My.VPSLink.com Control Center Updated

[DanL@VPSLink]

As announced on the VPSLink Blog, the new My.VPSLink.com VPS Control Center is active at this time.

Please let us know by reply to this thread or a comment on the VPSLink Blog if you have any suggestions for improvement. We've completed several rounds of testing, however, if you encounter any bugs, please report them directly to VPSLink Support.

[charles]

Five things:

1) As far as I can tell, there is now no difference between the low-fi and hi-fi versions. As I preferred what I saw last week, which I assume was the low-fi one given that was what the page indicated, I am sad. To be clear, what I saw last week was a panel with a menu bar on the left and no drop-downs.

2) My packages are listed on the home page. One of my servers is listed as "pending renewal" (this is correct). However, none of the management links (Manage, Upgrade, Web Console) appear with this package. If I select Subscriptions from the Account menu, I see the management links.

3) Again on the Home page, I see a link for "Web Console". This link takes me to an SSH emulator, which then appears to connect me to "root@my.ip.address". However, it doesn't work, asking me for my password twice then giving an emulator that does nothing. According to my SSH logs, no connection attempt is made to my machine. Furthermore, even if it succeeded, it wouldn't be a "web console", but would instead be a normal connection.

4) Remote access connections from my package page do nothing at all. It goes through the motions of loading a page, but what appears is the same package page I just clicked on.

5) The Remote Console link does the same thing as remote access -- nothing.

[askewdread]

further to the above,
i cant seem to find anywhere to change os's and turn server on etc if need be

[vpslinkdotcom]

Select the 'Manage' option below your server name. You will see your servers listed when you first login, or also by clicking on 'Services'.

[DanL@VPSLink]

Originally Posted by charles

1) As far as I can tell, there is now no difference between the low-fi and hi-fi versions. As I preferred what I saw last week, which I assume was the low-fi one given that was what the page indicated, I am sad. To be clear, what I saw last week was a panel with a menu bar on the left and no drop-downs.

The Low-Fi version does not make use of menu icons or transition effects, so it should be possible to at least see the icons disappearing when switching from Hi-Fi to Low-fi.

If you are using any version of Internet Explorer, the Hi-Fi version will lack the quick navigation bar at the bottom of the page; however, you should see menu icons and subtle transition effects when you mouse over top menu items.

While we do not have a set timeframe for this feature's inclusion, I have spoken with our developers and I expect that we will support different control center skins in the future (including a revised edition of the skin which you mentioned).

Originally Posted by charles

2) My packages are listed on the home page. One of my servers is listed as "pending renewal" (this is correct). However, none of the management links (Manage, Upgrade, Web Console) appear with this package. If I select Subscriptions from the Account menu, I see the management links.

Simple fix - Pending Renewal packages will now display all the same options which active packages display.

Originally Posted by charles

3) Again on the Home page, I see a link for "Web Console". This link takes me to an SSH emulator, which then appears to connect me to "root@my.ip.address". However, it doesn't work, asking me for my password twice then giving an emulator that does nothing. According to my SSH logs, no connection attempt is made to my machine. Furthermore, even if it succeeded, it wouldn't be a "web console", but would instead be a normal connection.

The "Web Console" option has been renamed "Java Console".

If the applet prompted you for authentication information, it would indicate that the issue is most likely a matter of connectivity for the applet. If your VPS is not listening for SSH connections on port 22 or your local network is configured to block port 22, the applet may time out or silently fail after prompting for authentication - is it possible either of these conditions may apply?

Originally Posted by charles

4) Remote access connections from my package page do nothing at all. It goes through the motions of loading a page, but what appears is the same package page I just clicked on.

. . .

5) The Remote Console link does the same thing as remote access -- nothing.

The variables intended to store package remote access URL's appear to be empty (OpenVZ) or malformed (Xen). Our developers are looking at this issue now and I expect a fix today.

[chriss]

One server is currently offline, but the status of that server on the first page of the control panel indicates "Online".

What determines the server status that is displayed?

Would it be possible to make the message box that is provided for entering ticket details a little larger?

TIA

[Development@VPSLink]

The variables intended to store package remote access URL's appear to be empty (OpenVZ) or malformed (Xen). Our developers are looking at this issue now and I expect a fix today. Last edited by DanL@VPSLink; Today at 07:12 PM.

The programmers have fixed the HTML template that the aforementioned web developer mentioned.

[charles]

Originally Posted by DanL@VPSLink

If the applet prompted you for authentication information, it would indicate that the issue is most likely a matter of connectivity for the applet. If your VPS is not listening for SSH connections on port 22 or your local network is configured to block port 22, the applet may time out or silently fail after prompting for authentication - is it possible either of these conditions may apply?

When I connect using the java applet, I get a prompt telling me that the host 'my.ip.address' is unknown, and the fingerprint is 'a long hex number'. It asks if I want to allow this host. I answer yes. I am then prompted for a password. When supplied, I am told that login failed, and do I want to try keyboard or key authentication. Nothing appears in auth.log. If I give the correct password (again), the applet appears to hang and nothing appears in the log. If I give an incorrect password, a login failure appears in the log and I get asked again.

When I connect using PuTTY to 'my.ip.address', I also get the prompt telling me that my server's key is not cached, and do I want to store it. The long hex number is different from the one shown by the java applet, and is marked as being rsa (the Java applet prompt does not say what algorithm is being used). If I say yes, I am prompted for a password. Whether or not the login is successful, the attempt is logged in auth.log.

Summary: PuTTY works and the applet does not. Both appear to connect to my machine, given the log entries. The applet seems unable to finish negotiating a connection, while PuTTY can. The applet seems to use a different host key (the dsa one?).

There is one possibility. My server is running Debian 5. I tried running the applet to connect to another server running Debian 4, and it worked. Is there something different about the OpenSSH implementations between the two releases? I have no idea. I do note that the applet worked before my upgrade, so there is a good chance something changed. I did not regenerate my keys during the upgrade.

Hope this helps.

[charles]

I found one solution. Apparently the applet does not like having tunneled clear text passwords turned off. My ssh config included the line "PasswordAuthentication no", forcing the use of challenge/response authentication. After removing the line, the Java applet can successfully connect.

The behavior of the "PasswordAuthentication no" must have changed between etch and lenny, because the applet worked when my system was etch. The config file did not change during the upgrade -- the line was in my etch config.

Live and learn...

[DanL@VPSLink]

Originally Posted by charles

The behavior of the "PasswordAuthentication no" must have changed between etch and lenny, because the applet worked when my system was etch. The config file did not change during the upgrade -- the line was in my etch config.

Is it possible that the UsePAM yes configuration directive was set on your Etch installation? (In this case PAM would allow the applet's password-based authentication)

Also, we've increased the ticket entry textarea's size for longer entries.