We have recently improved addon domains system and here is how it works.

Once someone clicks “Addon domains” section on cpanel the new account creation form will show in 2 ways.

1. If user does not have any paid account yes – a regular new account creating form will be displayed.

2. If cliens has at least 1 account upgraded – a special account creation form will open. It will allow client to enter domain and password only – the hosting plan and billing cycle will be automatically inherited from the first upgraded account. Once addon account will be created it will show as it is a part of first upgraded account. In this case advantage that client will not have to pay for new account again and client will be able to host unlimited addon domains with paid hosting plans for free and pay only for the first account that he decides to upgrade. In the same way most big hosting companies work – they allow to host unlimited domains and pay only for one – initial account.

Other notes:

- You can configure how much addon domains client can setup by editing hosting plan.

- When you edit due date for one account the same due date sets for all upgraded (addon) accounts.

- If you change status to the main upgraded upgraded account all addon domains will be get new status too. However you can change status for any addon domain individually.

- Billing cycle change applies for all addon accounts too.

- All addon domains are renewed automatically once client pays invoice for the main upgraded account.

- Another advance compared to original cPanel is that all addon account on YouHosting platform are actually separate accounts, all hosted on different servers, having different FTP logins, databases and so on.

Over the last few months we have seen an increased amount of DDOS attacks directed to our servers. This looks normal as amount of users are increasing in thousands every day. Additionally it is not just a regular servers like other paid web hosts run. Due to our unique cloud architecture we can host much more domains per server, websites’ density is huge. The downside is that the more domains we host per server the more DDOS attacks we get.. Also since most resellers provide free hosting, all the kind of phishers, hackers enjoy our service too.

A regular DDOS attack is when lots of IP addresses (usually it is normal PC’s infected with viruses) are trying to connect to our servers and taking out all resources of it. In most cases it is usually 20-100 computers that try to attack our servers or some website on it. It is easy to block such attacks manually but we do not prefer this way because every day every server gets 1-5 of such attacks, so we had to find a way how to block such attacks automatically and immediately after it starts. So we have implemented IP connections counter.

We actually had to 2 options:

1. do not count any connections from IPs, that means “allow unlimited connections to the servers and enjoy DDOS attacks”

2. or implement some kind of IP tracking and redirecting attackers to other special server that takes all load.

We have chosen option 2 and started counting connections form each IP in 24 hour intervals. We do also count so called “burst” connections that server receives in last 3 minutes. If a certain amount of connections per IP is reached IP address is added to the blocklist and all the following connections for such IP is redirected to the specific URL. You can configure where users that got IPs blocked will be redirected from the Reseller area -> Configure -> Configure Redirections section. In this way you can inform your legimate visitors why they got blocked and offer to visit website later. IP bans expires in 60 minutes and then counter resets zero again.

Unfortunately for security reasons we can’t disclose any information what are the limits for connections in 24 hours or burst connections in last 3 minutes, but we can tell you that these numbers are counted in thousands, so only a very low number of legimate users could be blocked. Moreover: only connections to the PHP and HTML files are counted! Image, javascripts, css, and other files are excluded so it increases accuracy of what exactly should be tracked (DDOS attacks are usually directed to index.htm/php files of websites so we count exactly what it is needed).

After few weeks of testing we see that this tracking works perfectly. Attacks are blocked immediately and automatically after it starts. We got few complains that some legimate users were blocked too, but previously we have been receiving much more complains due to server downtime. Now we have increased server security and also uptime which is almost 99.9% (it is almost perfect and hard to reach even for paid hosting providers).

To summarize - this block is barely noticeable. By using the website like a website, even if you are continually refreshing to see changes while editing pages, will not generate enough connections to get your IP banned. Only specific programs like DDOS tools, website copiers and livechat scripts can trigger this block (such scrips are not allowed to be hosted anyway).

One of the oldest and best working marketing option is now availabe with YouHositng – you can now offer your clients to register free domain names with paid hosting purchases.

Almost every web host is using this marketing trick in order to sell mroe. Hurry up and setup this for your service too.

Under the paid hosting plan configuration there are 2 options:
- Do not allow free domain registration.
- Allow free domain registration.

Once you choose “Allow” you can also set:
- Register domain for free only for 1 year and renew for regular price
- Register and renew domain for free as long hosting plan is active

Of coure, registering domain names will cost you money, however you will still earn more by selling hosting. You should set hosting plan monthly price to at least $2 in order to benefit from this offer (industry average is around $5-7/mo).