FAQ

If you have a support question and are a current customer you may open a support ticket through our web site by logging in and selecting the "Tickets" menu option or by going to:
https://www.take2hosting.com/?p=tickets

For other questions you may contact us at any of the following:

billing [at] take2hosting.com - Any billing questions
support [at] take2hosting.com - Support inquiries
sales [at] take2hosting.com - Sales or general inquiries
abuse [at] take2hosting.com - Abuse complaints and DMCA

Take 2 Hosting, Inc.
1163 S 800 E Orem, UT 84097
Phone: 408-212-0360

(408) 212-0360

When a new server is ordered, we issue the bill for the current month and the one following. If it is after the 20th of the current month, then the second bill is considered due immediately as well.
The amount for the current month is prorated to the day the server was ordered. If you order a server but do not pay for it within the same day, you are still responsible for the days it was suspended awaiting payment.

Payment for new accounts is required within one hour of server provisioning. Once payment is received access to the new services will be granted.

After the initial invoice, a new bill is always issued on the first day of the month. Invoices are issued one month before the start of the service period and are due on the 20th of the month preceding the service period. For example, on April 1st we issue the invoice for May 1st through May 31st. This invoice is due by the 20th of April.

If you have elected to pay by credit card then your credit card will be automatically charged on the 20th of the month. We accept Master Card, Visa, Discover and American Express. We also accept PayPal Instant Payments (Verified Accounts Only). PayPal eCheck payments are accepted but payment is not considered made until the eCheck payment clears.

You may see your current account balance at any time by logging in to the Take 2 Hosting web site and selecting the "Billing" tab or by visiting:
https://www.take2hosting.com/?p=billing.
If paying by check please remit to:

Take 2 Hosting, Inc.
1163 S 800 E Orem, UT 84097
Phone: 408-212-0360
USA

Please contact billing [at] take2hosting.com with any billing questions or call (408) 212-0360.

If you experience a hardware failure on your server please open a ticket to notify our staff of the failure. Your existing hardware will be repaired or replaced at no cost.

If a primary component of your server fails, your existing drives will be moved to another server at no cost.

Our network infrastructure is a simplified two-tier design based on routers and switches all from Extreme Networks. At the core of our network we have multiple routers all employing BGP routing protocols. Each core router consists of dual MSM management modules (in active-active mode) providing both improved routing speeds and resiliency.

Every customer attached switch is multi-homed to our core routers. This provides fault-tolerance and redundant network paths in the case of connectivity loss to a core router.

Take 2 Hosting servers are located at the Fibernet Data Center in Orem, Utah, USA.

All of our servers are connected via 100 Mbit ethernet and include a full 100 Mbps of ingress (incoming) bandwidth. Your egress (outgoing) traffic is limited to your specific plan.

Currently we offer three different bandwidth choices applicable to egress traffic; 10 Mbps, 50 Mbps, and full 100 Mbps. The bandwidth options are for guaranteed (ie. not shared) bandwidth. This means if you opt for the 50 Mbps plan you are free to push a full 50 Mbps whenever and for however long you need.

The chart below shows the maximum transfer available on each plan based on a 330 Gigabytes of transfer per Megabit per month.

Monthly Bandwidth		Maximum Outgoing		Maximum Incoming
10 Mbps		3.3 TB		33.0 TB
50 Mbps		16.5 TB		33.0 TB
100 Mbps		33.0 TB		33.0 TB

In addition to our standard 10/100, 50/100, 100/100 service offerings we do offer a Flex95 Port Upgrade option. Flex95 will open up your outgoing port speed to a full 100 Mbps with a valve subject to your 95th percentile.

If at any point during the month your 95th percentile exceeds your plan limit (ie. 50 Mbps on the 50/100 plan) your port is valved back to your plan limit. Once your 95th percentile drops back below your plan limit, your port is uncapped and fully burstable to 100 Mbps again.

This offers a viable alternative to metered burstable bandwidth without the worry of ever incurring any kind of bandwidth overage charges.

Wikipedia has a good write-up on 95th percentile billing here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burstable_billing

One of the major drawbacks to metered billing vs. fixed billing is that you have the potential for monthly bandwidth overage charges. Our Flex95 billing methodology does away with all such overage charges and returns you to a predictable flat rate billing.

For those interested, here are the actual mechanics of Flex95 by way of example. We'll assume you're using the 10 Mbps plan in this example.

Every five minutes we calculate the amount of transfer you did for the previous 5 minutes. We calculate only based on your outgoing bandwidth; the incoming bandwidth is free. We take that number and convert it to an average bandwidth rate.

For instance, if you transferred 735 Megabytes of data in the five minute period, we would calculate that as 19.6 Megabits/sec.

As the month progresses we collect more and more samples (one every five minutes). Every five minutes we look to see how many samples are above 10 Mbps and how many are below. We take the top 5% of samples and throw them out (ie. if you had 1000 samples, we would throw out the top 50 samples). The highest remaining sample is your 95th percentile point.

If your 95th percentile point is below 10 Mbps then your port stays burstable to 100 Mbps. If the 95th percentile point is not below 10 Mbps then we cap your port at 10 Mbps.

