#296189 - 02/04/2007 04:34
Web hosting redux...
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Hi all,
I'm looking at web hosting providers. After searching the BBS, I basically came across a handful of candidates. I see that some of them are "powered by cPanel", which is a very nice looking control tool. However, after a bit of playing, I see that cPanel looks to Matt's Script Archive as a source of inspiration, rather than the stinking cesspool of shite code that it really is. Consequently, I'm a bit leery of any hosting provider that uses cPanel. I think that leaves Dreamhost.
Any other good recommendations that have sprung into existence since the last time this topic was aired?
The control-freak in me says I have to have full access -- ssh and the works (Dreamhost is good for this). The realist in me says good gosh, I don't need all those other features, nor that much storage or bandwidth (of course, perhaps I could use it for offsite backups).
Cheers,
Edit: Since I'm expecting low-bandwith usage, I'm even tempted to just use DynDNS's CustomDNS option to run things off a machine in my closet...
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#296190 - 02/04/2007 11:29
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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My old host had cPanel, I think. I hated that. I'm currently a big fan of Dreamhost, though many here are not, for some reason (and I admit that their newsletters are extremely off-putting and some of the oddest professional communications I've ever seen). Others here like 1and1. *edit* Quote: that much storage or bandwidth
I signed on during a brief period when they were giving 400GB of storage for whatever plan now has 200GB. I LOVE having that much space. I back up all my MP3s, photos, and other documents to my web space (among other places). And I still have a about 80% of my space free
Edited by Dignan (02/04/2007 11:31)
_________________________
Matt
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#296191 - 02/04/2007 12:18
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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I may just send all my MP3s and Digital Photos up to a private directory on Dreamhost...
Their support staff has been good at communicating once you get beyond the first message, which is often quick and may not really be exactly the solution you were looking for.
They have also been more stable recently, but fr a long time had severe mail issues that lasted for weeks at a time. The most recent issue caused slow outbound mail delivery for about 6 to 12 hours. At least one of the messages I sent didn't get out that day (but no warnings or other signes were produced - I luckily BCC myself on some of these).
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#296192 - 02/04/2007 16:20
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Bruno - I think you may have been affected by the problems they were having a while ago. Have you attempted to read their newsletters? I tried once, and they talked about having serious problems for a while, but have since moved to a new facility, and have scaled back on the amount of space/bandwidth that they offer. *edit* I found a description of what their problems were: http://blog.dreamhost.com/2006/09/19/anatomy-of-a-disaster-part-2/
Edited by Dignan (02/04/2007 16:25)
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Matt
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#296193 - 02/04/2007 18:56
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Any other issues besides the mail? I don't really plan to use the domain for email accounts.
My current thought is to register a domain with a CNAME record (via interNIC's directDNS for $5/year), pointing to my current dynDNS account. Although, looking at namecheap.com (which Rob recommended in another thread), they give you all that functionality for free when registering a domain.
So I guess now it boils down to... do I want to have continued payments of $10/month... hmm...
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#296194 - 02/04/2007 20:32
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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Do you plan on having only one domain name? Dreamhost gives you one registration free, for as long as you host with them. At least they do for me...
_________________________
Matt
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#296195 - 03/04/2007 04:14
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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addict
Registered: 13/06/2000
Posts: 429
Loc: Berlin, DE
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Not that I'm trying to be a corp-whore or anything, but you could try Google hosted applications :-)
The only thing that it doesn't do well is the web page hosting... the mail/chat/etc hosting is great tho.
_________________________
80gig red mk2 -- 080000125 (No, I don't actually hate Alan Cox)
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#296196 - 03/04/2007 15:04
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: Dignan]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Yup. One domain name. I've always been fine just using my dyndns subdomain in the past, but in this particular instance, I need something a little nicer.
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#296197 - 03/04/2007 15:20
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: SuperQ]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote: Not that I'm trying to be a corp-whore or anything, but you could try Google hosted applications :-)
The only thing that it doesn't do well is the web page hosting... the mail/chat/etc hosting is great tho.
Heh. I don't actually need any of the mail/chat/etc part -- all I want is the web page hosting.
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#296198 - 10/05/2007 20:41
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I've started using DreamHost as more than just a place to backup my photos. I have to say it isn't going that smoothly.
On their support wiki they say that they aim to keep load averages below 3. This just doesn't appear to be true. The web server that I have been on regularly has load averages over 20 (seen it much higher than that as well), very rarely does it drop below 5. The result of this is that my Wordpress pages can often take 10-15 seconds to process, even with wp-cache turned on.
