Tech Talk Changelog

All the latest xneelo updates - from product features to new tools and ongoing security updates.

April 2021

  • Ongoing security updates
  • Customers can now easily install WordPress on multiple domains using the WordPress app installer in konsoleH

March 2021

  • Ongoing security updates
  • Any customers still using PHP 7.2 after 11 April 2021 will be automatically upgraded. Customers can check their sites’ PHP7.4 compatibility using our compatibility checker.
  • Domain price increases have been communicated to customers and will take effect from 1 April 2021.
  • We’ve improved the security of our Webmail platform
  • Stability improvements made to our restructure tools
  • Billing system improvements: VAT charges will not appear on invoices for international customers
  • Improved system and process stability, reducing manual intervention.

February 2021

  • Ongoing security updates
  • We’ve made improvements to our customer communication tools
  • Xneelo wins gold at the 2021 international Stevie® Awards
  • We’ve enhanced our back-end services to improve our customers’ domain registration experience
  • We’ve made improvements to the internal tools used by our Contact Centre to ensure they’re able to assist customers as efficiently as possible

January 2021

  • Unlimited traffic for Self-Managed server customers and a price increase
  • Traffic over-usage charges have been reduced to 20c per GB (from 60c) for Managed Server and Colocation customers
  • Colocation incremental price increase, effective in April and November 2021
  • Usability improvements to our internal tools, ensuring we assist our customers as swiftly as possible
  • Ongoing security updates

December 2020

  • Ongoing security updates

November 2020

  • Ongoing security updates and improvements
  • Internal infrastructure changes
  • We’ve updated the konsoleH Help File of the Manage Accounts section in our Mail Admin tool
  • Improved uptime monitoring

October 2020

  • Our goal is to make it easier for our customers to do their best work online. We recently upgraded the database software used on our servers to MariaDB 10.4, ensuring that the software our customers use is always up to date,  secure and supported.
  • We’ve made usability improvements to our internal tools, ensuring we can assist our customers as swiftly as possible.
  • We’ve made amendments to prevent customers from being logged out inadvertently while deleting an alias.
  • Codebase improvements
  • Ongoing security updates

September 2020

  • We’ve made improvements to the internal tools used by our Contact Centre to ensure they’re able to assist customers as efficiently as possible
  • We’ve implemented a Web Application Firewall rule to proactively address the recent WordPress File Manager plugin vulnerability
  • Regular system and security maintenance

August 2020

  • Improvements to the File Manager tool in konsoleH
  • Regular system and security maintenance
  • Improvements made to the customer experience while browsing the Manage DNS Tool in konsoleH
  • Updated mail servers to Debian Stretch
  • Conducted maintenance to increase the capacity for dual power supply equipment in our Samrand Data Centre
  • Regular maintenance of our codebase reduces the time it takes to investigate and resolve customer queries

July 2020

  • We’ve upgraded the core network devices at our Cape Town data centre, allowing us to handle significantly more traffic while our automatic mechanisms detect, and successfully mitigate, DDoS attacks.
  • All new Self-Managed Servers are provisioned with a Private RMI IP address by default
  • Setting up mail with TLS/SSL is quick and convenient as our free Let’s Encrypt certificates are associated with your domain name and your web hosting account. This means that customers should no longer receive any certificate-related security warnings, as your domain name is stipulated in the mail settings. While it’s always been possible to configure mail with TSL/ SSL with your server name, we’ve made it even easier. For more information, please visit our Help Centre.
  • Regular code maintenance ensures we’re able to investigate and resolve issues quickly
  • System resilience improvements and monitoring
  • phpMyAdmin session update to better the customer experience
  • Deleted unused cookies to ensure customers do not experience being logged out of konsoleH unexpectedly
  • Ongoing security updates
  • We’ve designed internal tools that enable our contact centre team to assist telephone queries faster

June 2020

  • We’ve made improvements  to our internal tools to ensure our contact centre team can tend to telephone queries faster
  • Improved konsoleH session stability
  • Bugfix to ensure customers are able to modify the MX record associated with their domain via konsoleH
  • Ongoing security updates

