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I've been using quantact.com
I'm root on my vps, and I compile my own programs.
Its user mode linux. The support has been friendly.

I've had linode.com recommended to me and redwoodvirtual.com was mentioned below. I believe that the johncompanies.com accounts are also virtual servers.

Dreamhost is great, but with their basic plans, you aren't root, so your options are limited to Apache/PHP/CGI/MySQL. This is usually good enough for me, but I sometimes have trouble installing and running Perl or Python modules from my home directory.

Elsewhere on this board somebody posted a list of personal colo services; some of the virtual Linux services look attractive, since they offer root privileges at a low cost. Has anybody tried one of them?

I have nothing but good things to say about johncompanies.com, we've been with them for years. The main thing that makes them stand out is you never get clueless tech support, it's always somebody who knows what they are talking about.

Regarding backups for colo or unmanaged servers:

Assuming you have a *nix like box or windows with cygwin at home, you can just use this:

http://www.rsnapshot.org/

Automated rsync over ssh.

I do this to my home OSX box, backing up home directories and other critical things (not the entire OS) from the remote server, then use Retrospect to back up to DVD locally.

Careful with the colo options. I've recently been comparing "colo" (you supply the hardware) vs. "unmanaged" (they supply the hardware). By the time you add up the cost for a decent 1U (or 2U) rack mount enclosure and internals, plus shipping it to the colo facility, etc it can be the same as a year of monthly fees for unmanaged. Plus, if the hardware fails it's harder for you to deal with it remotely. Most unmanaged services replace bad hardware within 24 hours.

If you want to try the virtual option (User Mode Linux in this case, there are other virtual options), this happy customer highly recommends Linode (www.linode.com). You have full root access to your virtual host, and can compile whatever you want. I use this as a backup server for several small services I manage. (DNS, email backup MX, etc)

This may be useful. Personal colo registry:

  <http://www.vix.com/personalcolo/>;

John

I'm looking around for hosting, too. And I've been getting responses you might find useful (although I see much the same advice here already):

http://www.decafbad.com/blog/2004/09/20/hosting_advice

www.dreamhost.com

they give shell access to virtual accounts, and you can compile and run your own programs and everything, for only $20/mo or similar. don't think you could install your own apache though.

redwoodvirtual.com is looking very interesting to me. I think I may open one of the cheaper accounts and migrate some stuff over there to see how I like it.

Edited by author 09-21-2004 03:24 PM
That $100 dedicated server is sometimes a "blade" in a high density rack, other times they're just commodity boards on trays. They're leased in volume and this helps control costs for hardware, electricity, and physical footprint. Bandwidth is hell of cheap compared to even three years ago so they make a little money on your $100 monthly (I've heard some argue that these are actually loss leaders) but they generally make their margins on the optional extras.

Echoing what Kellan said, managing the hardware is a big timesink. I colo because I have special requirements (ipsec in kernel, crypto hardware). And for backup, I rsync the crucial data that's changed to a USB enclosure for my backup SCSI disk. That drive is a working image of the colo box drive so in a catastrophic circumstance (fire, earthquake, colo-company goes bankrupt and creditors think my hardware is their hardware, etc.) I can take it wherever it needs to go and run it with only a handful of changes.

a buddy of mine runs a web-hosting service.....but i think his service offers users root access and their own email management, etc....

i'm not quite sure about it since it's not my area, but he goes off about how he wanted clients to have the freedom to do whatever with their chunks of the server. however, i think there is a bandwidth cap at 10 gigs/month for the basic service (@ $10/month).

anyway, i'm kinda useless....you can email the dude at jeremy@methanesea.com for actual accurate info if interested.

the website is www.methanesea.com but i doubt there's much detail on it right now.

Rafe's you've hilighted the number one reason I don't go with colo for personal hosting -- hardware. Hardware sucks. I spend enough time de-munging raids, and running memtest, and dealing with dead hard drives that when it comes to hosting something for myself, I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

I pay $10/mo for a VLS from RedwoodVirtual.com, I'm not currently running my email through there (I could, and Postfix really is a breeze to setup, but I'm still too lazy), but I do have Tomcat/Struts as well as PHP5/MySQL dev environment running on it. Sometimes things grind a little bit while doing Java development with only 64M, but there are options with more RAM, but in general the performance has been quite good.

Seems like colo may be an option. I always thought of it as expensive, but that price isn't bad, Cameron. On the other hand, if I were to colo and my hard drive blew up, I'd have to go fix it myself. And I'd have to do my own backups. That seems like a lot of work to me.

I have a feeling they can charge less because there is normally no free support at all. I currently have a server at ServerMatrix.com/ThePlanet.com, which is a nice powerful server, but I'm basically on my own to get everything installed. I was given the root password to a bare system and had to build everything from the ground up, which has definitely been an eye-opening experience, no matter how much Linux experience I already had.

Perhaps pair loads their servers up beforehand, or has a better (free) support package for those hosting plans.

I was using Pair.com since April, 1999 and am still using them to host camworld.com. A few months ago I moved the MX record for camworld.com to my own co-located server so that I can control the spam and email better. I actually got an email from Pair's support team telling me that they noticed and uptick in CPU usage by my account because I was getting way too much spam (something like 8000/day).

The problem now is that my co-located server us hosted at Above.net, which some system administrators feel is a haven for spammers since they have more lax policies than other bandwidth providers. In just a few cases, mail from my server has been rejected because my IP number falls within the range of numbers marked as Above.net spam-friendly IP blocks. A quick email to the sysadmin asking them to whitelist my IP number usually takes care of this problem.

The difference between a co-located server and a leased/dedicated server is that I own my hardware. I bought a cheap 1U Dell rack server from eBay for about $600, dropped Debian on it and had some friends help me configure everything. The server has served me well for a little over a year now but I'm now thinking about getting a faster server with more RAM and more disk space. I pay $90/month (if you pay 6 months at a time) through a program called the Open Bandwidth Project for my 1U of rackspace. The bandwidth of the whole rack is capped at 1Mbps but otherwise unlimited. This same rack simultaneously served all of the bandwidth for the Clark for president servers, which at times used a lot of bandwidth.

From my weblog:

I've been a happy customer of pair.com for Web hosting for 7 or 8 years, but I'm putting some thought into moving to dedicated hosting. The advantage is that I'd have root access so that I can run my own install of Apache and Tomcat. I've been working on a Java web application that I'd like to run somewhere other than my desktop, and so I'm going to need someplace to put it. The ability to manage my own email would be nice. I'm growing increasingly irritated by the spam that makes it through my filters, and I'd like to try some other strategies for managing it. On the other hand, managing my own email would be a downside as well. I'm not sure I have the system administration ability to manage an email server, and I don't know jack about DNS and several other essential services. I'm not sure I want my hosting bill to go from around $30 a month to $100 per month. And I fear that the level of customer service would drop if I went from pair.com, a company with lots of expertise in running shared servers, to one of the companies offering affordable dedicated or virtual servers. pair.com charges $250 for their cheapest dedicated server. How can these other companies get away with charging $99 or less per month?