I WANT ROOT (Or, suggest me a host)

[ToastControl]

OK, I'm shopping for a dedicated host. The reason for the strange thread title is that I absolutely, positively must have permissions to run things like top, netstat, traceroute, iostat, vmstat, and other performance diags. I cannot deal with crap companies like lunarpages telling me I have "excessive usage" without letting me see the numbers. Also I have to have reboot and httpd restart control.

Let's say the forum has, at most, 100 concurrent users and about 250,000 posts.

What service does a control freak like me need?

[Hooper]

Simple. Fire up a server and get a a commercial cable account with a static IP. Up the bandwidth to 3down and 1 or two up.

There. Total control over everything.

[Joshs]

Simple. Fire up a server and get a a commercial cable account with a static IP. Up the bandwidth to 3down and 1 or two up.

There. Total control over everything.

Bad advice. Do not host a server from your house. For one it will probably void your ISP's TOS. You also will most likely not have the hardware to fend off DDoS attacks, etc. Invest in a dedicated server at a reputable provider such as The Planet. If you do a little shopping you can find an affordable solution and get what you want. Just make sure that you hire an admin if you are unfamiliar with maintaining a server.

[Hooper]

Please re-read josh. "Get a a commercial cable account."

And no. It's not bad advise. May not be what the person needs in particular, but I've hosted here out of the office for two years now. So no, it's not bad advise. You do not need a datacenter to host a page. As far as DDOS, I assure you that if you ever get a good dossing, there will be no amount of bandwidth to save your butt. I've been there and done that.

I've also racked a few servers in a datacenter equipped with 100MB fiber feeds and commercial equipment. While a datacenter, a great backbone, redundant feeds, and the ablility to host at an enterprise level is an excellent business solution, it's not always a necessity for everyone. Especially if your main concern is "having root".

[Joshs]

Please re-read josh. "Get a a commercial cable account."

And no. It's not bad advise. May not be what the person needs in particular, but I've hosted here out of the office for two years now. So no, it's not bad advise. You do not need a datacenter to host a page. As far as DDOS, I assure you that if you ever get a good dossing, there will be no amount of bandwidth to save your butt. I've been there and done that.

I've also racked a few servers in a datacenter equipped with 100MB fiber feeds and commercial equipment.

Most commerical cable accounts I know of still do not allow you to host servers. They are simply residential versions of cable internet available to businesses (they want more money so they do not allow residential packages to be used in commercial environments). Also, you are wrong about DDoS attacks in terms of "there will be no amount of bandwidth to save your butt." Most decent data centers, for example The Planet, have massive amounts of money invested in mitigation systems. They can fend off attacks in excess of multiple gigabits per second. Some of my servers have been targetted in the past and received upwards of 80mbps attacks. Within minutes the mitigation system kicked in and all of the illegit. traffic was discarded.

[Hooper]

"Most commerical cable accounts I know of still do not allow you to host servers."

No Josh. That is what a commerical account is for. http://www.rrpro.com/

I've had commercial accounts with Charter and RoadRunner. You get a commercial 4 port router that allows for bandwidth changes if you need more. A simple call, they up your ups.

The Charter Business was around $250per month at the time with a /27 IP.
RoadRunner Business is around $70-$200 depending on what you need for
upstream and IP. Both are excellent services and the uptime was nothing other than excellent around the 90-95% mark.

As mentioned, I've had my pipes filled before. Paying the overages is not fun when the rack is a grand a month. It all depends upon the situation and circumstances. But to say "That's a bad idea" is not accurate. It may be a bad idea for some, but not for all. That's what commercial cable is all about. If you need a mission critical environment in which to host from, of course co-locate or rent a server. But if that is not a necessity, then there are certainly other options. People hosted on T1's forever and a day. I'm quite sure many still do.

Here is who I currently use. http://www.mybrightbiz.com/


"Most decent data centers, for example The Planet, have massive amounts of money invested in mitigation systems. They can fend off attacks in excess of multiple gigabits per second. Some of my servers have been targetted in the past and received upwards of 80mbps attacks. Within minutes the mitigation system kicked in and all of the illegit. traffic was discarded."

Great if it works. I guess Inflow datacenters forgot all about the mitigation systems. That's not what happened when my pipes became a hundred megabit dosmeister. Maybe their mesh was mush. Rest assured, the only one fending off the aggressors was me. Quite a losing battle indeed. So If the ol cable is bombarded, they won't get much satisfaction.

Reminds me that I learned the Cisco Pix inside and out in three and a half days. ACL and routing was accomplished at an enterprise level. Just had to have Cisco. Now, It's plain ol monowall and I'm more satisfied with what I can do with this oss software than I ever was with the pix. So are many others. Same thing. If it's needed great, if not, there are other solutions to offer both yourself and your clients. A packet is still a packet and no one is talking about running a web hosting company using cable. I do however know of a person or two that host a couple or three that allows them to pay for the account. So even that is possible if it's what you want.

Of all the "shared" accounts that I've had, and that's quite a few with various companies, big named and small, they all had the same issues. Bandwidth was never the issue. The problem is that they cram 700 accounts on a box to make a buck. They waste your time allowing you to write trouble tickets for the ever popular "My site is slow and it barely pulls up." Ticket after ticket. One crap script on the server and everyone is down. That's certainly not good business let alone enterprise class service. No opologies either. They say the words but they continue to fill the boxes. As far as I'm concerned they should have paid me to use their service in a few cases. Others were fine until they started adding too many accounts.

Many "so called" hosts have never even set foot in a datacenter. They rent a box and fill it up. Nothing wrong with that either as long as the service is good and pages load. Some of the time however that is not the case and the service is less than good.

As far as a "dedicated" goes, I'm quite sure that it means a box with no one else on it. Well that's not difficult hosting your own page. Parts are cheap these days. I don't believe bsd or linux has gone up in price either.

Me: Sorry to write but my page is down. The pages have been dragging for quite a while.
Host: Ok. We are looking into it.
Me: Ok. How many layers are there in the IOS/OSI model?
Host: I don't know, do you have any other questions concerning your account?
Me: Yes, can you recommend a good host?

Simply put, I used to believe good service was a technical support system where people actually answered the support ticket with answers other than "It was a bad script on the server" or "The server load was too high and we had to move some accounts off of it" within a reasonable amount of time. I've learned via experience that the best service you can have is when you don't have to use a support system at all. Now that is a good host. They don't waste your time. There are quite a few hosts that fit into that category. Most are datacenters that do dedicated sales only.

http://www.instantweb.com/a/anvil/articles/self_hosting/

http://www.anvil.org/

Some of your favorite kernel hackers, leaders of the open source movement, and other organizations alike host their own pages. It may or may not be the direction you need to take, but it certainly opens up an option for learning. A DSL or cable connection hosting a single site, page, etc... is at times a better scenario than a poor host with a loaded down boxes and garbage support. The freedom to learn is in it self is worth more than a "Terms of Service" that repeats itself with "Excessive Usage" statements. Many of the hosts "Terms of Service" if challenged by an indvidual or company wouldn't stand up in a court of law. But that's another issue. They would much rather give a refund and send you off to your next hosting adventure.