Fast2host - News

Centos3 Server UPDATE

Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are currently carrying out an update on this server. During this time, services may be temporarily unavailable. The update may take several hours.

Issue with cloudflare

Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

There is currently an issue with Cloudflare who we use for the Plesk web server control panels, as such customers may have issues logging into Plesk. We hope that this issue at Cloudflare will be resolved soon the issue can be tracked at https://www.cloudflarestatus.com/

Available 24/7, even throughout the Christmas season!

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

As we approach the end of 2024, we want to extend our thanks to all our customers and supporters for joining us. It has been an incredible year for our team, highlighted by the addition of new customers, the successful launch of our new data center (https://www.fast2host.com/Fast2host-New-Data-centre-now-open.pdf), and significant expansions and upgrades to our services.

But our work doesn’t stop there. We’re proud to remain available 24/7, even throughout the Christmas season!

A Snapshot of 2024:
2,224 Support Tickets Resolved
Average Response Time:
1 hour, 34 minutes, and 46 seconds
First Reply Resolutions: 94%

This Christmas, we’re continuing to invest in your success with server, system, and network upgrades, all with zero or little downtime.

Exciting News!

We’re also preparing to launch a brand-new website, and we’d love for you to be part of it. Share a review about your experience with us, we’ll proudly feature your company logo along with a link back to your website. Thank you for making 2024 an unforgettable year. Here’s to an even brighter 2025 together we have much planned ahead.

November update

Sat, 30 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

From now on, we will publish monthly updates about what goes on behind the scenes at Fast2host. This month's news :

New phone system - Some of you may already know we have a new improved phone system. New fresh hold music with queue holding status and auto verification with AI. The caller's number is verified against the account held with us to ensure you are the correct account holder.

IPv6 Roll Out - We have been working on the IPv6 rollout for some time and currently have 65,536 IPv6 addresses which we have started to roll out and can offer any dedicated, lease line, or colocation customers. We already peering over IPv6. Contact sales if you would like IPv6.

LONAP - We are currently working on connecting to London Access Point (LONAP) is a London-based Internet exchange point (IXP) founded in 1997 as a membership organization and currently has over 200 members, making it the second largest IXP in the UK and around the 15th largest IXP in the world by membership. We already connect to the largest London Internet Exchange (LINX) with over 950 peers.

Cloud VPS - New fresh look with many new advanced features

Smartermail upgrade - We have made major improvements to our Plesk mail system. With support for all major email protocols, including IMAP, POP, EAS, EWS, WebDav, and MAPI. New improved webmail client: online meetings, individual and public shares, live chat, robust calendaring, complete task management, file storage, and more!

Anti-Spam system has seen huge improvements with no Microsoft issues or blocks. Here are the results in last week:

We are currently rolling out AutoSSL for all mail accounts on the Plesk smartermail system. This will take time there is currently 15,000 SSL's outstanding which we are implementing. All Linux Hosting accounts mail in on SSL. This means you no longer need to use mail.plesk-secure.com you will have your own SSL over mail.

For December we have allot more to come. MS SQL servers upgraded.

SmarterMail System Upgrade

Mon, 26 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0100

We have upgraded our mail system with exciting new features, enhanced security with multi-layered protection/prevention. 2FA is now supported for an extra layer of security for webmail. Login to our webmail to enable this feature.

SmarterMail also now offers a number of collaboration features that make it easy to work together with team members, customers, and partners. This includes organizational calendars, conference room scheduling, shared contacts, calendars, tasks and notes, instant messenger, Online Meetings for online conferencing, and much more. Visit https://www.smartertools.com/smartermail/online-meetings for more information.

