Web Hosting

Besides the obvious, what is the benefit and disadvantage to Dedicated vs Reseller.

Answer:

Advantages:

* The dedicated hosting is more secure compared to the shared reseller hosting.
* full root access
* Increase reliability
* dedicated server allows one to only install applications or software that applies to the major hosting goal at hand.

Disadvantages :

* Dedicated web hosting is significantly more expensive compared to shared or virtual web hosting.
* Another drawback is the need to be able to monitor, install, upgrade and configure programs, add sites, deal with potential hacks, and troubleshoot systems. Therefore, the necessary system administration skills required.

We all deal with different type of people. However, we’ve had to deal with such people too much lately. I’m sometimes too kind to let them signup.

Now, what type of customers I’m talking about?
I can point out a lot of, but I’m not going to. We’ve got a large number of customers who believe we should assist them with every isue which arises with the service! While I don’t mind helping them (we’re unmanaged provider), I suppose they should be aware of the risks of an unmanaged service. Shouldn’t they? (Btw, we do assist them with almost every issue, whether they’re under managed or unmanaged service—but we don’t guarantee that as sometimes we’re not available for assistance to unmanaged services. The service is still unmanaged, isn’t it? )

We’ve got all types of customers - from those who don’t know what’s a VPS/Dedicated to those who think we should fix all of their issues, whether we’re responsible or not.

Now, the worst part:
These people come on various forums and troll our threads or start up a new posts stating we’re responsible for their issues due to their (lack of knowledge), which they call as “our responsibility”.

How do you deal with these folks? Ah, one thing to note that they’re these in common - Abusive behavior.

Suggestions and comments welcome

Answer:

Always under-promise, and over deliver!

I can safely tell you the minute you do something to impress (thats not covered), you are making a fatal mistake. They will expect it next time. And when you don’t do it within 10 minutes at 3am, all hell breaks loose. I’ve seen the nicest of people turn into crapweasels because you didn’t notice their server was down and asked them if they wanted a reboot. Yep…

If you are offering an unmanaged service, its unmanaged. They aren’t paying you to fix their software. Or the firewall issue, they mucked up.

Occasionally with long term customers we’ll fix their problems. But we are so clear. “I’m having a look now. Please note carefully this is NOT covered in your service, and we are doing this as a goodwill festure. This work would NORMALLY be chargeable”.

Be clear!

Only recently we had a self-managed dedicated server customer who trashed their OS - we couldn’t get that far in enough to work out whether they’d done it themselves or be comprimised. They managed to totally duff up the filesystem in the process and we couldn’t get to any files.

This was on a real budget budget dedicated server (which we stopped doing a long long time ago). They actually thought we were liable for the data loss.

The data was SO important they’d never made one single backup of course.

I had to educate them.

Really guys, set your expectations from the start. Set them so they are easily attainable. Then aim to over deliver!

I have a client who wants to block access to his images directory. I have successfully blocked “right click” without issue in the browser, however if you simply click on “File>Save As” all graphics are downloaded.

How do I get around this?

I have searched and found several sites claiming to have solutions, but they don’t work. Is it even possible?

I considered nesting iframes and using an alternate domain name, so I could restrict all access accept the original domain’s call for the graphic. Any other better ideas?

Thanks!

Answer:

The moment someone publishes some content to the public, they should relinquish their sense of absolute control over it.

If it is viewable on the visitors screen it is also possible to copy it (in fact it has already been copied automatically in the download process via cache).

They only way to prevent it is to have an absolute control over the entire process from start to finish and that requires gaining control over other people’s computers. So the solution for your client is either not to pubish the original content as is, and instead publish a distorted version (i.e. watermarking) or simply accept the realities of releasing content to the public.

Sorry but that’s the way it is, watermarking is about the best solution.

I need to setup an account within my reseller account where the owner of a domain is going to forward(?) a subdomain to my reseller ip. Editing DNS zones and such has always confused me a little so I would like to understand the process before I start working with the IT people at this big institution I am dealing with. Here’s the scenario:

Big institution is asking for my ip address. They are going to forward http://myaccount.site.com to my reseller ip address. I need to have it setup so that myaccount.biginstitution.edu is what remains the address in the users browser when they are sent to my server.

In the past when I have redirected stuff from one domain to a domain in my account the original domain address has not been maintained - theirdomain.com forwards to mydomain.com where mydomain.com ends up the address in the users browser rather than something like myaccount.theirdomain.com ending up in the users browser.

