With our vLite Managed VPS Hosting we support the very latest LTS (Long-Term Release) of Ubuntu – Ubuntu 12.04, as well as prior releases that are actively supported by Canonical with our vLite VPS Hosting. However, the only difference between using CentOS and Ubuntu is that the burstable RAM and CPU options are not compatible with Ubuntu nor is the cPanel and WHM control panels.

What is Burstable RAM and CPU in your vLite VPS Hosting?
If you require burstable RAM and CPU options with your vLite Virtual Private Server, you’ll need to opt for CentOS as Ubuntu-based vLite virtual servers do not support this. Burstable RAM and CPU is a system in which your VPS can extend its resources beyond its original capacity to up to 4096MB RAM and up to 6 CPUs (dependent on the vLite package you choose from) which is useful during traffic spikes and during peak periods.

What versions of Ubuntu do you support?
eUKhost recommends you only use stable and supported releases of Ubuntu. From 12.04 and onwards, Canonical is supporting both desktop and server releases for five years. As of writing, Ubuntu Server 8.04, Ubuntu Server 10.04, and Ubuntu Server 12.04 are actively supported. Support for Ubuntu Server 8.04 ends in April 2013, so we recommend you choose either Ubuntu Server 10.04 or Ubuntu 12.04.

Are your vLite VPS Hosting managed?
Yes. All of our server-based and cloud-based hosting services are fully managed whichever operating environment you wish to use – whether Ubuntu or CentOS. Our qualified system administrators are available 24 hours a day to assist you with any aspect of server management and software installation including server security hardening.

What is vLite?
vLite, being a hardware virtualisation platform, your vLite VPS is an independent virtualised server environment on our server nodes with our eNlight Cloud Hyperviser sitting between the hardware and the vLite Virtual Servers to optimise the software installed on your vLite Virtual Private Server.

What is Ubuntu?
Ubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distributions on the desktop and is increasingly being deployed in large-scale deployments with corporations and government organisations. Ubuntu is commercially sponsored by Canonical by providing commercial support options to companies, organisations and individuals and has recently introduced new consumer-oriented services including Ubuntu One and the Ubuntu One Music Store that is integrated into Rhythmbox.

Yes we do. All of our shared web hosting and reseller web hosting servers have the PEAR library installed.

What is the PEAR library?
PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) is an object-oriented PHP library with separate classes for a variety of functions including mail, database interactivity, date and time, encryption, images, HTTP, HTML and much more. For example, the HTML_Form class is used to assist in the automatic creation of HTML forms. Even more useful classes include the File class, used for reading from and writing to files on the file system from which the PHP application is being executed from. An even more interesting class in the library is the File_SearchReplace class, which automates find and replace operations for files where you may want to find certain strings and replace them in a specific file.

The PEAR library is incredibly robust and useful. You do not need to use the PEAR library in order to connect to and interact with databases, as there are built-in functions and extensions in the PHP language itself, including the object-oriented PHP Data Objects Extension (which is also very easy to use).

Read more about PHP Data Objects: Accessing and Using Databases using PHP Data Objects

Yes, you can order a Dedicated IP if you have eUK Shared Hosting or Reseller Hosting with us if absolutely necessary. While we provide 2 IPs with VPS Hosting and Dedicated Server Hosting; with shared hosting, you share the server IP. In most scenarios, this is sufficient; but if you are installing and using an SSL certificate for use on your website, you’ll need to buy an Dedicated IP alongside an SSL certificate.

What is a Dedicated IP?
When you buy shared web hosting, your account shares the Dedicated IP of the server in which your account is hosted on. However, if you require a Dedicated IP for a specific reason – whether for SEO purposes or because you need to use an SSL certificate; for example in the case you run an e-commerce store – you’ll need to buy a Dedicated IP in order to buy and use an SSL certificate.

How much do Dedicated IPs cost?
A Dedicated IP costs £20.00 per year. The reason you have to pay for Dedicated IPs on an annual basis is to ensure those that have Dedicated IPs allocated actually need them. You will need to justify each Dedicated IP you require.