May 2020

  • HTTP/2 is the upgraded version of the HTTP protocol and allows browsers to load websites much faster. All of xneelo’s web servers are HTTP/2 ready and all customers that prepare their site to use it will enjoy faster loading times.
  • Bugfix to improve our konsoleH notifications
  • Improvements made to our DNS database
  • Internal system maintenance to ensure a seamless experience when assisting our customers
  • Included a short description guiding customers when they complete/ update their banking details
  • Ongoing security updates

April 2020

  • ModSecurity helps keep your website safe and is free on all Web Hosting packages and Managed Servers
  • Additional features have been added to our customer management database to ensure consultants are able to assist customers as efficiently as possible
  • Ongoing Security updates
  • Bug fixes and UI improvements to the Advanced edit feature in our Manage DNS tool
  • We’ve made improvements to our Spam Filter in konsoleH

March 2020

  • Multiple system security and stability upgrades
  • Improvements made to our Order Manager to ensure customers are assisted without delay
  • Performance improvements made to our Mail Filters (Blacklists and Whitelists) resulting in a better customer experience
  • Our Beta Manage DNS tool is live in konsoleH – new features include the ability to add multiple DNS records at once and UX improvements
  • We’ve updated our konsoleH WordPress app installer to the latest version of WordPress (5.3.2)
  • File Manager tool: Security improvements
  • Password reset tool: Security and stability improvements

February 2020

  • Create and manage additional FTP users with ease using version 2.0 of our new tool
  • Check if your website is compatible with PHP 7.2 before upgrading. If you’re using version 7.2 or higher, the PHP compatibility checker in konsoleH will be disabled
  • Performance improvements when updating mail filters for our customers based in Germany (Blacklists and Whitelists)
  • Upgrades to our restore back up tool
  • Increased visibility of the FTP Tool Update button to improve the user experience
  • Spam filter improvements

January 2020

  • Debian 10 is available for all new Self-Managed Servers

December 2019

  • We’ve rolled out PHP 7.3 to all Web Hosting and Managed Servers
  • PHP configuration values displayed in a consistent manner, regardless of the login level
  • Self-Managed Server Rescue system has been updated to Debian Buster

November 2019

  • We’ve put further measures in place to reject traffic from known malicious sources, assisting customers with the prevention of malicious activity against their domains
  • Successfully upgraded all Shared hosting and Managed Dedicated servers to Debian Stretch
  • Ongoing Security updates
  • Apache2 (CVE-2019-10092)
  • MySQL (MariaDB 10.1.43)

October 2019

  • Improved system monitoring allows us to support our customers faster
  • We’re continuously working to improve our customers’ experience with our systems and have improved the information that is displayed when terminating a service.
  • Ongoing Security updates
  • Aspell (CVE-2019-17544)
  • ImageMagick (CVE-2019-11470)

September 2019

  • We’ve improved the ‘Contact Us’ tool in konsoleH by adding the option to contact our Restructures department directly.
  • Our PHP Config tool has been improved to prevent customers from being automatically logged out while using the tool.
  • Completed a number of security updates

August 2019

  • We now peer with CINX, the Cape Town Internet eXchange Point (run by ISPA). This connection ensures the fastest and most cost-effective internet traffic path for customers.
  • Spam filter accuracy improvements
  • Completed a number of security updates

July 2019

  • We’ve made enhancements to the tools used for transferring domains to xneelo, creating a better user experience for our customers

June 2019

  • Following improvements to our email logs, we are able to assist customers with incoming spam queries without a copy of the spam email. In the past, this process was cumbersome for customers without the header/ footer of the email.

May 2019

Feature updates:

  • We’ve introduced a PHP Compatibility Checker in konsoleH. With this tool, customers can easily determine if their website is compatible with PHP 7.2.
  • The link to ‘Pay Now’ by card is easily accessible under the Statement Overview in konsoleH.
  • We have simplified the way customers change their payment method to debit order. Previously, changing your payment method; adjusting your preferred payment interval and supplying your banking details were three separate steps. We have integrated these steps into one simple process.
  • We have made efficiency improvements to the way our contact centre consultants manage server entries on behalf of customers.
  • In aid of first-time resolution of queries, customers are now able to add attachments/ files when creating a case via the Contact Us form in konsoleH (accepted files types are: pdf, jpg, png, txt).

