Are ASPnix server times synchronized at all?

This is a question we get asked regularly and the answer is yes they are! Over the years we’ve heard from many sales calls, chats and tickets about how many other providers have servers with times that are either many seconds or even many minutes off from the actual time.

All of our servers sync to the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) time servers.

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Can you change the server timezone to a specific timezone?

We cannot change our server timezones. Your application would be responsible for formatting and displaying dates and times in the timezone of your choice or UTC.

Most applications store dates and times as UTC and then display them in the required timezone offset.

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What are the differences between FTP Implicit and Explicit modes?

The difference between these 2 modes comes down to how the connection is established from your client to the server and what commands are issued.

Implicit

Assumes that the server is expecting everything to be encrypted and using SSL. When your client establishes a connection to the server, it immediately negotiates the SSL connection and command connection. This is normally the mode used for FTP over port 990. It is also a deprecated protocol.

Explicit

Establishes a normal (unencrypted) connection to the server. Once connected, the client will send a command to tell the server it wants to switch to an encrypted (SSL) connection. The command here is “AUTH SSL”. When the client sends this command, the server response back saying it is ready to accept the encrypted connection. This is normally done on the standard FTP port, 21.

No matter what mode you use, the data connection is always encrypted.

Recommendation

We recommend that all customers use Explicit FTP with port 21. This is the standard and prefered method for FTP security. If your FTP client supports it (such as FileZilla or WinSCP), you may want to consider using SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) with port 22.

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Allow Let’s Encrypt automatic renewal when redirecting HTTP to HTTPS

Let’s Encrypt requires HTTP (port 80) to issue and renew certificates, however, if you have a HTTP to HTTPS redirect or rewrite rule in place, this will cause issuing or renewals to fail. We have the following recommendations for IIS URL Rewrite (web.config) and Apache (or IIS Helicon Ape) .htaccess rules to allow the .well-known folders to be served over HTTP.

IIS – web.config or Helicon Ape

For URL Rewrite, add the following rewrite rule to your web.config file’s <rewrite> section, this rule must be first in the rewrite section…

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<rule name="ACME / Let's Encrypt Verification" stopProcessing="true">
    <match url="^\.well-known(.*)" />
    <action type="None" />
</rule>

For Helicon Ape, add this line to the .htaccess file in your wwwroot under the RewriteEngine On directive

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RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.well-known/acme-challenge

Apache – .htaccess

Add this line to your site’s root .htaccess file directly under the RewriteEngine On directive

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RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !\.well-known/acme-challenge

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How to force redirect HTTP to HTTPS

Forcing or redirecting your visitors to https automatically is the best way to make sure that your website can only accessed through SSL and that all traffic to and from your website is secured. We recommend that all customers who use SSL make sure that their sites contain one of the below rules.

IIS – web.config or Helicon Ape

For URL Rewrite, add the following rewrite rule to your web.config file’s <rewrite> section, this rule must be first in the rewrite section…

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<rule name="HTTP to HTTPS Redirect" stopProcessing="true"> 
    <match url="(.*)" /> 
    <conditions> 
        <add input="{HTTPS}" pattern="off" ignoreCase="true" />
    </conditions> 
    <action type="Redirect" redirectType="Permanent" url="https://{HTTP_HOST}/{R:1}" />
</rule>

For Helicon Ape, add these lines to the .htaccess file in your wwwroot under the RewriteEngine On directive

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RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

Apache – .htaccess

Add these lines to your site’s root .htaccess file directly under the RewriteEngine On directive

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RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on
RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI}

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What are the default SmarterMail auto-clean folder rules?

Users can fully customize their own auto-clean rules for folders to keep email folders clutter free and easier to manage by automatically processing older mail. Currently, 2 default rules apply to all email accounts…

• Junk E-Mail – 30 Days
• Deleted Items – 30 Days

This means that email older than the number of days set is removed automatically.

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What files does the Windows Control Panel AV scanner check?

The scanner will check all files with the exception of compressed archives (such as .zip files) and IIS log (*.log) files in order to save scanner time and resources.

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How long will the Windows Control Panel AV scanner take?

The time required to complete the scanning of your hosting space root will depend on the number of files within your hosting space root. The more files, the longer the process will take. On average in our testing, we found the scan time was about 3 minutes.

You will be notified via email the results of the scan once it is completed.

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Will the Windows Control Panel AV scanner remove any infected files?

No, the system functions only to notify you of possible infections or malware injected into files. It is up to you or your developer to make the call if the infection is real or simply a false positive. You may also contact our support department and we can provide you with our guidance in if a file is truly infected or not.

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Outlook 2016 – Disable Simplified Account Creation

An updated release of Outlook 2016 (16.0.8431.2079) has started a new “Simplified Account Creation” utility that does not allow for setting up ActiveSync enabled accounts. The following steps will resolve this and return Outlook back to the original account creation utility.

1. We are not responsible for issues caused by editing your registry!
2. Download the registry file at https://billing.aspnix.com/dl.php?type=d&id=151
3. Shutdown Outlook 2016, if it is running
4. Extract the registry file from the downloaded zip in step #2
5. Right click on the registry (.reg) file and choose “Merge”
6. Select “Yes” to continue
7. Select “Ok” to confirm the merge has completed
8. Open Outlook 2016

This will now allow you to use the original account creation utility.

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