I am bringing this up because twice this month previous customers have inquried about returning for service. Both customers asked if we still had copies of their files. As a provider, you can’t help but feel bad when a customer requests to cancel service.

Usually you delete all the files and use the server for something else or for a different customer. We started compressing customer files and storing them on tapes for a period of 12 months. When customer cancel (at least in our case) they do so becuase they either found a cheaper provider, were bought out or obsorbed by another company, or simply closed up shop. I have run into all 3 over the last few years, but it seems most of them return because we provided such good service. As sad as it sounds, sometimes customers need to see that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.

If you are a service provider, you may want to take the extra 10 minutes to archive your customer data. It really makes you look like a rockstar when you can turn up a returning customer with their old data.

Password protecting directories is not new. The next step up would be firewall policies. You may allow only RDP access to specific IP addresses. However, you may need something between. For example, most ticket systems today are web-based. This makes it easier for admins to work remotely. However, these ticket systems contain the most important company data. Passwords, client names, IP addresses, etc are all documented in tickets.

Most ticket systems have a customer portal that allows customers to view their tickets. Then their is the admin or staff side. Let us say your ticket software is installed at the address: support.yourcompany.com. Customers can go to that URL to submit and view tickets. The staff will usually login via the URL: support.yourcompany.com/staff or support.yourcompany.com/admin. That’s fine, but personally, I’d feel a little better if this was restricted to prevent joe blow from seeing a login prompt. Remember, you cannot completely lock this URL down at the firewall because customers still need access to it. You can however use an old fashioned .htaccess file with an ACL inside.

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The example above would need to be placed on your webserver in the /staff and /admin folders of your URL. Anyone visiting those URLs from hosts other than the ones listed in the .htaccess file will receive an error message.

Every now and then you’ll find yourself in a bind where you need to delete files older than a certain date. This isn’t a bid deal in small numbers, but when faced with a directory containing 120,000+ files it can be overwhelming. Not to worry! The following command will do this for you. You will simply need to adjust the date depending on what you want to do. Here is the command:

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That will list all files from May of the current year and delete them. Remember, Linux will not show the year of the file if it is the current year. You can use this command 12 times (once per month) and delete all files from every month. The following will list all files from 2008 and delete them:

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Be careful using these commands as their is no way to “undelete” files in Linux. You would need to restore from a backup.