I need help understanding how this is all going to work. My initial thought, is that I should setup the biginstitution.edu domain as an account using my custom dns servers, then create a subdomain ‘myaccount’ and that somehow their pointing the subdomain to my ip will have the whole thing resolve itself in the users browser - I just don’t think it will be that easy and I would like help understanding the process before I start dealing with this IT department.

I hope I’ve gotten a coherent question accross…and that i’m in the right forum…thanks for any help

Answer:

“Forward” is causing the confusion, and is probably incorrect in this scenario. What the big institution has to do is create A record “myaccount” point to your reseller ip. Then you create hosting account for myaccount.site.com
Anyone visiting myaccount.site.com will have dns resolvers resolve to your resller ip.

So it’s pretty simple really.

I have just signed up for a host and spent time on cpanel building my site and everything is done…except I still need to put in hyperlinks to show the goods I’m trying to sell.
Any tips for where to put the photos? I have a few hundred that I want to upload but should I host the photos somewhere else?

The cpanel solution is a little confusing.

I’m writing a discription for the item a few words like “pic” will be a hyperlink to the photo. Example 1 and 2 are exactly what I what ( in that order) as a newbie to all of this I’m not sure where the photo will sit (on my computer?, upload into an internal photo section on my site?, upload them to another site - like you did in example 2?)

So should I muddle my way through it or is there a better solution?

Answer:

If you wish to provide the user with a hyperlink to the image directly, then you would use something like this:

<a href=”images/image.jpg”>Link to image</a>

Obviously “Link to image” would be the text to make into a hyperlink…

As for the location to place these images:

1. Users can not access files located on your computer easily as it requires setting messing on your router…etc This is highly not advised for secuirty purposes. Also, many ISPs will shut you off for using your computer as a server because of bandwidth problems. That leaves the following two options…

2. Uploading the images to a remote host such as photobucket. This option is only advised when you do not have enough space on your own hosting plan / as a last resort if the pictures are to be used from another source…etc

3. Probably the most advised as it causes the least loading times usually! images are usually stored in a folder named “images” in your public_html folder as standard practice as not a compulsary measure, in the cpanel environment. Best uploading option would be via some sort of FTP program like smartFTP

You can also use the File Manager in cPanel to create a folder and upload images as well but FTP is the best option.

The basic connection process requires three bits of information:

FTP Address: *Given to you by your host - usually ftp.yourdomain.com*
Username: *Given to you by your host*
Password: *Given to you by your host*

Once you have these, load up ‘SmartFTP’ and enter them in the corresponding boxes at the top left corner of the application, and hit the enter button / press the arrow or connect button. If they are correct it should have opened a connection to your server and now be displaying your filestore. From here you can drag and drop files to transfer them from your computer to your filestore, or from your filestore to your server. Make sure you navigate to your public_html directory though, remember this is where your files are stored for web-access…

Basically cutting out the rubbish File Manager on CPanel.

.

Hey all,

So I picked up a dedicated server from Limestone Networks, as they have a great winter combo offer going on at the moment. My machine has the following specs:

Intel Core2Quad Q9300
8 GB RAM
750 GB SATA HDD
CentOS 5.2 x64
10mbps Unmetered Pipe
cPanel/WHM

I’ve installed cPanel/WHM on this server, and have also configured CSF/LFD and the like. Basically I’m using this box for personal sites. I happen to run a network of 89 proxy sites, and I’ve already transferred the sites over to my server.

I transfer anywhere from 10 - 20 GB a day. I’m basically looking to optimize my Apache configuration. On average there are about 70 users on my sites (total) at any given time.

I’ve noticed that my Apache /server-status page seems to be filling up quite a bit with “W” scoreboard keys. (Sending Reply)

I’ve done some thorough reading/research on different configurations, and have put together the above piece by piece. Any suggestions are welcome. Essentially, I’m looking to process requests as fast as possible, to deliver the best end-user experience.

Answer:

Login to your server as root using ssh.

All the important configuration options are stored by Apache in a config file called httpd.conf that is located at /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf We will start by opening this file in your favorite text editor. For exemple:

nano /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf

* MaxClients - Total number of concurrent connections.
Locate it in the configuration file. This should be set to a reasonable value. I suggest using this formula to determine the right value for your server.

MaxClients = 150 x RAM (GB)

So for example if you have 2 GB or RAM set this value to 300.
There is no reason for you to set it any higher unless you have a specific problem with this value. A high value can lead to a complete server hang in case of a DOS attack. A value too low can create timeout problems for your clients if the limit is reached.
* MinSpareServers and MaxSpareServers - MaxSpareServers and MinSpareServers control how many spare (unused) child-processes Apache will keep alive while waiting for more requests to put them to use. Each child-process consumes resources, so having MaxSpareServers set too high can cause resource problems. On the other hand, if the number of unused servers drops below MinSpareServers, Apache will fork (an expensive operation) new child-processes until MinSpareServers is satisfied.

