[Hosting] Let me know if any questions - Vidahost

[vidahost]

Hey Guys,

 

This isn't a sales pitch. We've had quite a few signups the last few weeks via Edugeek (as it looks like some local authorities are stopping their direct management of .sch.uk domains as far as I can tell) and we're getting a few similiar enquiries so I wanted to jump on here and help directly.

 

We probably host a fair few of you on Vidahost.com (or on others brands such as Tsohost or CSNewMedia). As long as the mods are happy we'll subscribe on this thread so if anyone has any questions or problems related to our systems reply to the thread and we'll be notified.

 

SCH.UK transfers

In terms of .sch.uk domains, they are free from Nominet so there is absolutely no cost charged to us to manage them and we don't pass one on. But because they are free with no expiry date they can confuse our systems a bit, so the best way to transfer them in is to change the IPSTAG and then drop us a ticket. We then set the recurring price to 0.

 

Cheers

 

Seb

[MattDLEA]

I'm no way affiliated with Vidahost. I do however use them for all my hosting of websites and have found them to be very reliable and really quick with tech support

[Edu-IT]

I'm no way affiliated with Vidahost. I do however use them for all my hosting of websites and have found them to be very reliable and really quick with tech support

Agreed. Have moved a few .sch.uk domains to their brands and had no issues at all.

[CAM]

I use CSNewMedia for personal hosting and liked them. You are the new owner's I take it?

[vidahost]

Thanks for the kind words

 

I use CSNewMedia for personal hosting and liked them. You are the new owner's I take it?

 

Yes, correct.

[5tu]

Since Vidahost took over CS New Media I am unable to see or change DNS records on my domain via https://my.vidahost.com. The name servers on my domain are still set to ns1.csnewmedia.com and ns2.csnewmedia.com.

 

Support are advising me to change name servers to ns1.vhdns.net and ns2.vhdns.net but surely if I do this I'll have to recreate all my DNS records??

 

Anyone else have the same issue?

[vidahost]

The Vhdns nameservers will give you more control than the old csnewmedia ones -- if you can PM me your domain or ticket ID we'll copy over the DNS settings for you so you don't have to.

 

Since Vidahost took over CS New Media I am unable to see or change DNS records on my domain via https://my.vidahost.com. The name servers on my domain are still set to ns1.csnewmedia.com and ns2.csnewmedia.com.

 

Support are advising me to change name servers to ns1.vhdns.net and ns2.vhdns.net but surely if I do this I'll have to recreate all my DNS records??

 

Anyone else have the same issue?

[5tu]

PM sent.

 

Many thanks.

[limawhiskey]

Seb, I'm looking to move our .sch.uk domain into our control. Do you still offer this for no charge? Would we have access to alter DNS records? I'm thinking for things like MX records, SPF, DKIM, that sort of thing.

 

If so, what's the procedure for changing the IPSTAG and getting it transferred to you?

[Edu-IT]

Seb, I'm looking to move our .sch.uk domain into our control. Do you still offer this for no charge? Would we have access to alter DNS records? I'm thinking for things like MX records, SPF, DKIM, that sort of thing.

 

If so, what's the procedure for changing the IPSTAG and getting it transferred to you?

You will likely have to recreate your DNS entries unless you're using a third party service to manage DNS in which case once the domain is within Vidahost just point the NS at whatever service.

 

As for changing the IPSTAG, your current provider will have to do that. Sign up with Vidahost so they expect your domain then get the tag changed.

[Zakah]

Seb, I'm looking to move our .sch.uk domain into our control. Do you still offer this for no charge? Would we have access to alter DNS records? I'm thinking for things like MX records, SPF, DKIM, that sort of thing.

 

If so, what's the procedure for changing theIPSTAG and getting it transferred to you?

Hi,

 

This is Zak from Vidahost, it is free to transfer over the .sch.uk domain. Once the domain is transferred over we can set the nameservers on the domain to our custom VHDNS.NET nameservers which will then allow you to manage the DNS records. If you drop in an email to [email protected] with the subject FAO ZAK, mention the domain that you wish to transfer over and I can do that for you. Once the order is placed our end you can then change the IPS Tag to THERMAL which will transfer it over to us.

[Oaktech]

Another happy long-time Vidahost customer here.

[limawhiskey]

Seb, I'm looking to move our .sch.uk domain into our control. Do you still offer this for no charge?

 

Finally got round to doing this. With the help of support it was relatively painless to transfer in the domain.

 

One snag - I was unable to use the automated system as it viewed the name.area.sch.uk domain as a subdomain of area.sch.uk. We've had similar problems with the Norton Safe Web service before; it blocked the whole area.sch.uk as one school had been flagged as hosting malware

 

Just the DNS records to replicate now before the LA remove our records from their nameservers!

[limawhiskey]

@vidahost

Our school's new public facing site is live on shared hosting and looking good. Unfortunately the hosting shares its public IP with some websites with adult content. This can be problematic for web filtering when we are serving our site over HTTPS; all sites on that IP end up tarred with the same brush.

 

Do you have any IP addresses that you only use for public sector hosting plans? I'm thinking similar content is unlikely to be found on any institution that's going through your public sector solutions offering:

 

Primary schools, universities, hospital trusts and local governments – we offer fully managed, reliable and cost-effective hosting solutions for public sector services.

 

I appreciate this is probably an easy question to ask , and a difficult one to answer. Thanks, Seb!

Edited October 27, 2017 by limawhiskey

[limawhiskey]

^ Bump @vidahost @Zakah

[limawhiskey]

Support have offered the option to go up to the VPS hosting level for a dedicated IP, the cost of which is too much for us and overkill for a single website.

 

We don't necessarily need a dedicated IP, but it seems that there is no segregation of adult content on your load balancers. I get that this would add significant admin overhead.

 

@vidahost @Zakah anything you can do before we have to look elsewhere?

Edited November 6, 2017 by limawhiskey