When I raised this with support they told me that the load on the server wasn't an issue. They ignore any comment I make that maybe they should update their "below 3" claim on the wiki.
This morning I had another big problem. All of a sudden all my websites had stopped working.
After a bit of digging I realised what had happened. They had moved me from one web server to another without warning. I host the DNS for my domains, so my websites were all pointed at the IP address of the server I was on before.
There was no warning (or even notification after the event) of this move. The support people I am talking to don't seem to see that this is a big problem.
So now I have to go an update the DNS for all my domains and change all my rsync backup scripts to point to the new server (and setup my ssh keys again).
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#296199 - 10/05/2007 20:47
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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And I've noticed that my crontab got binned during the move as well.
Apparently there is supposed to be an automated message before a move, which isn't working.
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#296200 - 10/05/2007 21:12
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/02/2002
Posts: 3212
Loc: Portland, OR
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Quote: I've started using DreamHost as more than just a place to backup my photos. I have to say it isn't going that smoothly.
Ugh. Well, if it's any consolation, they're not getting any of my money -- I ended up going with the box-in-my-closet solution.
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#296201 - 11/05/2007 06:36
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Ugh. Well, if it's any consolation, they're not getting any of my money -- I ended up going with the box-in-my-closet solution.
These domains that failed today were moved from a box-in-my-friend-closet solution to Dreamhosts because the DSL line that they were connected via was proving to be unreliable...
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#296202 - 11/05/2007 09:30
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote: These domains that failed today were moved from a box-in-my-friend-closet solution to Dreamhosts because the DSL line that they were connected via was proving to be unreliable...
I moved my domains to a VPS at Spry (they also do shared hosting and dedicated physical boxes). I've had no problem with them.
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-- roger
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#296203 - 11/05/2007 14:46
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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I'm a little puzzled that DreamHost keeps getting mentioned here so much.
I looked into it a few months ago solely because people here kept mentioning it.
I was, uh, not to put too fine a point on it, "sorely non-plussed".
From my point of view it seems they have a long legacy of vast incompetence and total disregard for their customers.
They like to frequently write up long memos about "here's what happened, but it wasn't really our fault, and it was just a one-time thing, and nothing like this will ever happen again" until the next "one-time thing" happens -- usually within a month or two.
I mean, come on! Until just a few months ago they didn't even have the default directory permissions set up right. Any user could poke around in other users' directories and grab their database passwords, etc. Yet you feel secure, because they offer you the charade of letting you use secure ftp and ssh. Right....
Let's be honest here. These guys have been around for a decade. And if they STILL don't have their stuff together, then it just ain't gonna happen.
That being said, I have never been a DreamHost customer, so this is just rampant speculation on my part. But THAT being said, it's scary enough speculation that I seriously doubt I will ever BE a DreamHost customer.
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#296204 - 11/05/2007 14:49
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: music]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Their unique selling point for me is their vast storage space for almost no money. That was why I started using them, purely as a place to back up 60GB of photos etc
That they also offer web hosting to me is a bonus. I wouldn't really recommend them for web hosting unless it really didn't matter if the websites were available or not.
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#296205 - 11/05/2007 14:51
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: music]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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I'm confused. If you've never been a Dreamhost customer, how do you know about all these problems they've been having? I can't speak to the security aspect, which is something that concerns me a little, but as for the service they provide I haven't had any problems. Sometimes it seems a little slow, but that's mostly my internet connection at work. *edit* And what Andy said...
Edited by Dignan (11/05/2007 14:52)
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Matt
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#296206 - 11/05/2007 15:38
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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We haven't had availability problems with our site at Dreamhost, but it's not something that's going to be hit by thousands of people every minute. A few thousand in a day has been no problem though.
Bigger issues come with mail. I've written about it a few times before. SMTP and POP servers going down all the time for at least a month. Now mail connection issues just happen infrequently. But mail, both outgoing and incoming is still being lost. I can't tell how much of it though. The most recent manifestation ended just last week when I noticed that mail generated by our own contact form wasn't always being delivered. Sometimes I'd get the debug log version of the message but not the proper message itself. I have a logging procedure in place to help with fighting spam atttacks. And other times I'd get a BOUNCE back from my own mail server saying that I had reached some SENDER QUOTA. They got back to my support request and claimed there was some misconfiguration on their end and it was now fixed. This took 2 weeks though.
The thought of moving the site right now makes my skin crawl though. Custom PHP installation, a hand full of SQL databases and a large selection of files, most of which are html and php and don't rely on any server-specific paths. Still more than I wan to think about for now.
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#296207 - 11/05/2007 15:48
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Every ISP/host I haver ever let look after my email has let me down in the end. I have run my own email for years now, I don't trust anyone else with it.
