Dedicated Server and VPS Support Boundaries
Support for dedicated and virtual server customers is separated into two categories, managed and self managed, as the support varies significantly between these two groups of customers. The tables in this section provide a guide as to what level of support will be provided based on the customer’s management status, as well as the limitations that apply to managed services.
Definition: Self Managed Server
A self managed server constitutes a server where the operating system environment and any performance or operational monitoring (excluding hardware failures) is fully configured and maintained by the customer. Hardware failures are monitored and responded to as part of the Crucial SLA.
Self managed server support extends to:
1. Replacement of failed hardware.
2. Ensuring the server is accessible via the network and access is available using SSH or RDP
3. Where DRAC access is enabled for a customer, support only extends to ensuring the server is accessible via the DRAC interface and that the customer can access the DRAC over the public network.
4. Where a customer has access to a VPS control panel (e.g. Parallels Power Panel), support extends to ensuring the customer has access to this panel and that the VPS can be successfully started from the panel, resulting in SSH access being available to the server.
5. Where a customer has a self-managed VPS we may make minor configuration changes without notice if that server’s configuration is negatively affecting other VPS Servers on the same host node. This will be completed by a Systems Administrators who is experienced with the issue.
Self managed server support does not cover:
1. Code development or troubleshooting.
2. Debugging custom software applications
3. Performing Systems Administration tasks.
Definition: Managed Server
A managed server constitutes a server where the operating system environment and any performance or operational monitoring is maintained by Crucial Systems Administrators as defined and limited by the tables and boundaries below. For servers that require the installation and configuration of additional software that is not within the boundaries defined in the tables below, server management will NOT be available to the customer and they will need to ensure they have appropriate resources on hand to manage their server hosted with Crucial.
Managed server support does not cover:
1. Account level management for domains hosted on the server – i.e. tasks that can be carried out from within an individual domain’s control panel interface.
2. Code development or troubleshooting.
3. Debugging custom software applications.
Customers are solely responsible for managing and configuring domains and applications hosted on their server and the addition of this level of support is not possible under any managed server plans.
 | Important Note – Custom Configurations on Managed Servers If a customer manually installs software that is not supported under Crucial’s management plans, and this software is deemed to be causing ongoing issues with the standard installation of the server, Crucial may choose to remove the management option from the customer’s plan and advise the customer they must maintain the server environment using their own management resources. |
Customer Support Contacts
Only defined customer contacts can submit support issues, and these support requests must be submitted using the contact email addresses listed under the account. Customers can add and update additional contacts from their billing portal.
General Support Boundaries
Initial Server Deployment
Nature Of Task | Managed Server | Self Managed Server |
Operating System Installation | Minimal installation of CentOS. | Minimal installation of CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, or Windows Server(dedicated only). |
Control Panel Installation | Installation of cPanel or Plesk on CentOS or Plesk | N/A |
Control Panel Configuration | Default configuration for cPanel or Plesk | N/A |
Server Updates
Nature Of Task | Managed Server | Self Managed Server |
Updates to cPanel/Plesk | Updates to cPanel/Plesk handled via their inbuilt update scripts | N/A |
Updates to Operating System (Linux) | Updates to additional packages installed handled via Yum updates process. | N/A |
Server Monitoring
Nature Of Task | Managed Server | Self Managed Server |
Hardware monitoring | Full hardware monitoring enabled | Full hardware monitoring enabled |
Network Monitoring | Full network monitoring enabled | Basic ping monitoring enabled |
Individual Website Monitoring | Not supported. Use of services such as Pingdom recommended. | N/A |
Server Configuration – Linux (cPanel)
Nature Of Task | Managed Server | Self Managed Server |
DNS | Installation and default configuration of nameserver. | N/A |
Apache 2.2.x, PHP 5.3.x | EasyApache installation of the latest available releases of PHP and Apache. | N/A |
MySQL 5.x | Installation of latest MySQL release available within cPanel. | N/A |
Email Server | Installation and default configuration of email delivery manager(Dovecot or Courier). | N/A |
FTP Server | Installation and default configuration of FTP (Pure-FTP recommended) | N/A |
Software Firewall | Installation and default configuration of ConfigServer Security&Firewall | N/A |
Additional Apache and PHP modules | Installation of additional modules using EasyApache is supported, however limitations apply. | N/A |
Installing Additional Modules – EasyApache
EasyApache contains a long list of optional modules that can be installed, most of which can be installed by Crucial under a managed solution. However, not all modules installable via EasyApache are supported under server management due to various system, configuration, or operational constraints.
