Server and System Status

On Friday night / Saturday morning we completed the migration all websites from server NC031 to NC041. There are a couple of minor improvements for you:

• We have doubled the disk space available to you from 10 GB to 20 GB, and
• All websites that didn’t previously have an SSL certificate now have one.

In order to take advantage of encrypted connections to your website (and therefore see a green padlock in your browser) you will need to access it at https://yourdomain.com. All of your web pages will also need to call included items — such as images, style sheets, JavaScript files, etc. — over HTTPS connections as well. If they aren’t, a web browser will only show some sort of insecure or semi-secure indication — e.g., a non-green padlock with some sort of alert icon. If you need help with this, please consult your website manager.

All websites that can use it are now running version 7 of PHP. This is required by the current versions of some web apps. If your website is quite old, especially if it accesses a MySQL database, it made not be coded to be able to use PHP 7. If this is the case for your website it is running under PHP 5. However, version 5 will not be available forever, so your website will eventually stop working. In order to fix this you will need to engage someone to update the code for your website, or create a new one. We suggest that you consider doing this as soon as possible, but definitely within the next year.

The control panel for the new web server continues to be available at web.niner.net:10000. Some websites are still available on the old server; if you need access to the old control panel within the next 48 hours, please let us know. After that it will no longer be available.

All web apps that are installed through the control panel have been updated to their latest versions. If your web app — e.g., WordPress, os Commerce, Moodle, Mediawiki, etc. — is not installed through the control panel, please take steps to upgrade it as soon as possible to reduce your website’s exposure to being hacked.

Finally, if you have a contact form or some other process on your website that sends email to you or your users, please be aware that this server is on a “new” IP address that is relatively unknown to the world’s mail servers and blacklists. As a result we’re seeing that some outbound emails are being delayed. We strongly recommend that you configure such features to send email to a domain hosted by NinerNet rather than an external domain (especially gmail.com).

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact NinerNet support. Thank-you for your patience and ongoing patronage.