Web host 123-reg deletes sites in clean-up error

[Lovekraft]

Ooops!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36072240

123-Reg are going to have a lot to answer for over this one!

 

[stellar73]

so glad I'm not with them!! Feel sorry for anyone affected although anyone with half a brain will have their own backups

 

[Adam H]

so glad I'm not with them!!

You'd be surprised how often these things happen on many of the large hosts, I could name a few well known UK hosts that have "accidentally" performed an action they shouldnt have. Of course I wont be naming names but it just highlights the importance of retaining your own backup plan and not relying on a host to be fail safe. I have local backups generated every night ( in some cases twice a day or hourly ), those are synced to 2 different data centres and all are retained for a month. Then we have historical backups being taken once a month which is retained for 12 months and yearly backups retained for 3 years. Overkill indeed but after a couple of scares over kill is the only way to go.

 

[spiderspider]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

lmfao!!!! rofl!!!!!

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha














**Goes off to check my own back ups

 

[Lovekraft]

Now just imagine they had deleted the domains too.. (!)

 

[sdsinc]

Now just imagine they had deleted the domains too.. (!)

Almost...

300 UK domains pilfered, MASSIVE security lapse blamed
120+ domain names were hacked at UK registrar 123-Reg

 

[monaghan]

I have local backups generated every night ( in some cases twice a day or hourly ), those are synced to 2 different data centres and all are retained for a month. Then we have historical backups being taken once a month which is retained for 12 months and yearly backups retained for 3 years. Overkill indeed but after a couple of scares over kill is the only way to go.

I have a customer currently facing a bill for 3K in recovery costs for a HDD that has to be rebuilt at the component level following a head crash to attempt to recover data.

Work out what's valuable and ensure there is a backup of it AND test that you can read the backup at regular intervals - true story - about 20 years ago, I started work with a company and they "lost" a server and a whole office of computers 1 weekend (literally went out the window and over the flat roof into a waiting van!), fortunately they didn't steal the backup tapes (that were ALL left on site next to the server!), we couldn't read any of the backup tapes and spending an afternoon at a data recovery specialist lead to the conclusion that the tape drive in the "lost" server was so badly aligned that data was written off the side of the tape making none of the tapes even partially recoverable (they got some stuff, but none of the critical data). The meeting the next day with our department and the management was "interesting" to say the least!

These little WD My Cloud devices are quite cheap to buy and very cheap to run, you can enable rsync on them to run simple incremental backups, an off site copy of anything critical is a good idea, whether on a USB stick in your pocket or a formal remote backup.

Be wary of things like dropbox and other cloud storage, these are better than nothing, but if your PC is lost then your credentials will be available to the "new owner" of the PC who could purge your account, you could also delete files in error

 

[Admin]

I have local backups generated every night ( in some cases twice a day or hourly ), those are synced to 2 different data centres and all are retained for a month. Then we have historical backups being taken once a month which is retained for 12 months

How are you doing this?

 

[Adam H]

How are you doing this?

Main servers run incremental and Full cpanel backups, that is then rsynced through internal network to a NAS storage device. Which is then replicated on to datacentres in the US , Europe and UK. At any one time if one data-centre had a rare catastrophe our backups would still be retained somewhere else. Also have a load balanced setup on one instance so if one server fails the other one can pick up the slack and there is no downtime..........but thats the expensive route.

Basic fail safe for a cpanel server though you could simply run nightly cpanel backups and sync them to another non-public facing VPS or dedicated server with decent storage space. Would basically give you local backups and backups in another location.

Or you could use a service like R1soft which is just as good but needs to be checked regularly, another option is backupsy if you are not to hot on setting up servers etc. Backupsy's plans are cheap for the storage and they setup things for you.

 

[atlas]

Main servers run incremental and Full cpanel backups, that is then rsynced through internal network to a NAS storage device. Which is then replicated on to datacentres in the US , Europe and UK. At any one time if one data-centre had a rare catastrophe our backups would still be retained somewhere else. Also have a load balanced setup on one instance so if one server fails the other one can pick up the slack and there is no downtime..........but thats the expensive route.

Basic fail safe for a cpanel server though you could simply run nightly cpanel backups and sync them to another non-public facing VPS or dedicated server with decent storage space. Would basically give you local backups and backups in another location.

Or you could use a service like R1soft which is just as good but needs to be checked regularly, another option is backupsy if you are not to hot on setting up servers etc. Backupsy's plans are cheap for the storage and they setup things for you.

Would you be able to link to or write up a "for dummies" guide to doing this?

 

[sdsinc]

The bottom line:

• maintain your own backups, just do not rely on the webhost
• test your backups from time to time
  
• choose your webhost carefully
• for critical sites, consider using redundant hosting
• have a disaster recovery plan handy
  
• choose your webhost carefully (yes I know I repeat myself lol but it's so important)

 

[Adam H]

Would you be able to link to or write up a "for dummies" guide to doing this?

Im not sure there is a dummies guide to be honest, depends on the scale, infrastructure , budget etc and the ideal solution for you maybe completely different to the next guy.

