HTG Blog

H-Sphere 3.1 CP Custom Templates & mod_rewrites

Joe — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:28:17 +0000

Custom Templates
In the process of upgrading to H-Sphere to version 3.1, we decided to correctly handle the custom templates. Unfortunately, the documentation (available here), doesn’t have the correct information on how to run the configuration. After some digging, we found the right binary to run! So, to do the custom templates, follow the instructions until it mentions the ‘apache_restart’ command. Since that doesn’t exist, run the following:

/hsphere/local/home/cpanel/apache/bin/conf_httpdcp

And then restart the httpdcp apache instance:

/etc/init.d/httpdcp restartapache

And there you have it - a custom config. Hopefully it will stay over the next reboot.

mod_rewrites
We also wanted to handle the mod_rewrite rules in our custom config, so it would redirect to port 443 for the typical other ports opened on the cp (we have 80, 8080, and 8443 open to accommodate some of our customers, and it’s just convenient). Here are the additional rules we add:

 _default_:80>

      RewriteEngine on

      RewriteCond ${HTTPS} !on

      RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ https://cp.htgwebhome.com:443 [R=permanent,L]

>
 _default_:8080>

      RewriteEngine on

      RewriteCond ${HTTPS} !on

      RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ https://cp.htgwebhome.com:443 [R=permanent,L]

      RewriteCond ${SERVER_PORT} !^443$

      RewriteRule ^/(.*)$ https://cp.htgwebhome.com:443 [R=permanent,L]

>

We wrestled with getting port 8443 to redirect, and never succeeded, and we’re okay with that. The rules seem weird, but that’s what got it to work for us, so we kept them!

H-Sphere Emergency Update

Joe — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:18:22 +0000

Last night we upgraded the version of H-Sphere to version 3.0P9. We were alerted by the company which makes the control panel software that there were some critical security patches in this version, and all users were strongly encouraged to update as soon as possible. There were a few moments when the server was unavailable, and we apologize for the inconvenience. Everything should be back up and running as normal.

H-Sphere 3.0 Upgrade & More Space

Wyatt — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:41:26 +0000

In an effort to improve our services and security, we’ve just rolled out two major changes:

H-Sphere 3.0
You might notice a little different control panel; however, too much hasn’t changed. Most fixes were security updates and other small improvements, nothing to worry about. We have noticed some speed improvements from the upgrade, but it’s hard to get much faster than a 100Mbps 3-way pipe :-).

Increased Space
This is the part that everyone will enjoy. We’ve upped the space on all of our service plans by not 2, or 3, but 4X the amount all for the the same price! That means all of our Unix Basic customers are now upped to 4GB! Check out the pricing plans for more details.

We’ll look at upgrading bandwidth based on the usage of the new space, but we’ll let you know when that happens. That’s all for now, enjoy the new space!

New Client! www.littleglenford.com

Joe — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 19:58:39 +0000

We would like to welcome LittleGlenford.com to HTG, Limited web hosting. Little Glenford is a lake-front home in Michigan available for rent. Pictures, references, and rental information is available on the site.
If your organization or business needs an online presence, email us at sales@htglimited.com with some basic information about you and we’ll work with you to find a plan that fits your needs! Once again, welcome Little Glenford!

New Client! www.sdrc-reunion.com

Joe — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 17:00:30 +0000

We would like to welcome the SDRC Reunion group to HTG. SDRC (Structural Dynamics Research Corporation) was founded in 1967 and lead by Dr. Jason R. Lemon, as a consulting firm specializing in structural dyanmics. Along the way they developed software to aid in the analysis and design of systems, which eventually became their primary business. This year will mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of SDRC.
If your organization or business needs an online presence, email us at sales@htglimited.com with some basic information about you and we’ll work with you to find a plan that fits your needs! Once again, welcome SDRC Reunion!

New Client! www.clermontbrownliteracy.org

Joe — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:52:00 +0000

We would like to welcome the Literacy Council of Clermont and Brown Counties (in Ohio) to HTG. The Literacy Council is a non-profit group which strives “To enable adults to acquire basic listening, speaking, reading and writing skills needed to participate fully in society, and to increase awareness of literacy needs in [their] community.” From their website you can find out how you can become a tutor, or check out the calendar of events to see when a fundraiser is coming up. They are working to help make some-one’s life better, and that is always a good thing.

If your organization or business needs an online presence, email us at sales@htglimited.com with some basic information about you and we’ll work with you to find a plan that fits your needs! Once again, welcome LCCBC!

