A domain auth code can be used to steal a domain from you.

Any domain owners of the following TLD’s are advised to reset the authCode for their domain.

Some registrar’s are batch voiding and regenerating auth codes for affected domains but not all.

Affected TLD’s

gTLDs

• .art
• .bar
• .basketball
• .best
• .college
• .ceo
• .design
• .fans
• .feedback
• .frl
• .fun
• .gent
• .host
• .icu
• .ink
• .love
• .observer
• .online
• .ooo
• .press
• .protection
• .realty
• .reit
• .rent
• .rest
• .security
• .site
• .space
• .storage
• .store
• .tech
• .theatre
• .tickets
• .website
• .wiki
• .xyz

Official ccTLDs

• .bh, Bahrain
• .fm, Federated States of Micronesia
• .fo, Faroe Islands
• .gd, Grenada
• .gl, Greenland
• .la, Laos; also borrowed for Los Angeles
• .pw, Palau
• .sk, Slovakia
• .vg, British Virgin Islands

Unofficial ccTLDs

• .ae.org, for United Arab Emirates
• .ar.com, Argentina
• .br.com, Brazil
• .cn.com, China
• .com.de, Germany
• .de.com, Germany
• .eu.com, European Union
• .gb.com, Great Britain
• .gb.net, Great Britain
• .gr.com, Greece
• .hu.com, Hungary
• .jpn.com, Japan
• .jp.net, Japan
• .kr.com, Korea
• .no.com, Norway
• .qc.com, Quebec
• .ru.com, Russia
• .sa.com, Saudi Arabia
• .se.com, Sweden
• .se.net, Sweden
• .uk.com, United Kingdom
• .uk.net, United Kingdom
• .us.com: United States
• .us.org: United States
• .uy.com, Uruguay
• .za.com, South Africa

Any domain owners of these TLD’s are advised to reset the authCode for that domain.

The post TLD’s affected by CentralNic Registry authCode reset appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

As our business has grown our customers have needed more and more from us. As the business owner I didn’t want to ask our staff to be on-call out of hours. They work darn hard during the working day and need/deserve not to be on call at evenings and weekends. We have partnered with JAM to take over customer support needs outside of Dogsbody UK office hours.

JAM’s global offices allows for “follow the sun” support so no one has to work out of hours – win win :

• Austin, USA
• London, UK
• Singapore
• Melbourne & Sydney, Australia

We work with JAM to create custom run-books for each customer and their specific infrastructure. Every customer is different, not just in infrastructure, but in the issues and how they are dealt with.

We are two companies working together to create a seamless offering to our customers – Dan Benton, Founder & Director

Just After Midnight (JAM) are the number 1 global provider of around-the-clock cloud and application support services to brands, agencies and digital product companies. We are proud to have them as partners who already support some of the world’s largest companies.

Dogsbody offer custom Infrastructure monitoring and maintenance plans to suit your business needs – Whether it’s 8/5, 24/7 or something in between – we have you covered!

Get in touch and let us help you take your business to the next level with 24/7 support.

The post 24/7 support in partnership with Just After Midnight appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

For the last two years we have let our staff pick the charities close to their hearts. We are honoured to support their chosen causes…

Awab

Heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan have seen the country suffer devastating life loss and millions of people have been cut off. This donation will help provide aid to families who are suffering.

https://oneummah.org.uk/appeals/pakistan-floods-appeal/https://oneummah.org.uk/appeals/pakistan-floods-appeal/

Josh

Duddon and Furness Mountain Rescue Team personally assisted me back in December 2021 when I discovered two walkers, one with a leg injury, around 900 meters high up on the flanks of Scafell Pike. There work is life saving and therefore I have chosen it as my 2022 charity.

https://www.dfmrt.org.uk/https://www.dfmrt.org.uk/

Ashley

The Hygiene Bank do great work, providing essentials to organisations within the local area. No one should be held back from participating in society because of hygiene poverty. The Hygiene Bank will ensure our donation of items go directly to the people who need them.

https://thehygienebank.comhttps://thehygienebank.com

Claire

Sadly, the soaring cost of living means more people are being forced to use food banks. It is so sad this is needed in the 21st century and I hope our donation of most needed items and christmas food will help someone this christmas.

https://farnborough.foodbank.org.uk/https://farnborough.foodbank.org.uk/

Rob

Clean, safe drinking water is a basic human need and yet there are millions of communities around the world without it.
I nominated WaterAid because donating will ensure WaterAid can continue to provide clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene to those communities and save lives.

https://www.wateraid.org/uk/https://www.wateraid.org/uk/

Dan

The Cowshed is a local crisis charity that supports a variety of individuals of all ages in very different but difficult situations. I hope this donation helps them continue their good work of providing clothing and other items for individuals and families experiencing hardship.

https://www.thecowshed.org/https://www.thecowshed.org/

We hope you agree these are all wonderful charities to support.

WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY WINTER, CHRISTMAS, HANUKKAH, KWANZAA AND A GREAT 2023

The post Staff Charity Giving 2022 appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

So go get yourself a cup of tea and have a listen… you don’t really even need to watch… perhaps we should start a podcast?

We covered a large number of topics including:

• 02:15 – Why the name ‘Dogsbody’?
• 04:04 – Which services do you offer?
• 08:04 – How do you charge for services?
• 13:00 – What does your ideal customer look like?
• 16:10 – Why do you choose to work with open-source technologies?
• 20:00 – Is support something you sacrifice when using open-source?
• 24:32 – Why do you choose to work with multiple cloud providers?
• 34:13 – Which cloud tech should MSPs look out for?
• 38:10 – Recruitment and staff development
• 40:19 – The role of apprenticeships
• 42:40 – Advice for MSPs

Has something here sparked your interest? Do get in touch and we’d be glad to help.

The post MSP Spotlight – A Dog Mentality To Service appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

The main event happens on 27th August 2022 in Camberley. A festival and parade will make Camberley the host of the largest Pride in Surrey event yet boasting performances from Sonia, Savior, Eden Hunter, Eva I Guess, Apple Sourz, Connor, Dylan Holloway, Kiki, Johnny Mack, V?K, Cielle Joelle, Carmel Fleur, Jacquii Cann & Seann Miley Moore.

Pride is a time for us to reflect on the progress made towards LGBTQ+ equality and to acknowledge the fact that we stand on the shoulders of all those who have fought so hard over the years to achieve this. It is also a time for us to acknowledge that we still have so much more to do.

We are sponsoring Pride in Surrey because the charity behind the event supports individuals all year round. The Pride Hub in Woking has done some amazing outreach and genuinely makes a difference to people. That is what this is all about, helping, encouraging and supporting each other to be what and who we want to be.

– Dan Benton, Director of Dogsbody Technology

The awesome work that Pride in Surrey (Surrey LGBTQ Pride CIC) does never stops. They are a non-profit community interest group with a mission to celebrate, educate and connect the LGBTQ+ community (and allies) across Surrey. Pride in Surrey is run entirely by volunteers, a small team who work all year round on every day projects and campaigns. We are very happy to support them.

Join us to help us ensure that no one is left behind.

Each year Dogsbody Technology donates at least 1% of our profits to good causes, we are very proud that we’re able to make a difference with our charity work.

The post Proud sponsors of Pride in Surrey 2022 appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

This was a “zero day exploit”, meaning that the bad guys found this vulnerability and started exploiting it before that vulnerability could be fixed. The NIST has catalogued this as CVE-2021-44228 with a 10/10 severity (the most severe).

Who’s affected

Put simply – Java applications that use the log4j package. It is almost impossible to conclusively list all affected software and services, given such widespread use and the multiple versions and implementations that affects the ability to exploit the vulnerability.

An attempt to list responses from as many vendors and service suppliers can be found here, though this list shouldn’t be taken as authoritative.

What you can do

Most importantly you should take immediate action to do the following:

• Identify usage of affected log4j versions within your infrastructure.
• Apply available patches from your software vendors, or consider disabling elements of your infrastructure/services until patches are available.
• Monitor your systems/logs for signs of previous and ongoing exploit attempts.
• Take immediate steps to restore any affected systems to a known good state.

Our Customers

We are actively following the steps above and triaging those affected. Those most severely affected will have already been contacted and we will continue to proactively monitor all infrastructure to ensure all systems are patched as soon as possible.

The post CVE-2021-44228 – Log4j2 vulnerability appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

If you own a domain ending .eu then you have until 01 January 2021 to ensure that it is correctly registered else it will be taken away from you.

What should I do?

You must check that the domain is registered to a European Union citizen, location or legal entity.

You can check the specifics on the EURid website or we have made the following handy infographic to get you started…

Why is this happening?

Due to the UK leaving the EU (commonly called Brexit), many UK-based owners of .EU domains no longer meet the .EU eligibility requirements.

The following are eligible to register .EU domains:

• a European Union citizen, independently of their place of residence;
• a natural person who is not a Union citizen and who is a resident of a Member State;
• an undertaking that is established in the Union; or
• an organization that is established in the Union, without prejudice to the application of national law.