Fast2host Opens New Datacentre

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Fast2host is committed to providing high-quality, high-availability hosting, colocation and internet services. Therefore we have started from the top down and built a brand new high-spec Data Centre at Tier 3 specifications. For information visit https://www.fast2host.com/Fast2host-New-Data-centre-now-open.pdf

Network risk

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Network maintenance is scheduled early hours of tomorrow morning: Telehouse North 2 (rt0-thn2) - Saturday 18th November, at risk from 01:00 AM till 02:00 AM GMT Equinix LD8 (rt0-hex) - Saturday 18th November, at risk from 02:30 AM till 03:30 AM GMT DDCL (rt0-cr) - Saturday 18th November, at risk from 04:00 AM till 05:00 AM GMT

Notification of Works: Generator upgrade and refresh

Tue, 21 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Notification of Works: Generator upgrade and refresh. The status of this maintenance is as follows:- Upgrade and refresh Works Description: Our St. Neots Generator will be undergoing an upgrade and refresh with an HVO Low Emissions generator; customers are on an “at risk” window during this time. No customer should be affected during this time, but consideration to Data Centre power loss has been given. - Reason for work: ongoing equipment refresh and replacement - Affected: Customers hosted in our St. Neots Datacentre. - Impact: The existing generator will be isolated and replaced by the new generator; customers will be in an “at risk” state during this time in the event of a power failure. - At Risk Window Start: 24/03/23 – 09:00 (Site Local Time) - At Risk Window End: 24/03/23 – 12:00 (Site Local Time)

3D Secure card payment regulation changes

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As you may be aware, due to new credit/debit card payment regulations we have had to update our system to allow 3D secure card authentication payments. As such all initial card payments now need to pass through 3D secure before recurring billing can take place. You only need to go through 3D secure once, all subsequent payments can be taken without user intervention. To do this you will need to log in to your client portal on our website and pay an open invoice manually, adding card details to the client portal will not work (but should for any replacement cards from the same bank). You will need to do this before your next invoice is due or recurring billing will be unsuccessful which could result in service suspension. We apologize for any inconvenience this has or will cause.

Issue with ENOM - DNS and email

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

There is currently an ongoing issue with the domain registrar, https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/enom-data-center-migration-mistakenly-knocks-sites-offline/

Contact Form 7 WordPress Plugin Vulnerability

Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A critical vulnerability was found in Contact Form 7. The WordPress utility is activated on more than 5 million websites, and 70% of these are running the unprotected 5.3.1 version or older. The vulnerability allows attackers to bypass Contact Form 7’s filename sanitization and upload a file that can be executed as a script file on the host server.

WordPress allows multiple user roles such as contributors, editors, subscribers, authors, etc. In Contact Form 7, this vulnerability allows attackers to bypass Contact Form 7’s filename sanitization. A user can behave like a contributor and be able to edit the content form. This feature should be available only for editors and admins. With this permission, the attacker can also upload a malicious code that can be used to tamper with a database and obtain a reverse shell, opening the way for further attacks. The urgent security and maintenance 5.3.2 version is released. We strongly recommend you to update your plugin to it ASAP.

Planned Network Outage

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0100

There will be a planned network outage on 03/09 between 00:00 to 6:00. Downtime should be no more than 30 minutes but worst case scenario could be 6 hours. This affects our lines to Telehouse in London. We apologise for the inconvenience, but this is essential maintenance to improve our network speed and redundancy.

Removal of Squirrelmail from cPanel

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

cPanel webmail users may have noticed that Squirrelmail is no longer available as an option. The cPanel developers have removed Squirrelmail in the latest updates. This is their reasoning:

Why SquirrelMail is being removed

An all too common story with open source projects is a loss of invested developers. A once active, vibrant developer community diminishes as other things take priority. When that happens, its users often leave as well.

SquirrelMail’s last update was May 30th, 2013, with their last release on July 12, 2011. In that seven years, 4 versions of PHP have reached End of Life, and we have worked with others in the community to maintain SquirrelMail.

Unfortunately, recent security patches have significant problems, forcing us into a choice. Exclude the security fix and ship SquirrelMail with known security flaws, ship a secure version with known interface issues, or attempt to fix the problems. Webmail users now expect a better experience than SquirrelMail provides. Rather than continuing to ship an unmaintained application, we decided to remove SquirrelMail.

5th place for best colocation

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Fast2host came 5th from techradar !