The table below contains the modules available for installation via EasyApache and there support status for managed and self managed servers.
| Note 1: Items under the self managed list that are marked as supported are only done so because they are installed with the default cPanel EasyApache build. |
Apache Built-in Modules | Default Installation – Managed | Advanced Configuration – Managed | Default Installation – Self Managed | Advanced Configuration – Self Managed |
Asis | Yes | – | – | – |
Auth Digest | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthnAlias | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthnAnon | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthnDBD | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthnDBM | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthnDefault | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthnzLDAP | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthzDBM | Yes | – | – | – |
AuthzOwner | Yes | – | – | – |
Bucketeer | Yes | – | – | – |
Cache | Yes | – | – | – |
CaseFilter | Yes | – | – | – |
CaseFilterIn | Yes | – | – | – |
Cern Meta | Yes | – | – | – |
Charset Lite | Yes | – | – | – |
DAVFs | Yes | – | – | – |
DAVLock | Yes | – | – | – |
DBD | Yes | – | – | – |
Dav | Yes | – | – | – |
Deflate | Yes | – | – | – |
Disk Cache | Yes | – | – | – |
Distcache | Yes | – | – | – |
Dumpio | Yes | – | – | – |
Echo | Yes | – | – | – |
Env | Yes | – | – | – |
Expires | Yes | – | Yes | – |
ExtFilter | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod FCGID | Yes | – | – | – |
File Cache | Yes | – | – | – |
Fileprotect | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Frontpage | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Headers | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Ident | Yes | – | – | – |
Imagemap | Yes | – | – | – |
LDAP | Yes | – | – | – |
Log Forensic | Yes | – | – | – |
MPM Event | Yes | – | – | – |
MPM Prefork | Yes | – | – | – |
MPM Worker | Yes | – | – | – |
MemCache | Yes | – | – | – |
Mime Magic | Yes | – | – | – |
Optional Fn Export | Yes | – | – | – |
Optional Fn Import | Yes | – | – | – |
Optional Hook Export | Yes | – | – | – |
Optional Hook Import | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod SuPHP | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Proxy | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Speling | Yes | – | – | – |
UniqueId | Yes | – | – | – |
Usertrack | Yes | – | – | – |
Version | Yes | – | – | – |
Vhost Alias | Yes | – | – | – |
Other Modules | Default Installation – Managed | Advanced Configuration – Managed | Default Installation – | Advanced Configuration – |
EAccelerator for PHP | Yes | Yes | – | – |
IonCube Loader for PHP | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod Bandwidth | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod GeoIP | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod HTScanner | Yes | – | – | – |
Tomcat | – | – | – | – |
Mod Mono (.Net 1.x) | – | – | – | – |
Mod Mono (.Net 2.x) | – | – | – | – |
Mod Perl | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod Qos | Yes | – | – | – |
Mod Ruid2 | EXPERIMENTAL | EXPERIMENTAL | – | – |
Mod Security | Yes | Yes | – | – |
Suhosin for PHP | Yes | Yes | – | – |
SourceGuardian Loader for PHP | Yes | – | – | – |
Xcache for PHP | Yes | – | – | – |
Zend Guard Loader for PHP | Yes | – | – | – |
PHP 5.3.x Modules | Default Installation – Managed | Advanced Configuration – Managed | Default Installation – | Advanced Configuration – Self Managed |
Bcmath | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Bz2 | Yes | – | – | – |
CGI | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Calendar | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Curl | Yes | – | – | – |
CurlSSL | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Curlwrappers | Yes | – | – | – |
Enchant | Yes | – | – | – |
Exif | Yes | – | – | – |
Expat | Yes | – | – | – |
FTP | Yes | – | Yes | – |
FileInfo | Yes | – | – | – |
GD | Yes | – | – | – |
Gettext | Yes | – | – | – |
Iconv | Yes | – | – | – |
Imap | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Intl | Yes | – | – | – |
MM | Yes | – | – | – |
Magic Quotes | Yes | – | Yes | – |
MailHeaders | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Mbregex | Yes | – | – | – |
Mbstring | Yes | – | – | – |
Mcrypt | Yes | – | – | – |
Mysql | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Mysql of the system | Yes | – | Yes | – |
MySQL “Improved” extension. | Yes | – | – | – |
Openssl | Yes | – | Yes | – |
PDO | Yes | – | – | – |
PDO MySQL | Yes | – | – | – |
POSIX | Yes | – | – | – |
Path Info Check | Yes | – | – | – |
Pear | Yes | – | – | – |
PGsql | Yes | – | – | – |
Phar | Yes | – | – | – |
Pspell | Yes | – | – | – |
SNMP | Yes | – | – | – |
SOAP | Yes | – | – | – |
SQLite3 | Yes | – | – | – |
SafeMode | Yes | – | – | – |
Safe PHP CGI | Yes | – | – | – |
Silence Deprecated Patch | Yes | – | – | – |
Sockets | Yes | – | Yes | – |
System Timezone | Yes | – | – | – |
TTF (FreeType) | Yes | – | – | – |
Tidy | Yes | – | – | – |
Wddx | Yes | – | – | – |
XSL | Yes | – | – | – |
XmlRPC | Yes | – | – | – |
Zend Multibyte | Yes | – | – | – |
Zip | Yes | – | – | – |
Zlib | Yes | – | Yes | – |
Installing Additional Modules – Yum or Manual Installation
For additional server modules that are not available via cPanel’s EasyApache tool, these need to be assessed on a case by case basis. The Customer should contact Crucial with the details of the module they wish to have installed, and it will be at the discretion of Crucial whether the installation will be supported under management.
