Easy Server Management provides technical support for managing servers and network infrastructure. This support is provided by our technical staff remotely. We remotely connect to your server or network device and manage them for you. We also fortify and secure your devices and servers so that they can operate in and provide service to their clients in a reliable and dependable manner.

Yes, we manage all versions of Microsoft Windows server editions. This includes Small Business Server, Windows 2000, Windows 2003, Windows 2008, Windows 2012 all on both enterprise and standard editions.

Yes, we Red Hat and CentOS 4.x, 5.x and 6.x versions, 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

We support Parallels Plesk, Cpanel, Ensim, Hosting Controller and Website Panel.

If there is a known critical vulnerability in your system, we will correct it with appropriate means after consulting with you under any of the security services (One time hardening, full service + monitoring package). Often such corrections can be done without major OS upgrade. But if OS upgrade is the last resort, we do that. For per incidence based support package customer, we do upgrades only if these services are specifically requested. Control panel software upgrades are done if these are requested by a customer.

We use industry standard encrypted methods to connect to your servers and network devices remotely. These techniques depend upon type of device and operating system. For most network devices and servers we use the most secure version of secure shell (ssh). This encrypts passwords and all communication between your server and our management gateway. For Microsoft Windows servers we make connection through Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) or via Virtual Private Network (VPN).

We need access to your servers or network devices in order to do any work in them.

For subscription services we prefer that you share your password with and you keep it updated with us when you change it. This way our technicians can provide you timely service. For on-demand services, if you like you can give us a temporary access or password which you can change once we have completed the work.

We do not share your password with any one as these are kept completely confidential. We use these passwords exclusively for access to your server / network device or to seek support from the datacenter where your servers are located.

Only information we collect from your server is for the purpose of generating inspection report or for troubleshooting. No personal, proprietary or user information is accessed. Also the information gathered is only shared between you and our technical team. No information is ever shared with any third party. Any vulnerability found in your server is kept strictly confidential and communicated only to you or person(s) designated by you.

Your registration information is used only to communicate with you and with your permission, to send you information about our products and services. With your permission we may use your testimonials or non-confidential information on our website. We may include some non-confidential questions and answers in our frequently asked questions.

Our forum is open for everyone to read and posting is restricted to registered forum users. You should not post any confidential information, passwords, encrypted or hashed strings, security certificates, real ip addresses or configuration strings in forums. We even advise you not to use your real names and email addresses in forum if you want to stay anonymous.

Indeed. We treat all passwords and confidential information same way for all, paid or free customers.

In free inspection sign up you have option to not share your access with us, in which case we use techniques that are available to anyone to gather information from your server that you have knowingly or inadvertently left open for access. While this information and any vulnerability is kept confidential by us, you should understand that it may not be kept confidential who may have gathered this without your permission.

We do not use access privileges to access any business intelligence or private / public content of your server. We do not harvest any emails, logs or contact information from your server. We do not go through any contents of the server other than needed to troubleshoot specific issues.

At signup we require your registration information including a valid email address and ip address of the server you would like us to scan. If you are requesting a free service, no further information is required. For one time service (on-demand service and setup fee) as well as subscription services (monthly plans), we require your payment details and payment authorization.

You will receive an order confirmation mail on your registered email address. By replying to that mail or by logging in to our support portal with username and password, you will be granting up permission to inspect your server either externally or externally+internally. In addition, in this mail we will request you to provide any additional required details depending upon service as well as secure mechanism to do so. For permission only / free external inspection you can simply reply to the email. But for all other services, where you need to share confidential and private information, you need to login to the support portal ore use a SSL protected link. We commence our service once we receive your appropriate response.

Subsequent information we need from you depends upon type of service you sign up for. Below are the fields, their explanations and reasons for asking them. All mandatory fields are required in order to provide service. If you do not have information on non-mandatory fields or you do not understand what they are, you can leave them blank. Any information that we must have to provide service in addition to these fields (and non-mandatory information field you see in sign up question, can be furnished in a ticket and we will update your registration information.

We may request some of the other information such as listed below depending upon service requested:

Main Server IP
This is the main server IP of your server, this should be in the standard IPV4 format ‘xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’. If you do not know which your main server IP is please contact your datacenter for this information as we cannot log into your server without it!

