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ChicagoVPS IP change to Blacklisted IP + Poor support
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ChicagoVPS IP change to Blacklisted IP + Poor support

I've had a ChicagoVPS server for almost 2 years without complaints.

3 Days ago they wrote that they needed to change the IP address of a server but would advise me when it happened. I wrote back asking for the new IP address and more specific timing.

48 hours ago they advised they hadn't made the change but would advise.

36 hours ago they changed the IP address without no advice or warning nor notification of the new IP address. I found out 13 hours after that when a client sent me a message that their website was down on a weekend.

The IP address change broke firewalls, DNS, webservers and email systems.

I raised a support ticket pointing out that their control panel still listed the old IP address. They replied "it's working see ping results here" and "We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you, we have only changed your server IP address and didn't made any change in your server."

DNS (and slaves), Firewall, webservers, FUBAR!

So 24 hours later I'm nearly finished fixing this mess. Client domains are FINALLY back on the internet and I'm updating SFX entries and configuring MX secondaries.

I think "check blacklists for the new ip address" surely that's okay?

Nope! ZEN spamhaus has the 1/4 of entire class B address block (/18) blacklisted forever!
"2015-12-xx xx:xx GMT | velocity-servers.net
Spammer hosting (escalation)
Far too much spam & cybercrime hosting on this network."

Let's see how they explain their way out of this one.

Anybody have a good experience with these jokers?

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Comments

  • TionTion Member

    @paulzag said:
    Anybody have a good experience with these jokers?

    A quick search on Google and here should've told you all that you need to know about this company.

  • grimsdottirgrimsdottir Member
    edited April 2016

    Not too happy with this sham of an outfit either.

    I'm an American living abroad and tried to sign up with them for a cheapy IRC box.

    I used my American info, paid with PayPal, and I get flagged for fraud due to the fact that my sign up IP address didn't match the country my info was in. In this multinational world this has to be expected. I mean, I could have easily used a VPN to get around this and they wouldn't have been the wiser.

    Filed a ticket, support guys demanded that I send them my credit card info and a scan of my photo ID. Are you fucking kidding me? I declined as I had already provided them with sufficient valid information and a legitimate form of payment that they could have easily accepted... They wouldn't fulfill my order.

    I had a similar situation with HostHatch however their support team fixed the issue immediately and I now have a small 256mb with them for IRC.

    Sorry ChicagoVPS, you snooze, you lose...

  • i just find the price is cheap...

  • K4Y5K4Y5 Member
    edited April 2016

    Been struggling with the same thing here. It has been 2 days since I got a new VPS, but haven't been able to use it at all.

    Right after I first received the login details, I looked the IP up on blacklists. No surprises here, the entire colocrossing subnet was blacklisted on SBL along with a bunch of other DBs.

    So, I open a support ticket, and one of the nicer support staff guys quickly apologizes for the oversight, switches my IP to a clean one, and even sets the rDNS for it per request.

    Good, right? No, not really.

    The next day (yesterday) I tried to login to my box and I was unable to connect or ping to the new IP. Turns out, they didn't feel that I'd object to getting my IP switched yet again to a third IP that happens to be on a blacklisted subnet, that too without even extending the courtesy of informing me in the first place.

    So, I re-open the old ticket, to which one of their rather unhelpful 'support guru' then responds by professionally beating around the bush and not addressing the core issue.

    After exchanging a bunch of messages back and forth, he tried to convince me how hosting on a blacklisted IP wouldn't affect a site's reputation if I use cloudflare (Like I didn't already know all about reverse proxying).

    When I tell him that I don't want email alerts from my site going to spam, he informs me about third party SMTP relays like mailgun and sendgrid and their free plans. (Yeah, right. I wouldn't be wasting my time re-opening tickets if I wanted to use one).

    At that point, I had had enough, so I simply asked whether he'd address the core issue of swapping my clean IP with a blacklisted one without notice? This time, he offered to move me to another node, to which I had no option but to agree to.

    A few hours later, I get login details to my new VM with a new IP (my fourth IP within 48 hours of signing up) which yet again was on a blacklisted subnet.