Timeline

01 February 2020, the United Kingdom left the European Union. The withdrawal agreement provides for a transition period until 31 December 2020.

01 October 2020, EURid will e-mail any UK based owners of .EU domain names that they will lose their domain on 01 January 2021 unless they demonstrate their compliance with the .eu regulatory framework by updating their registration data before 31 December 2020.

21 December 2020, EURid will email all UK based owners of .EU domains who have not demonstrated continued compliance with the eligibility criteria about the risk of forthcoming non-compliance with the .eu regulatory framework.

01 January 2021, EURid will again email all UK based owners of .EU domains that their domain names are no longer compliant with the .eu regulatory framework and are now withdrawn. Any UK registrant who did not demonstrate their eligibility will be WITHDRAWN. A withdrawn domain name no longer functions, as the domain name is removed from the zone file and can no longer support any active services (such as websites or email).

01 January 2021, EURid will NOT allow the registration of any new domain name by UK registrants. EURid will also not allow either the transfer, or the transfer through update, of any domain name to a UK registrant.

01 January 2022, all the affected domain names will be REVOKED, and will become AVAILABLE for general registration. Their release will occur in batches from the time they become available.

I own a .EU domain and meet this criteria

Great! but don’t celebrate just yet. It is vital that you go and check that your domain has the correct details against it. EURid can only see the information in your domain registration so ensure that these details match the criteria.

I own a .EU domain but don’t meet this criteria

Here’s where things start to get tricky.

Obviously, if you do have a trusted person (a co-director) or second location within the EU then the easiest thing would be to move your domain to their details.

You can go and setup an office abroad! We have heard of people becoming an e-resident of Estonia, which maybe a little overkill but does come with some other added EU advantages.

Some registrar’s are allowing you to use them as a proxy for registering a .EU domain. Their details will be the official domain details with their promise to pass correspondence onto you.

If any of this is too much for you then give us a shout, we are here to help.

Please feel free to share this infographic with anyone you feel may find this useful using the buttons below.

Feature image by Elionas2 under Pixabay Licence.

The post Infographic: How to keep your .EU domain after Brexit appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

Technology and security evolves. New bugs are fixed and new threats prevented, so in order to maintain a secure infrastructure it is important to keep all software and systems up to date.  Once an operating system reaches end of life, it no longer receives updates, so will end up left with known security holes. Old operating systems don’t support the latest technologies, which new releases of software depend on, this can lead to compatibility issues.

There are some big changes between versions 6, 7 & 8.
In particular:

• CentOS 7 & 8 require a lot more disk space than CentOS 6
• CentOS 8 ships with Python v3 by default meaning old Python scripts may need to be re-written
• Both CentOS 7 & 8 ship with old versions of PHP (v5.4 & v7.2 respectively)

CentOS has a slow rolling release (five years between versions 7 & 8) while PHP is currently releasing new versions quickly (yearly) and only supporting them for 3 years. This makes supporting PHP on CentOS tricky but also brings opportunities…

Old PHP sites that need to run code which requires a old version of PHP can do so by running CentOS as RedHat will actively backport important security updates into old versions of PHP.

Modern PHP sites/frameworks that are typically kept up to date (such as WordPress) can struggle as PHP 5.4 went EOL on 3 Sep 2015 and PHP 7.2 goes EOL in four months meaning your site is already running sub optimal before even going live.

Leaving old CentOS 6 systems past November 2020 leaves you at risk to:

• Security vulnerabilities of the out of date system.
• Making your entire network more vulnerable.
• Software incompatibility.
• Compliance issues (PCI).
• Poor performance and reliability.

CentOS End of life dates:

• CentOS 7: 30th June 2024
• Cent0S 8: 31st May 2029

Not sure where to start? Contact us to help with your migration.

The post CentOS 6 goes End Of Life on 30 Nov 2020 appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

Dogsbody Technology are open for business as usual. I could write paragraphs on how our business continuity plans swung into action but for now just know that: Our contact details remain the same and our services continue as normal.

We are all safe (thanks to everyone that has asked) and all working remotely without any issues.

Existing Customers

As above, you should see no difference in the service you get from us.  We are continuing to patch, secure and maintain your infrastructure.

Some of our customers will find themselves in a tough spot financially as a result of COVID-19. If you are having trouble keeping up with payments, please do get in contact with us, and our team will see what we can do to help. I urge you not to abuse this offer, please allow it to be used by those who need it most, who are otherwise unable to pay.