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Installing Additional Perl Modules or PHP Extensions
Items under the WHM sections “Module Installers” and “Install a Perl Module” can be installed under server management time. However, advanced configuration and instructional advice on how to use these additional modules is NOT covered by server management. Clients wishing to have these installed will need to work through the appropriate documentation to configure and integrate them into their requirements.
Installing Ruby Gems
Ruby Gem(s) may be installed under management time. However advanced configuration and instructional advice on how to use these additional modules is NOT covered by server management. Clients wishing to have these installed will need to work through the appropriate documentation to configure and integrate them into their requirements.
Installing Softaculous
Installation of Softaculous will be done under a managed server solution when licensing for Softaculous has been purchased through us. A customer may also install Softaculous themselves if they choose to purchase a license for it elsewhere.
| Installing Alternatives to Softaculous (e.g. Installatron or Softaculous) |
Server Configuration – Linux (Plesk)
Nature Of Task | Default Installation – Managed | Advanced Configuration – Managed | Default Installation – Self Managed | Advanced Configuration – Self Managed |
DNS | yes | yes | – | – |
Apache 2.2.x, PHP 5.3.x | yes | yes | – | – |
MySQL 5.x | yes | yes | – | – |
Email Server | yes | yes | – | – |
FTP Server | yes | yes | – | – |
Software Firewall | yes | yes | – | – |
Additional Server Modules | yes | yes | – | – |
| Additional Server Modules is limited to those available in the System section of Plesk or made available for download by Parallels for the Plesk Control Panel. |
Installing Additional Software and Extensions
The installation of additional software and web related extensions is NOT supported under Crucial’s management plans for Windows Server environments. If customers choose to install additional applications, they must ensure they have the appropriate resources on hand to manage the installation, configuration, and any ongoing performance related issues that may arise as a result of the installed software.
Troubleshooting and Resolving Server Issues (Software) on Managed Servers
Limitation of Time Included with Plan
Management plans come with a limited amount of system administration time which may vary from plan to plan. Once the allocated time has been utilised, whether for server maintenance or addressing server issues, additional system administration time will need to be purchased if further investigations or tasks are required.
Investigation and Resolution of Issues with Default and Approved applications
When an issue arises with a server component that is within the support boundaries outlined above, Crucial Systems Administrators will investigate and attempt to resolve the issue wherever possible. Serious issues that result in additional time needed above the amount of time allocated to a management plan will require additional system administration time to be purchased.
| As Crucial is not the developer of the software utilised on the dedicated solutions we provide, we do not accept any liability for issues that arise from its use. Whilst Crucial will always endeavour to resolve issues whenever possible, from time to time we may need to pass the issue over to the support technicians provided by the software developer. |
Investigation and Resolution of Issues with Non Standard/Supported Applications
When an issue arises on the server, and it is determined that the cause of the issue is due to an unsupported application that is installed, Crucial Systems Administrators can only provide initial guidance on what component may be responsible for the issue. A resolution to the issue will need to be sought from the support channels of the applicable software developers. If the software developer’s support technicians advise on configuration adjustments that can be made to default or supported server components, Crucial Systems Administrators will make the required adjustments as part of the management plan. If no additional management time is left, additional administration time will need to be purchased for these changes to be carried out.
Troubleshooting and Resolving Server Issues (Software) on Self Managed Servers
The investigation and resolution of server issues, excluding hardware failures, on self managed servers is the sole responsibility of the customer. However, if an issue arises with a server component that Crucial Systems Administrators are familiar with, these can be investigated and resolved with the advance purchase of system administration time if the customer requests our assistance.