    Needless to say I was tired of getting treated like crap. So, I re-opened the ticket and explained the exact nature of problem that I had with the first, third and fourth IPs that they had allocated to my brand spanking new VM.

    Luckily, as I was typing this comment, the nicer support staff guy who had first helped me with a clean IP + rDNS responded to the ticket. At this point, my VM is finally on a clean subnet with rDNS.

    GOLLY GEE! WHAT A RIDE!!

    Thanked by 1paulzag
  • Anyone got blacklist resources? Never thought to check before. Can someone link reliable ones?

  • BochiBochi Member

    Maybe I have to jump in on that.
    Not sure if I would call myself a "long-time" customer, but I am with them for nearly two years now and against many complaints around here I was mostly pretty sattisfied with the server.
    They also couldn't shock me with their takeover announcement, really thought that would make them better.

    But with what they are doing right now with this IP switch disappoints me in every way they could do.
    In times of IPv4 address space depletion (yes, heard the rumor ;D ) things like this can happen and the first step would be to think about a solution and then shedule the change.
    As I received the message about the switch "within the next 24-48 hours" (16th March) I wondered a bit about the short notice, but hey it's ChicagoVPS - so I was pretty happy with it.
    Four days later still nothing changed and I asked for an updated, so on the fifth day I got a message telling me, that they are "still we are in process".
    Later on this day they updated the ticket and said: "Please contact us again in next 48 hours."
    On 24th of March I asked again as they told me to do, they answered I should "allow next few hours for re-claiming the IP address".
    So nearly two weeks after the first notification I asked again as nothing came from their end and got the answer, that they "are still in process of IP address migration".
    Then, on 30th of March another ticket was opened from them, containing the exact same message they sent two weeks before.
    Since then, nothing happened...

    To put it in a nutshell, whats the take home message:
    First - I don't get, how a company this big can be so unbelievably unprofessionell about such a thing.
    There have to be enough talented technicans that can shedule and handle such a migration, at least I thought so...
    And second - I don't get, how the (internal) communication can be so bad, that it takes a total of five different staff members to answer throughout this topic, with no real information given and also no end in sight.

  • K4Y5K4Y5 Member

    @grimsdottir said:
    Anyone got blacklist resources? Never thought to check before. Can someone link reliable ones?

    This is all you need - http://multirbl.valli.org/lookup/

    Thanked by 1grimsdottir
  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    I just don't understand, unless you have been living under a rock or do absolutely no due dillegance at all, why would you be using a company that leaves customers offline for 6 months at a time, have been known to promise refunds and not deliver them, have been known to take over 3 months to even comment on outages still going on.

    I don't mean to offend you but I think the most ridiculous part of this story is you wasted your time fixing everything on the new IP instead of backing up and moving on, the IP had changed anyway a couple of extra minutes to move to a proper host would not have made any difference.

    Using these armature companies with a long and solid history of treating customers like idiots and cash cows is like scratching your head with a loaded gun, yeah it takes care of the itch for a few years but sooner or later...

  • K4Y5K4Y5 Member

    @AnthonySmith said:
    I just don't understand, unless you have been living under a rock or do absolutely no due dillegance at all, why would you be using a company that leaves customers offline for 6 months at a time, have been known to promise refunds and not deliver them, have been known to take over 3 months to even comment on outages still going on.

    I don't mean to offend you but I think the most ridiculous part of this story is you wasted your time fixing everything on the new IP instead of backing up and moving on, the IP had changed anyway a couple of extra minutes to move to a proper host would not have made any difference.

    Using these armature companies with a long and solid history of treating customers like idiots and cash cows is like scratching your head with a loaded gun, yeah it takes care of the itch for a few years but sooner or later...

    I have not hosted anything remotely critical on budget services, and I have no intention of doing so, unless a client of mine explicitly asks for something specific such as this.

