Here are my instructions for setting up a dedicated Windows 2003 server at Crystaltech, since I am not using one anymore I thought I would publish it now.

These step by step instructions were written for me, I was never going to publish them, so I hope you can make sense of them. I wish I had something like this when I started with my new box. It took me a month to set it up and test out.

This is split up in to two parts, setting up the box and then setting up each site for Crystaltech hosting.

Dedicated Box Set Up ($75 for the work CT did and I did the rest):

1. Coldfusion 8 installed (CT dedicated team)
2. PHP installed (CT dedicated team) PHP Version 5.2.5
3. SmarterMail (CT dedicated team)
4. SmarterStats (CT dedicated team)
5. SmarterTicket (CT dedicated team)
6. Ports on Firewall lock down for my IP address (CT dedicated team)
7. MySQL5 installed and configured by me with CT help
8. Created a database
9. Setup U-Serv from the article #582, loaded site in intenetpub and not wwwroot
10. Loaded the new HeidiSQL, and then create user for me
11. Changed some Coldfusion settings like debug and other items
12. Setup a 95% processor alert for Sysmon
13. Setup the CT monitor for each site
14. Make the upload blog dir just “write” for that folders permissions
15. Please go into SQL and uncheck “maintain connection” your SQL sessions may be causing this issue.
16. Ok, In IIS click on Smartermail –> Properties Go to the ASP.NET tab. Change it from 1.1 to 2.0 and then say ok
17. Added flv file ext to all sites
18. Run dnsstuff tests
19. Deactivate WP plugins on transfer
20. Setup reverse dns in ctrl ctr
21. uncheck: Enable Robust Exception Information
22. added SPF record v=spf1 a mx ip4:67.199.xx ?all #798 article
23. We have verified that port 443 is open you will need to go into IIS and on the Web Site Tab you should be able to set the SSL port to 443.
24. Exported SSL pfx to dedicated box following the KB#241
25. Copy LPICOM_6_0.dll to the %ROOT%/system32 directory (C:\WINNT\system32\).
26. Register the LPICOM_6_0.dll. (regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\lpicom_6_0.dll)
27. Backup wordpress folder is writable for db backup
28. After about 3 weeks the SSL cert failed in both browsers, tech placed three new files on the server and fixed it, something to do with a Global cert. More info here: https://crystaltech.xrampsecurity.com/support.php?s=val
29. CT turned off shadow copy because it eat up all my hard drive space
30. Services: In properties (right click on MySql service, recovery tab) I now have it set to restart the service after Second failure and restart after 1 minute
31. I changed the Folder from PHP 5.2.5 to just PHP and then added the Web Extensions and added .php to the IIS website extensions as well.

Setting up a New Site on the box (Takes me 2.5 hours per site)

WWWRoot Dir

• Create a new directory in wwwroot on the server.

CT Control panel DNS Reverse Zone Manager

• Check which IP is the next available in the IP block

FTP Serv-U Setup

• Lock down the directory just in case.
• Add a user with the domain name minus the extension
• Check boxes on the right hand side – except execute.
• Troubleshoot: if it does not work, CT may not have allowed the new IP addresses in the firewall after Comcast modem reset.

Dreamweaver:

• Upload all the files.

MySQL Setup

• WordPress make sure you deactivate the Quickstats before moving the database
• Upload the DB via FTP; or
• Setup a new DB – do this from the Server – permissions for the user issues

IIS Web Site Setup KB#586

• Run through the wizard and you will see it is stopped
• Make all the changes below
• Then start the site in pull down right click

Host Header Value – don’t use.

Computer Management Console

• KB 564 (don’t do NS1, NS2 Host A setup, skip steps 5 and 6)
• KB 566 add X to host and revise to * at bottom of article
• Add another host a record for email
• Add a TXT record: v=spf1 a mx ip4:67.199.xxx ?all
• http://www.michaelbrumm.com/spfwindowsdns/

CT Control Center

• KB 572 Reverse DNS Zones for mail
• www.dnsstuff.com to see if you have it right after 24 hours

Set up the DSN for the database in CF Admin

In CF Admin add a new DSN for the database.

Do not check “maintain connections” (default) because your sessions will die in 20 minutes and show an error for invalid session. You will get an error until you load the DB.

Firefox

• Type in the IP address to see if it is working, or on the box with the true URL
• (after GoDaddy) Try the actual domain name sometimes it is just a few minutes or 12 hours on Comcast. In the beginning if it does work right away you will see no IP address at the bottom of FF.
• Reboot because of TTL on local machine if mail is still not working after 12 hours
• ipconfig/flushdns

GoDaddy (do now because it takes awhile)

• Change over to NS1.x.com and NS2. x.com
• Reboot local machine to clear DNS.
• Cancel old shared host

Set up Stats:

• Log on with admin for the site ID for the main stats area
• Use full url for domain
• Log format iis W3cex format
• Check “Trim URL”
• Put in the default page extensions “default.cfm,index.php”
• c:\inetpub\wwwroot\x for export dir
• CT: “When you go through the Site Setup there is an option to browse IIS for the Site Folder. That is way easier than manually typing the location of the Website Log files. Use that Option when you setup additional sites on SmarterStats.”
• you have to visit the ip address at least once to set up the stats or you will get an error it can’t find the right folder to access them

Setup mail

• Technical / check Require SMTP Authentication

Tests

• http://www.checkdns.net/quickcheck.aspx
• http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html
• http://uptime.netcraft.com/
• http://whois.domaintools.com/

Security Issues

• This was not checked (top box) http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc787602.aspx so it did not pass Security Metrics test. This means you will not be able to surf the web on your box (you will see your own sites). But this kills the xml parsing for Google API to maps on the geocode.