How long does it take for my order to be processed as soon as I purchase a Dedicated IP?
Our sales team work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week so you should expect your order to be processed by our sales team usually within a few hours after ordering.

cPanel can be paid for with eNlight Cloud Hosting by choosing it from the [b]Addons[/b] section of the eNlight Control Panel. Simply select the small icon to the far-right that looks like a red trolley in order to see the catalogue of addons for you to choose for your eNlight Cloud Hosting virtual machine.

How do I pay for eNlight Cloud Hosting addons?
There’s no extra invoices you have to pay with addons. Your eNlight Cloud credit is used to pay for any addons you have on your virtual machine, so there are no invoices you have to worry about.

Yes, we offer 24×7 technical support on every web hosting package, including our eUK Shared Web Hosting packages. Our offices operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a day week (including bank and national holidays, including Christmas day).

What about technical support for Dedicated Hosting customers?
Our senior administrators, alongside our Level I and Level II technician support work on alternate shifts to ensure technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We have senior administrators working 24×7.

Is technical support inclusive? Do I have to pay for technical support?
Not at all. All of our services include free technical support. All of our VPS, Cloud Hosting and Dedicated Servers are fully managed hosting solutions. Whether you would like us to configure your server for PCI compliance or configure security software, we’ll be happy to help you. For more information, you can read our Service Level Agreement.

Yes we do – Pay Monthly Web Hosting, however it is much more cost-effective to pay on a yearly payment term, but we do offer monthly payment terms for our customers who prefer to pay a month-to-month basis.

To ensure all of our Reseller Hosting customers have a fast and reliable hosting service, we do not allow overselling on our Reseller Hosting packages. If you require overselling or if your requirements are outstretching what a shared hosting environment can offer, please consider our eUK VPS Hosting or eUK Cloud Hosting services. Our VPS Hosting and Cloud Hosting services come with full root access with no allocation restrictions on the amount of accounts you may host. However, we recommend you do not excessively oversell hosting services because it can affect the reliability and performance of your virtual or dedicated server.

When you signup to eNlight Cloud Hosting you wil be sent periodic e-mails regarding your eNlight balance every 7 days. If your credit reaches £0, your eNlight Cloud will be suspended if your eNlight Cloud credit reaches -£30 or if your balance remains at £0 or below for 5 days. At which point, your eNlight Cloud will be automatically suspended by our eNlight system.

Social engineering can be a malicious user pretending to be someone they’re not (for example, if they have gained unauthorised entry into someone’s social media account(s)) or if they’re contacting a service provider and pretending to be someone else in order to be able to, perhaps, gain unauthorised entry into some service, such as a web server or to extract information that would be useful to the malicious user.

There have been many instances of social engineering attacks. One of which involved a malicious user impersonating a lead developer of the popular billing software solution, WHMCS, which resulted in WHMCS’ server being compromised because the impersonator was able to answer all of the verification questions correctly. Social engineering is very effective and often results in favourable results for criminals.

How can I avoid social engineering attacks?
Social engineering attacks can generally occur anywhere – on social networking sites as well. The general advice would be to always remain vigilant and be wary about anything that looks suspicious. Even criminals sending e-mails through their compromised e-mail account is social engineering because some people may think it was sent from the actual person who owns the e-mail account.

On our shared hosting servers we have had to disable the mail() function for spam prevention purposes. This resulted in many of our IPs being blacklisted and our team having to request IPs to be removed from the blacklist, which resulted in inconvenience to customers that are sending genuine e-mails. As a result customers will have to use a PHP e-mail library in order to send mail, such as SwiftMaier or the Mail class in the PEAR library that allows you to send mail directly over the SMTP server rather than through the PHP mail() function. Please ensure you use SMTP authentication with an e-mail account set up on your web hosting account.

For more information, please see the PEAR PHP page on using the Mail class.

More resources:

• How to send mail using SMTP in PHP