tan Posted June 20, 2013 Report Share Posted June 20, 2013 Hi, I am interested to sign up for a webhosting plan for my ecommerce website. I am not expecting a lot of traffic initially so I intend to try out the basic shared plan first and will upgrade later if traffic exceeds the basic plan. A few questions in mind before I make payment: 1) If I make a one year payment, can I change plan anytime during the one year? 2) Do you have any issues with customers hosting ecommerce websites on a shared hosting plan? 3) I have an existing wordpress website with lots of theme customization already done, can I port it over (meaning I am using my own wordpress version), instead of using the Softaculous version? Will also require ability to create DB in phpMyAdmin. Reason being I had bad experience trying to upgrade wordpress and the theme versions, so I will prefer not to touch them and port over manually to Hawkhost. 4) Do you have minimum wordpress version which customers must be at? If so, will you suspend account if I am unable to upgrade due to (3)? 5) I wish to host in Singapore where I am based, but I see some threads mentioning your SG servers are quite overloaded. Will you let me move to another server if the one I am currently residing on is really having bad performance? Thanks for your quick response! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 21, 2013 Report Share Posted June 21, 2013 Hello there, and thanks for checking out our services! As for your questions: 1) You can upgrade/downgrade at any time. You'll either pay the difference between plans if upgrading, or be credited for the difference if downgrading. 2) No issues at all, we have a whole lot of ecommerce sites hosted with us already! 3) This is perfectly fine, we have no requirements/restrictions on how WP is installed. 4) We do not force customers to keep their installations updated, although we strongly recommend it. We're constantly dealing with abuse issues due to vulnerabilities in older versions. 5) We can definitely move you to a new server if the one you're on isn't performing up to your standards. That said, we haven't had any issues in SNG for quite some time so I suspect you'll be happy with what you see. As a general note, while we do monitor/watch our forums regularly, we pay closer attention to our helpdesk so you're likely to receive a faster reply there. You can post any follow up questions here, or submit a sales ticket and reference this thread and post your questions there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tekiegreg Posted June 21, 2013 Report Share Posted June 21, 2013 4) We do not force customers to keep their installations updated, although we strongly recommend it. We're constantly dealing with abuse issues due to vulnerabilities in older versions. ^^^^^ This...if I ran a web hosting company I'd probably mandate that the Wordpress security plugin be installed with Wordpress or the equivalent manual measures be taken. Put it this way, if you're running an obsolete wordpress, please don't be on my server though I don't think any WP exploits have gotten root access and allowed you to modify someone else's stuff. Also HawkHost is very awesome about "jailing" each account so nobody can touch each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 21, 2013 Report Share Posted June 21, 2013 4) We do not force customers to keep their installations updated, although we strongly recommend it. We're constantly dealing with abuse issues due to vulnerabilities in older versions. ^^^^^ This...if I ran a web hosting company I'd probably mandate that the Wordpress security plugin be installed with Wordpress or the equivalent manual measures be taken. We've spent a lot of time internally debating whether or not we should auto-update installations that are done through Softaculous, or even if we should send a notice to the customer if they get out of date. We really, really do not like the idea of modifying/touching a users files/account without them knowing or having their explicit permission, so we always come back to that point. We could of course make them click to approve an agreement if they want this feature, though I'm not sure that is a true answer to the problem. There is also the aspect that some updates (even minor) break themes/plugins. I'd hate to see a customer site go down because of an automated upgrade and an incompatible addon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tekiegreg Posted June 21, 2013 Report Share Posted June 21, 2013 We've spent a lot of time internally debating whether or not we should auto-update installations that are done through Softaculous, or even if we should send a notice to the customer if they get out of date. We really, really do not like the idea of modifying/touching a users files/account without them knowing or having their explicit permission, so we always come back to that point. We could of course make them click to approve an agreement if they want this feature, though I'm not sure that is a true answer to the problem. There is also the aspect that some updates (even minor) break themes/plugins. I'd hate to see a customer site go down because of an automated upgrade and an incompatible addon. Suggestion: Put some verbiage in the Terms of Service to the effect of "For all websites you maintain, you agree to keep them as reasonably secure as possible, including the installation of security fixes of all commercial software you deploy. We do not police your site, but if we observe that your site is vulnerable to an issue that can be fixed and has the potential to affect other users on a Shared Server, and after reasonable notification of the situation and subsequent non-action by yourself; we reserve the right to act unilaterally, with remedies including but not limited to forcing a patch, supsension of your membership or deleting the website in question. Further, user support provided by hawkhost to a site with a known vulnerability is limited to assisting in the correction of the vulnerability, and nothing further until the vulnerability is corrected." --- Or to get out of the legalese: If there is a security vulnerability on your site --that if exploited if it affects other users We will do any of the following --Suspend you --Delete the site in question --Patch the issue ourselves Also we refuse support to nothing else but the issue in question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tan Posted June 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2013 4) We do not force customers to keep their installations updated, although we strongly recommend it. We're constantly dealing with abuse issues due to vulnerabilities in older versions. ^^^^^ This...if I ran a web hosting company I'd probably mandate that the Wordpress security plugin be installed with Wordpress or the equivalent manual measures be taken. Put it this way, if you're running an obsolete wordpress, please don't be on my server though I don't think any WP exploits have gotten root access and allowed you to modify someone else's stuff. Also HawkHost is very awesome about "jailing" each account so nobody can touch each other. Sure, I can understand your concerns, though I think being on same server wouldn't necessarily mean you are in danger even if my wordpress site gets exploited. We are like neighbors on a street, a burglar breaking into my house doesn't necessarily mean he can break into yours. And this is not to say that I do not try to beef up my house with locks and security alarms. Of course I would want to to keep updates to the latest, but with wordpress, themes and plugins updating every so often, how feasible is it to keep updating without any concerns for compatibility across all components? I do agree if any site on shared host is discovered to have a big vulnerability, then Hawkhost could and should let the site owner know and the options available. At worst, the owner could bring it down first while finding solutions to the issue. No owner would appreciate straight off deletion of his site without even a chance to address the issue. And to Brian, I really appreciate Hawkhost's flexibility to give customers what they want without imposing too much restrictions. I am already won over by this and will be submitting my web hosting order in a while. How long does it normally take for web hosting orders to be processed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted June 23, 2013 Report Share Posted June 23, 2013 Sure, I can understand your concerns, though I think being on same server wouldn't necessarily mean you are in danger even if my wordpress site gets exploited. We are like neighbors on a street, a burglar breaking into my house doesn't necessarily mean he can break into yours. And this is not to say that I do not try to beef up my house with locks and security alarms. Your analogy is close, but not entirely correct. Before we introduced CageFS (http://blog.hawkhost.com/2013/02/28/introducing-cagefs-a-quick-overview/), a user on a server could 'crawl' the /home directory looking for accounts with incorrect permissions (in most cases, 777). Our default permissions we setup accounts with would protect folks from this, but for one reason or another customers change their permissions and that leads to problems. Like I said though, even if you run everything with 777 perms (don't do this!) no one else can access your account or files. How long does it normally take for web hosting orders to be processed? An hour or less, most times within 20 minutes. If you order is flagged for any reason it may take a bit longer, but assuming all of your info matches (billing address, IP, payment info, etc) there should be no delay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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