SharkSpace often receives tickets from our clients who claim that their website is not accessible. However, most of the time it turns out that the issue is actually at the client’s side itself. So in this blog we try to help you to run some self diagnostic tests which will equip you to figure out whether the issue is at your side before opening a support ticket.
Note: It is recommended that you subscribe to the “SharkSpace Server and Network Announcements” forum so that you will get notified whenever there is an ongoing server/network related issue. SharkSpace staff will post a report when any issue is detected by our 24/7 monitoring system. If you do not find any new topic after a few minutes, please go through the following steps to check whether the issue is at your side:
1) Check using third party monitoring services:
There are several website monitoring services available that can check whether your website is up or not. Most of them can also check it from multiple locations across the world. Some of the services that allows free website monitoring checks are:
http://www.alertra.com/spotcheck.php
http://www.hyperspin.com/en/quicktest.php
http://www.watchmouse.com/en/checkit.php
http://www.siteuptime.com/users/quickcheck.php
If the third party monitoring services are also reporting your website as down, please open a Support Ticket in our Help Desk. However, if they are reporting your website as “UP”, the issue is likely at your side itself. Let us see how we can further troubleshoot the issue at your side.
2) Traceroute:
The next step to diagnose the issue is to run a Traceroute command from your PC to your domain name. Trace route is a network utility that traces the path taken by your network to reach a host. It shows all nodes the packet travels from sender to destination (also reffered as “hops” in the network), the domains if available, IP addresses and the amount of time in milliseconds that took the reach that specific host. To run a traceroute command, you can do the following steps:
a) Assuming that you are using a Windows PC, click Start > Run
b) Type: cmd (and Press Enter)
c) Type the traceroute command at the prompt: tracert yourdomain.com (and press Enter)
d) Wait for a few seconds for the traceroute command to complete. Once the traceroute is completed, it will show “Trace Route Complete”.
e) To copy the trace route result, right click the Command Prompt window and click on “Mark”. Now drag and select the result to highlight it and press Enter to copy it.
Paste and Save this information in a text file which you can attach when submitting a Support Ticket later.
* If the trace route shows a “Unable to Resolve Host” message, it is likely to be a DNS issue at your side. You may be having a DNS cache or your ISP’s DNS server aren’t updated yet. In such cases, you can try flushing your DNS cache or you can use third party DNS addresses from OpenDNS, etc. to resolve this issue.
* If the trace route result shows “Request Time Out” within your ISP’s network range, it is likely that your ISP is having issues and you may have to contact them regarding this issue along with the traceroute result.
* If the trace route result shows “Request Time Out” towards the end (just before reaching the server), it is likely that your PC’s IP Address is blocked in the server’s firewall. Please open a Support Ticket in our Help Desk to get your IP unblocked from the firewall along with the trace route result and your IP address.
The above troubleshooting tests will help you find and resolve issues at your side quickly without the need for contacting us through the Help Desk. If there is an ongoing issue reported at our side, then it will be posted in the forum. In such cases, please do not open a Help Desk ticket as it would delay our efforts to bring back the server online since we will have to attend to your ticket at the same time. Please refresh the forum topic page or subscribe to the topic to receive an email notification when there is an update.
We hope everyone had noticed that RoundCube is available among the options in your webmail interface. RoundCube is a pretty slick webmail client and has been requested a lot in the past. After about two years of development, the first stable release of RoundCube was announced in early 2008. Since the script has matured into a stable product, cPanel integrated RoundCube into its webmail interface along with SquirrelMail and Horde.
SharkSpace had introduced RoundCube webmail in all our servers earlier.
Roundcube uses AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) to provide a quick, responsive user interface which mimics that of many desktop email clients. The use of AJAX makes tasks like folder manipulation, message searching and spell checking a lot easier. It provides a much more application-style interface for webmail, featuring double-click to view, drag-and-drop to move. RoundCube has a “Mac” type look and the icons were designed by Stephen Horlander and Kevin Gerich of Mozilla.org
If Roundcube had a built in feed reader and calendar, it would be better, but for an email reader, we think they are doing some good work. We haven’t come across any bugs or issues with RoundCube yet, if you bump into any issues please do let us know by submitting a ticket in our Help Desk and we will be happy to review it!
