Archives for the 'General' category
Newsletter #2
Posted Apr 24 at 11:29 CDT by Richard in General - 3 comment(s)
Hello and welcome to this, the second installment of the WebFaction newsletter!
It's been 4 months since we published our first newsletter and a lot has happened since then, so lets
take a look at what's been happening on planet WebFaction.
| Back in February WebFaction turned five, which practically makes us a dinosaur in web business terms. Obviously we wanted to celebrate this milestone. If my own fifth birthday was anything to go by this would have involved jelly, ice-cream and a terrifying clown but much to my relief we decided the best way to celebrate was to give away free hosting. A huge thank you to everyone who showed how much they believe in us by taking advantage of our (now ended) 5YEARS promo! |  |
Plan upgrade:
I'm not sure if two data points can be called a tradition but in our first newsletter we announced plan
upgrades and we're doing it again today! Starting today we are adding an extra 20MB of memory to all of
our plans and we are more than doubling our plans diskspace. If you are an existing customer this has
been added to your account automatically.
New email platform:
Over the last couple of months we've been quietly rolling out a new mail platform. The idea is to make
the whole system more scalable and fault tolerant and to provide better spam filtering. If you're on Mail1
to Mail5 and would like to start using this new mail platform then simply follow these instructions.
We're hiring:
We're growing faster than ever and to keep up with our growth we're actively hiring. If you love the web and want to work with great people in a challenging environment make sure you check out our job page
Show off your site:
In an effort to get to know our customers a little bit better, we're planning to start using our blog to
showcase interesting sites hosted on our servers. Obviously we can't make this idea work without your
help so if you would like your site to be featured just open a ticket and tell us about your site (what it is about, which technology it uses etc).
Read the full article and comments
Five years
Posted Feb 5 at 03:27 CDT by Remi in General - 30 comment(s)
Five years ago I registered the python-hosting.com domain (which later became WebFaction), I put together a simple website for a hosting service and I rented a VPS for $30/month to put my first customer on it.
Five years later we have thousands of customers, almost 100 servers and a great team of people working together. And most importantly, we've been able to keep the quality of service that we had from the start. I think that's not too bad :)
To celebrate our 5 year birthday we're having a special promo: buy 3 years of hosting and get an extra 2 years for free. We've been able to maintain our quality of service for 5 years and you can be sure that we'll still be doing it in 5 years.
If you're not a customer yet you just have to signup for an account, pre-pay for 3 years and use the promo code "5YEARS".
If you're an existing customer you just need to open a ticket and mention that you'd like to take advantage of the "5YEARS" promo and we'll get you sorted.
The "5YEARS" promo is only valid for one month.
Here is to our next 5 years of hosting...
Remi.
Read the full article and comments
We're Hiring!
Updated Jan 27 at 13:14 CDT (first posted Jan 25 at 17:35 CDT) by Richard in General - 3 comment(s)
WebFaction is growing faster than ever...
To keep up with our growth we're actively hiring so if you love the web and want to work with great people in a challenging environment make sure you check out our job page!
Read the full article and comments
Faster control panel and forum
Posted Dec 19 at 12:38 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
One of the improvements we announced in our Newsletter was no more slow-downs at peak time for the control panel.
Well, we just rolled out some optimizations to the code and we moved our central database to a beefier server.
The result is a much happier database server serving speedy control panel and forum pages, even when you all decide to hammer them at the same time :)
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Newsletter #1
Posted Dec 4 at 05:55 CDT by Remi in General - 20 comment(s)
Welcome to the very first WebFaction newsletter !
As you may have noticed WebFaction took a great leap forward today:
We rolled out our brand new website but most importantly we upgraded all of our plans so that you can host more websites and bigger ones in a given plan:
|  |
But these improvements are just the beginning ... Over the next few months we're going to gradually improve our platform while keeping the things that you like: one-click installers, applications/websites flexibility, helpful support. Things that we have on our plate include:
- Control panel improvements: no more slowdown at peak time, easier application/website configuration, easier mailboxes/email configuration
- Documentation: more documentation, especially for people just getting started with our system
- Payment system: we're working on our own payment system which means you won't have to enter your card details every time you buy new services
- Domains and certificates: we know it's a pain to have to go elsewhere to buy these so soon you'll be able to buy them directly from our site :)
- Server setup: we're constantly tweaking our server setup: adding new software, new versions, tweaking apache, improving our watchdogs to keep our servers fast and stable
These are just a few of the improvements that we have in store. The next year is going to be a busy one for WebFaction !