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#296208 - 11/05/2007 17:44
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: Dignan]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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Quote: I'm confused. If you've never been a Dreamhost customer, how do you know about all these problems they've been having?
As I said, my knowledge is purely second-hand and should be weighted as such.
Here is how I gathered my knowledge about these problems:
- Their own blog and website -- which makes them look:
- like unprofessional buffoons,
- quite dismissive of user questions, and
- unresponsive to user problems.
- Several "Hosting Provider Reviews" websites.
- Various message boards where people post their good and bad experiences with various providers. You can find horror stories about any hosting provider. But the Dreamhost ones seemed particularly poignant and painful.
But to be honest, #1 alone would have kept me away from them.
As far as big, cheap space goes, GoDaddy offers 100GB for about $6/month and a 99.9% uptime guarantee -- assuming you don't object to their advertising approach, or their occasional heavy-handed knee-jerk DNS takedowns whenever people complain about your content. (Again not personal experience; I just read about it in the papers.)
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#296209 - 11/05/2007 17:57
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: music]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12338
Loc: Sterling, VA
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I do agree with you about how they present themselves. I tend to read most of their newsletters simply out of disbelief that this is actually a real business.
I will say that I don't trust host review sites anymore. I used one of those to find my previous web host, and was informed that paying $90 a year for 200MB was a really great deal. Back then I wasn't aware of how to shop for hosts, and that review site didn't help any.
Anyway, I defer to the other posters as to the quality of their service. I also don't use them for email, except for unimportant accounts that get forwarded to my Gmail address.
_________________________
Matt
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#296210 - 11/05/2007 18:05
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: music]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote: a 99.9% uptime guarantee
Just FYI, that's over eight hours of downtime a year.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#296211 - 11/05/2007 18:10
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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And it is only a network uptime guarantee, which means it doesn't cover server uptime.
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#296212 - 11/05/2007 20:22
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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How about the issue I'm gaving now...
People who have never contacted me before can do so through a form on the web. Because spammers were trying to abuse the form I implemented some logging after my last round of security tuning. As an aside, all spam through that channel is now 100% gone.
The logging is in the form of an email that gets sent to our support2007 address containing details about the real contact email (it's headers, user's IP, etc..). Both the log email and proper email are sent in the same way with the same mail command only a few lines apart in the same script. The server the PHP is running on is Dreamhost's and the mailboxes are also at Dreamhost.
Over the past few weeks I will receive the log message but won't receive the real contact message. This doesn't always happen, but has happened enough that it's been a real nuissance. A couple of times neither message has come through - this I know because someone wrote a second time to ask why I hadn't replied to the first message.
I suppose it's due time I create a log FILE on disk at the server rather than a second email which can also be hosed. It wasn't an issue before since outgoing and incoming mail wasn't the issue I was trying to log.
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#296213 - 12/05/2007 19:22
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: wfaulk]
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addict
Registered: 25/06/2002
Posts: 456
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Quote:
Quote: a 99.9% uptime guarantee
Just FYI, that's over eight hours of downtime a year.
Dreamhost has had more downtime than that on a single weekend. So, yeah, only eight hours downtime per year would be "dreamy" for some.
And 40 minutes a month is probably OK for me and for most "recreational" users.
If you want to get the 4th or 5th nine in your reliability, I believe you are now edging out of the realm of sub-ten-dollar per month hosting! A serious enterprise should expect to pay more substantial costs for serious enterprise level reliability. Though, many(most) of you know this area far better than I -- and will correct me if I am totally off-base on that assumption.
But cheap peons such as myself still deserve some courtesy and not to have their site down one day every month for <insert-bogus-reason>. But fifteen minutes a week probably won't kill me, especially if it is during off-peak hours.
Quote: andym: And it is only a network uptime guarantee, which means it doesn't cover server uptime.
According to GoDaddy's legal mumbo jumbo, it's both somewhat better than that, and oh so very much worse. I.e., they do guarantee that your website is accessible, but they specifically don't guarantee email or ftp.
Go Daddy offers a service uptime guarantee for the Services of 99.9% ("Service Uptime") of available time. If Go Daddy fails to maintain this level of service availability, You may contact Go Daddy and request a credit of 5% of Your monthly hosting fee from Go Daddy for that month. The credit may be used only for the purchase of further products and services from Go Daddy , and is exclusive of any applicable taxes. The credit does not apply to service interruptions caused by (i) periodic scheduled maintenance or repairs that Go Daddy may undertake from time to time; (ii) errors caused by You from custom scripting or coding; (iii) outages that do not affect the appearance of the web site but merely affect access to the web site such as FTP and email; (iv) causes beyond the control of Go Daddy or that are not reasonably foreseeable by Go Daddy ; and (v) outages related to the reliability of certain programming environments. Total Service Uptime shall be solely determined by Go Daddy and shall be calculated on a monthly basis.