New Customers

We feel people need a bit of space right now. As such, we have shut down all our outbound marketing to try and reduce the noise.

If you need help then do get in touch. We’ve had some wonderful messages from existing customers saying that we are allowing them to get on with running their business while we ensure their infrastructure stays up and secure.

Be kind; stay safe

During these it’s important to know that we are all in this together. I feel that Martin Lewis has summed this up best talking about forebearance:

The one thing we all need right now. Forebearance. Please spread the word.

(courtesy of @itvmlshow last night) pic.twitter.com/AMcpYvP6J5

— Martin Lewis (@MartinSLewis) March 20, 2020

We’re all in this together.

The post Open for Business during COVID-19 appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.

First though, it’s important to know what exactly an outage is.

An outage is pretty universally defined as…

A period of time where a service is unavailable or when the output of a service is incomplete, corrupted, or otherwise unable to provide normal levels of interaction.

For example, we’d consider both of the following to be outages:

• A website not being returned at all when a user requests it
• A site is returned, but all of the images were missing

Outages come in many shapes and sizes however. Here are some we commonly deal with, as we manage and monitor 100s of customer servers every day.

Service failure

A piece of software on the server stops functioning, either in an unexpected way or altogether. This is usually pretty black and white to investigate.

Is the service running? If not, then you can try starting it back up.

If the service still fails to start, try checking the logs for information.

Typically services only fail when a configuration changes somewhere so that would usually be the first place to start any investigation.

Resource exhaustion

Resources on the server(s) are so strained that requests are extremely slow, or fail due to a timeout.

It’s fairly easy to spot when CPU or RAM is being used up with a simple `top` command.

Disk usage should also be monitored, but many don’t think about disk IO being the bottleneck.  This can be especially true in virtualised environments when IO is limited, sometime intentionally by the likes of AWS.

Resource exhaustion can be due to an attack, which might be looking for vulnerabilities or a denial of service (DoS). Typically these requests need to be blocked further upstream.

Physical issues

In this age of the cloud, it’s easy to forget that servers are still physical (even though they are owned by someone else). Physical hardware does still break and these things need to be checked and monitored.

Hard drives are still one of the most common elements to fail.  This is why RAID is still important in this day and age.

Memory issues are some of the hardest to diagnose as they cause instability to the system, making it fall over in new and interesting ways (we’ve seen them all!).

Fans can also fail, causing the system to overheat and other parts to fail sooner.

We had a new customer come to us recently, because their system was unstable… two of the three fans had failed, causing memory corruption and a single disk error in their RAID array which they knew nothing about, as they had no monitoring.

Network issues

Your site is down, your server is unreachable and apparently dead in the water… or is it?  Could it be absolutely fine but no one can talk to it?

You might be thinking, “what’s the difference?”. The answer is, what needs to be done, to resolve the issue. Chances are, the problem is upstream from your server and there maybe nothing you can actually control yourself – playing a waiting game is your only answer.

“Netsplits” are still surprisingly common on the internet, this is where two parts of the internet are still “working” but unable to talk to each other.

Uptime monitoring utilities can come in handy here. These utilities constantly attempt to connect to your site and/or applications, from various locations around the globe and send notifications if there are issues. The logs can also help you determine if only certain geographies are unable to access your service, or if the problem is truly global.

ISP issues

Typically a mixture of one or more of the above outage types is happening, but is affecting the ISP that is hosting your server/site. When a service provider’s systems experience problems, this can cause cascading issues with anything built on top of, or relying on their systems.

This is typically resolved with a support ticket to the provider(s) having problems.

In our experience, the only way to mitigate this type of issue is to host across multiple providers. This is not for the faint of heart but is possible with enough planning.

Some final thoughts on troubleshooting ‘server down’ issues in Linux

The lines between the outage types we’ve listed can often be blurred, as one can often have a “domino effect” leading to others. For example, a failing hard disk can cause read/writes to slow down massively, which can lead to requests taking longer than usual, which can lead to resource exhaustion as things get tied up.

Debugging outages can be time consuming if there are lots of moving parts to your application/service. We find our members of staff develop a gut instinct over years and years of debugging problems and honing their skills.

If you struggle troubleshooting ‘server down’ issues in Linux boxes on your infrastructure whether shared or self-hosted … if any of the above seems too much for you, or you’d just like somebody else to take your worries away, please contact us and I’m sure we can help.

The post Troubleshooting ‘server down’ issues in Linux appeared first on Dogsbody Technology.