Admin Pass
This is the password for the user ‘admin’ on your server. Many datacenters disable direct root login via SSH for security reasons and therefore we need to login as the user ‘admin’ before using becoming the root user.

Root Pass
This is the root password for your server, the root user is the master user on your machine used to perform maintenance and upgrades as well as troubleshoot any problems on your machine.

Admin CP Pass
This is your administrator password for your chosen control panel (If you have one) in order to access it. This is your cPanel, DirectAdmin, Ensim, Plesk or Webmin password.

Datacenter Provider
Your datacenter provider is the company who you have purchased/leased your server from, this could be EV1 or SoftLayer for instance

Admin CP Pass
This is your administrator password for your chosen control panel (If you have one) in order to access it. This is your cPanel, DirectAdmin, Ensim, Plesk or Webmin password.

D/C Members Username
This is your datacenter login username that we use to contact your datacenter should a problem arise with your hardware or if we need to reboot your server. This could be ES-12345 for instance for EV1, this is usually contained in your welcome email from your datacenter.

D/C Members Password
This is your datacenter login password that we use in conjunction with the above username to contact your datacenter should a problem arise with your hardware or if we need to reboot your server. This is usually contained in your welcome email from your datacenter.

Control Panel Type
Your server may have come with control panel software. We support cPanel, Directadmin, Ensim, Plesk and Webmin. If you do not have any control panel software please enter ‘Plain’ in this box.

MySQL Root Pass
If your machine has MySQL installed or you would like MySQL installed please enter a password for the ‘root’ user for MySQL. (In Plesk’s case this is the ‘admin’ user which uses the same password as you use to login to Plesk.)

SSH on port 22
We setup custom applications to continuously monitor System and Service Integrity. This prevents exploitation of existing web applications.

SMTP on port 25
If you are running a SMTP (Outgoing mailserver) server on port 25 on your server please select ‘yes’ for this option.

DNS on port 53
If you are running a DNS (Domain name suffix server) server on port 53 on your server please select ‘yes’ for this option.

HTTP on port 80
If you are running a HTTP (Web server) server on port 80 on your server please select ‘yes’ for this option.

IMAP on port 143
If you are running a IMAP (Incoming mailserver) server on port 143 on your server please select ‘yes’ for this option.

POP3 on port 110
If you are running a POP3 (Incoming mailserver) server on port 110 on your server please select ‘yes’ for this option.

Control Panel Type
Your server may have come with control panel software. We support cPanel, Directadmin, Ensim, Plesk and Webmin. If you do not have any control panel software please enter ‘Plain’ in this box.

Urchin on port 8080
If you are running a Urchin (Web analytics) server on port 8080 on your server please select ‘yes’ for this option.

Additional Ports to open
If you have any additional ports you would like opening in the firewall on your server please let us know the port numbers in this box and whether they are TCP or UDP. For instance you may need a extra port open for a Shoutcast server on your machine.
How did you hear about us?
Please let us know how you found EZSM.

Server Hostname
In this box you will need to put a server hostname for your server on a domain that you own which you can add a A record to. For example ‘server1.yourhostingcompany.com’ would be suitable. ‘www.yourhostingcompany.com’ or ‘yourhostingcompany.com’ are not suitable (Unless you are running a Plain server and would like your configuration specifically set up this way) as they are likely to be used for your website and you cannot have this the same as your hostname. ‘plesk.ev1servers.net’ for instance would also be unsuitable as you would not own that domain.

DRAC Card Username
If you have a DRAC (Dell remote access card) or a serial console attached to your server please put the appropriate username for it in this box.

DRAC Card Password
If you have a DRAC (Dell remote access card) or a serial console attached to your server please put the password corresponding to the above username for it in this box.

No. We only share with you our inspection report. It is completely up to how you take care of any issues we may discover. Of course we will like to be of service and keep extended relations with you.

Presently we do not have limitation on how many servers you can get inspected for free but we reserve our right to limit maximum number, drop free offer and / or decline your request for any reason or no reason at all even after confirming your order.

Presently we do not have limitation on how many free inspections you can request, we reserve our right to decline your request for any reason or no reason at all.

We have a-la-carte support or on-demand support available even if you do not subscribe to a service package. One hour payment is required in advance with money back guarantee.

