Rackspace Cloud on UserVoice

alpha order all names in groups

2012-05-16T13:44:18-07:00

M Batson suggested:
when groups are created and names added in alpha order, they are not listed that way whenever Edit group is used. Makes it very hard to find names. Also, need to be able to export a group not the entire contacts list!!

stop charging for rackspace mailboxes for customers who host their domains on cloud but also use email hosting because they need exchange. [updated]

2012-05-16T09:06:51-07:00

js said:

I am searching for if or where to move my domains and clients from Rackspace and came upon this post.

Every domain I create has a virtually inactive email account. It might see one message a year. It costs Rackspace virtually nothing to host, and the storage is nothing. They now want to charge $7 per year per account, which will cost me about $1,000 per year. This is just one example, but there are countless others. My clients with 20 or 30 corporate email addresses have a majority of inactive accounts. These are also convenience accounts.

I wlll try to move these domains now, but the cost of moving is high too. In the long term, I believe, this will hurt Rackspace because it is charging for a concept and not something actual.

The only vote people understand is voting with your feed as you leave. Any ideas for a new email host?

Need Block Storage Partition to Mount to CloudServer [updated]

2012-05-16T08:49:03-07:00

I hear that block storage devices are coming. I'm desparate, one of my clients needs another 40 or 80 gb partition now in the worst sort of way. When is the launch? Can I get in on a beta test perhaps?

aric lasry user said:

Is the beta test reliable or not at all ? We also need it asap for our web service (we already are a Rackspace Cloud customer with ~10 servers).

Support Wildcard DNS through the Control Panel.

2012-05-16T08:29:25-07:00

Mahdi Hedhli suggested:
It's great you support wildcard DNS through the API now but what about your basic users who only operate in the control panel? I'd really like to see wildcard DNS supported in the control panel.It is frustrating that an advanced hosting solution like cloud sites doesn't support it as this seems like a basic hosting function.

Now that Urchin is gone could you please integrate AWStats?

2012-05-16T08:24:51-07:00

Mahdi Hedhli suggested:
I understand you had no plans to integrate in the past but now that Urchin is gone... there is a whole in our reporting. Google Analytics doesn't give us the granular info we need. For such an expensive web hosting solution, you should provide users with these tools and not recommend setting up another server to grab raw logs.

I would like to see you implement awstats [updated]

2012-05-16T08:22:22-07:00

Not crazy about URCHIN stats - would like to see use of AWSTATS.

Mahdi Hedhli said:

Now that Urchin is no longer around... could we please see some AWStats integration?

Domain aliases

2012-05-15T16:06:47-07:00

Mati suggested:
Please add the ability for direct customers to manage their domain aliases through the control panel instead of creating tickets every time they need to add/remove them.

Domain registration report [updated]

2012-05-15T13:42:47-07:00

I would like a report to find out ALL domains that I have registered with you along with their expiration date for the Rackspace Cloud control panel. The reason is I recently has messages from click and name saying one of my domains were about to expire. I could not for the life of me remember the domain registrar for a .ca domain. They totally ignored my emails and it was only luck that I saw the message "Reminder: An alias domain will not automatically be renewed. Please contact Support to have the alias domain renewed." All of this could have been avoided if I could see a report.

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Change online / instant / live chat providers

2012-05-15T09:27:04-07:00

Jeff Conrad suggested:
You currently have several ideas related to your online chat. There are quite a few live chat providers now, and perhaps one of them would like your business. Here's a table that lists a lot of them: socialcompare.com/en/comparison/compare-live-chat-support-software-help There has to be at least one of these online chat providers that has an API that can integrate customer details. A lot of them like Olark, Zopim, and SnapEngage offer chat inside the page. I've used sites that use Olark, and I can say the experience is actually pretty awesome. It can also be a lot better for your support people as well. They can use regular instant messaging software like Google Talk to chat with customers. Last, but certainly not least, you won't be giving Oracle money. Oracle ruined MySQL, and they're greedy patent trolls when it comes to Java. I'd do your own research, but in one of the trials, they're down to saying that Google 'directly copied' these 9 lines of source code: private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex) { if (fromIndex > toIndex) throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex + ") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")"); if (fromIndex < 0) throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex); if (toIndex > arrayLen) throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex); } Oracle are at least twice as bad as Microsoft ever thought of being, and they don't deserve your money. I'd like to know that I'm not indirectly funding a bunch of greedy patent trolls.

