Historic webspace limits, quotas etc
Just received an email to one of Ye Olde A/Cs:
[quote]
" It has come to our attention that in the last 24 hours your website
has exceeded its webspace allowance. Because your site has only
gone over the webspace allowance by a small amount, no action will be
taken.
Your website was using 549 KB over its allocation in the last day.
Blah, blah, blah
Email ref: E0426 "
[quote]
Looking at what's there via ftp, I can see:
[QUOTE]
ROOT 7 files 123095 Bytes
B********** 8 files 220742 bytes
/P***** 3 files 163221 bytes
/P*******19 62 files 1961.93 KB
/P*******20 424 files 11500.79 KB
/P*******21 366 files 10074.15 KB
STUFF 4 files 2068.49 KB
TOTAL: Circa 25MB
[QUOTE]
This has also been confirmed by looking at the local copy of all files that have been uploaded.
What's going on here ?
What are the various alleged limits anyway ?
because the advised reference for help/info ...
http://www.plus.net/support/webspace/tips_and_info/webspace_faq.shtml#9
... is just a good old fashioned 404 I'm afraid 
and I'm fairly sure the Ts&Cs for Ye Olde A/Cs actually stated unlimited webspace was available.
Regrettably, the email is not exactly helpful is it ... very vocal about just how much some mysterious limit has been exceeded but very quiet about what exactly said limit actually is !!!
Hmmmmmmmmmmm, curioser and curioser said Alice ...
Webspace usage on the affected A/C is as follows according to the portal:
I can't even access the webspace on another historic plusnet A/C despite the portal showing that it should exist although it is also shown as currently empty as above. ftp.plus.net appears to reject the username and/or password that the portal readily accepts without any issues.
Totally confused ...
Hi @mikeb,
I'm sorry to see there's been some confusion. So that we can review this further, please could you send me a Private Message with the username for the account this is occurring on?
Thanks for the reply. I've also done some more digging since this morning:
Two historic A/Cs (1 force9 and 1 plusnet) appear to be mostly OK although both show different limits, webstats settings and current usage etc. via the portal. The figures shown may or may not be correct, I haven't checked them. Portal webstats links also appear to sort of work as expected and logfiles are usually, but not always, available via ftp. However, two other historic A/Cs (1 force9 and 1 plusnet) currently appear to have various issues:
username2.force9.co.uk
The A/C that received the usage warning email although the portal actually shows no webspace usage whatsoever. The portal webstats link also fails with a "not found" error and there are no logfiles available via ftp. The webspace is fully accessible via ftp to homepages.force9.net and also via www.username2.force9.co.uk although you'll only get a custom 404 unless you know exactly what's up there and where it is.
username2.plus.com
Webspace is available and active according to the portal but there is no portal webstats link or any other info apart from the expected ftp settings and instructions for use. Webspace is not accessible via ftp to ftp.plus.net (using exactly the same username and password that works for the portal) for some reason or via www.username2.plus.com because there is apparently no DNS record.
It's all very strange stuff despite the fact it's ancient history. Everything used to work just fine with all A/Cs. I'll send the username2 info by PM when I've worked out how to do it 
I now have good reason to believe that the figures for webspace usage available via the portal are at best inaccurate and at worst it would seem that the system is perhaps fundamentally broken. Maybe the data is only updated daily/weekly/whatever but I've seen no changes via the portal over several days now despite significant changes in webspace usage on several A/Cs. The published figures really do not appear to stack up with what I can actually see being used via ftp or indeed with the data that PN is apparently using to trigger the sending of 'abuse' warning e-mails.
Maybe this is just another example of the system/data being used by PN to monitor usage is fundamentally different to the system/data that is available to the customer in order to verify usage ? A bit like it is with bandwidth where a customer can only see webstats data but that is NOT what PN actually use to monitor bandwidth. It is entirely feasible to receive an e-mail warning and/or have your webspace disabled due to alleged 'abuse' even if webstats data shows that there was no problem or during periods when webstats are not being generated and made available for some reason or other.
I've just made another very significant change to the usage on 2 A/Cs so it will be very interesting to see what (if anything) happens to the portal figures and how long it takes for them to maybe get updated.
In the meantime, is anyone else able to confirm whether or not their webspace usage figure available via the portal bears any resemblance to the amount of webspace actually in use ?
Summary of things that apparently need fixing, in order of importance.
It's been a week now and I really do need to see some action on the
important stuff here at least please. It just shouldn't be in any way
difficult to 'unbreak' what has somehow been mysteriously broken should
it ? Most of this must be pretty standard stuff, nothing even remotely
complex. However, for fairly obvious reasons there is almost certainly
no point whatsoever even trying to discuss any of this with support
over the phone !
1) www.username2.plus.com no longer has a valid DNS record
DNS queries various result in nothing, an error or simply ...
" SOA plus.com ns1.force9.net hostmaster.force9.net "
" 2021073143 6002 2580 604800 8640 "
... rather than what's expected, i.e. something more like this:
" CNAME www.username2.plus.com homepages.plus.net "
" A homepages.plus.net 212.159.8.91 "
" A homepages.plus.net 212.159.9.91 "
" NS plus.net ns1.force9.net "
" NS plus.net ns2.force9.net "
" A ns1.force9.net 195.166.128.16 "
" A ns2.force9.net 195.166.128.17 "
The following *very* strange result was also regularly obtained:
" Providence RI, United States "
" Verizon "
" id 26925 "
" opcode QUERY "
" rcode NOERROR "
" flags QR RD RA "
" ;QUESTION "
" www.username2.plus.com. IN A "
" ;ANSWER "
" www.username2.plus.com. 10 IN A 23.202.231.167 "
" www.username2.plus.com. 10 IN A 23.217.138.108 "
" ;AUTHORITY "
" ;ADDITIONAL "
Both of these IPs are apparently US-based Akamai servers
2) FTP login/password for username2.plus.com is missing or corrupt
It requires synchronisation with the portal login/password
3) Webstats are not always present/working even when enabled
mywebstats.plus.net/force9/www.username2.force9.co.uk => not found
mywebstats.plus.net/plusnet/www.username2.plus.com => not found
It is probably correct that logfile DLs are missing on these 2 A/Cs
Other A/Cs seem OK with logfiles usually, but not always, available
4) Webspace usage figures via the portal are dubious at best
Figures are inaccurate and the system appears to be broken
I have evidence to suggest no updates for at least several months
However, it may well have been broken for significantly longer
This applies to ALL of my accounts and probably to everyone else's
5) Webspace alleged 'abuse', limits, quotas etc
It is not always possible to monitor usage to avoid alleged 'abuse'
Link to info/limits etc in the 'abuse' email no longer works (404)
Limits are being imposed but it is somewhat unclear what they are
Also unclear how data used to determine alleged 'abuse' is obtained
Another One Week Bites The Dust ...
Any news on this yet ?