Yes, you can cancel a subscription any time before the monthly renewal date. If your subscription has already been renewed for the subsequent month, you can request cancellation with effect from the next billing date. We do not provide prorated refunds on monthly subscriptions because we perform a free reverse setup upon cancellation in order to remove our monitoring tools and scripts. This way we leave your server clean without any of our programs running on them. All the security tweaks are still left intact.

Yes. You can upgrade your subscription service package anytime. A prorated credit is applied towards price of the upgraded plan.

Yes. In fact there is an incentive to do so if you buy a subscription based plan within 10 days of buying a one-time service. Entire amount of one time service is credited towards the subscription package price.

Yes you can. The downgrade is applied with effect from next monthly billing date. No pro-rated refund is provided.

Yes you can. Cancellation is applied with effect from next monthly billing date. No pro-rated refund is provided. You can get support until end of the service period under subscription package. Thereafter, you can buy one-time support when you need it.

The day you sign up for the first service with Easy Server Management becomes your monthly payment due date. All invoices are sent 7 days before the monthly payment due date. First invoice for any additional services you sign up for get prorated to this monthly anniversary date.

Yes, you will receive only one consolidated invoice every month for all the recurring billing services on your account. When you add the second server, you authorize us to pay for setup and one month’s due. But we actually charge your credit card for setup and prorated amount for remaining period of monthly billing cycle. Following month, on billing date of the first server, you get charged for both (or more) servers.

Yes, we do let our customers change the monthly payment due date. To get the process started, please open a support request with our billing team.

We accept American Express, MasterCard, Visa, Discover and PayPal.

Yes we take PayPal payments.

You can use our billing portal to setup a recurring PayPal subscription. But since you manage your own PayPal account, if you cancel or change a service, unlike credit card payment, you need to visit your PayPal site and change it there.

Yes, you can certainly mail in a check. Our mailing address is 1717 Park St Ste 110, Naperville, IL 60563. Currently we do not accept ACH

When you open a trouble ticket from our support portal or send a mail from your registered email id, a ticket is generated instantly and you get an automated response. Our level 1 staff reviews it within 0-15 minutes and it gets assigned to appropriate support staff on duty 24/7/365. Our support staff starts working on 99% of trouble tickets within 15 min of opening a ticket. Actual time it takes to solve the problem depends upon the problem.

Yes. Our SLA is posted on the website.

Our staff has 1-15 years experience. All technical staff works under a Shift Supervisor who has 5+ year experience. Our new recruits receive a minimum of 6 month of training managing internal servers and mock issues and for another 6 months they shadow an experience staff. Once they graduate from this training, they are assigned to customer tickets.

EZSM support is conducted mainly via our helpdesk so your first port of call when you have a problem should be the helpdesk to check if we have already logged a ticket with you regarding the problem (When we do this our helpdesk will email you to notify you of this) and how we are trying to resolve it. It may be that the ticket has already been worked on for some hours and is under control, alternatively it could need your input in order to proceed. You can click the ticket number in order to access this ticket and can add any responses you need to at the bottom.

Alternatively if there isn’t a ticket already open under your account you will need to open one. You can do this by clicking ‘New Ticket’ in the menu under the EZSM logo.

When you open a new ticket you will need to fill in some important information at the top of the ticket. While this information is optional, if you think that this may be needed to work on your request, its to your advantage to furnish it at the time of opening a ticket. This would save time lost in our staff asking you for it and you getting it for them.

Main Server IP
This is the main server IP of your server, this should be in the standard IPV4 format ‘xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx’. If you do not know which your main server IP is please contact your datacenter for this information as we cannot log into your server without it!

Admin Pass
This is the password for the user ‘admin’ on your server, by default many datacenters disable direct root login via SSH for security reasons and therefore we need to login as the user ‘admin’ before using becoming the root user.

Root Pass
This is the root password for your server, the root user is the master user on your machine used to perform maintenance and upgrades as well as troubleshoot any problems on your machine.

Admin CP Pass
This is your administrator password for your chosen control panel (If you have one) in order to access it. This is your cPanel, DirectAdmin, Ensim, Plesk or Webmin password.

Please note if you do not fill out the above information accurately then we may not be able to work on your ticket until you have provided us with accurate information.