Leave those values to:

MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 10

If you have more them 2 GB of RAM and you run a resource intensive website consider increasing MaxSpareServers.
* MaxRequestsPerChild - Controls the number of request the a child serves before the child is killed. This should not be set too low as it will put an unnecessary load on the apache server to recreate the child. I suggest setting it to:

MaxRequestsPerChild 1000

* KeepAlive and MaxKeepAliveRequests - KeepAlive provides long-lived HTTP sessions which allow multiple requests to be sent over the same TCP connection. In some cases this has been shown to result in an almost 50% speedup in latency times for HTML documents with many images, but having keepalive on is also a resource intensive setting.
Here comes the big question: To KeepAlive or not to KeepAlive?Well the opinions are mixed here, some say to KeepAlive some say not to.
If you want to hear my option I would say NOT to KeepAlive if you are running a shared hosting business or if you want to get the most out of your hardware. You should KeepAlive only if the loading time of your pages is the most important factor in your business and you have the money to invest in a more powerful hardware. If you decide to KeepAlive I suggest you set MaxKeepAliveRequest low to something like 2 seconds.

* StartServers - Sets the number of child server processes created on startup. This setting depends greatly on the type of webserver you run. If you run low traffic websites on that server set it low to something like 5. If you have resource intensive websites on that server you should set it close to MaxClients.
* Timeout - The amount of time Apache will wait for three things: the total amount of time it takes to receive a GET request, The amount of time between receipt of TCP packets on a POST or PUT request, the amount of time between ACKs on transmissions of TCP packets in responses.
The default value is 300. You should set time to something a bit lower. A setting of 150 is probably ok. This will also help in case of small DOS attacks like to ones targeting some phpBB forums. Do NOT set it any lower then 90 as your users will start having timeout problems.

After you have done all the necessary changes you can go ahead and restart Apache.

service httpd restart

It should restart without any problems. If it doesn’t please double check the changes that you done.

Important Notice ! After upgrading to cPanel 11 and recompiling Apache there is an extra step that you have to do so that the changes that you done to httpd.conf aren’t lost.
Starting with cPanel 11.x all the apache setting are also stored in a database and the configuration files are recreated each time an account is added or a recompile is done.
To also save the changes in the database you will have to run:

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/apache_conf_distiller –update

You can check to see if the changes were accepted and will not be discarded at the next apache recompile by running

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/build_apache_conf

Hi Guys,

I am just wondering if any of you guys use Google Analytics and what you think of it? Do you like it? I am thinking of using it, but not sure if it can track sales as well or do I need to implement something else on top of it to do so?

Answer:

Knowledge is power. Information about your visitors and how they are converting is a massive key to success in online sales - whether that’s in hosting or any other marketplace. Analytics is a very good stats package, and along with Webmaster Tools are pretty much invaluable to helping you make the right decisions about your website and online business. Is my $5000 per month advertising campaign working? Am I getting better conversions from Yahoo’s ad network or Google’s? More information basically helps you make better business decisions.

You can configure “goals” with it, which are specific locations a user ends up on (eg, thank you page). It won’t really track sales, because I believe you can only set an average value to a goal page, however once you set up goals you can track the “funnels” that users take to end up at your goal page, and see which pages might possibly be turning them away.

I believe you can also connect goals to google adwords campaigns and make a guesstimate about the effectiveness of your campaigns.

The only deliberation is privacy, do you want to hand Google all that data?

Ive been looking into this for a bit and have a few companies in my radar. It would be great if someone more experienced jumped in and helped me select a speedy, reliable, and knowledgeable host for my ecommerce site.

I am currently on hostgator, and magento is not quite cooperating with their servers. So I need to move..

Been lookin at:

Nexcess.net / eliterax
Crucial Web Hosting
SimpleHelix
ProperHost.NET
Madiatemple
Medialayer

Im not sue if I should go with shared or not because of the PCI compliance issue. However, im on shared hostgator now, and somehow I am compliant according to my merchant provider.

That led me to look into VPS or even dedicated, but I dont think I can afford dedicated just yet.

I like crucials setup, but has me worried about the future.. When Im ready for dedicated, their dedicated is $400.00 (i want my new host to be my last host) The combo of Nexcess and eliterax seems to have everything I need to “grow up” with.. Are they good?

SimpleHelix is heavily promoted as “Magento Hosting”.. However I see a lot of negative feedback about them recently. I have about 500 products in my magento, get about 300 Uniques / day - 4000+ hits.. Of course I expect growth…

Thanks!