And if they "fail to provide" the 99.9%, your only compensation is a 5% credit on that month's hosting fee. Woo-hoo, 30 cents!
So, yes, uptime guarantees are pretty much nonsense at the low end of the market. So you kind of have to go on track record. And since GoDaddy is now one of the top few largest hosting providers in the world (believe it or not), if (or rather, when) they have a major outage, you WILL hear about it.
Now reverting to our previously scheduled question, here is what I'm looking for in a hosting provider and have yet to find, unfortunately.
Do any of you know of anyone that meets the following requirements?
- Less than $10/month, preferably less than $5.
- 100 GB storage, 1 TB bandwidth.
- 99.9% uptime
- host unlimited domains and subdomains from one account
- hundreds of email accounts and email forwards
- at least a dozen MySQL databases
- PHP4,PHP5, Perl CGI, Java, Python, eventually PHP6
- Apache configured to look at local .htaccess files
- Apache should have an up-to-date and extensive set of modules
- Should suck less than Dreamhost in terms of security and reliability.
- ssh/sftp/rsync and cronjobs, and preferably complete shell access
Go Daddy fails to provide the last bullet. And that's a rather important bullet, in my opinion!
But so far, everyone else I've found that satisfies that criterion, fails on one of the others.
Help!
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#296214 - 22/10/2007 23:31
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: canuckInOR]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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So, have any of you guys found a good hosting solution? I'm going on my 3rd year of service with Dreamhost, and I'm starting to tire of the myriad problems. I can deal with the occasional downtime, as my sites aren't mission-critical, but the last straw is the notice they recently sent out to their customers saying that we can't use the storage space for network backup purposes. Why allow all that space if you can't use it for anything? (The real answer, of course, is they don't intend to actually allow you to use all of that space.)
The things I absolutely need are Apache, PHP5, a decent amount of space (my current DreamHost disk usage is 12GB) and ssh access. A really flexible control panel with custom DNS config, etc. would also be nice. Anyone have anything they're happy with that fits these requirements?
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#296215 - 22/10/2007 23:49
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: tonyc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
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I currently run a site with Bluehost.com. I bought it mainly to throw large files up there, but I'm not really pushing the limits at this time. At one time, I had 90GB on there as a backup of some of my FLACs. My cable modem upstream made this difficult to set up/maintain, but I didn't really try anything fancy like rsync. I was just syncing with WinSCP. I briefly played with a Gallery2 installation on there, but doing a mass resize would spike my CPU usage enough to shut my site down for 10 minutes each time as a penalty. I heard that this limit has been raised, but I haven't tested again. Normal usage of Gallery2 seemed to operate fine. SSH required me to send some personal info, IIRC. I'm not sure why I agreed to that, but my access was granted promptly. Overall, I'm happy with the price and storage but I would never use them for anything critical.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli 80GB 16MB MK2 090000736
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#296216 - 23/10/2007 01:03
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: tonyc]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
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Quote: ... but the last straw is the notice they recently sent out to their customers saying that we can't use the storage space for network backup purposes. Why allow all that space if you can't use it for anything? (The real answer, of course, is they don't intend to actually allow you to use all of that space.)
Strange. I didn't receive that. Could you forward it on?
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#296217 - 23/10/2007 01:32
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: RobotCaleb]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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Er, actually, it wasn't an email, but it was posted to their status page: http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/2007/10/17/policy-clarification-personal-storage-back-ups/Something tells me that if someone was actually using their site to serve the amount of data they give you with their plans, they wouldn't exactly allow it. Network backup is an obvious benefit of Dreamhost, and, at this point, the only one, now that my $10/year pricing has expired and I'm on the hook for $10/mo.
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#296218 - 23/10/2007 02:01
Re: Web hosting redux...
[Re: robricc]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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From an online review I found of BlueHost: Quote:
BlueHost doesn't allow SSH/Shell Access by default, but says it will enable shell access for your account if you fax a copy of your driver's license, passport, etc. to them.
Aieeee, no sale. Driver's license? Passport? You've got to be kidding. Why could they possibly need this? I don't suggest they're doing anything nefarious with it, but really, we're talking about getting ssh access, which is just another network service you can connect on and do the same things you can do otherwise.
The rest of their package sounds great, but something about sending a hosting company a copy of my driver's license rubs me the wrong way. Anyone have any other suggestions?
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