See running charges for next invoice [updated]

2012-05-15T08:54:49-07:00

When I delete a Cloud Server instance, its usage numbers appear in Your Account/Reports for a short period longer (around 12 hours?), and then vanishes until it reappears, billed to me on my invoice. I really need a way to monitor my running charges throughout a month to be able to estimate how much the final invoice amount will be.

Yarin Kessler said:

Wow just ran into this as a new customer- stinks bad- Amazon has no problem showing running charges. Where's the transparency Rackspace??

Send the admin an email when a user is locked out.

2012-05-15T08:27:25-07:00

Make rackspace lockout after 10 attemps like exchange users.

2012-05-15T08:26:28-07:00

Restrict webmail access by IP address [updated]

2012-05-15T08:08:49-07:00

Restrict webmail access by IP address so that selected users can have access to webmail from a set of authorized IP addresses. We do not want to allow all users webmail access and some that we do want to allow access, we want to heavily restrict by limiting the IP addresses that they can successfully access their webmail account from.

Ahmed Aldoseri said:

A variation to this - or as an added option - is to allow/disable access by country. For example, it's nice of facebook to disable my account when it's accessed from a country 10,000 miles away. Geo-IP information is available freely, and my users are usually accessing webmail from one country.

Change default spam folder behaviour in webmail

2012-05-15T08:00:09-07:00

Ahmed Aldoseri suggested:
When viewing spam messages using the webmail interface (to check for possibly legitimate email), the default behaviour is to display the full message with remote images and links. This poses a security and privacy risk. Such a behaviour should be amended so that messages in the spam folder do not load images, and that links in such messages are disabled by default.

Manually run CRON tasks from the control panel

2012-05-15T06:41:12-07:00

Matt Hallam suggested:
Have the option to manually run CRON tasks from the control panel so that when testing and debugging, we don't have to wait for the set time intervals to pass.

configurable IP addresses [updated]

2012-05-14T21:01:52-07:00

I would love to see it posible to configure/administrate IP address, such that the IP address can be reused on upgraded (virtual) servers. A feature similar to AWS "Elastic IP address" (http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/#features) is what I am looking for.

Justin Wilson said:

I hope Rackspace does do this as it would be VERY helpful and useful for my business. Rackspace, acgann made a good point so if you want, you could setup some kind of limit like.. automatically releases in say 30 days if not used. :)

allow broken features to be sent via trouble tickets not this feedback site

2012-05-14T17:04:13-07:00

CB suggested:
When I report problems and error messages in a trouble ticket I continuously get the run around and eventually sent here. for example: http://status.rackspace.com loads "page not found" website can you please forward this to http://status.apps.rackspace.com This is not a suggestion, this is an error.. fix in your trouble tickets not here.

Find an alternative to Urchin! and quick! [updated]

2012-05-14T13:39:00-07:00

I can understand Google dropping support, but RACKSPACE needs to find a viable alternative! Using Google analytics would require creating google accounts for all my customers! I have been though 4 hosts in 12 years and ALL of them provided some kind of statistics. This is a sad day indeed. Really wish you werent dumping this responsibility on me now! I joined Rackspace as MOSSO. It was designed for people like me. Now I see it was just a bait and switch.

Mike + said:

There's a new software product called Angelfish that will allow you to migrate your data from Urchin. It looks like it will be available this summer.
http://www.angelfishstats.com

Multiple Control Panel Users Per Account [updated]

2012-05-14T12:23:19-07:00

It would be nice if you could delegate/manage/authorize multiple users in the control panel... like Slicehost. The idea of one admin user / account sucks. There's no way to collaborate without sharing your admin credentials...