Ubuntu on Sun Fire X2200

Joe — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 15:41:47 +0000

At HTG we have been using Sun servers for hosting your websites and apps, and we’ve been happy with them once they are up and running. Getting them there has been a little bit of a battle at times. To make our lives easier for future installs, and for anyone else out there who wants to run Ubuntu on the X2200 servers (and presumably others with the Nvidia FakeRaid), here is our guide for installation.

There may be some holes here - if you find some, leave a comment and we’ll get it updated!
Partition the disk with fdisk

fdisk /dev/mapper/

Mount the real partitions of the disk to the /target directory

mkdir /target
mount -t ext3 /dev/mapper/nvidia_[tab complete this one] /target
mkdir /target/boot
mount -t ext2 /dev/mapper/nvidia_[tab complete this one] /arget/boot

Add the extra mount points

mkdir /target/dev
mount –bind /dev /target/dev
mkdir /target/proc
mount -t proc proc /target/proc
mkdir /target/sys
mount -t sysfs sysfs /target/sys

Install the boostrap program, and the get system set up

apt-get -y install debootstrap
debootstrap edgy /target

Copy hosts & sources.list to chrooted environment

cp /etc/apt/sources.list /target/etc/apt
cp /etc/resolv.conf /target/etc
cp /etc/hosts /target/etc

Now to the chroot

chroot /target

Once in the chrooted jail, open another terminal (outside of the jail) and remount special filesystems:

mount –bind /dev /target/dev
mount -t proc proc /target/proc
mount -t sysfs sysfs /target/sys

To get rid of the missing locale messages:

locale-gen en_US.UTF-8

Now install dmraid

apt-get update && apt-get install -y dmraid

Now install ubuntu-standard

apt-get -y install ubuntu-standard

Install grub

apt-get install -y grub

Install the kernel - answer yes to the symlink question, and no to the abort question

apt-get install -y linux-server

Add a new user

useradd [you]
passwd [you]

Now for some grub setup - this gets a bit involved….

mkdir /boot/grub
cp /lib/grub/x86_64-pc/* /boot/grub/.
ls /dev/mapper
grub

Tell grub what device to use for hd0

device (hd0) /dev/mapper/[Device name from ls command above - NOT PARTITION]

Set the root partition - this is the partition number of the boot partition, starting with the number 0!

root (hd0,0)

And now the grub setup

setup (hd0)

We’re done inside the grub prompt

quit

Now run Ubuntu’s command to update grub

update-grub

Before editing the menu.lst file, copy the name of the RAID drive again!
Now we need to update the menu.lst file to reflect the dmraid setup.

vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

Going down the file - leave leading #’s as they are commands to the update-grub program:

change # kopt_2_6=root=/dev/hda1 to # kopt_2_6=root=/dev/mapper/[root partition]
change # groot=(hd0,0) to be the correct boot partition
set # lockalternative=false to true
If /boot is on its own partition, remove the /boot/ directory names from the kernel and initrd lines
make sure the root= portion of the kernel lines point to the root partition of the RAID array
Save the file - optionally, you can set a password (please use an md5 hash!)

Update the initramfs file!

update-initramfs -c -k `ls /lib/modules`

Update the fstab file - the easiest way to do this is to copy one from another system, or suffer through handwriting one without any guidance.

To install vmware-server, you will also need to install ia32-libs

Same Site - New Server!

Joe — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 00:17:15 +0000

Well, we’ve done it - before the end of our first year of operation, we have purchased a new server. And this time we mean new out of the box, not new to us! With plenty of room to grow, and some jobs which may let us grow with more new servers, we’re set for an interesting 2007! Thanks for being patient with us during our transition! We at HTG want to wish all of you a prosperous 2007 - and we hope that you’ll remember us for your online needs!

New client! www.lifewaychristianchurch.org

Tim — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 23:30:19 +0000

We’re happy to announce the arrival of a new client! LifeWay Christian Church is a non-profit church based out of Monroe, OH and needed a facelift on their web site. Along with a podcast and online calendar, the site offers information about the church and news of programs and upcoming events. If your organization or business needs an online presence, email us at sales@htglimited.com with some basic information about you and we’ll collaborate with you to find a plan that fits your needs!

Minimal Unix Hosting Plan

Joe — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 01:51:03 +0000

To meet the needs of non-profits and other groups on a budget, we introduce the Minimal Unix Hosting Plan. For $5 a month you get 100Mb of storage, 15Gb of bandwidth and all of the benefits of the Basic Unix Hosting Plan. 100Mb of storage doesn’t sound like a lot, but you might be surprised with just how much you can fit in that amount of space. Check out the Plans Page for a more complete list of the features offered by this and all of our plans!