After a year of having my own dedicated server over at CrystalTech, I called it quits. If you want to see how I set it up go here.

The box was super fast and served up my web sites like never before with the lowest page load times of 10ms – 40ms range for just about any dynamic page I created.

But I have had some downtime with the box over the past year. The last time was 5 hours while Coldfusion was being reinstalled. 5 hours feels like a month in those conditions!

So I decided to try something different in 2009. Go back to shared Coldfusion hosting on CrystalTech but use DNSMadeEasy to do fail over to a shared backup site hosted on HostMySite.

The CrystalTech dedicated box costs me $306.95 a month for:

1. Pentium D Box 3.0GHz Intel® Pentium® D
2. Managed services patch etc
3. 2 Gig of RAM
4. Backups
5. Firewall Hardware
6. Virus Software
7. Additional IP – 3 blocks of 4

But it was not the money that was the issue, it was the maintenance. As a one man shop I found I was better off letting someone handle that for me even though it was fun at first.

Here are my pros and cons for the box:

PROS – Shared Environment:

1. If I am on vacation it is nice to know someone can fix it within minutes of it going down
2. CrystalTech works on a shared box much faster than my dedicated box
3. Easier to get the credit card security company to verify my set up on a shared box
4. My dedicated box has been down a lot this year
5. Some issues were down right over my head sometimes and had a big learning curve to fix issues, ex. shadow copy enabled brings down server because it used up all the hard drive quickly. Hard to figure where to turn that off.
6. Hard to Remote Desktop in to a box on vacation when the firewall will not let you in and the dedicated CT tech will not open that up for your IP until after the weekend is up
7. Updates to Smartermail and Coldfusion are free
8. Flexible IP ranges – SEO
9. Creating a new site sucks and takes forever compared to having someone else (automated) do it
10. Lower Hacking Fear (vacations) no need to go to hackers conference
11. Don’t have to keep up on patches and upgrades to PHP and MySQL
12. Much Cheaper, all my site on shared cost less than $100

CONS – Shared Environment:

1. What do I do with my used Coldfusion 8 license?
2. Only get 5 schedule tasks per site
3. WordPress upgrades easy on a dedicated box
4. Sites will be slightly slower and will have micro outages of 10 second here and there

I woke up this morning with the Vonage phone service  not working (no dial tone). The power light on the Linksys RT31P2 was flashing rapidly. I have the original Vonage box from Jan 31, 2005.

I called Vonage support and ran all the tests below and they said the unit can not power up all the way – this took an hour on the phone before tech support told me that they would send a new one within 2-3 business days. I have to return the old unit within 14 days.

• I disconnected the power cord to the unit for 60 seconds, but that didn’t help
• I pressed the reset button for 45 seconds on the back of the unit and that didn’t help
• I checked to see if my account was active, and it was
• “Determining your Phone Adapter and Telephone Port Assignments”, I did and it was assigned to port 1
• I verified all connections are solid
• I swapped out the cables and that didn’t work
• My Linksys RT31P2 is connected from my router and the router shows activity on that port it is connected to
• When I called my own phone # from my cell, after it rings for a few times it did not go to voice mail it goes to an error message “The person you have called is unavailable right now, message switch 6 2 1″ (this was because it was forwarding to an old cell phone we no longer had, oops!)
• The internet light on the Linksys unit is solidly lighted.
• I also tried connecting the unit directly from my Comcast modem, but I got the same result
• Tried to connect my computer directly to the Vonage box (Ethernet port #1) and use 192.168.15.1 but that didn’t work even after we configured my computer to a static IP address.

They are sending me a reconditioned Motorola  VT2442-RB  worth $79.99 for free.

I had to totally reinstall Vista on my wife’s machine last night.

When I tried out her ITunes to see if it was working alright after the reinstall I got this message above. Her IPod is only 2 years old. At this rate all the money she has spent on the music will be locked out from it in a few short years.

This is why Amazaon DRM free music is way better.

So I woke this morning and tried to send an email but it wouldn’t go, I would get an Outlook 2003 error message saying:

Outlook is unable to connect to your outgoing (SMTP) e-mail server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).

The error # was 0×80042109.

I could receive email just fine.

I looked over my dedicated server and all looked good, so I sent a test from my web browser Smartermail program and it sent out just fine.

I then call my hosting company CrystalTech if they new what was going on, the tech told me to try port 8889. So I did that both in my SmarterMail admin and in the email client Outlook.

That worked! …but only for about 10 minutes and then it stopped sending email.

So then I call Comcast to ask what is going on. The tech looked at my modem and told me that they were blocking my port 25 because I might be sending out spam emails from an infected computer.

I only send out about 50 emails a day from my work computer.

I then ran a virus scan on all my computers (MS OneCare) but nothing came up.

The Comcast tech told me that my modem would release the block after 30 days and try again. In the mean time he told me to try port 587.

I had to adjust my server firewall and then I was sending email on my alternate port.

Back to normal.

Update 1/15/09: I moved my site back to the shared hosting environment and since I didn’t have control over my email server anymore I had to use 8889 which is what Crystaltech uses as their alternative port in SmarterMail.