Read the full article and comments
It's coming ...
Posted Nov 30 at 09:36 CDT by Remi in General - 8 comment(s)
After months of hard work WebFaction is about to take a great leap forward ... We've kept all the things you love and we've improved the things that you found the most limiting ..
Stay tuned for some big improvements coming up. Rumor has it they could come on Tuesday :)
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Bandwidth and Diskspace usage
Posted Jun 6 at 08:25 CDT by Remi in General - 1 comment(s)
We've just added another feature to the control panel: you can now check how much diskspace and bandwidth you're using.
These pages can be found under the new "Usage" menu. Note that the bandwidth data only starts 10 days ago.
Read the full article and comments
mail2script
Posted May 9 at 09:26 CDT by Remi in Email, General - 5 comment(s)
Five days without a new feature ... something's wrong ... Wait, here is the feature of the day, code name "mail2script":
It allows you to specify a script name as a target for an e-mail address. To do so just enter the absolute path of the script in the "targets" field. You can also put some parameters after the path.
When an e-mail is sent to the e-mail address, your script will be executed and the e-mail data will be passed on stdin.
Simple and powerful, just the way we like it :)
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Wildcard subdomains
Posted May 4 at 09:12 CDT by Remi in General - 3 comment(s)
We've just added another much requested feature (we seem to be on a roll lately :) ): wildcard subdomains.
All you have to do is create a subdomain with the prefix "*" for your domain (for instance, "*.mydomain.com"). Then you can use this wildcard subdomain in your website records or DNS override records.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Manage linux groups
Posted May 4 at 04:26 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
A couple of days ago we announced that you could now create multiple SSH/sftp users from the control panel. Well, you can now also manage your linux groups. That way you can put your SSH users in the same group and they can access each other's home directories.
You can configure the groups for a given user by editing the user's record from "Account->SSH/sftp users" in the control panel.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Multiple SSH and SFTP users
Posted May 1 at 08:27 CDT by Remi in General - 7 comment(s)
We've just added a much requested feature to the control panel: from now on you can create additional SSH and SFTP users under the same hosting account. If you're a team of people this allows you to give each person their own SSH or SFTP user on the web server.
You can manage these SSH and SFTP users from "Account->SSH/sftp users" in the control panel.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
New "multi-machine" feature
Posted Apr 4 at 08:59 CDT by Remi in General - 9 comment(s)
We just rolled out a new feature in the control panel: a single account can now manage applications, websites and databases on multiple machines. This allows you to:
- Load-balance your site between multiple machines (by default the load-balancing is done at the DNS level).
- Migrate your site to a different machine without any downtime (your site can be up on both machines while the DNS change propagates).
If you want your account to have access to multiple machines just open a ticket and ask for it. Note that you'll have to purchase a second plan for your apps and sites on the other machine.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
New Help System
Posted Mar 21 at 10:40 CDT by Richard in General, Help - 7 comment(s)
Remi has just pulled the big lever marked "rollout the new help system" and sure enough it's live and ready, nay eager to help will any and all questions, queries and musings you might have about our service.
Now admittedly that's a pretty grand introduction for what boils down to a slightly different ticketing system and a rather empty knowledge base, but as they say "from tiny acorns..." This is just the first step towards a much better support experience for all of our customers. Over the coming weeks we will be building on this new system to provide more (much needed) documentation, even faster support and one or two surprises.
For now the only real change for you guys is that all new tickets should be entered into the new system. There is a link to the old system on the front page of the new system in case you have existing tickets there.
If you have any comments on the new system or suggestions for how we could improve our support then please leave a comment and let us know.
