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Armored Servers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Corporate Information Armored Servers company information What is Armored Servers' financial status? Does Armored Servers have a Better Business Bureau listing? Why is Armored Servers profitable when there are lower cost competitors? SUN Servers Why SUN Hardware? Predictive Self-Healing with Armored Servers Why SUN Solaris OS? General What does Armored Servers provide to its clients? What is the server turn around time from when I request a server? Why do you not sell more optional services? Why are there no contracts and only month-to-month payments? How can you make money by charging so little compared to others? Solaris Technical FAQ Tuning Solaris for webservers Solaris 10 Zones (aka Containers) for Server Virtualization Solaris 10 Zones unofficial FAQ Support Does Armored Servers provide Live Online Support (chat)? What is the process to handle technical support issues? How much does Armored Servers charge for UNIX consulting and install services? Why are Armored Servers' prices the way they are? Where does my money go? Server Security How do I connect securely to my Armored Servers server? What type of OS Monitoring does Armored Servers use? What type of security scans are run on my server? What about Operating System patches? What type of Firewall(s) do you have? Are there any open-sourced VPN solutions? Where should I purchase an SSL Certificate? Databases Can I access my serverÆs MySQL Database using Microsoft Access on my PC? How to use CVS server remotely from a Windows PC? Backups How are the servers backed up? How are the servers restored from backup? Server Administration Can I manage my server from a web-based administration menu? Can I install a commercial application such as Oracle Database or Rational ClearCase? X connections are slow! How can I make X windows faster over the Internet? How can I login and keep my session running.. especially if I lose connection while running a task? Development Using both GCC and SUN Studio compilers Network / Infrastructure What type of infrastructure does Armored Servers have? Why does Armored Servers offer only T1 lines? How fast is the connection? CORPORATE INFORMATION All legal documents and corporate information go under Black Sheep Networks Inc., a C corporation based in Tewksbury, MA. Armored Servers is a division offering secure dedicated UNIX server hosting. We employ a main staff under 5 skilled people to maintain day-to-day operations with a pool of 12 skilled people available when needed (which is not often). Our company has no long term debt and no financial problems. Black Sheep Networks was chartered on 3/15/2001 as an information security (INFOSEC) consultancy. Armored Servers was formed shortly after from the demand for secure dedicated UNIX servers. Most Armored Servers clients use their servers for software development, Oracle databases, web sites, configuration management, data warehousing, and data storage. Our clients use our services for our security, data integrity, data redundancy, SUN Hardware, and no cost value-added options. We provide a close client-provider relationship where you are part of the 'family'. On top of all this, we will install, configure, and setup any software for our clients. You are not just renting a server, but renting a datacenter with your own UNIX and Network administrators (not tech support who create a case for you and place it in a queue). What is Armored Servers' Financial Status? We have no long term debt, and low overhead due to a smaller number of staff who have a very high degree of technical knowledge and years of practical experience. All our equipment are purchased in full. We do not lease any hardware. Does Armored Servers have a Better Business Bureau listing? Yes. Our parent company, Black Sheep Networks Inc., is a member of the Better Business Bureau. Customer Satisfaction is our number one priority. How is Armored Servers profitable when there are lower cost competitors in the dedicated server market?
