A little known fact is the Control Panel is eventually consistent for Cloud Containers. That means if a change is made directly on your server (like a container shuts down) or a job takes longer than we expect, that change will appear in the Control Panel soon(ish). We've now made this process much faster (push vs pull) – so the rare scenario where information might not have been quite up-to-date is now even rarer!
When logged into a container via SSH/SFTP there were certain scenarios where your session could be rudely terminated, one example being when a database was created and linked to that container. This was annoying, so we've carefully audited this behaviour to improve our manners and will no longer unceremoniously destroy sessions unless it is absolutely required.
Every time you spin up a new Cloud Container server, a database container is automatically created. This used to be a MySQL container, but we've now switched to MariaDB. MySQL is still an option, just not the default. Only new servers will be affected. You can read why we've made this change on the blog.
The heading says it all, really. We've released a new service image for Cloud Containers, NodeJS 20. To upgrade older NodeJS containers is a simple matter of swapping images (the Knowledge Base explains how) - and then checking that your application still works, of course.
Managing a lot of domains? Now you can select as many of them as you like, and then renew them all at once. This time-saver has been requested a lot, and we're looking forward to seeing it get plenty of use.
Volumes have been out for a few months, letting you share files and folders across mulitple Cloud Containers. The most recent update lets you attach Volumes to service containers. If you're new to Volumes, relive August's launch in the blog or get full details from the knowledge base.
A few updates for users of the SiteHost API, mostly concerning dates on container end points. First, you can now see the created and date_updated information for container servers via the cloud/server/list_all endpoint. Secondly, the cloud/server/list_all, cloud/stack/list_all and cloud/stack/image/list_all endpoints now let you pass an updated_since parameter to only return items that have been modified on or after the specified date. All these changes are noted in our API documentation which has also had a once-over to fix some mistakes and clarify example code.
When you click on Volumes in the Control Panel you'll see all Volumes across your servers, rather than just the Volumes on the first alphabetical server. Super useful!
Conversely when viewing Volumes for a specific container, we default to only showing you Volumes that are attached to that container. Also super useful!
If your attempt to Clone or Overwrite a container fails due to your server's storage being full, we'll now provide more useful error messages.
We've done a nip and tuck on a whole bunch of messages and logs for Cloud Containers, so when you're in the Control Panel and viewing your Account » Activity Logs, things should be much clearer and less noisy.
In some cases we weren't respecting the ownership of files when cloning a container on the same server. This would result in the files being owned by root, which is bad. This has been fixed and files will correctly stay as www-data.
For the first time on Cloud Containers we're officially supporting SQL Server, with our release of SQL Server 2022 as a Service Image. Pairing it up with our already supported .NET Core Web Image opens the doors to many projects across the .NET ecosystem. Read all about .NET Core and SQL Server in the Knowledge Base.
We've tweaked a bunch of jobs across the Cloud Container platform, tidying up the order of operations and further improving performance. As a result, jobs like changing a container image will be a bit faster with less downtime.
Cloud Container backups just got even easier to restore for Managed servers. With the new "Backups" tab you can see all automated and manual backups from the past 14 days, and restore your choice with a simple button press.
It's an easier, faster and safer way of restoring should something go wrong. It's also another reason to ensure your Cloud Container has Server Management. Read more in the Knowledge Base!
Sometimes people put uppercase characters into URLs. Unusual? Perhaps, but we're sure there's a good reason. Which is why any Domain Redirects that you edit with uppercase characters will now update correctly.
The role of account Admin has only been around for a few days, and here's its first power boost. By enforcing 2FA (two-factor authentication) across the entire account, Admins give every current and new user 48 hours to set up an extra security check at login, or be locked out. See how to enforce 2FA in the Knowledge Base.