1and1 Dedicated Server Review And Some Shared Hosting Ramblings (couldn't Resist)

http://1and1.com

I've had a couple dedicated servers with 1and1 for a while now(about 6mos). I have to say that my overall experience was pretty good. At the time the prices where pretty good, and are very comparable to most hosts. I received the speeds promised, the server was setup very quickly.

The only negative I had with the server was the kernel. I attempted to install vmware on they system however they did not have the headers needed by GCC to compile vmware. It was an annoyance, but I just opted to update the kernel since there where a few releases since their custom built kernel was made. Once I was running the new kernel the vmware process went smoothly, and everything worked perfectly.

As for 1and1's support team, I have to say their standard support I would not rate a 10/10, however their dedicated server support team, and one particular rep I've come to know in their sales / abuse department (more on the abuse dpt. later) are very knowledgeable. And always addressed any issues or questions promptly. Which honestly no issues besides vmware stand out in my mind, which was just a minor inconvenience, which you would find on most hosts. Since its an un-managed root server your responsible for keeping the system up to date, and run the latest kernels anyway right?

Ok, so I mentioned I came to know a rep out of the abuse department of sales. Now this isn't particularly related to my dedicated servers but I did have one of their hosting packages. Well I never kept tabs on the site and the scripts had a couple vulnerabilities, php5 wasn't enforced.

Anyway to make a long story short, the site was hacked and fake bank sites and other scripts where loaded onto the server. Which is where The abuse department came into play. Now I know (getting off topic, but it may be the same with a dedicated server) hosting companies don't want to run sites like these, and I thought that the way these companies usualy handle these types of situations are to send a take-down notice to their client, as its possible they may not even know its there. But 1and1 opted to completely disable all access to the server, http, ftp, ssh, everything. So at first I didn't know what happend. I call up tech support that night(prob around midnight -- 24/7 tech support is always great), they let me know the account was dissabled do to an abused related complaint. They told me I would have to wait until morning when their sales department opens(as abuse is located in sales).

So I call up the number they gave me the next morning. And meet Bob (I'm calling him bob because his name escapes me at the moment). He was very pleasant and understanding that I needed my site up as soon as possible. He looked at my account he saw I had been with them for about a year and a half, and said he didn't think I had posted any of the content anyway(he disabled it himself imagine that haha). He emailed me links to all the files in question, informed me that php5 was not forced and recomed I fix it. Since that was the only reason we had this isue in the first place. He was also able to tell me what files the hacker used to exploit and gain access to the server, as well as searched the the user directory for any backdoor scripts. Which he did find some and sent me the locations in the email.

So, finally we got of the phone he re-enabled the server. I went through the email went through everything, I just opted to delete everything as i felt the whole system was compromised anyway, and re-upload the site. I forced php5 for all php scripts and never heard anything about it again... and the site still runs today!

Their normal tech support isn't all the great, at least not when it comes to apache. I inquired about mod_rewrite not working and the first rep i spoke to didn't know what i was talking about, I explained in more detail, she put me on hold for about 10-20mins and researched it. Said she found details about my issue and shot me an email. I checked the email, it contained how to moddify headers using MS ASP which has nothing to even do with my "LINUX" shared hosting plan.

I called in a second time frustrated, remember I usually talk to guys from their dedicated server support. When I spoke with the second rep. The first thing I asked Him was if he was familiar with "Apache Mod_Rewrite" (exact words) are you familiar with this, and if not can you please give me to someone that is. He assured me he knew what I was talking about, I explained the situation, and what the other rep sent me was completely off topic. He apologized and assured me he knows exactly what I'm talking about.

He sent me an email with another link to their FAQ yet again. However this time is was on creating 403 redirects in apache. Well I do admit at least they got closer this time right? I laughed and walked out of the room. Took a shower and relaxed. Finally, I decided I'd take one last look at .htaccess configs before trying another call. I played around with different setting and... eureka! I found the solution; for some reason mod rewrite on 1and1's shared hosting servers doesn't support sub-directories; that is you need to access the files in your root directory to successfully process a rewrite.

So whats the moral of the story? Call Dedicated Server Support! lol

So anyway since this is a dedicated server review. So for my Dedicated server experience I would rate it a "9 out of 10".

For my overall experience with 1and1, I would rate it an "8 out of 10". Not the best I ever had, but I would do business with them. There are other minor issues I've had with their shared hosting, but I don't feel like getting into them.

Anyway hope that helps sombody, I kno it was a long post... so for the people that read it all congrats, because I lost concentration over about 80% of that post lol

Little humor there.. anyway thanks for read'n the post... just my little contribution to WHT.