    This was an impulse purchase as I felt the deal was too good to pass. At 5 bucks a year, I get this -

    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    CPU model            : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 V2 @ 3.40GHz
    Number of cores      : 4
    CPU frequency        : 3400.139 MHz
    Total amount of ram  : 256 MB
    Total amount of swap : 0 MB
    System uptime        : 0days, 8:14:25
    OS                   : Debian GNU/Linux 7
    Arch                 : i686 (32 Bit)
    Kernel               : 2.6.32-042stab108.8
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Node Name                       IPv4 address            Download Speed
    CacheFly                        205.234.175.175         110MB/s
    Linode, Tokyo, JP               106.187.96.148          10.7MB/s
    Linode, Singapore, SG           139.162.23.4            7.06MB/s
    Linode, London, UK              176.58.107.39           4.95MB/s
    Linode, Frankfurt, DE           139.162.130.8           4.56MB/s
    Linode, Fremont, CA             50.116.14.9             36.0MB/s
    Softlayer, Dallas, TX           173.192.68.18           44.2MB/s
    Softlayer, Seattle, WA          67.228.112.250          71.2MB/s
    Softlayer, Frankfurt, DE        159.122.69.4            4.35MB/s
    Softlayer, Singapore, SG        119.81.28.170           4.21MB/s
    Softlayer, HongKong, CN         119.81.130.170          12.7MB/s
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    I/O speed(1st run) : 132 MB/s
    I/O speed(2nd run) : 186 MB/s
    I/O speed(3rd run) : 153 MB/s
    Average I/O: 157 MB/s
    

    The only reason I even re-opened tickets and took the issue up with them was that I felt it was worth at-least trying. FWIW, Colocrossing has pretty decent peering to US - West coast and somewhat decent peering to Singapore.

  • century1stopcentury1stop Member
    edited April 2016

    cheap and good don't really work well together :D
    can't say I blame CVPS for blacklisted IPs tho, users did it!!!! you guys are just unfortunate to feel the pain of having need to clean 'em up

    Thanked by 1K4Y5
  • AnthonySmithAnthonySmith Member, Patron Provider

    @K4Y5 that's fine I was taking to the @OP really who is obviously using them for production grade stuff and trusting his own reputation with his clients on the back of CVPS.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran
    edited April 2016

    @century1stop said:
    cheap and good don't really work well together :D
    can't say I blame CVPS for blacklisted IPs tho, users did it!!!! you guys are just unfortunate to feel the pain of having need to clean 'em up

    No, not really. CC has willingly done business with spammers. It was always a hunch or sure smelt that way, but when they started doing business with Nuggets again after it was known he was spamming? Yeah, they deserve every listing they get.

    I warned @jbiloh about doing any business with the kid since it's nothing but spam, Jonny's too lazy to ever try to do anything legitimate.

    Francisco

  • @K4Y5 said:

    GOLLY GEE! WHAT A RIDE!!

    That's in Chessington World of Adventure's, right?

  • SwiftSwift Member

    I once used CVPS but shifted away after the major downtime in June 2013. The way they handled the situation is appalling.

    I must admit that the paper specifications in terms of cost and performance is pretty impressive. Everything else is questionable though.

    Moved away from them since that horrible experience.

  • hawchawc Moderator, LIR

    HostingSpecialists said: That's in Chessington World of Adventure's, right?

    Something similar, yes. Ive been on that thing, its fun, but sick inducing.

  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider
    edited April 2016

    @HostingSpecialists said:
    That's in Chessington World of Adventure's, right?

    It looks like it's a similar model of Zamperla flat ride, but different theme to Kobra @ Chessington. Must be elsewhere.

    Thanked by 1HostingSpecialists
  • @AnthonySmith said:
    like scratching your head with a loaded gun, yeah it takes care of the itch for a few years but sooner or later...

    I'm stealing this. Es muy bueno.

    Thanked by 2paulzag netomx
  • @AnthonySmith said:
    K4Y5 that's fine I was taking to the OP really who is obviously using them for production grade stuff and trusting his own reputation with his clients on the back of CVPS.

    For the record, the production grade stuff runs on a managed server with a well-respected professional hosting company with all the support and backups I could hope for.

    This stuff was either really cheap resources for friends or experimental projects for clients. As happens experiments sometimes enter production without the time or resources to redo from scratch.

    I was more flabbergasted that even a cowboy outfit can't port an IP address range. Boy scouts do better production planning.

