New Signups

TODO- review

New Signups

New customers sign up for service on our web based forms at www.johncompanies.com

When a signup occurs an email is sent to support@johncompanies.com and signups get written to two files:

/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/pending

and

/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/log/log.pending

The second file is simply a running log of signups, and should not be used for anything. The only time it is handy is if you are editing the pending file, then save it, and are told that the file has changed since you started editing it. This means that someone signed up while you were editing the pending file. What you should do is force the save (thus losing their signup) and then cut and paste the lost signup from /htdocs/colocation/data/log/log.pending.

Lines in the pending file look like this:

2005-11-08;newcastle;Frederick Wilson;;1405 South Adams;Fort Worth;Texas;76104;US;referred by nmrc.org;LM-1;2;Limit 10;1;207.13.31.48;106
vaifan@airmail.net;817-798-8637;on;on;
new;add2;;;replace;replace;preserve;elaine.commadev.com

The fields are defined as follows:

signup date;hostname;last, first;company; address;city;state;zip;country;referred by;package id;bandwidth overage option;if gobut is selected, $ amount to limit is listed here;payment method;source ip;template id;
email;phone #;admin;billing;alt
new/replace system;create new account/add to existing;hostname of server being replaced;new IP pref;update/merge contacts;update/merge owner info;update/preserve traffic overage;

When a customer signs up an email will be sent to support@johncompanies.com containing the log entry in the format above

The process for setting up a new customer is as follows:

1. Go to the pending customers screen (choose Mgmt site -> New Signups). New customers will be at the bottom of the "VPS Signups" and "Colo Signups" sections. If they’ve paid automatically (via PayPal) the word “PAID” will appear in the “pmt status” column. The other thing you’ll see in this column is “paid- not cleared”- this means they paid with eCheck (via PayPal) and the check has not cleared. This normally takes 3 biz. days and we wait till it clears and shows “PAID” before setting up the server. Customers who pay with a credit card will not appear as "PAID" here. In that case, an email will be sent to support@johncompanies.com indicating a payment has been made (or failed). Once the payment has been paid/cleared, click “process….”

Before setting someone up, you need to decide whether the signup is fraudulent. Examples of fraud can be found in /usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/fraud-examples Generally,

• NOT FRAUD = non-anonymous email accounts that match who they are (dan@brockman.com, where the person is Dan Brockman)
• NOT FRAUD = referred by a customer that actually exists or by kuro5hin
• MAYBE FRAUD = referred by ‘web search’ or ‘google’
• MAYBE FRAUD = generic sounding address
• MAYBE FRAUD = IP address is out of country and address is in US (use dnsstuff link on main signups screen to lookup where IP is)
• FRAUD = they don’t type in: referred by and/or hostname and/or give the default answer for bandwidth is stop
• FRAUD = multiple orders each from the same IP and/or using same email address
• FRAUD = no hostname or hacker-sounding hostname: 3v1l0n3 (evilone)

If you’re ever in doubt, call the card owner using the phone number given at signup or call the bank number provided for the card. Never use the email as it’s likely the thief’s and not the cardholder’s.

Almost all the info needed is pre-entered into this screen, but some fields will need attention:

• System: The system is already selected based on the template/OS the customer selected.
• Directory: information provided for you to enter once the system is created. (leave bank for managedcolo)
• Disk: indicates how much disk space the server should have. (leave bank for managedcolo)
• Hostname: self-explanatory.
• veid: (linux systems only) should be filled in with the significant digits of the customer ID, ex: col01340 = veid 1340.
• os: indicates which OS the customer wants (feed to linux vm script)
• ip(s): for linux customers, you should click “ipmap” and scroll down to the first available (green) ip amongst others on the same system. Click on the ip to copy it back to the “ip(s)” field on the form. For FreeBSD customers, the ips available for use are already assigned to the system and should be copied back to this screen once the jail is made (see below). For colo customers, choose an IP appropriate to the data center. i.e. for i2b pick an IP from the 229 block.
• start date: should reflect the day the system was created.
• asset tag: colo only
• password: VPS only
• cabinet: colo only
• ats port: colo @ i2b only
• monitored: should only be checked if the system’s ip/services were supplied to castle to place on the monitor (probes) list.

NOTE: you must use a JavaScript enabled browser to enter new customers otherwise you won’t be given correct options for os templates.

3. create the new system using either jailmake or vm scripts. For posterity, on our older linux systems and older OS's (pre virt17) we used to use a custom script for each OS version: vemakecentos3 vemakedebian40 vemakedebian30 vemakedebian31 vemakefedora2 vemakefedora6 vemakefedora7 vemakesuse100 vemakesuse93 vemakecentos4 vemakedebian31 vemakefedora4 vemakerh9 vemakeubuntu5 vemakefedora vemakefedora5 vemakesuse vemakeubuntu606 vemakeubuntu610 vemakeubuntu704

jailmake and vm both email the new customer their welcome email.