Read the full article and comments
WebFaction awarded by HostReview
Posted Mar 5 at 09:28 CDT by Remi in General - 6 comment(s)
WebFaction has been selected as one of the "top 10 fastest growing hosting companies" by HostReview (the top web hosting industry information center).
In their own words: "Our staff closely monitors a variety of factors to determine the companies that we will recommend to our readers. Our Awards are based on the overall product offering, value, customer service and users' reviews of the selected companies. We have included WebFaction in the top 10 lists this month because of both your recent developments and well-earned reputation for quality.".
All the work we do is for our users only but it's nice to get some recognition from the web hosting industry :)
Remi.PS: Don't worry, we're not resting on our laurels and we have some exciting news and new features coming up in the next few weeks ...
Read the full article and comments
WordPress 2.1.2
Posted Mar 3 at 13:22 CDT by Remi in General, Software - 2 comment(s)
Just a quick post to say that we've just added WordPress-2.1.2 to our one-click installer.
This new version fixes some security issues with the 2.1.1 version (the tarball had been compromised) so it is highly recommended to upgrade !
We don't have one-click upgrades yet so you'll have to install a new instance separately and migrate your data. Alternatively you can upgrade your existing code "in place".
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Recent changes (2007-01-16)
Posted Jan 16 at 08:45 CDT by Remi in API, General, Software - 2 comment(s)
Some recent changes at WebFaction:- WordPress-2.0.7 has been added in the control panel. If you're running 2.0.4 it is recommend to upgrade since some vulnerabilities have been found.
- New API methods (requested by people) have been added. Check the API forum for details.
- register_globals for PHP apps is now off by default, which is safer. If you want to turn it on you can do so by using a .htaccess file with "php_flag register_globals On" in it.
Remi.
Read the full article and comments
WebDAV and SPF
Posted Dec 27 at 05:50 CDT by Remi in General, Software - 4 comment(s)
We've added two new features that were requested by quite a few people:
- WebDAV: There is now a new "WebDAV" application type on the app creation page. This allows you to exposed one of your directories as a WebDAV folder. The folder will be available at the URL where you mount the application.
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework): There is now a new "SPF record" field on the DNS overrides page. This allows you to enter an SPF record for a particular subdomain ("v=spf1 a:mail1.webfaction.com ?all" for instance)
Keep requesting new features to keep us on our toes :)
Remi. Read the full article and comments
BIG holiday present !
Updated Dec 29 at 09:34 CDT (first posted Dec 22 at 05:06 CDT) by Remi in Django, General, Plone, Python, Rails, Shared, TurboGears, Zope - 13 comment(s)
Well, here comes our BIG holiday present to everyone:
We've added one long-running process and 40MB of RAM to all plans !
This means that Rails, Django and TurboGears hosting is now available on our "Shared 1" plan, starting at $7.50/month. Zope is now available on our "Shared 2" plan and Plone on our "Shared 3" plan.
But that's not it: we've doubled the diskspace and quadrupled the bandwidth included in each plan !
Also, a private IP address is now only $5/month and an extra 40MB of RAM is only $7/month.
Happy holidays everyone :)
Remi.
Read the full article and comments
New API and custom install scripts
Updated Dec 29 at 09:35 CDT (first posted Dec 7 at 03:23 CDT) by Remi in API, General, Python - 5 comment(s)
New API and custom install scripts
After weeks of teasing and mouth watering, our API is finally available !
The API allows you to automate certain tasks that you would normally accomplish via our control panel or via SSH. For instance, it allows you to automate the installation of any application that you like. And most importantly, you can share this install script and allow other users to use it in one click !
A tutorial for the API is available and should contain everything to get you started.
We've also setup a Wiki that already contains two sample install scripts (one for Joomla and one for MoinMoin). This page allows you to install these applications on your account just by clicking the "Install" link.
We've also added a new forum for questions about the API and for announcing install scripts that you might have written.
Improvements to the app creation screen
You will also notice some improvements on the app creation screen:
- Each application now comes with documentation. When you change the "app type" in the drop down you will see the documentation for this particular app type.
- There is a new "Custom install script" app type that allows you to either give the URL where the script is and let the control panel fetch it, or you can click on "view/hide script" and manually enter the script.