John Larsen said:

Agreed. The Cloud Hosting Control Panel needs to allow for multiple administrators with varying levels of account access. Some sort of ACL is absolutely required from a compliance perspective. I would add there should also be logging of activity so one can see who is doing what from within the control panel.

Please provide 2-factor access for the management console [updated]

2012-05-14T12:16:32-07:00

My Gmail, Facebook, and bank accounts already have an ability to offer a 2 step authentication process by requiring I enter a confirmation number that's sent to my phone. A feature like this would go a long way to compartmentalizing our security in case, say, our email server was rooted.

John Larsen said:

This would be absolutely fantastic to have - any ETA?

Create the ability to view Hosted Exchange distribution list in RackSpace email.

2012-05-14T12:15:37-07:00

Donald Neisler suggested:
Create the ability to view Hosted Exchange distribution list in RackSpace email. Currently you can only see Exchange mailboxes, if you could show distribution list/groups that would be great.

Restrict webmail access by IP address

2012-05-14T09:31:21-07:00

Paul Dias suggested:
Restrict webmail access by IP address so that selected users can have access to webmail from a set of authorized IP addresses. We do not want to allow all users webmail access and some that we do want to allow access, we want to heavily restrict by limiting the IP addresses that they can successfully access their webmail account from.

Show read only message in Inbox

2012-05-14T02:05:05-07:00

Visable Passwords in Email and Apps Control Panel [updated]

2012-05-13T21:04:37-07:00

I have been asking for years for the ability to view passwords for my users. there are many times this would be very handy. First, if I do not setup Outlook Sync at the same time I set up an account, and do not remember the password, then I need to change it. Second, if a user has me working on their laptop, and they are in a meeting with their cell phone (that has their mail also on it), I have to reset the password, and then they get errors on their phone when it tries to connect. Both of these happened to me today, and if it's not corrected, so that I can view passwords, then this will be our last year on RACKSPACE. Other than this issue, I'd like to stay, but won't unless I can view users passwords. as Admin, I can change, delete, add accounts, even log into user's e-mails, but I can't view the password???, please correct this problem, or at least make it an option for an admin to have, thank you.

Mike said:

Passwords should never be disclosed without the user's permission first. If a user wants you to know their password, then they will tell you what it is when asked. Send them a text message or call them to request it. You need to realize that often times a user will use the same password for multiple services and sites. Revealing the password without their permission would be an invasion of privacy. That is why rackspace lets you login to their company email without providing their password. It prevents you from being able to gain access to other personal sites and accounts they utilize.

Fix display of mac generated hidden ._ files.

2012-05-13T10:42:42-07:00

daniel suggested:
When I create or edit a Word file and use an online disk for the file's location, both the file and a separate file preceded with ._ is stored on the online disk. this is the resource fork file that the mac understands and hides. but these files are not hidden in jungledisk, nor in the file window when accessed from a Windows machine. this probably occurs for other kinds of mac generated files as well.

figure out how to deal with mac generated hidden ._ files.

2012-05-13T10:38:35-07:00

Enable white listing in rackspace load balancing throttling

2012-05-12T21:46:56-07:00

Amaltas suggested:
I liked the throttling feature, but cannot enable it because I want to white list certain IPs like Google crawler, my vpn ips, office IPs etc from throttling.

Upgrade python in Cloud Sites. Currently running version of 2.4.3 which was released in 2006.

2012-05-12T18:20:30-07:00

Tom Reilly suggested:
I am testing Piwik, which is a similar tool to the outgoing Urchin. They provide scripts written in Python 2.6. Since that was released 4 years ago, you'd think it was a safe bet. But Rackspace is running 2.4.3. I understand choosing stability over newness, but 2.4.3 is 6 years old. That's...really old.

PTR Record support in the DNS section [updated]

2012-05-12T17:08:26-07:00

Enough said, it's a pretty standard item these days.

Anonymous said:

A year and a half later, and we're still waiting? Come on! This is critical for automatic expansion of an email delivery platform!

