Irth Networks

Hosting Program Going on Hiatus

The bottom line: Our no cost web hosting program is going on hiatus. All client sites should make new hosting arrangements by June 30th.

Irth Networks has been hosting not-for-profit websites at no cost for nine years. We're proud that we've been the internet home for a wide array of people and organizations. Children's museums, card game creators, high school libraries, get out the vote groups, music fans, churches, and youth groups, just to name a few! It's been quite a ride!

Nine years is a long time, especially in internet terms, and it's time to take a break.

We encourage all sites to make new hosting and email arrangements by June 30th.

Thanks to all of you for being a part of our Internet community!

If you have general questions or comments please send an email to IrthNet Support.

Security Compromise Necessitates Prompt Action

The security of the Irth Networks primary server was compromised on Thursday, February 23rd. In order to contain the breadth of the intrusion as well as to protect existing client data the server was immediately removed from service. Unfortunately this resulted in the downtime of multiple websites including Irth Networks' primary web and email server.

Readon for details of the site restoration process and well as specifics regarding intrusion.

]]> Sites are being returned too service on a site-by-site basis. Due to the special attention being paid to any active content such as PHP scripts the pace of restoration is slow. If there exists a need to have a specific site returned to service promptly please email IrthNet Support with the request.

We are making our best attempt to get all sites running again by the end of the week.

The intrusion was via PHP script on a client site that was not being maintained/updated and hence known security issues were not being addressed. This behavior will not be tolerated in the future as security apathy puts the entire community at risk.

If a PHP script or other 'active' content is deployed into an Irth Networks' hosted site the operator of the site implicitly takes on the responsibilkty to actively maintain that script. No expections. Failure to abide by this directive will result in immediate site suspension.

Thanks for your understanding during this difficult time.

If you have general questions or comments please send an email to IrthNet Support.

Recent Downtime and Resulting Actions Explained

The Irth Networks primary server has been performing poorly due to the results of user attacks on various customer's installations of phpbb. These attacks are affecting many IrthNet clients and hence resolution must be swift.

]]> All client sites that are not running the latest version of phpbb will have their forums disabled. A zip archive file called forum.zip will be created containing your forum files while the directory containing the forum will be removed. No data will be lost in this process.

To reconstitute the forum you should unzip the directory and apply the latest release of phpbb to the directory. By recreating the forum you're implicitly agreeing to ensure that the latest version of phpbb will always be running.

If you encounter any issues with this procedire or if you have general questions or comments please send an email to IrthNet Support.

Thanks for your understanding during this difficult time.

Server Transition

In order to continue to provide the high levels of service that you expect of Irth Networks we're rolling out new servers. This will require that some sites transition to other systems.

The site operators impacted will be notified to arrange a convenient time for the transition.

The plan is to provision the new equipment over the next few weeks and then begin transitioning over client sites on a site-by-site basis. This should take approximately 6 weeks with expected completion by December 1st 2005.

]]> Some services will be updated/modified as part of the new equipment provisioning:
* Web statistics supplier changed from Urchin to Sawmill
* Upgrade of MySQL from version 4.1.x to 5.0.x
* More...

It's going to be a busy 6 weeks so stay tuned to the Irth Networks for ongoing news and updates.

If you have any suggestions, questions, or simply run into browser incompatibilities, please send an email to IrthNet Support.

We're At Capacity

In order to ensure that we provide a reasonable level of service to our clients we're no longer able to accept new account/site requests.

Keep an eye on our homepage for information on when additional capacity will enable the acceptance of new account/site applications.

Thanks for everyones support in meeting our mission.

Please direct questions to IrthNet Support.

Blog Comment SPAM Protection

Comment SPAM protection has been added to all IrthNet blogs. Submission of a comment using a blacklisted term or terminology will not be permitted. Comment post rate limiting has also been added resulting in closely timed comment posts not being permitted to complete.

]]> Attempting to post a comment containing blacklisted terms or terminology results in text being presented to the user that is similar to the following:

Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: viagra.org

An entry will also be added to your blog Activity Log, which is accessed via the blog control panel, with text similar to the following:

MT-Blacklist comment denial on Irth Networks: (levitra|viagra|vig-?rx|zyban|meridia\b)[\w\-_.]*\.[a-z]{2,}

Email IrthNet Support if you have any questions.

We're Moving On Up

While it may appear to have been quiet these last few months, it has been as busy as ever behind the scenes.

In order to continue to provide the high levels of service that you expect of Irth Networks we're rolling out new systems at a new Internet Service Provider. This includes more bandwidth, faster servers, and new (and updated) software and services.

Keep reading for plan and new feature information...

]]> The plan is to provision the new equipment over the next few weeks and then begin transitioning over client sites on a site-by-site basis. This should take approximately 6 weeks with expected completion by January 31st 2004.

The new/updated services include:

Updated web statistics
Content and database data backup
Improved mailing list functionality
More...

It's going to be a busy 6 weeks so stay tuned to the Irth Networks for ongoing news and updates.

If you have any suggestions, questions, or simply run into browser incompatibilities, please send an email to IrthNet Support.

Email Antivirus System

An email antivirus system has been put in place.

All email either sent from or bound for IrthNet email accounts is now scanned for viruses. If a virus is found in an outbound email, e.g. sent from an IrthNet email account, the message will not be delivered and a notification will be sent to the sender. If a virus is found in an inbound email, e.g. sent to an IrthNet email account, the message will not be delivered and a notification message will be sent to both the original sending and receiving email accounts.

Read on for an example of what a virus notification will look.

]]> When a message containing a virus is sent to an Irth Networks email account the recipient will receive a message such as this:

A message which was sent to you was discarded by McAfee antivirus
running at Irth Networks, http://www.irth.net/.

The details of what was detected and the original message header are below.
For your protection, the original message has been destroyed. The sender
has been notified.

EICAR.COM is infected with EICAR test file

Viruses: 0
Trojans: 0
Jokes: 0
Tests: 1

The sender is sender@virussrc.net (may be faked)

Note that the virus name listing and details will differ depending on the virus found.

Question, concerns, etc.: IrthNet Support

Irth Networks Website Version 3

Welcome to the third iteration of the Irth Networks website. Many of your suggestions have been incorporated and your critcisms heeded.

Among the changes:

Streamlined page design
Removed pointless user registration
Made completely standardized - XHTML v1.1 and CSS
Added FAQ section
Added RSS syndication functionality

If you have any suggestions, questions, or simply run into browser incompatibilities, please send an email to IrthNet Support.

Of course like most websites there's always work left to do....

]]> ToDo list:

Add FAQ - email suggestions to IrthNet Support
Move Tutorials over from old site
Implement Search

Website Access Statistics

Irth Networks has finally selected a website access statistics package.

Statistics will be created every night with the results browseable via the Website Stats. viewer A link is also available on the Client Tools menu located on the left under Website Stats.

IrthNet websites are being added to the system everyday so keep an eye on your email inbox.

If you have any questions or concerns feel free to email IrthNet Support

Partial Software Failure

The Irth Networks primary server suffered a partial software failure at approximately 21:30 EST on October 6th. This resulted in the inability to serve some client web content.

The websites in question are being restored from backups now and should be functional by late this evening.

If you notice any other effects or have any questions feel free to send a message to support@irth.net

Update (10/6 - 23:36 EST) - All websites are now serving content normally. Thanks for your patience.

Spam Identification System

A spam identification system has been activated for all IrthNet email accounts.

Identification of spam was chosen rather than outright blocking to guard against the elimination of emails that are not truly spam. Using identification means that you, the end user, have control over what to do with email spam you receive.

Keep reading for what an example spam will look like and how you can configure your email client to automatically handle it.

]]> If you get an email identified as spam it will look like this:

To: user@domain.com
From: spammer@spamsource.com
Subject: *****SPAM***** Get the perfect mortgage fast. It's simple.

SPAM: -------------------- Start SpamAssassin results ----------------------
SPAM: This mail is probably spam. The original message has been altered
SPAM: so you can recognise or block similar unwanted mail in future.
SPAM: See http://spamassassin.org/tag/ for more details.
SPAM:
SPAM: Content analysis details: (32.8 hits, 6.5 required)
SPAM: Hit! (2.3 points) BODY: Gives a lame excuse about why you were sent this SPAM
SPAM: Hit! (1.3 points) BODY: I wonder how many emails they sent in error...
SPAM: Hit! (2.6 points) BODY: There is no obligation.
SPAM: Hit! (1.5 points) BODY: Asks you to click below
SPAM: Hit! (1.1 points) BODY: Tells you how to stop further SPAM
SPAM: Hit! (1.9 points) BODY: List removal information
SPAM: Hit! (3.5 points) URI: URL of page called "remove"
SPAM: Hit! (3.0 points) URI: Uses a dotted-decimal IP address in URL
SPAM: Hit! (3.5 points) URI: URL of page called "unsubscribe"
SPAM: Hit! (2.1 points) BODY: FONT Size +2 and up or 3 and up
SPAM: Hit! (1.8 points) BODY: Tells you to click on a URL
SPAM: Hit! (3.2 points) HTML-only mail, with no text version
SPAM: Hit! (2.0 points) Received via a relay in relays.osirusoft.com
SPAM: [RBL check: found 235.34.32.64.relays.osirusoft.com., type: 127.0.0.4]
SPAM: Hit! (3.0 points) DNSBL: sender is Confirmed Spam Source
SPAM:
SPAM: -------------------- End of SpamAssassin results ---------------------

... The spam message ...

The IrthNet spam prevention system shows you the reasons it believe the message to be spam.

In order to handle this message automatically you can create a "rule" to have your email client look for the mail header "X-SPAM-FLAG or the "*****SPAM*****" in the subject line. When it finds it you could have it route the message to a spam folder for later examination (you should examine all messages identified as spam just in case they're not; the system's not infallible).

To create rules in Outlook Express v6 acess the Tools menu to Message Rules to Mail.

To create rules in Netscape/Mozilla Navigator access the Tools menu then Message Filters.

Question, concerns, etc.: IrthNet Support

New Support System

To improve the level of support for existing and potential IrthNet clients an automated support system has been put in place. This will ensure that your question, request, etc. finds the right person while also guarateeing that your message won't "slip through the cracks".

All site requests, feature requests, questions, complaints, and compliments should be directed to IrthNet Support.

Any email sent directly to IrthNet staff members will be responded to with a polite request to send it to the official support address.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Form to Mail

IrthNet now supports the creation of HTML forms that result in an email being sent to an address designated by the website operator.

This can be used to create site feedback, suggestion, or general contact forms.

For more information and directions on use refer to the Creating a web page that sends an email HowTo

Address any questions to IrthNet Support

Blogging comes to IrthNet

What the heck's a "blog?" and why would IrthNet want to to offer something that sounds more like a digestive noise than a technology?

WhatIs.com defines it as "On a Web site, a blog, a short form of Web log or weblog, is a personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site and its purpose. Topics sometimes include brief philosophical musings, commentary on Internet and other social issues, and links to other sites the author favors. The essential characteristics of the blog are its journal form, typically a new entry each day, and its informal style."

Read on for examples and information on getting one of your own.

]]>

So it's a place to jot down musings, keep in touch with friends and family, or simply a place to vent.

Please send an email to IrthNet Support If you'd like a new blog website, a blog added to an existing website hosted at IrthNet, or if you simply have questions about this strange blog thing.