VPS Hosting Server was turned off

[RuslanS]

My VPS hosting Server was turned off and DOWN FOR 8 HOURS now.
Without any notices/warning etc.

Your VPS XX.XX.XX.XX has been observed using heavy resources on the hardware
server causing a resource exhaustion on it and creating problem and outage
to other VPSs on the node. Your VPS has been eventually suspended for using
71% of the CPU resources, you may please check the image attached. We have been noticing this activity on your VPS since some days now and we do not have any other options at this moment and we would suggest you to either upgrade your VPS plan to a Semi dedicated server plan or monitor your VPS so that this does not happen again.

Please let us know as to how you would prevent this from happening again so
that we can reinstate the services.

Web hosting uk refused to turn it on after I contected by live chat, then email, then phone.

Right now it is still down, but support says they are upgrading.

I will keep this thread updated.

[Dan]

If it is causing issues on the node then the first warning would be suspension considering that if it's continued to run then it will be effecting other customers.

[RuslanS]

Well, first warning was turning off.
It wasn't turned on back when I contacted via different methods.

To me this sounds like bad approach to customer.

We had similar issue previously - John personally was involved - everything was seamlesly, minimal downtime that time.

[Dan]

I'm not sure why, but have you found a solution of how you are going to prevent this from not happening again?

[RuslanS]

I have found (move some specific service to other hosting provider), but I'm unable to do anything since don't have access to host.

Also - I'm still migrating to larger plan to avoid such problems at all.

Host still down - 9 hours 40 minutes

[optrex]

I'm not sure why, but have you found a solution of how you are going to prevent this from not happening again?

As a VPS customer I am pleased to see action taken against those VPS users who constantly use excessive resources
but
there has to be sufficient notice and opportunity given to correct the issues.

To be fair, the customer may not be aware of a problem and the support team should work closely with the customer to resolve any issues on the existing plan, before they recommend the next service up the line.

WHUK do not provide a monitoring service to notify users about heavy service usage and/or downtime.

Also how is Ruslan supposed to take corrective action if he can't even access his host?

I'm sure WHUK will resolve the issues eventually, but Ruslan when you get back up try the munin monitor in WHM. It doesn;t give you notification but at least you have a history of your activity with pretty pics rather than trawling log files.

[Dan]

Optrex,

Please let us know as to how you would prevent this from happening again so that we can reinstate the services.

He was told to email the VPS team with how he is going to take the correct action

[RuslanS]

I did that instantly.
14 hours 30 minutes - vps down.

Optrex
Please belive me - I do.
I use nagios - monitor it from my local isp (multiple services), also use pingdom service to monitor from 3 different locations.

Being 10 years on the net, I have experience dealing with hundreds of hosting companies.

I can say that I'm still going to stay with Web Hosting UK, not even looking at this problem.
However it's important that such things never happen.

I should be notified before doing that.

Getting to more technical things
I have own virtual servers datacenter locally, still small - 6-8 virtual machines, for own purpose (we do extensive software testing).
ANY of such things SHOULD be configured - to prevent my vps to use that much resources. All major vps platforms has this functionality, including vmware, virtuozo and zen (more complciated).

[RuslanS]

some update on current situation
1. contacted with support, different people
2. they prepeared invoice, invoice paid
3. vps still down, no contacts

[RuslanS]

good news
update from Web Hosting UK - John is here
semi dedicated almost ready

things seems to go better (proper people involved?)

[Dan]

good news
update from WHUK - John is here
semi dedicated almost ready

things seems to go better (proper people involved?)

Yep, as stated I'm not an employee of WebhostingUK and anything stated by me is entirely the opinion of me judging from my previous customer experience here.

[Administrator]

good news
update from WHUK - John is here
semi dedicated almost ready

things seems to go better (proper people involved?)

Your VPS was overloading hardware node as it was using excessive CPU resources which could have troubled other VPS customers. There's nothing much we can do in such situation as we cannot keep other VPS's down just to please one customer.

I hope everything has started working from your new Semi-Dedicated server. Your new semi-dedicated server has been setup on a new E5420 Server which is far more superior to the Q6600 node.

[RuslanS]

My website was back to normal functioning on Thursday 9pm.

Total websites downtime: 35 hours

After this situation has been solved I can say following:
1. Bad for Webhosting UK - stopping server and not turning it on back again, phone support can't really provide any support (not helpfull)
2. Bad for me - not using third-part dns servers (unable to do anything while servers are down)
3. Good for Webhosting UK - they worked well on migration

For right now site is up and running.

[j03]

My website was back to normal functioning on Thursday 9pm.

Total websites downtime: 35 hours

After this situation has been solved I can say following:
1. Bad for Webhosting UK - stopping server and not turning it on back again, phone support can't really provide any support (not helpfull)
2. Bad for me - not using third-part dns servers (unable to do anything while servers are down)
3. Good for Webhosting UK - they worked well on migration

For right now site is up and running.

Hmm... I dont think it's Bad for Webhosting uk. If your VPS account could potentially have caused downtime to the other ~19 users on the server, I believe that they are fully within their right to stop your VPS server. I can understand why you are frustrated that they didnt turn it back on again, but i suppose it's for the sake of 19 customers vs 1 customer. They needed to be sure that it wasnt going to cause service interuption again.

[RuslanS]

key thing - need to talk to customer who is causing problems
I need at least to know about this to do something
Without that - I simply don't know if it works or not (I do, but regular customer won't know)

It is definitely bad of Web Hosting UK - they mentioned that they found this after some time - i.e. they haven't had system for checking this automatically.