We need private ip connectivity between cloud servers and cloud sites. [updated]

2012-05-11T16:47:48-07:00

brian p rossi said:

Thanks Chris, this is really exciting. How do we find the servicenet IPs for cloudsites, or is this one way communication initiation? Can cloud servers connect to cloud sites, or only cloud sites to cloud servers? Great feature thanks again.

Hello I suggest adding like a file manager to search for emails in the email archiving service as I think that it is a limitation having to [updated]

2012-05-11T11:36:21-07:00

Hello I suggest adding like a file manager to search for emails in the email archiving service as I think this should be simpler it is very complex and hard to understand for end users we as resellers can deal with it but this is a product oriented to end users. So I agree with the opinions of other users that tis should have a better way to display messages maybe like a simple webmail interface but the problem is that this having to create a search to look for email is a limitation. Please work to improve this service. Our client # is (#870627 Regards Alfonso

Alfonso said:

Hello Thanks for answering

Where do I enable the My Archive setting you mentioned?

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Alfonso

We need private ip connectivity between cloud servers and cloud sites. [is now completed]

2012-05-11T07:29:38-07:00

We need private ip connectivity between cloud servers and cloud sites. [updated]

2012-05-11T07:29:37-07:00

Chris Spencer (admin) responded:

Cloud Sites has just enabled a direct connection via our ServiceNet network. This will allow you to directly connect other Cloud resources, including Servers, Files, Block Storage, etc, that are located in the same datacenter quickly and without bandwidth charges. Connections to resources in other datacenters will still resort in bandwidth charges. Hopefully this meets your needs. Thanks

One-click installs for popular software applications [updated]

2012-05-11T06:59:37-07:00

Offer one-click installations for popular cms and ecommerce applications. IE: Wordpress, Drupal, ZenCart etc.

Lord Himmelberger said:

IMHO the key here is for custom configurations of these, we've built some custom installs of drupal / wordpress / MODx and deploying manually is a 1 hour process sometimes. Would be great to have a master copy and then dupe from that.

One-click installs for popular software applications [updated]

2012-05-11T06:29:38-07:00

Offer one-click installations for popular cms and ecommerce applications. IE: Wordpress, Drupal, ZenCart etc.

Dawn said:

Yes! So glad to see this get some consideration!

One-click installs for popular software applications [is now under review]

2012-05-11T06:15:24-07:00

Offer one-click installations for popular cms and ecommerce applications. IE: Wordpress, Drupal, ZenCart etc.

Load balance by sticky IP [is now completed]

2012-05-11T06:11:03-07:00

Allow session persistance by requesting IP. HTTP cookies cannot handle persistance against HTTPS sites where the host servers handle the encryption.

Load balance by sticky IP [updated]

2012-05-11T06:11:03-07:00

Allow session persistance by requesting IP. HTTP cookies cannot handle persistance against HTTPS sites where the host servers handle the encryption.

Chris Spencer (admin) responded:

This request has been implemented in our 1.11 release and is available via the API at this time. This will be offered in the control panel expected to release in July.

Provide visibility of on-going monthly cost, broken down by server, bandwidth, cloudfiles etc.

2012-05-11T02:49:20-07:00

Adrian Tisbury suggested:
In the middle of a billing cycle, I need to have a view on likely eventual monthly cost and having the point-in-time costs for the current month would be very useful.

Email invoices automatically [updated]

2012-05-10T23:48:56-07:00

When an invoice is generated, email it to the billing contact with PDF attachment.

Anonymous said:

Please Please Please. It is totally insane that I have to log in every month so that I can email the PDF off to accounts.

Allow users to specify if they want Content-Disposition header to be included in the response [updated]

2012-05-10T10:45:50-07:00

Allow users to specify if they want the Content-Disposition HTTP header to be included in the response for CloudFiles

Patrick Paul-Hus said:

I'd like to echo Andrey's request too. I'd like to be able to both display the object in browser or force a download depending of the context.

301 redirecting cloud files urls

2012-05-10T07:40:38-07:00

Philip suggested:
It would be very useful if we were able to create a 301 redirect for cloud files urls.

