abuse complaints.
Posted by webble, 07-22-2007, 01:00 PM
They must have someone down there because the servers are finally back up this morning, but still no communication at all. During the outage, I was driven mad by the message on the home page that said there were no known site issues. I am host shopping. I need 24 hour support (doesn't have to be phone) that I can rely on. And a 12 hour outage with no communication really sucks. Last edited by webble; 07-22-2007 at 01:05 PM.
Posted by webble, 07-22-2007, 07:21 PM
Update: ehosting.ca just offered me 3 months of free hosting to make up for the outage. Apparently they got hacked.
Posted by ReliableSite, 07-23-2007, 10:53 AM
It happens to many hosts. Do they not have a support desk that you can submit tickets in?
Posted by webble, 07-23-2007, 12:12 PM
No, there's no official support ticket system. But that hasn't really been a big issue, you just contact them by web form, email or live chat. Usually they are quite fast at responsing by email, on weekdays. Never had an outage this long though.
Posted by pauladmin, 07-26-2007, 02:24 PM
Asked a tech support at ehosting.ca for a full explanation via their livechat and she cut me off: Paul: Type in your question here! You are now speaking with Meghan of Client Care Team. Meghan: Hello Paul Paul: Hello Meghan Meghan: What can I do for you today? Paul: I demand a detail explanation on ftp1 server outage last weekend Paul: "spammer/hacker attack" is not detailed enough Paul: Hello? Paul: Still here? Meghan: Yes I'm here Paul: What's happening? Why replying me so slow? Meghan: There was a spammer/hacker attak this weekend Meghan: I was waiting for you to finish typing sothat I could answer your question in full Meghan: The spammer/hacker attack this weekend was noticed by our technician that works on the issue 24/7 Paul: but how come still over 20 hours of outage? Paul: and how come no system status page updated? Paul: so it is a spammer attack? hacker attacker? or both? Meghan: There was a downtime because a hacker overloaded our server to send out mass email - spam Paul: so this means that your servers simply cannot handle load? Paul: and if there is a 24/7 standby tech, how come he/she does not do anything to prevent this from happening? Paul: so how come no system status page updated? Meghan: Unfortunately we cannot disclose further information on this situation because it ties in with our privacy policy with other clients Paul: WHAT? Paul: are you kidding? Paul: how is privacy policy related to explanation to system outage? Paul: I am not asking you to disclose your clients' information Paul: I am asking for the explanation (in full) why the server had gone down for 20 hours Paul: and why there is no precaution measure taken place Paul: and why there is no system status page updated notifying affected clients Paul: still with me? typing an essay? Your party has left this session.
Posted by glace, 07-26-2007, 02:49 PM
Eventhough servers can get hacked and this can cause 20 hour outages (i.e. if a full system needs to be restored due to root exploit) this looks like a simple user nobody exploit. Their monitoring system should have alerted them and fixing this type of attacks usually takes just a few minutes. If it was just a user nobody exploit and an overload as a result of this they could and should have fixed this issue within an hour or less. On the other side I find your attitude too aggressive in that chat. Sometimes it is not possible to prevent 20 hour outages i.e. because a HD fails and needs to be replaced or due to a root level exploit. Usually contracts guarantee around 98% uptime which allows for 175.2 hours of downtime per year so you could have a 20 hour outage approximately once every 41 days. Outages caused by hacker attacks often don't even count. But no matter how much things go wrong one should always stay polite because a freak out attitude NEVER helps in any way.