iPage: Windows hosting maintenance - Required DNS and application updates
To support your continued growth, we will be performing a Windows hosting maintenance designed to improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of your hosting environment. During the maintenance window, you may experience a brief service interruption, including temporary loss of access to your website, hosting services, and related features.
As part of this Windows hosting maintenance, some updates to your account experience, DNS settings, applications, and hosting tools may be required. These updates are intended to improve performance and reliability while making your hosting experience even better. Please review the information in this article to learn more about this Windows hosting maintenance.
In this article, we will discuss:
Required DNS changes
You will receive an email from us before we begin and once the maintenance is complete. Until you receive the maintenance completion notification email, avoid making any changes to your DNS records.
Which DNS records need to be updated?
Before making any DNS changes, verify which name servers your domain is using. Your name servers determine where your DNS records are managed. If your domain uses third-party name servers, you must update your DNS records with that provider rather than through your hosting account. You can check your domain's name servers through your domain registrar or a DNS lookup service.
As part of this maintenance, you will need to update your A record. An A record connects a domain name or hostname to an IPv4 address. After the maintenance is complete, the A record should be updated to the new IP address provided in your maintenance notification email to ensure your website continues to function properly.
If you have an FTP hostname configured, such as ftp.example.com, update its A record to point to the new server IP address as well. This allows FTP clients to continue connecting to the correct server after the maintenance.
If your DNS is hosted with a third-party provider, you will need to update your DNS records to point to the new IP address. Use the steps below as a general guide for updating your A records, and refer to your DNS provider's documentation for provider-specific instructions.
- Log in to your third-party domain registrar's account where your domain is registered.
- Locate the DNS management or domain settings section for your domain.
- Find the existing A records you want to update.
- Edit the A record(s) by changing the IP address to the new one you want to point to.
- Save the changes to update the DNS records.
- Keep in mind, DNS propagation can take up to 48 hours to fully take effect.
Application and tool updates
As part of Windows hosting maintenance, several hosting tools and features will be enhanced, updated, or retired to align with the new hosting platform. These changes may affect how you access website statistics, manage databases, configure custom error pages, and connect to hosting services.
The new hosting platform delivers a more modern and streamlined hosting experience, offering improved functionality, greater flexibility for website and database management, and enhanced support for customization and administration tools. You should review the changes outlined below to understand how these updates may affect your hosting environment after the maintenance.
FTP host
After the maintenance, the FTP host you used to connect to your Windows hosting account will change. If you use an FTP client such as FileZilla, WinSCP, or Cyberduck, you may need to update your connection settings with the new FTP host. You can find it listed under the Server Information or System Settings section in your control panel.
Visitor Statistics
AWStats will no longer be available after the maintenance. Customers who currently use AWStats to monitor website traffic, visitor activity, and usage reports will need to use Webalizer moving forward. No action is required from your part. Your website traffic and usage statistics will be available in Webalizer after the maintenance is complete through the link in the tool. To learn more about Webalizer, please see iPage: Using visitor statistics to monitor your site.
Additionally, Visitor Statistics are now organized on a per-domain basis. Instead of viewing combined statistics for the hosting account, you can view traffic information separately for each hosted domain.
HTTP error page configuration
After the maintenance, you can choose whether your website displays your own custom error pages or the default error pages. If you prefer to use the default error pages, leave the Custom Error Pages option disabled in the IIS Administration Console. If you would like to display custom error pages, simply enable the Custom Error Pages setting.
To customize the wording, layout, or branding of your error pages, edit the files located in the /error_docs/ directory using File Manager.
My Little Admin removal
The browser-based My Little Admin database management tool will no longer be available after the maintenance. Customers who previously used My Little Admin to manage Microsoft SQL Server databases through their browser will need to use external database management tools instead.
Review
Most customers can expect seamless experience during the maintenance period. The primary action required is for customers using third-party DNS providers, who must update their A records (and any FTP hostname records) to the new server IP address after receiving the maintenance completion notification. Other changes mainly involve updates to hosting tools, including the replacement of AWStats with Webalizer and the retirement of My Little Admin.
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