Given the evolving situation with the COVID-19 global pandemic, we at Reliable Penguin wanted to share with you measures that we are taking. We recognize that it’s vital to our clients that your websites and servers remain operational throughout this crisis and we're committed to ensuring that this is the case.

First we want to share our support for the many people working on the frontline to combat this virus … nurses, doctors, and other health care workers … and the many people throughout the country working to keep store shelves stocked and basic services running. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them, our staff and their families and the families and staff of our clients.

Measures We Have Taken
Reliable Penguin has always been a distributed organization with most of our staff working from home offices. Early last week we cancelled all travel, in-person meetings and use of shared work spaces. Additionally, we advised our team to begin aggressive social distancing and hygiene practices. As of the date of this post we have had no confirmed cases or known exposures within the organization.

We are in daily contact with our critical infrastructure partners such as RackSpace, Amazon Web Services, CloudFlare, etc. To date, all are reporting that the network infrastructure is secure and stable. We will continue to monitor the status of critical services and share updates as appropriate.

We are adjusting support priorities and payment procedures as described below.

Support Priorities
We are receiving an increased number of support requests as organizations move to “work from home” and other arrangements in response to the crisis. In order to maintain our level of service we will apply the following priority rules:

1. Operational issues on existing systems and services.
2. Deployment of business continuity solutions for existing clients.
3. New projects for existing clients.
4. Projects for new clients.

We will continue to strive to meet all service level agreements within this framework. We appreciate your cooperation and patience with these priorities.

Payments

Effectively immediately all payments should be made electronically by credit card, debit card, ACH, wire transfer or Paypal.

Details and payment forms can be found here:

https://payments.reliablepenguin.com/

If you are unable to make electronic payments, then checks by postal mail will be accepted but processing may be delayed up to fourteen (14) days due to disinfection requirements. Please send payments early enough to factor in this delay.

Please be aware that payments for services must be completed within the terms of your contract or service plan. Failure to make payments on schedule will result in late fees and service termination. If your payment will be delayed for any reason please contact our team to make arrangements.

The scope for technical support on Plesks depends on the type of service you are purchasing from Reliable Penguin.

For Managed Web Hosting accounts or servers covered under a Support Plan, all issues with Plesk are fully supported. If Reliable Penguin is unable to resolve an issue directly then we will open a support ticket with Plesk Support and attempt to seek a resolution.

For clients who are leasing Plesk licenses through Reliable Penguin outside of Managed Web Hosting or a Support Plan, support is limited to:

* Plesk installation and upgrade issues

* License verification issues

For other issues you have the option of contacting Plesk Support directly or from Reliable Penguin on an hourly fee basis.

Our shared hosting platform is designed to block aggressive behavior from attackers. In particular if you have more than 10 failed login attempts on SFTP, SSH or email then your source IP address will be blocked for 30 minutes. While blocked you will not be able to connect to your website, SFTP, SSH, or email. After 30 minutes your IP address will be removed from the block list and you will be able to connect again.

If you can load our help site at:

https://help.reliablepenguin.com

But you can not load our website at:

https://reliablepenguin.com

Then you are likely being blocked by IP address. In this case:

1. Please confirm that you have the correct username and password configured in you email and SFTP/SSH clients. Contact support if you are uncertain or need a password changed.
2. Wait 30 minutes for the block to expire. If you need urgent access then contact support for assistance.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this security system creates. Our policies are consistent with industry best practices.  Unfortunately the risk created by malicious spammers and hackers necessitates this system.

Our shared hosting platform includes several important WordPress security features. These features increase the security of your site but may create confusion the first time you encounter them.

Extra Login Protection

Many WordPress sites are compromised by hackers using automated scripts that "brute-force" a WordPress login by making repeated login attempts. To minimize this risk, by default WordPress sites on our shared hosting platform have an extra layer of HTTP Basic authentication on wp-login.php. In your browser if you go to:

https://mysite.com/wp-admin

Then WordPress will redirect you to:

https://mysite.com/wp-login.php

This is the normal WordPress behavior. On Reliable Penguin's platform you'll be promoted with a login dialog similar to this:

At this dialog please enter:

This easy to remember login discourages automated scripts and reduces the chance of your site being hacked by "brute-force" attacks. In some case this extra login creates problems. If you encounter such a situation just open a support ticket and we'll disable the feature on your site.

No PHP In Uploads Folder

Frequently when a site is hacked, the malicious party will install PHP code in the /wp-content/uploads folder. Properly designed WordPress plugins never put code in the /wp-content/uploads folder. To limit the impact of hackers we block execution of PHP, CGI, Perl and server-side includes in /wp-content/uploads folder. Contact support if this creates a problem in your application.

Below are the most frequently needed settings and details for our shared hosting service.

You can also download this information in a PDF document.

Support

Need assistance? You can contact technical support on the web, by email or by phone:

Control Panel

Our control panel is located at:

https://panel.reliablepenguin.com

From here you can manage your web hosting account as well as email and DNS.

To login to the control panel you’ll need to know the username and password for your account. Contact Support for assistance.

Name Servers

If your want Reliable Penguin to provide Domain Name Service (DNS) for your domain name, then set your nameservers to:

ns1.reliablepenguin.com
ns2.reliablepenguin.com

SFTP/SSH

For SFTP or SSH access to your website, the hostname is:

sftp.reliablepenguin.com

The username and password can be set from the Control Panel.

Email Settings

For incoming email set your MX record in DNS to:

mail.reliablepenguin.com

Use the following settings in your email client software:

Incoming

Outgoing

You can access your email box from a web browser at:

https://webmail.reliablepenguin.com/

The username is your full email address including domain name. The password can be set from the Control Panel.

Due to increasing problems with malicious spammers it is vital to all of our clients that email and SFTP accounts be properly protected. Effective immediately for all new accounts and all password changes will require a strong password. Passwords must be at least 8 characters in length and contain at least one occurrence of upper and lower-case characters, digits, and special characters. For example "P@ssw0rd12".  Such passwords provide strong protection from brute-force attacks and minimize the risk of your email or SFTP account being compromised. We realize that this can be annoying but it is unavoidable given the aggressiveness of spammers and the damage to all customers that a single compromised account can create.