- If you write a script and put it somewhere on the web, you can display a link to https://panel.webfaction.com/app/create?script_url=xxxx. When people click on it they will go to the app creation screen, the "script URL" field will contain the script URL and the control panel will automatically fetch the script from that URL. This is great since it allows anyone to use your custom install script in one click !
Lots more to come
We have a lot more to come for the API:- Lots more API methods
- The full API reference
- A free developer account: this will allow anyone who wants to write an installer for an application to get a free account with us to write their installer
Read the full article and comments
Autoresponders, database encoding
Updated Dec 28 at 10:44 CDT (first posted Nov 22 at 08:29 CDT) by Remi in General - 1 comment(s)
We too are adept of the freedom of fast iterations for our control panel :)
We just rolled out two features that were requested by people a lot:
- Autoresponders: When you configure an e-mail address you can enable an autoresponder in one click. Just enter the subject and the body of the e-mail you want to be sent and voila.
- Database encoding: When you create a database (MySql or PostgreSql) you can now specify the encoding that you want for the database (most people use utf8 or latin1).
Read the full article and comments
TurboGears-1.0b1 is here
Updated Nov 15 at 02:43 CDT (first posted Nov 14 at 09:57 CDT) by Remi in General, Software, TurboGears - 2 comment(s)
Since TurboGears-1.0-final might still take a while we've added TurboGears-1.0b1 to our control panel.
Note that if you ever installed a previous version of TurboGears you need to manually delete the eggs from $HOME/lib/python2.4 and the scripts from $HOME/bin before installing a TurboGears-1.0b1 app from the control panel.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Control panel updates
Posted Oct 23 at 07:50 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
Here are the latest improvements to the control panel (just to show that we do listen to users :) ):- Global spam rules: You now have the option to select "Use global SPAM rules" for your mailboxes. This means that you don't have to train SpamAssassin yourself.
- CNAME support: Our "DNS overrides" feature now supports CNAME records.
- Affiliate program clicks: There is a new "Affiliate click stats" entry in the "Affiliate program" menu. This displays the number of clicks that you sent us per day/month.
Read the full article and comments
Pylons support
Updated Dec 29 at 09:35 CDT (first posted Oct 16 at 12:38 CDT) by Remi in General, Python, Software - 0 comment(s)
Here is some good news for Pylons users: we've just added Pylons to our one-click installer :)
For each Pylons account that we host we give 50% of our profit back to the Pylons community.
Pylons is another great web framework for python. More details on the Pylons website.
Read the full article and comments
Trac-0.10, Zope-2.9.5, Plone-2.5.1
Posted Oct 4 at 10:24 CDT by Remi in General, Software - 4 comment(s)
We've added Trac-0.10 to our control panel. Note that if you have an existing Trac-0.9 instance and which to upgrade you first need to delete the $HOME/lib/python2.4/trac directory before adding the new Trac-0.10 app from our control panel. Instructions on how to upgrade can be found at http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracUpgrade
We've also added Zope-2.9.5 and Plone-2.5.1 to our control panel. Note that a security hole has been found in Plone-2.5 so it is recommended to upgrade to 2.5.1 ASAP. Instructions on how to upgrade can be found at http://forum.webfaction.com/viewtopic.php?id=15.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Help us make WebFaction even better
Posted Sep 27 at 08:26 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
We're always trying to improve our service so if you've got ideas to make WebFaction even better we'd love to hear them.
I just created a new "Idea pool" forum just for that: http://forum.webfaction.com/viewforum.php?id=26
Go crazy :)
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Python-2.5 is here !
Posted Sep 20 at 08:39 CDT by Remi in General, Software - 1 comment(s)
Python-2.5 was released less than 24 hours ago and we've already installed it on all of our servers. Now you can just type "python2.5" and start playing with the new with statement, the built-in sqlite3 database module or the new ElementTree module :)
Beware that some python frameworks are not yet 100% compatible with python-2.5 (it's probably only a matter of days before they catch up though)
Remi. Read the full article and comments
New web forums
Posted Sep 19 at 07:19 CDT by Remi in General - 1 comment(s)
I am pleased to announce that we finally have some web forums available !