April 2019

Feature updates:

  • With the implementation of SRS (Sender Rewriting Scheme) on our Shared and Managed Servers, customers with SPF records can now forward emails without experiencing SPF failures
  • Customers can now more easily edit their files in the File Manager
  • Customers are able to add AAAA records (IPv6) and change the TTL for multiple records via the Import Zone feature in the Manage DNS tool (konsoleH 2).
  • While the DNS tool (in konsoleH 2) was only available to Web Hosting & Managed Server customers, it has now been made available to Self-Managed Server customers

Security updates:

  • Provided secure access to AWStats for domains making use of Cloudflare

March 2019

Feature updates:

  • Additional anti-spam rules have been added to decrease the number of unsolicited emails received by customers
  • A ‘Contact us’ form is now available in konsoleH making it easy for customers to send us a request to contact them. This page also includes suggested Help Centre articles for ease of reference

Security updates:

Bug fixes:

February 2019

Feature updates:

  • Upgrade to MariaDB 10.1
  • Spam filter accuracy improvements
  • Some providers have started delaying email sent from domain names without authentication mechanisms. To ensure email delivery without delay, we have added neutral SPF records to all domain names that previously had none.

January 2019

Feature updates:

  • WordPress version 5.1 is now available for new WordPress installations via the konsoleH WordPress AppInstaller
  • The Error Logs tool in konsoleH 1.0 has been improved and now works with the new apache error log format

Security updates:

November – December 2018

  • WordPress version 5.0 is now available for new WordPress installations via the konsoleH WordPress AppInstaller

Feature updates:

  • PHP 7.1 & 7.2 is now available. Use our Help Centre article to assist you in upgrading to the new PHP version
  • SiteBuilder was successfully upgraded to v3.2, resulting in a number of UX and feature improvements.
  • PHP 5.6.38 Changelog

Infrastructure and maintenance updates:

  • Incoming and outgoing email compression (gzip) enabled on all managed servers. All new email is automatically compressed, while the compression of old emails is rolled out on a per server basis. This improvement will result in a cost-saving for customers with disk overusage
  • Linux kernel version 4.9 rolled out to all managed servers. The new kernel offers improved resource management while mitigating “noisy neighbour” scenarios for shared server customers
  • Relocation of servers to new generation, cold aisle containment hosting pods. These pods offer improved cooling efficiency, which has a positive effect on the lifetime of a server while reducing hardware failures

Security updates:

  • Hetzner no longer supports Formmail as this technology is outdated and presents a security risk. Support for Formmail ends on 14 December 2018. Find out more
  • OpenSSL (CVE-2018-0735 and CVE-2018-5407)
  • MySQL Fail2Ban rule rolled out

Bug fixes:

September – October 2018

  • We now have three IPv6 transit providers which solidify our IPv6 reach across multiple networks and IX points
  • We now have peering in place with Internet Solutions. With this latest inclusion, the Hetzner network now peers with or is directly connected to all significant South African networks
  • We have moved the secondary NAPAfrica Johannesburg Layer 2 circuit to MetroFibre Networx (MFN). This redundancy improvement allows us to switch between MFN and EOH should we experience severe network issues on either network

General Updates

  • Ubuntu 18.04 is available on our self-managed servers. Ubuntu 14.04 will be supported with security updates until it reaches end of life in April 2019
  • The web server encryption protocol TLS 1.0 has been discontinued. Read more

Security Updates

Feature Updates

Bug Fixes

April – June 2018

  • MariaDB has been updated to 10.0.35
  • Debian security updates: 1 May 2018 and 8 May 2018
  • Imagemagick update fixed several vulnerabilities which could result in denial of service or memory disclosure
  • Webmail － the updated version increases security and includes a tweaked design with konsoleH branding and mobile compatibility
  • WordPress appinstaller, has been updated to version 4.9.6
  • Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy have been updated in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and now include a Data Processing clause
  • TinyMCE was updated to the latest version (4.7.11)

January – March 2018

  • WordPress version 4.9.4 is now available from the konsoleH WordPress AppInstaller

Security updates: