Godaddy – Cheap, but you get what you pay for

I admit. I use Godaddy for my domain and ssl cert purchases. Mainly because I’ve been using them for years and the price they offered long before anyone else was in the discount domain game. However, I would never use them for a hosting company. They always seemed to offer slimmed down hosting packages. They probably appealed to most and met their needs, but it always came up short for my tinkering.

I now have another reason to never use them for hosting. Enter “customer service”. Or should I say lack thereof. I still stand by my unwillingness to use them as a hosting provider, but sometimes you have to use what the client purchased. Here’s the scenerio:

My client has a virtual box there, godaddy calls them Virtual Dedicated Servers. They give you the option to install a couple of different control panels including plesk or you could choose to not install one. Before I entered the picture, the client had chosen a Plesk control panel. Now, I didn’t care. I found the ssh login and started setting up the server as I saw fit. Installed the default virtualhost for apache and then hit the IP. I found myself redirected to the plesk control panel. So I started looking through the apache configs and Include directives to see where this was coming from. Possibly an alias somewhere that I had missed? I couldn’t come up with anything, nor did I have a lot of time to waste. I thought it would be a good idea to use that live chat button that I keep seeing upon login to the server admin. BAD IDEA! Less than helpful tech support.

Let me Tarentino back a little bit. I started setting up the server, installing certs, setting up apache, provisioning the databases and virtualhosts, etc… I had asked for the root password from the client earlier in the day. They’re not tech savvy. They’ve just been left holding the bag. They don’t even know what I’m talking about when I ask for root. So they call up Godaddy. Godaddy doesn’t help them find the password. They don’t say, “hey, look in your intro email”, or even so much as point them in the right direction. They do walk them through the steps to re-provision the server. They just told them to wipe all my work without so much as a warning as what this means.

Strike one.

I suck it up, knowing full well that I’m still charging for this, and start setting up the newly provisioned server. And we’re back. So I’m stuck with the Plesk Control Panel as my default site on port 80. WTF? That conversation goes like this

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: Please note: All Live Chat sessions are logged and may be monitored for security and quality assurance purposes.

Thank you for contacting Live Chat support for Virtual and Dedicated Servers. This is Nathan. How can I help you?

Evil Buck: I have a Virtual dedicated Server. I’m trying to change the default website. Somewhere there is a setting that keeps plesk as the default vhost. Where can I change that?

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: You can change this in Plesk by: Login to Plesk > Settings > IP Addresses. Here you will need to click the number under the domains column next to the IP address to change the default website use on this IP.

Evil Buck: can’t access plesk

Evil Buck: ERROR: PleskFatalException

Unable to connect to database: saved admin password is incorrect.

0: common_func.php3:108

psaerror(string ‘Unable to connect to database: saved admin password is incorrect.’)

1: auth.php3:93

Evil Buck: personally I don’t want to either. It’s a piece of shit

Evil Buck: I want to know what is overriding my default vhosts?

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: Are you setting the server up via SSH?

Evil Buck: yes

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: As you have purchased Plesk for your server you would need to setup the site in Plesk. Setting it up via SSH or making changes to vhosts/apache configuration will cause issues with the server such as those you are experiencing as Plesk setups the server in a proprietary way. If you are familiar with using SSH I would recommend removing the control panel off the server and reprovision the server to remove Plesk.

Evil Buck: ok, thanks

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: Your welcome. Do you know how to Upgrade/Downgrade your server plan to remove Plesk?

Evil Buck: no, but I have to ask. Is there anything I can do to salvage the server without re-provisioning it?

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: You can try to remove Plesk via SSH. The service name for Plesk is “psa”. Unfortunately, I do not know what all would be removed on the server by removing Plesk.

Evil Buck: ok, proceed at my own risk I’m sure

Evil Buck: thanks for your help

Nathan S. – Server Concierge: Your welcome. Thanks again for using Live Chat, have a good day. ?

Strike 2.

I personally didn’t have the time, nor did I want to discover some crap with godaddy’s instances and repercussions from removing Plesk. I looked around a bit and then decided to hit up Godaddy’s craptaculous customer service again. Who knows, I may get someone intellegent.

More transcripts:

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: Please note: All Live Chat sessions are logged and may be monitored for security and quality assurance purposes.

Thank you for contacting Live Chat support for Virtual and Dedicated Servers. This is Nathan. How can I help you?

Evil Buck: I’m getting errors try to access Plesk, what can I do? ERROR: PleskFatalException

Unable to connect to database: saved admin password is incorrect.

0: common_func.php3:108

psaerror(string ‘Unable to connect to database: saved admin password is incorrect.’)

1: auth.php3:93

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: You would be able to reset any passwords via SSH in order to resolve this issue. I would recommend checking the Plesk help site or searching online for more information.

Evil Buck: which password? Root?

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: This would be the Plesk database password.

Evil Buck: is that stored in a mysql database?

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: Yes

Evil Buck: and what would the godaddy stored plesk password be?

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: There is no Godaddy stored Plesk password. This would be the password that you selected when setting up the server. If you have made changes to your server that modified this password, you would need to change this. I would recommend searching online for more information regarding the specific error message received.

Evil Buck: jesus man, can you avoid doing any more work?

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: With the non-assisted server, you are the admin and would be responsible for all management and configuration of the server.

Evil Buck: ahh, but godaddy has put on a plesk intsall that I “must” use that is failing even after a fresh re-provision from yesterday

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: No, you added the Plesk control panel during the server purchase. You do not need to use this, but as it is installed, we would recommend this as it can cause issues with the server configuration if you make changes in SSH. You can remove the control panel at any time.

Evil Buck: how do I do this?

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: You can request the Plesk control panel be removed from within your customer account. You can click on the Account Name from the Servers section followed by the Upgrade/Downgrade and Other Addons option.

Nathan A. – Server Concierge: You can then choose the None option from the control panel dropdown and click continue. This will require a reprovision of your server that will remove all content and reset the server to the default configuration.

Tagged as: cheap, godaddy, hosting, service