The forums can be found at http://forum.webfaction.com
Feel free to ask pretty much any question or talk about anything you want in these forums.
If you have a support question that is not specific to your own site, please post it in the web forums as opposed to opening a new support ticket. That way other people can help you and benefit from the answers. Please also make sure that you first search the forums before posting your question, to make sure that it hasn't been answered before.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Change email password
Posted Sep 15 at 08:44 CDT by Remi in General - 1 comment(s)
We've added a handy little page that allows e-mail users without access to the control panel to change their mailbox passwords on their own.
The page can be found here (there is also a link to it from the control panel login page).
Read the full article and comments
New WebFaction buttons
Posted Sep 11 at 11:03 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
We now have a new set of buttons that you can use on your site to link to us. These buttons are ideal for our affiliate program.
You can find them on our WebFaction visuals page.
Read the full article and comments
New status blog
Posted Aug 27 at 12:10 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
We now have a new status blog to keep people informed on what's happening on our servers.
We will use this blog to keep people informed on:
- Scheduled downtime
- Upgrades
- Problems on servers (yes, we're only human)
I strongly recommend that every customer subscribes to the feed.
Blog URL: http://statusblog.webfaction.com/RSS feed: http://statusblog.webfaction.com/feed/rss
Atom feed: http://statusblog.webfaction.com/feed/atom
Read the full article and comments
New affiliate program
Posted Aug 25 at 07:44 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
I am pleased to announce the start of our new affiliate program. This is something that a lot of people have been asking for for a while. The deal is very simple:
For each customer that you send us, you get 10% of what they *ever* pay us
If you're not a customer yet you have to first signup to our affiliate program. It's quick and free.
If you're already a customer you don't have to do anything: You can start using your referral links right away (http://www.webfaction.com?affiliate=<your username> for instance) and you'll notice a new "Affiliate program" menu in the control panel.
To learn more about our affiliate program, have a look at our affiliate program page.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
"Hosted by WebFaction" buttons
Posted Aug 24 at 09:24 CDT by Remi in General - 2 comment(s)
As you might have noticed we have a nice new logo, thanks to Mariano Viola.
We also have a whole range of nice "Hosted by WebFaction" buttons to choose from. Feel free to grab one of them and display it on your site ...
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Handling the Digg effect on a standard shared hosting account
Updated Sep 9 at 05:26 CDT (first posted Aug 14 at 05:04 CDT) by Remi in General, Shared, Tips - 0 comment(s)
I've written before about how we handled the Slashdot and Digg effects on our main website and blog (serving tens of thousands of 10-40MB videos). I explained how we load-balanced our blog on multiple servers, but this article is about handling the Digg effect on one of our standard shared hosting accounts.
Last Friday, a nice article from Amir Salihefendic landed on the front page of Digg and got over 800 diggs !
This generated a pretty big amount of traffic on Amir's site but the site stayed responsive at all time, the load remained low on the server and the other sites on the server weren't impacted at all.
Amir has a standard Shared 2 account with us (in fact, his site is on "Viper", one of our oldest servers) and his site uses mod_python.
This confirmed what we've thought for a long time: Apache rocks, provided you use the following simple tips:
- Use "Timeout 30" and "KeepAliveTimeout 3" (or similar values): this will insure that no client will block Apache's threads or processes for too long (otherwise the number of Apache threads/processes will skyrocket). If you're hosting with us, these values are set by default in our main Apache server for you.
- Serve as much content as possible statically: even if you use a dynamic framework such as Rails, Django, TurboGears or mod_python, you should try to serve your static data (images, stylesheets, ...) statically (ie: serve them from your web server directly and save your dynamic framework from having to serve all these extra little requests). Our control panel makes it easy for you to configure that.
- Use caching for expensive tasks: if parts of your pages are expensive to build (for instance, they require multiple DB queries), try to cache the result (either the HTML itself or just the result of the DB queries) to avoid having to rebuild it every time.