For full review visit https://www.techradar.com/news/best-colocation-hosting

Highly Critical Drupal Vulnerability

Sat, 31 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

2 days ago, a serious vulnerability, SA-CORE-2018-002 (CVE-2018-7600) has been found in Drupal 6, 7 and 8, which affects over one million websites. All the unpatched Drupals are in serious danger! An attacker can upload backdoors or malware via this newly discovered vulnerability. The vulnerability is scored 21/25 Highly Critical! Read here for more info and how to proceed: https://www.drupal.org/sa-core-2018-002

Windows servers migration to plesk

Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0100

Windows servers migration to Plesk

Due to some of windows systems being far too outdated or not running as well as we hoped.
We have decided to start migrating all windows hosted websites over to a new system called Plesk.
All migrated sites will benefit from
* New high-spec secure Windows 2016 servers
* LetsEncrypt - Free SSL's
* Multi PHP version support with faster PHP handlers
* Latest ASP.Net versions
* .Net Core support
* SQL Server 2017

and much much more....

Before we start doing your sites you will receive an email from us which may contain any extra actions we have to undertake to migrate your account. This may involve removing domains that are no longer used.
This process will be ongoing for at least 6 months.

If you experience any issue during or after migration please contact the support team and we will look into it for you.

Parallels offers a demo of the admin panel for Plesk 12.5: Plesk Demo

Centos5 server replacement

Thu, 15 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Centos5 Server Migration

As many of you may be aware, the Centos5 Cpanel server on 185.4.48.18 has been unstable recently therefore we will be replacing this with a new high-spec server and the latest software.

As CentOS operating systems cannot be upgraded in-situ, we have to migrate all sites to a new server running the newer CentOS-7 operating system. This will happen this weekend for sites hosted on the centos5.whm-secure.com server - 185.4.48.18

Migration will commence at 10pm Friday 16th. During the migration, some sites and email on centos5.whm-secure.com may not be available however this will be only for a short period.

We hope this process will be completed within 24 hours, but cannot guarantee this. After migration, IP addresses will remain the same and all sites should function as normal.

UPS batteries replaced and tested

Tue, 12 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

All batteries in our UPS systems have now been replaced. The system has been tested and is working correctly.

Centos5 server

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This server has been recovered and is back online.

Centos5 Linux server issues

Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0100

There is currently and issue with the centos5 Linux server - 185.4.48.xx WE hope to have this resolved shortly.

CloudFlare Enabled Railgun

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0100

We’re thrilled to announce that we partnered with CloudFlare to bring their Railgun™ technology to you free with all cpanel hosting packages. Railgun is a new web optimization technology that increases your site’s load time significantly. Websites using Railgun show a 143% improvement in HTML load times and a 90% decrease in time to first byte (TTFB) responses. We invite you to try Railgun for your websites today.

What is CloudFlare Railgun™?

CloudFlare’s Railgun technology greatly speeds up the delivery of non-cached pages. While CloudFlare automatically caches about 65% of the resources needed to make up a page, 35% can't be cached because the resources are dynamically generated or marked as 'do not cache'. That 35% is often the initial HTML of the page that must be downloaded first. CloudFlare Railgun speeds up this remaining 35%.

How does it work?

CloudFlare Railgun uses a delta compression technique to recognize that even dynamically-generated or personalized pages change only a little over time or between users. The compression technology reduces the amount of data that is sent over the Internet to CloudFlare's data centers from your backend web servers. The result is faster delivery of the critical HTML that the browser must receive before it can download the rest of the page.

How do I enable Railgun?

Enabling Railgun is easy. Simply log into your cPanel account, go to the CloudFlare application and select “On” from the Railgun menu.

New domain pricing

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Unfortunately, due to the current state of the dollar/pound exchange rate, we have had to increase the pricing for some of our domain names. The new pricing can be seen at https://www.fast2host.com/services/domain-names

Centos2 Server Migration

Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Centos2 Server Migration

As many of you may be aware, the CentOS-5 Linux operating system is now end of life.

Migration will commence at 10pm Friday 23rd June. During the migration, some sites and email on centos2.whm-secure.com may not be available.

We hope this process will be completed within 12 hours, but cannot guarantee this. After migration, IP addresses will remain the same and all sites should function as normal.

An added bonus of the migration is the free Cpanel/Comodo 90-day, auto-renewing SSL certificates for your websites, meaning Google will no longer penalise you for running a non-SSL website. These cerificates will be installed automatically over the next few days after the migration.