You have full access to your own server all the time. However, while we are trying to troubleshoot a problem for you it is best that you don’t change any settings without letting us know prior to making changes. It is possible that your changes may conflict with our testing/changes to the settings and could make a situation worse. For the same reason please let us know if you are asking your datacenter or another company/person to look into a issue so we can either cease working on your issue or work collaboratively in sync with the third party.

It is your server you have full right to do anything you want with it. However we advise strongly against it. We cannot stress enough the confusion two admins working on your server can create and conflicts between the changes made to your settings by different set of admins could have serious consequences to your server and the data held on it.

When submitting a ticket through portal, you can indicate the priority of your call. Please consider carefully whether your call is urgent or not. Obviously if your server is offline or there is a imminent danger to your machine use priority one. You should be considerate and not assign Priority 1 to non-critical matters or deferred requests.

You can speed up our assignment process by selecting the appropriate department when opening your ticket. Failure to do so requires level 1 staff to go through the ticket contents and look up operating system of the server in order to take a decision. Also this way a sales/billing request can go directly to appropriate department.

You may leave it blank but we request not to do so. It helps us speed up routing of the ticket and understand problem faster if you write a proper subject line. Also if more than one support thread is active one can quickly see what a communication relates to. Please choose a sensible subject/comments regarding your ticket. If the subject of your ticket is that your POP incoming email server is offline please put that in your ticket subject, for example “POP server unreachable”.

If you describe business angle, and technical background of a trouble it helps us understand it root cause and impact better. Also in comments for a ticket please provide us with a accurate way to replicate the problem. For example, If the problem is you cannot log into the POP email server, if you provide us with a username/password that is having the problem, not only we can solve it faster, we can test it as well. If you do not provide us with the username/password then we have nothing to replicate the issue with.

Please include any error messages and relevant information in your ticket to make sure we have all the appropriate information to troubleshoot your problem, tickets with more information/server usually are resolved quicker as we can spot any problems in the messages returned via the server.

If monitoring is included in your package we monitor your server both externally and internally 24/7 and take proactive action on your machine when our monitoring system reports a problem. Therefore if you intend to stop services on your machine for any maintenance period then please open a ticket to let us know so we don’t restart them for you.

If you would like to review a resolved ticket you can access it by going to our Helpdesk and then clicking ‘Tickets’ in the menu below the logo and then clicking ‘Resolved’ just above the list of tickets.

Yes, we support 64bit operating systems as well.

Yes, we support VPS and Cloud servers as well under hourly and Full Service packages. We do manage the main nodes for the popular Virtualization technologies too. For details click here.

Only for emergencies and exceptional circumstances.

We provide support in English only at this time.

If you change your passwords or would like to change your passwords you can log a ticket to us regarding this via our helpdesk under the department ‘Profile Updates’.

If you choose to run Red Hat Enterprise to keep your system secure and up to date you will need to purchase a Red Hat Enterprise subscription. This will need to be renewed every year. If you do not want to purchase a RHEL subscription you can choose to use CentOS on your server.

If you have purchased a package from us that includes service monitoring please let us know if there is any scheduled downtime. If your server is down and you have not scheduled downtime with us we will follow the normal escalation procedures and attempt to bring your server back up.

You should never cold reboot your server just to fix a service that may not be responding if you can just login and restart the service. Doing this could lead to file system corruption and damage to your data. There is also the issue that if we are running maintenance on your server and your datacenter automatically reboots it in the middle of a upgrade your server may be irreparably damaged. Please deactivate automatic reboots if you purchase a service package from us.

Hourly support is on a per-incident basis, this means this one-time support is valid for one incident/ticket.

The phone number to call for phone access to your tickets is +1-630-723-5512 if you are a full service+ customer. For all others, you can request a call back from tech team in your ticket. If your matter warrants a call back, we will call on your provided number or politely decline your request in the ticket.

After you have purchased a service package and received your username and password you will need to put a initial ticket to our helpdesk to instruct them how they can best help you. Please include all relevant details of what you would like setting up/etc. Please note if you do not activate your service package it will not be set up! Please note you will need to put in a ticket for each new service that you order.

To login via SSH you should first login as the ‘admin’ user and then type ‘su -‘ to get to the superuser account.