    The only reason I got the server was it was a cheap deal on LEB nearly 2 years ago with "okay" reviews. As I said 20 months of no problems for what is essentially a dev box.

    Thanked by 1AnthonySmith
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    Aren't we about due for another ChicagoVPS customer database breech? That'd be the...fourth?

  • ErnieErnie Patron Provider, Veteran

    I just wanted to touch on this a bit. We are consolidating IP space at CVPS to elimate waste. I do regret any inconvenience to customers who were adversely effected. I invite any customer effected that is down or has a issue to PM me their ticket ID and I will personally look into it.

  • Database breach? And they wanted my CC info plus a photo ID scan? Fuuuuuuck no

  • grimsdottir said: Database breach?

    No, you misunderstand.

    Database breaches, plural.

    Thanked by 2grimsdottir doghouch
  • I've been with CVPS for two years. Their uptime wasn't great, but the price was right and the sites I was hosting weren't critical. Their support for minor things was fine. However, I was also a victim of the no warning IP change. The process of which took the server down for two days and they didn't keep me in the loop or allow me to prep my DNS changes in advance.

    However, that's nothing compared to what came next. They completely demolished the reconfiguration on the server. The server started losing connection, it took over a minute to resolve at times and most importantly the server itself could not resolve any outgoing addresses. I now have over 30 ticket responses in a thread trying to fix this as 20 different Indian freelancers tried to get a commission and then gave up. Each time I had to requeue the ticket by asking if there was progress. Each time getting "looking into it" from a new rep. Finally they decided they couldn't fix it so I'd have to backup and wipe the receive a new server. Two days ago they finished their backup that I insisted on since I can barely interact with the server now. No response as to why the server hasn't been refreshed which should have taken moments. They no longer respond to the ticket thread. Avoid at all costs.

    Thanked by 1MikeA
  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider
    edited April 2016

    @rcketscientist you should be able to fix it yourself. Check the /etc/resolv.conf if there are some already replace them with

    nameserver 8.8.8.8 nameserver 8.8.4.4

    That should help. After all it's not a rocket science :-).

  • MikeAMikeA Member, Patron Provider

    @Clouvider said:
    rcketscientist you should be able to fix it yourself. Check the /etc/resolv.conf if there are some already replace them with

    nameserver 8.8.8.8 nameserver 8.8.4.4

    That should help. After all it's not a rocket science :-).

    I would assume his issue isn't as simple as that...

  • @Clouvider said:
    rcketscientist you should be able to fix it yourself. Check the /etc/resolv.conf if there are some already replace them with

    nameserver 8.8.8.8 nameserver 8.8.4.4

    That should help. After all it's not a rocket science :-).

    For some reason, I've had to add level3's DNS nameservers to the config on majority of my boxes for the last few weeks, I'm not sure why.. otherwise the server isn't resolving anything.

  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider

    EVM_Mike said: I would assume his issue isn't as simple as that...

    Well, you should always check the basic stuff first. You'd assume it's ok, but what if while they regenerated the network config with new IP they have overwritten the resolv.conf with empty values or their old DNS they aren't up anymore?

    @rcketscientist said it's not resolving - you check resolvers. Resolvers are OK - you check other things.

  • k0nslk0nsl Member

    Try this one, I found it useful: https://hetrixtools.com/blacklist-check/

    @grimsdottir said:
    Anyone got blacklist resources? Never thought to check before. Can someone link reliable ones?

    Thanked by 1HBAndrei
  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    For some time the utilization of ipv4 resources at Chicagovps has been less than ideal. As part of our improvement strategy at that brand we've been correcting that issue, amongst others. It's been a very large endeavor and we regret any customers that were disrupted by this process.

    Please send me a pm with info and I'll be happy to investigate any cases where the support department could have done better.

    We've been committed since September 2015 towards cleaning up the operation at CHICAGOVPS and overall we're very close to achieving that goal.

  • That's why I have to spent few days to set up Nagios monitoring before putting any important data on any LE VPS.. Since that I have better sleep....

    Thanked by 1linuxthefish
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