If all you want is a fall over for a single cpanel dedicated or VPS then you can do so with the nightly Cpanel/WHM backups and a couple of VPS's or Backupsy plans, rsync will do most of the legwork for you.

If setting up servers etc isnt for you then you would probably be best looking at backupsy and let them set it up, I believe they also offer different datacentres so you could effectively use two plans and sync them all with retention of 20 - 30 days ( storage permitting ) : https://backupsy.com/.

 

[mtalk]

Yes read about it on monday on :http://www.webhosting-uk.net/123reg-uk-web-hosting-vps-servers-down-123reg-alternative.html
Thats what an auto script can do , its better to crosscheck before doing such stuff real nightmare for many customers.

 

[atlas]

Thanks - I'll look at backupsy.

 

[Lovekraft]

Looks like 123-reg have done a really poor job of updating their customers on any progress if their Facebook / twitter channels are anything to go by. Stock responses and i don't see any official apologies from them regarding the matter either.

 

[BeachLife]

Or you could use a service like R1soft which is just as good but needs to be checked regularly, another option is backupsy if you are not to hot on setting up servers etc. Backupsy's plans are cheap for the storage and they setup things for you.

As a very basic question, what's the difference between Backupsy and R1softstorage? I'm missing something..

 

[Adam H]

As a very basic question, what's the difference between Backupsy and R1softstorage? I'm missing something..

I've not used either for some time if they are still the same R1soft is a block Level backup so takes very little strain on the server when taking backups in an incremental way, Where as backupsy is more useful for grabbing Cpanel backups and syncing them across to different storage effectively. If you've got alot of data to be backed up then a Full cpanel backup could put unnecessary load ont he server during backup times.

Backupsy could also be seen as an additional fail-safe on top of R1soft, let R1soft run the incremental backups with very little footprint a couple of times a day and then run fully cpanel backups once a day and sync them to a different datacentre via Backupsy ( or your own backup storage ).

It really comes down to a particular users needs and requirements as to what the best solution would be........and of course what people can justify spending, you'd be surprised how many people begrudge paying £20 - £60 a month for basic fail safes...............especially those that pay less than that for the actual hosting.

Edit, reference for block level backup for your reading : http://wiki.r1soft.com/display/TP/Block+Based+Backup+Technology

 

[BeachLife]

Edit, reference for block level backup for your reading : http://wiki.r1soft.com/display/TP/Block+Based+Backup+Technology

Thanks. So R1soft makes backups that are reliable, place very little load on the server so can be run very often, and are incredibly cheap. Is there a downside?

 

[Adam H]

Thanks. So R1soft makes backups that are reliable, place very little load on the server so can be run very often, and are incredibly cheap. Is there a downside?

No major downsides, some servers/setups really don't like R1soft from what ive read where it causes high loads for no apparent reason but ive never ran into that myself.

Some servers you simply cant install R1soft on , if i remember correctly if they've got custom Kernels which some hosting company's use its just not compatible without alot of messing around.

You can login to the R1soft panel, download individual files from different image snaps if/when you need them or you can do a full recovery to the same cpanel account or database, there are restrictions on what/how you restore an account and generally you would only backing up files and database to keep quotas reasonable which is why I always see R1soft as a primary backup solution for regular incremental backups and then full cpanel backups sync'd elsewhere for extra fail safe because they contain DNS settings, emails etc which gives makes for easy setups if/when needed.

With R1soft id always recommend setting up notifications to tell you when a backup is successful or failed etc, they have a habit of suddenly stopping working with various updates or firewalls blocking the ports randomly ( or clients tinkering lol ), so if you get a failed email you know to instantly go check it out...........but saying that no backup solution is a set and forget, they all need checking even Cpanel Backups.

 

[Edwin]

Don't forget that a good backup strategy starts close to home. In other words, if you have any material that you value on your PC, you should really make sure that you've got it securely backed up (for example, if you have a static copy of a site, or business documents, or family photos - anything that you'd kick yourself for losing)

That could include:
- A local backup to a hard drive physically attached to the machine (internal or external, doesn't really matter). Simple, but has several disadvantages: if your machine gets stolen, the thief may pinch the peripherals too. If your house floods, burns down etc. then everything's in the same room so is likely to suffer equally. If you get one of those nasty ransomware viruses, it might encrypt EVERY hard drive it can find. And so on.
- A networked backup: hide a drive somewhere else in the house, and backup to that. Suffers some of the flaws of the local backup, but a better bet for thieves and possibly more secure from viruses if you practice good security
- A remote "sneakernet" backup: periodically burn your data to portable media (Blu-ray, USB stick, portable HDD etc.) and stash it "off site" i.e. somewhere other than your home. Protects against theft, is unlikely to get damaged at the same time as your machine - but may not be particularly up to date if you don't do it very regularly
- A remote "cloud" backup: send your data into the "cloud" through a service like Mozy, Crashplan, Backblaze etc. Has similar advantages to sneakernet, but at a monthly fee and with a possibility that the cloud might get "hacked"

Personally, I practice a mix of several of the above as I've got tens of thousands of documents going back to the mid-1990s, plus over 100,000 photos and videos, and it's almost unimaginable losing the lot for the sake of a couple of extra drives and a few quid a month in backup service provider fees.