We continue to sample every five minutes. If your port is capped then once your 95th percentile point drops back below 10 Mbps we uncap your port and you're opened back up to 100 Mbps again.

Additionally, we will not cap your port if you have less than 96 samples (8 hours) above 10 Mbps, regardless of what your 95th percentile point is at. This is to ensure you get adequate burst time no matter what.

We reset the statistics on the first of every month and all capped ports at that time are uncapped.

The Flex95 Port Upgrade is available on the 10/100 and 50/100 plans and is billed at a rate of $20/month.

There are several hardware configurations available. At times there may be some specific configurations that are out of stock and not available for on-demand provisioning. The different options are all presented on the server provisioning page.

Drive upgrades are available for the Server Type 1 configuration (Quad Core Xeon 3210+). These upgrades replace your existing drives. Your previous data will NOT be preserved.

If you are ordering a server and your specific configuration is out of stock we recommend that you order a server of the same type and then immediately open a ticket and request that the hardware configuration be changed to match what you're looking for. We recommend that you do not use the server until the configuration change has been done as some configuration changes entail reinstalling the operating system.

Please open a ticket or contact support if you have any questions.

Yes. Your server comes preconfigured with a single usable IP address. When provisioning your server you have the option to order the server with 1 usable IP address or 5 usable IP addresses (/29 netblock).

You may see a list of your current IP addresses and which servers they are assigned to from the "Status" tab here:

https://www.take2hosting.com/?p=status

You may order additional IPs at any time from the "Status" tab as well. Additional IPs may be ordered in blocks of 4 IPs (/30 netblock), 8 IPs (/29 netblock), 16 IPs (/28 netblock), or 64 IPs (/26 netblock). The cost for additional IP addresses is $1/month per IP. This interface also allows you to request additional IPs from different subnets. Appropriate justification is required for additional IPs.

At any time you may request the removal of any IP addresses that you ordered after your server had been provisioned (those IPs that are not part of the original netblock). If you ordered a contiguous block of IPs (/30 netblock or greater) the entire block must be removed at once.

You can maintain your Reverse DNS record from the 'Status' Tab. You may update the reverse record for the Primary IP address of your server, or for any statically routed IP addresses. The Forward DNS for the IP address must match the Reverse for the update to occur.

Type 1 servers are expandable to 8GB of memory and Type 2 servers are expandable to 24GB of memory. All current plans include the maximum allowable amount of RAM in each respective server type.

If your existing server is on one of the older plans which includes less than 8GB (Type 1) or 24GB (Type 2) then memory upgrades are available.

Type 1 servers may be expanded from 2GB to 4GB for an additional $20/month or from 2GB to 8GB for an additional $60/month. Type 1 servers which already have 4GB may be expanded to 8GB for an additional $40/month.

Type 2 servers may be expanded from 8GB to 16GB for an additional $80/month or from 8GB to 24GB for an additional $160/month. Type 2 servers which already have 16GB may be expanded to 24GB for an additional $80/month.

Yes. Type 1 servers are expandable to two 1000 GB hard drives and Type 2 servers are expandable to four 1000 GB hard drives.

Upgrading a Type 1 system from 2x500GB to 2x1000GB involves replacing the existing hard drives. Your previous data will not be preserved and an OS reinstall will be necessary.

Upgrading a Type 2 system from 2x1000GB to 4x1000GB does not impact your existing data. Your previous data will remain in tact and an OS reinstall will not be necessary.

Upgrading from 2x500GB to 2x1000GB may be done for an additional $10/month. Upgrading from 2x1000GB to 4x1000GB may be done for an additional $20/month.

You may control the power to your server at any time from the Status menu. Log in to your account and choose "Status" from the menu selections. Select your server ID. You have the ability to turn your server off, on, and power cycle (off for 15 seconds then automatically on).

Please note that you may also access your server via its serial console port (see the Serial Console section of this FAQ). If you have difficulties with your server you should consider attempting to log in via the console port before resorting to a power cycle. It may take up to 5 minutes after a power cycle request for your server to become accessible on the network.

Should you find your system in a state where you are unable to boot it you may execute a network rescue mode boot. It is suggested that you do this only if you were unable to boot into single user mode (see the Single User Mode section of this FAQ).

To use this option you will need to connect to the serial console port of your server (see the Serial Console section of this FAQ). From the Server Control menu you will have the option to reboot the system into rescue mode. select it and reboot (power cycle) the system. After a few minutes your system will boot up in rescue mode and you may begin working with the server through the serial console port. Each Linux distribution comes with its own Rescue software. There are many differences between the Debian based Rescue mode and the Red Hat based Rescue. Your server will be rescued with the appropriate software suit based on the installation OS of your server.

You may choose to reinstall the Operating System on your server at any time. You may also choose to change the Operating System and/or the RAID level.

To reinstall/change the Operating System or RAID level simply visit the "Server Control" tab here:

https://www.take2hosting.com/?p=control

Select the server for which you wish to do the reinstall, select "Reinstall Entire OS" from the Action drop down and confirm the action by typing INSTALL in the action confirmation form field. Then select which OS and RAID level you would like to have installed and click the "Perform Action" button.