SERVER SECURITY How do I connect securely to my Armored Servers Server? Use Secure Shell (SSH). SSH is an encrypted login session providing an extra security layer. SSH also provides the ability for tunneling. You are able to tunnel X sessions from your dedicated server to your own system, and have the session encrypted. Download the SSH client for Windows at http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html Use this link to download for MS Windows platform. What type of OS Monitoring does Armored Servers use? Highly customized Big Brother monitoring software. We monitor all aspects of your server from CPU, Disk, RAID, Processes, Databases (MySQL, Oracle, etc..), Web server, and even Host-Based Intrusion Detection. What type of Security Scans are run on my server? We regularly run security scans using Nessus Security Scanner and several customized in-house tools. These ensure, to a reasonable level, that your server is not vulnerable to any remote exploitations or attacks. What about operating system patches? We apply Recommended Operating System patches to your server regularly. These help to prevent any security breaches. What type of Firewall(s) do you have? We use several brands of firewalls to secure access to our clients' dedicated servers. Each client is allowed to change their firewall settings, they can block more ports or open more ports. Some clients prefer to have all ports open, leaving their server wide open, we do not recommend this but the option is available. Open Sourced VPN Solutions? OpenVPN is a robust and highly configurable VPN (Virtual Private Network) daemon which can be used to securely link two or more private networks using an encrypted tunnel over the Internet. OpenVPN works well with SUN Solaris and a Windows 2000 client. Download OpenVPN at http://openvpn.sourceforge.net/ Where can I purchase an SSL Certificate? Verisign offers SSL Certificates, however Geotrust offers SSL Certificates at a more affordable price. www.geotrust.com DATABASES Can I access my server's MySQL Database using Microsoft Access on my PC? Many of our clients use their dedicated server to store their sensitive data which will be protected and secured by Armored Servers' technology. These clients access this data through web-enabled databases (PHP and MySQL for example) or through client software such as MS Access. Download MyODBC Client at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/ How to use CVS server remotely from a Windows PC Try using TortoiseCVS. TortoiseCVS lets you work with files under CVS version control directly from Windows Explorer. It's freely available under the GPL. With TortoiseCVS you can directly check out modules, update, commit and see differences by right clicking on files and folders within Explorer. You can see the state of a file with overlays on top of the normal icons within Explorer. It even works from within the file open dialog. BACKUPS How are the servers backed up? We provide Daily backups. We backup using the Operating System's ufsdump tool (or dump in Linux) remotely to large RAID arrays on our secured backup server. The entire backup connection is secured and encrypted using SSH/SSL. No need for expensive commercial tools as our solution works just as well, if not better. Some of our high-end servers are provided with dedicated Backup Hardware where your server's backups are stored locally with the system. How are the servers restored from backup? We restore files the same way as we back them up. If we have to restore the entire operating system then we boot into Single-User mode from the installation media and restore from there onto your hard drive(s). SERVER ADMINISTRATION Can I manage my server from a web-based administration menu? We provide Webmin, a server management web-based application. Please see http://www.webmin.com for more information on this tool. Can I install a commercial application such as Oracle Database or Rational ClearCase? Yes, as long as you legally obtain licenses for the software where applicable. Armored Servers can even help you install, configure, and setup any application! X connections are slow! How can I make X windows faster over the Internet? Use VNC. The VNC Client software connects to a VNC server running on your dedicated server. An X Windows session will pop up on the client just as if you were on the console of the server itself. VNC provides X windows connectivity using less traffic and bandwidth. Another good feature of VNC is that if you become disconnected from the server (voluntary or involuntary) then you can just reconnect and continue your session as it never stopped. This works great when installing an Oracle Database, as that could take a couple of hours and requires X Windows! VNC Also has a web-based interface. You will not need to use VNC Client software, just a JAVA capable Web-browser! Download VNC at http://www.realvnc.com/download.html How can I login and keep my session running.. especially if I lose connection while running a task Use "screen". As any user, type in "screen" at a command prompt and it will open a session that will not be affected if you were to be disconnected. If you disconnect, then log back into the server and type in "screen -ls" to list what screen sessions are available. Then type in "screen -r DEVELOPMENT Using both GCC and SUN Studio compilers .. with gmake Whether you prefer gcc or the Studio compilers, it's worth your time to compile and do testing with the other compiler. You may find things that you never suspected in that code you thought was working perfectly. In gmake, it's quite trivial to set up your make file to use a different compiler. Use something such as this:
OBJECTS = stacks.o CFLAGS = -g -xO3 -K pic -I. $(XCFLAGS) LDFLAGS = -znodefs -G -o $(REALLIB) -h $(LNTARGET) -lumem ifeq ($(CC),gcc) CFLAGS=-g -O2 -fpic -std=c99 -pedantic -Wall LDFLAGS=-shared -fpic -o $(REALLIB) -lumem -lc endif
This uses Studio by default but I can say gmake CC=gcc and build with gcc.
The information presented illustrates differences in data transfer speed,
using various modem baud rates and ISDN connection types. This information
should be used only to compare different technologies and services; actual
file transfer times will be somewhat higher due to factors such as protocol
overhead and other inefficiencies.
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