Some of the features of RoundCube webmail includes:
- PHP- and (Postgresql-MySQL-Sqlite)-based
- Multilingual capabilities
- Full support for MIME and HTML messages
- Compose messages with attachments
- IMAP Support
- Multiple sender identities
- Basic address book
- Find-as-you-type address book integration
- Forwarding messages with attachments
- Create or remove custom message folders
- Built-in caching for fast mailbox access
- Support for external SMTP server
- Advanced user interface
- Unlimited users and messages
- Complete customization with skins
RoundCube is now in version 0.2 and there are new features being developed. The upcoming features include:
- Richtext/HTML composing
- Message filters and rules
- Contact groups
- Auto-detection of client language and timezone
- Selectable folder for outgoing mails
- Managing nested folders/collapsable folders list
- Full featured address book based on VCard standard
- Import/export functions
- Support for GPG/PGP encryption
- Threaded message listing
- Plug-in API for flexible exensions
Here are some common FAQ for RoundCube webmail:
Q: How do I log in to the new RoundCube Webmail client?
A: You can login directly to your webmail (domain.com/webmail) and select the RoundCube icon.
Q: How do I setup a Signature in RoundCube Webmail client?
A: To setup a Signature, please navigate to Personal Settings > Identities > New identity.
Q: Is there a way to change the number of messages displayed on one page?
A: To do so, please navigate to Personal Settings > Preferences.
Q: Is there a way to import existing rules from another mail application (such as Microsoft Entourage, Outlook, Outlook Express, etc.)?
A: Unfortunately, there is no way to import the existing rules from other applications. We hope this feature will be implemented soon.
Q: How do I delete all messages in RoundCube Webmail client?
A: To delete all messages at once using the RoundCube Webmail client, please select a folder and apply the “Empty” action from the bottom of the left frame.
Q: Is there an automated way to clean my Trash folder?
A: Unfortunately, this option is not available at the moment. We hope this feature will be implemented soon as well.
Q: What does the “Compact” action do?
A: The “Compact” action supposed to permanently delete messages marked as Deleted. Since in our installation messages are being deleted right away, the “Compact” action does not do anything.
Q: How do I create a new folder in RoundCube Webmail client?
A: To create a new folder, please navigate to Personal Settings > Folders tab.
An alternative for SquirrelMail (too simple?) and Horde (too complex?) was missing until recently and we feel that gap has been filled up by RoundCube!
I came across a very interesting article written by Mark Cuban regarding company startups. It provides some valuable information and everyone thinking about starting a company should read this article first: http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/
The part I agree with most is:
“1. Don’t start a company unless its an obsession and something you love.”
Search Engine Optimization has opened up newer varieties of terms, which are applicable to different websites to help them become popular and therefore increase the number of hits. One of them is Link Juice. Greg Boser in his site Web Guerilla coined the term.
The trendy name attracted a lot of people. The scientific term is actually known as ‘pass through ratio’. But (more…)
The CentOS development team released the CentOS 5.2 i386 live cd. The cd can be used for a work station or a rescue disk.
It includes the following packages:
Workstation Packages
openoffice.org 2.3.0
firefox 3.0
thunderbird 2.0.0
pidgin 2.3.1
scribus 1.3.3.2
xchat 2.6.6
k3b 0.12.17
gimp 2.2.13
Rescue CD Packages
memtest86+-1.65
Full set of LVM and RAID command line tools
QTParted
Nmap and NMapFE
traceroute
samba-3.0.28 with cifs kernel support to connect to Windows file shares
System Log Viewer
GUI Hardware Device Manager
It is available at: https://projects.centos.org/trac/livecd/
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