When you are done adding a customer, for both systems: copy back the dir and password (supplied by the VPS make script) into the form. For FreeBSD, copy back the IP which the make script will give back to you.

When you are done filling out all the fields in the pending customer form, click “Activate”. This will create the customer in our database and remove them from the pending list. Nothing is emailed to the customer as a result of this action. If the customer paid via credit card, their info needs to be added manually.

Discussion about choosing IPs ...

When you make a new system, you have to choose what IP to give it. New FreeBSD servers are configured with a set amount of IPs, and as you add new systems to that freebsd server you can use one of the IPs assigned to the host, but not currently assigned to a VPS. You can use the js program to see what IPs are available for assigning to new customers.

However, it is not that simple with the linux systems. The linux servers do not get the IPs of their customer systems bound to the actual machine. That is, even on a fully loaded linux system, if you run `ifconfig -a` from the base machine, you only see one IP - the main IP of that system. Further complicating matters is that linux systems can bind multiple IPs - therefore it is not possible to know that the next new linux system should just have the next IP as the last new one that was created.

So, what we do is, new linux systems are simply assigned a starting IP, and no new machine (freebsd or linux) is assigned a base IP anywhere within 92-128 Ips of that IP. So you have 92-128 IPs to grow with for the linux systems that will live on that machine.

So, you simply start creating systems from that starting point – and additional IPs that those systems need should also be added from that range, and even other linux systems on other virt machines should get new IPs from that block of IPs. To find the block of IPs in use, go thru bash history to find last ip used or assigned to a ve. Then, click the “ipmap” link (or pull up Mgmt. -> Reference -> IP Map). Ip’s not already assigned to a machine will show up as green. In general, we want to use ips which have never been assigned, or were relenquishsed years ago (or at least 30 days ago – IMPORTANT!!).

If a customer has selected an IP package – is paying for extra IPs now, then we’re pretty much obliged to assign all those IPs now. Otherwise, we only ever assign 1 IP.

The Welcome Emails

jailmake and vm, as one of its arguments, asks for an email address. This email address is used to send a welcome email to the new user. However, the welcome email is not inside the jailmake/vemake script, and they are not on the jails themselves either. Here are all the various welcome emails we have:

/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-freebsdp (dynamic freebsd welcome email, 7.x 8.x)
/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-linux (dynamic linux welcome email)
/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-debian (dynamic debian/ubuntu welcome email)
/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-fedora (dynamic fedora/centos welcome email)
/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-freebsd (original, generic freebsd welcome email)
/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-freebsd6 (for freebsd6)
/usr/local/www/jc_pub/data/welcome-freebsd7z (for freebsd7 with zfs DEPRECATED)

on the main johncompanies server.

When the jailmake script is run, it issues the `fetch` (or wget) command to retrieve it, i.e. http://www.johncompanies.com/colocation/data/welcome-freebsdp

and saves it as a temp file, mails it off.

Welcome emails not noted as dynamic above, are emailed with the IP appended at the top to the email address specified. The password to these accounts was/is generic- not very good. Welcome emails noted as dynamic are parsed by the make script to include the IP and a generated, random root password.

IMPORTANT NOTE: when creating an older-OS ve on a virt- this almost never happens (i.e. it’s created using the old-style vemakexxxx command), you must use the support address as the email address as the make script will be pulling down the dynamic welcome email when it expects to see the old, generic format and it won’t look good. When you receive the welcome email in support, format properly and resend to customer.

This means three things:

a) In order for jailmake to work, the johncompanies web server needs to be up and running, and that file needs to exist at that URL

b) If you want to edit the welcome email, you only need to edit it on the web server, in one place

c) If a customer for some reason does not receive the welcome email, then you need to go Mgmt -> Reference -> (file), copy and paste it into an email to them. For the old-generic emails, make sure to add this line to the very top:

IP: (their IP)

If the welcome email does not exist, jailmake will still work, in the sense that it will create the system, but no welcome email will be sent.

Dedicated Server Setup

Before starting the OS install you'll need to know the following pieces of info:

• CID:
• Customer has multiple colos: Y/N
• Asset tag: JC-xxxx
• Service/Package (and any deviations to B/W, nfs space, IPs, etc) and price:
• RAM in system:
• IPs included in plan:
• OS (32 vs 64bit variant):
• Hostname:
• Disk partitions, including swap space:
• Number of initial IPs to assign:
• Timezone:

Some to most of that info will be provided via the new signup page, assuming the customer ordered the server via our order page. The rest will comes from the sales/build department.

Once the server is built, it should be installed in the rack, booted to the BIOS screen and labeled with the asset tag and the customer's CID (if available/established).

If an IPKVM is not already attached, you will need to ascertain which one is available (look in ~support/kvm, usually open for editing in the p4 screen of the mailbox window).