Read the full article and comments
New Django screencast, Rails-1.1.6
Updated Feb 19 at 05:58 CDT (first posted Aug 10 at 06:27 CDT) by Remi in Django, General, Python, Rails, Screencast - 0 comment(s)
Another quick update:- Ian Holsman has made a new version of the Django screencast. It is updated for Django-0.95 and the sound is much better this time.
- Rails-1.1.5 is now available in our control panel. It includes a critical security patch.
Update: Rails-1.1.6 was just released (it includes more security patches) so we've added it to our control panel.
Read the full article and comments
Web design and development
Posted Aug 6 at 11:33 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
A few days ago we quietly introduced a new service: Web design and development.
Whether your need a simple website or an advanced web application, we have a great team to make your project happen so don't hesitate to get in touch with us and let us know about your needs
Read the full article and comments
Django-0.95, Zope-2.9.4, Plone-2.5, Mongrel for Rails
Updated Dec 29 at 09:34 CDT (first posted Jul 31 at 05:15 CDT) by Remi in Django, General, Plone, Python, Rails, Software, Zope - 1 comment(s)
Just a quick update on what's been happening lately:- Django-0.95 is already in our one-click installer, less than 24 hours after its release !
- Zope-2.9.4 and Plone-2.5 are also in there now
- All new Rails application are now setup to run with Mongrel by default (much faster than WEBrick)
Read the full article and comments
Staying cool when digged and slashdotted
Updated Dec 28 at 11:11 CDT (first posted Jul 6 at 11:19 CDT) by Remi in General, Tips - 1 comment(s)
Two weeks ago our control panel demo landed on the front page of Digg and two days ago it landed on the front page of Slashdot.
This generated quite a bit of traffic but our site and blog stayed just as fast. I thought I'd shared a few tips on how we achieved this.
Read the full article and comments
ProxyPreserveHost
Posted Jun 22 at 03:59 CDT by Remi in General, Software - 0 comment(s)
We just added ProxyPreserveHost on to all of our VirtualHost sections.
This means that all sites running behind Apache with mod_rewrite (Rails, Django, TurboGears, CherryPy, ...) don't need to read the X-Forwarded-Host header anymore since the Host header is now preserved.
This also means that it will now be easier than ever to host multiple Django applications within one Django instance (just use multiple VirtualHost sections in your httpd.conf file.
Remi. Read the full article and comments
Control panel demo
Updated Feb 19 at 05:37 CDT (first posted Jun 21 at 03:41 CDT) by Remi in General, Python, Rails, Screencast - 23 comment(s)
We believe our home-grown control panel to be one of the most flexible and powerful out there. In a few clicks you can:
- Access our support system and search our knowledge base
- Manage your domains, emails, databases, contacts, services, tickets and more
- Create applications such as Rails, Wordpress, Django, TurboGears and more (using the exact version you want)
- Mix and match your applications with your domain(s)/URL(s)
- All the changes happen in real time
We've just released a screencast demo of our control panel. The demo demonstrates how to setup a Rails, WordPress, Django and TurboGears site in a few clicks. It then shows how to ssh into the server and make changes to your sites.
Read the full article and comments
More bytes, less dollars
Posted Jun 7 at 09:23 CDT by Remi in General, Shared - 0 comment(s)
Well, we've done it again ! We've made our plans even cheaper and we've doubled the amount of diskspace that you get for a given plan and tripled the amount of bandwidth.
We've also introduced a new two-year prepayment plan that gives you an even greater discount.
Of course, all of our plans still have no setup fees.
Read the full article and comments
Python-Hosting.com becomes WebFaction
Posted May 24 at 00:43 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
We received a lot of comments from people telling us "your service is great and your control panel is amazing, but it's a shame you only support python".
Well, we don't. We also have great support for other tools such as PHP or Rails. So, for this reason we've decided to change our name to WebFaction. It's only a name change: our service and the people behind it stay the same !
Remi.
Read the full article and comments
Welcome to our new blog
Posted May 12 at 09:27 CDT by Remi in General - 0 comment(s)
A lot has happened lately in the Python-Hosting.com world. We have a new control panel, a new public website, and a lot more to come.
We will use this blog to keep you up-to-date on all the exciting new features. Stay tuned for more news soon.
Remi.
Read the full article and comments