Watched rackspace cloudfiles directories with email notification when new item is added to container. [updated]

2012-05-10T07:17:38-07:00

individual containers can be watched for new files and configured to send email notifications with file details when new files are received. Emails should be configurable and sent to multiple recipients.

Perry Clark said:

Basically what I'm using cloudfiles for are database backups which are from PostgreSQL services we run. There is a shell script that does the backup and pushes it up to rackspace cloudfiles. The containers are defined in the scripts and the server side shell script sends an email that the backup has been completed etc. This is problematic because the scripts have to be modified for each platform where we do a backup and the tools available for emailing are not always installed on the server running the script - i.e. mutt mail, sendmail, postfix, etc, so sending an email from a particular server that the script has completed and the file was successfully uploaded is somewhat limiting or impossible in some cases. It would be nice if Cloudfiles could watch containers and be configurable on a per container basis to send emails to multiple specific addresses when an item is received. This alleviates the need for me to maintain the backup scripts and needing to know the email environment details on a machine which I might not have admin control for email etc.

I can do this through the API I suppose - have another script run to check the containers and see what the latest file is based on the name of the file (which contains a time/date stamp in the name) and have my server send the emails. Again, this is a pretty unscalable method for me to maintain (adding new backups, new containers, maintaining various scripts on multiple servers).

Thanks!

Perry Clark
xTuple

Watched rackspace cloudfiles directories with email notification when new item is added to container.

2012-05-10T07:05:38-07:00

Perry Clark suggested:
individual containers can be watched for new files and configured to send email notifications with file details when new files are received. Emails should be configurable and sent to multiple recipients.

Hello I suggest adding like a file manager to search for emails in the email archiving service as I think that it is a limitation having to [is now under review]

2012-05-10T06:38:32-07:00

Hello I suggest adding like a file manager to search for emails in the email archiving service as I think that it is a limitation having to [updated]

2012-05-10T06:38:32-07:00

Tom (admin) responded:

Hi Alfonso,

Thank you for the feedback you submitted on Rackspace Uservoice. You are correct about the file manager (file sync). This is something that is currently in research. It would require infrastructure changes so I can not guarantee if/when it will be done.

In regards to the simple webmail-like interface. Are you familiar with 'My Archive'? 'My Archive' is an end user permission setting that you can enable and it shows the users messages similar to webmail.

Please let me know if you need any help with this. Thank you for your feedback. Please continue to share feedback so we can continue to improve our service.

Best Regards,

-Tom

Database report

2012-05-10T04:04:51-07:00

Richard Wilde suggested:
It would be very useful to see a list of all databases that is associated with mine or my clients sites. For me this is so I can make sure that I have all the backup scripts in place etc

Workflow in case of "create server error"

2012-05-10T03:43:11-07:00

Mykhaylo Pohrebnyak suggested:
we have an automatism, which enables, based on the own balancer logic, create / delete the cloud servers automatically. time to time we're facing the problems during the server creation process. sometimes the server with status "Error" are just running and booked as the servers running without normally. the proposal: - the server running into creation error are not booked - the client does not get those in the invoice at the end of the month (or othe period); - onces should be deleted automaticaly after the certain time; the creation / deletion errors are logged and are visible as well for the rackspace as for the clients; and / or the creation of the same server has a certain amount of tries, which is defined by the rackspace or by the client.

Fix the resize status indicator [updated]

2012-05-10T03:09:23-07:00

The indicator typically jumps to 96% then sits there for a disproportionately long time - hours sometimes. Can this either go away completely, or be more accurate? If it goes away, maybe an estimate of long long an instance will be down depending on it's size?

Chris McCauley said:

A recent resize sat at 0% for nearly two hours. I gave up and logged a support ticket.

Allow restriction of downloads from CDN to stop hotlinking. [updated]

2012-05-09T13:29:50-07:00

Maybe something as simple insisting on an Referer header present matching a supplied regex (for expected host domains). That would stop casual hotlinking and bandwidth theft IMHO.

Ian Armstrong said:

This is pretty critical. I have members only content that becomes easy to hotlink outside of my site the minute it hits the cloud. This is very bad.