Centos3 Server Migration

Fri, 26 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Centos3 Server Migration As many of you may be aware, the CentOS-5 Linux operating system is now end of life. As CentOS operating systems cannot be upgraded in-situ, we have to migrate all sites to a new server running the newer CentOS-7 operating system. This will happen this weekend for sites hosted on the centos3.whm-secure.com server - 95.128.128.74 Migration will commence at 10pm Friday 26th May. During the migration, some sites and email on centos3.whm-secure.com may not be available. We hope this process will be completed within 12 hours, but cannot guarantee this. After migration, IP addresses will remain the same and all sites should function as normal. An added bonus of the migration is the free Cpanel/Comodo 90-day, auto-renewing SSL certificates for your websites, meaning Google will no longer penalise you for running a non-SSL website.

VNODE10 Windows 2008 server being rebooted

Wed, 17 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

VNODE10 Windows 2008 server is being rebooted to fix a current issue

WannaCry ransomware patch !

Sat, 13 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Microsoft has just released an emergency security patch update for all its unsupported version of Windows, including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 8, Server 2003 and 2008 Editions.

http://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4012598

Centos4 Server Migration

Wed, 03 May 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Centos4 Server Migration As many of you may be aware, the CentOS-5 Linux operating system is now end of life. As CentOS operating systems cannot be upgraded in-situ, we have to migrate all sites to a new server running the newer CentOS-7 operating system. This will happen this weekend for sites hosted on the centos4.whm-secure.com server. Migration will commence at 10pm Friday 5th May. During the migration, all sites and email on centos4.whm-secure.com will be unavailable. We hope this process will be completed within 12 hours, but cannot guarantee this. After migration, IP addresses will remain the same and all sites should function as normal.

Billing errors - 7th April

Fri, 07 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0100

Unfortunately there was an issue with our previous billing system, and invoices/payments were generated from that system this morning. These payments will all be voided by the end of the day, and these invoices can be ignored. Sorry for the issues this may have caused.

VNODE1 Windows server issue

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0100

We are currently experiencing a hardware issue with the VNODE1 Windows 2003 server 95.128.129.192 We are working hard to get this resolved as soon as possible.

Our Phone System

Wed, 08 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

We have had reports from our upstream provider that some calls are having issues, they have reported this to the vendor concerned and we are awaiting updates from them.

Network update

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

At 12 midnight on monday the 27th there will be a short network outage lasting between 30 seconds to 2 min. This is due to a network switch upgrade.

Centos5 Linux Server issue

Sat, 21 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There is currently an issue with MySQL on centos5 linux server affecting a number of sites. We are doing a restore of the MySQL system, but this may take an hour or more.

centos5 linux server rebooted

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The centos5 linux server is being rebooted to fix a kernel issue

Connectivity issues

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

External network issues affecting many of our clients today. Working with ISP's to get it resolved as soon as possible.

Latest on connectivity issue

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

UPDATE FROM VIRGIN MEDIA: Dear customer/s In relation to the issue identified in the East Midlands and East of England regions regarding loss of service. We are still working hard to resolve these issues as a priority. We have had our core network and Business Operations technical teams investigating since the start of the outage trying to diagnose the issue. Please accept our apologies at this time as we are treating this matter with the utmost urgency.

VNODE13 Windows 2003 server

Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

VNODE13 Windows 2003 server is being rebooted due to an issue

VNODE1 Windows server - scheduled maintenance

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Due to yesterdays disk issues with the VNODE1 Windows server, we need to run a disk/file repair. This is scheduled for midnight tonight, and all sites on VNODE1 will be off-line while the repair is running. This may take a few hours.

VNODE1 Windows server

Wed, 16 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We are aware of the issue with the VNODE1 Windows server - 95.128.129.192 The RAID array is currently rebuilding due to a failure. We don't have an ETA, but it will hopefully be resolved shortly.

Ongoing issues with Centos5

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

We are extremely sorry for the ongoing issues with the centos5 Linux server. We are doing everything we can to get this resolved, and we may have to reboot the server once or twice during business hours.