Answer:

I’d say try another shared host first, to see how you make out, your requirements don’t seem that needy at the moment. Most hosts nowadays give money back guarantees that should help you out if shared doesn’t quite work out. Also I recommend just looking for a provider offering shared/VPS offerings for now. A VPS can scale very high with the right provider. So high, that it could be a very very long time before you need to start thinking about your own dedicated server.

VPS Hosting can start as low as 10$’s per month, however on average that is going to be an unmanaged VPS. I’d recommend getting a low end VPS and giving it a shot. $10-$30 per month should be more then enough to get you an unmanaged reliable VPS. Some places to find these deals would be the offers forum or Find a Host or threads here on WHT.

Also due to the nature of magento, it is a heavy heavy script. Like seriously, it needs to lose some of its weight and hopefully they will get around to doing that pretty soon. Until they cut the requirements back a bit on magento however, I’d recommend going with a VPS package with at least 512MB of ram if you are interested in getting cPanel. I’d recommend contacting web hosts sales departments and asking them about their services. Do your research, and avoid web hosts offering unlimited space and bandwidth!

If you want a solid, fully managed VPS provider you cannot go wrong with www.wiredtree.com

I see some hosts provide fully managed VPS. If that’s the case, what does that mean exactly? Does it mean the host manages updates and backups and that kind thing? what other maintenance does full managed VPS can provide besides updates and backups?

This maybe a dumb question but I want to know. thanks in advance

Answer:

It’s not a term anyone can sum up, since its upto the provider to decide exactly what they want to cover.

Generally though, Fully Managed should mean everything is covered i.e.

- Troubleshooting of all issues with included software
- Best effort on 3rd party
- Security/optimization etc
- Proactive updates + monitoring

Unmanaged generally means they support Hardware and Network only.

Before the warning comes, I know that the gsp market is saturated with sub-par companies run by ignorant owners (avoided using the word kids, oops i just did) that have a few hundred dollars to burn and the high hopes of getting rich quick. I also understand that I need to take any answers I get on these forums or anywhere on the Internet with a grain of salt.

On to the actual post…

While I haven’t figured out whether I want to start out with co-location or dedicated, I think that will be a later decision based on projected profits and start-up investment.

Current Hardware Estimates: (taken from softlayer’s website)
Dual Processor Quad Core Xeon 5430 - 2.66GHz (Harpertown)
8 GB FB-DIMM Registered 533/667
73GB SA-SCSI 15K RPM (or 32/64GB Intel SLC SSD, pending research)
2000 GB Bandwidth

Ideal Setup: (information gathered from other GSP sites)
running cs 1.6 1000 or 2000 fps private servers - 1 12man server per core
running cs 1.6 500 fps private server - 2 12 man server per core (does server fps eat resources exponentially or linear?)

What I would like to know, assuming the first setup of 8 cs 1.6 servers per box, would 2000GB bandwidth be enough or do I need to upgrade the bandwidth to be safe? (I expect the servers to be full/utilized less than 30% of the time or approx 50 hours of gaming per week)
note: no custom map downloads or sounds allowed

From reading I have come across multiple posts that say RAM is the bottleneck and some posts that say gaming servers are CPU intensive. The only thing that most people seem to agree on is that hard drive speed is critical (for loading I assume).

Can anyone shed some light on the subject of RAM vs CPU?

Answer:

Well then welcome to the wonderful world of game servers!

I agree that you should wait to make a decision about co-location or dedicated server rentals.

The machine outlined will be a very strong baseline for you to start your business from and to grow off of. I would avoid the SSDs right now because of their low storage and high price. If you plan to make them part of the success of your business model and plan to leverage that with your customers then by all means give them a shot. AFAIK very few GSPs are utilizing SSDs.

My biggest concern right now is that you have the know how in regards to running the game servers. The configuration of these services can at times require very intimate knowledge of the services and how the game actually play from the ‘inside’.

As for bandwidth the 2TB allotted will be enough for your originally outlined plans. CS1.6 is not a bandwidth monster compared to some other games. Purchasing additional bandwidth is expensive and you will most likely be better off by expanding the number of machines you operate.

I would say in a linear function.

On the subject of RAM vs CPU, go for the latter if hosting anything 500FPS or greater. The memory these servers use up will be relatively unaffected by the fact that you are running at 500FPS or higher, but the CPUs will be the hardest hit. The higher the tickrate and FPS you wish to operate each game server at the higher the CPU load will be. The CPUs you have selected are serious workhorses and a good starting point. The amount of memory you have selected will also be more than enough for what you’ve outlined.