Please note that reinstalling the Operating System will reformat the hard drives. NO DATA WILL BE PRESERVED. If you have any important data stored on the server please make sure you have a local backup copy of the data before choosing to reinstall the OS.

You may access your server through it's serial console port at any time. This allows for out-of-band access to the server and may be used to access the server even if the server has lost network connectivity (the most common causes of this are a misconfigured "iptables" firewall entry and/or misconfiguring the eth0 network port). Serial console access is also required if you wish to boot into single user mode (see the Booting to Single User Mode section in this FAQ), and Network Rescue Mode.

To connect to the console port you will need to open a SSH connection to "ts.take2hosting.com" and log in with the details provided in the initial "New Server Information" email you received when your server was activated. You can also find Serial Console information on the Status page. After you connect to your server over serial console, you must then log into your server with your normal server password.

The serial console baud rate is set to 38400 bps with 8 data bits, no parity and 1 stop bit.

If you have ordered your server with IPMI support you also have access to virtual KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) services as well as Virtual Media support (through which you can install your own operating system from ISO).

IPMI access is enabled in addition to the standard out-of-band Serial Console.

To connect to the IPMI interface you must first set an IPMI IP Address and list which IP address from which you wish to access the interface. This is done on the "Status" page. Click on the Server ID you wish to set access for and then set the appropriate options in the IPMI section at the top of the page. Access to the IPMI interface will only be allowed for IPs that you list in the IPMI configuration section. You may access the IPMI interface via HTTPS by using the IP address (ie. "https://IP.TO.IPMI.INTERFACE/").

If you wish to install your own operating system, you must use the virtual media support. To do this you must first log in to the IPMI web interface (the link for your specific server is given in the IPMI configuration section on the "Status" page).

Once logged in you will need to click on the "System". The page that is then displayed will include a "Remote Console Preview" of the virtual KVM. Click in the preview window and the java-based KVM program will download and start. If your browser downloads the launch.jnlp file (instead of executing it) then go ahead and execute the launch.jnlp file and the java-based KVM program will run.

Once the virtual-KVM window opens you will see several options along the top of the window. Select the "Virtual Media" menu and then the "Virtual Storage" option. This will open up an additional window. Click the "CDROM & ISO" tab. You may now select "ISO File" from the drive drop-down, click "Open Image" to select the local ISO image on your system, and then use the "Plug in" button to insert the ISO image into the virtual CD/DVD drive.

You may now select "Reset" from the IPMI web interface to issue a reset to the server. When the BIOS POST information displays on the virtual-KVM hit F11 to bring up the boot menu (you may find it easier to bring up the "Virtual Keyboard" option from the "Virtual Media" menu and hit F11 from there). Choose the option to boot from the CDROM drive.

As an alternative to using an ISO image on your local machine, you may also load your ISO image via any Windows Share mount. To use an ISO image available via a Windows Share you must list the IP address of the Windows Share server in the IPMI configuration section on the "Status" page. You can then log in to the IPMI web interface select the "CD-ROM Image" option from the "Virtual Media" menu. List the IP address of the Windows Share on the "Share host" line, the appropriate Windows Share path to the ISO image file, and username/password if necessary. Then click the "Save" button and then "Mount". You should now see it say "There is a disk mounted." next to the "CDROM & ISO Status" line.

You may now issue a reset to the server and use F11 at the BIOS POST screen to access the boot menu.

As an alternative to the HTTPS web interface, you can access the IPMI functions of the server using the SuperMicro Java IPMI client IPMIView.

You may boot your server into single user mode any time you wish. This is typically used to make configuration changes and to fix configuration mistakes.

To boot the server into single user mode you must first connect to the serial console port (see the Serial Console Access section of this faq).

Once done you may reboot your server. After a couple of minutes you will come up to the GRUB loader screen. Press a key to stop the automatic loading process. You will be left at a GRUB prompt. Press 'e' to edit the boot parameters. select the kernel boot line and add the word ' single' (no quotes) to the end of the line. Hit enter and then 'b' to boot the system. When the server boots the kernel, it will be in Single User Mode.

Take 2 Hosting, Inc. is a proud supporter of the Linux community and provides a local http mirror of all distributions that we support. You will find these mirrors at:

• http://centos.take2hosting.com
• http://ubuntu.take2hosting.com
• http://xenserver.take2hosting.com

This is the quickest, easiest and most secure way to update software on your Take 2 Hosting server.

Take 2 Hosting provides an API to our service control system. This offers customers and resellers the ability to seamlessly integrate with the Take 2 Hosting automation features. The API offers a simple and secure way to manage all of your Take 2 Hosting services. You may find out more about our API here.

The contact data we obtain from you, our customer, is for our internal use only. We ask for only basic contact and billing information. We will never sell, distribute, or give away your information.

In the event that you have forgotten your password to the Take2Hosting website, you can request that your password be reset.

If you have forgotten the root password to your server, you must boot your server into Single User Mode to reset your password with the passwd command.