Hosting A Wiki Farm
Dec 24, 2007
We have a smallish website-design business. Most of the sites are built using the flat-file-based, PmWiki-brand, php software, which we skin to look like "normal" websites, but have the ease of editing that wiki technology provides.
Right now we have a shared hosting account with unlimited domains, and have to manage all the controls for all the clients' sites ourselves, because there's just one control panel for the whole account, BUT we also have to have a full installation of the PmWiki software for each site we set up, because the security setup won't allow multiple domains to use a shared set of scripts.
We would like to host a wiki farm using PmWiki on a reseller-style account. For this to work our way, we want to make a directory structure that looks something like this:
/var/www/
|-- pmwiki.conf (some files not accessible from the web)
|
|-- pmwiki_base/
| |-- pmwiki.php (pmwiki.php used by the farm)
| |-- wiki.d/ (base wiki's page storage)
| |-- local/ (base wiki's local configuration)
| | |-- farmconfig.php (config for all the Farm Fields)
| |-- cookbook/ (wiki's recipes)
| |-- uploads/ (Farm page attachments)
| |-- pub/ (Farm&Fields publicly-accessible files)
|-- field01 /
| |-- field.php (wrapper script for the Field)
| |-- wiki.d/ (Field page storage)
| |-- local/ (Field local configuration)
| | |-- config.php (config for the Field)
| |-- uploads/ (wiki's page attachments)
| |-- [pub/cookbook] (only if needed for this Field)
|-- field02 /...
|-- field03 /...
|-- field04 /...
*
|-- field99 /...
In this model, the subdirs field01-field99 are actually our customer domain sites. We would like each of these sites to have its own CPanel or HSphere controls so they can manage their email/etc., but we manage much of the actual sites centrally, in the pmwiki_base directory as above. This way, we can upgrade our client's site functionality without duplicating the code across each domain.
Can we do it with a reseller plan, and gain the benefit of all those exciting billing/management features?
Would this have to be both reseller and VPS, in order for us to safely have those few php scripts shared by all the different sites?
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Jul 25, 2009
Building, running and managing your own Server Farm.
This thread is dedicated to those who find themselves on or considering this path.
Here, I am not hosting any ‘foreign business interests’ or associating with any other ‘hostile networks’. I am needing to create many sub-nets, with 3 to 5 WAN’s inbound and outbound. I have a ‘research sub-net’ needing special considerations and will link associates/contractors by VPN. The product-line will also require Radius Server(s). Plus more details and requirements that make the whole project most complicated.
(Thanks to ‘leeware’ for this beginning theme)
1.0 Objective: Building a 30-50 Server facility:
I checked my records and made this decision 2 - ˝ months ago. Since then I have acquired 28 servers, an internet security device, two 3com’s, two 4-port kvm’s, a few small Cisco switches and a host of power related stuff.
2.0 Justification for Building vs leasing:
Control. Costs. Open options. Unique demands more easily appreciated by myself as I am the one possessing the vision. Choosing who I work with as I do the hiring/contracting or initiate associations.
We are generally molded by personal experiences and these set-up our prejudices. I am certainly no exception. My experiences with hosts generated an excellent introduction to the wide world of websites/control panels etc and some products that support it. But the too often cryptic communications, some surprise costs due to my ignorance and that vulnerable ‘boxed in’ feeling made me wonder…
2.1 What is your rational for building vs leasing?
One of my major ‘cross the line’ rational came when I discovered I could buy a used server each month for a similar cost of leasing one. Next, were all my own confounded ‘special circumstances’ that kept cropping up and of course these were not the fault of any hosting company. Lastly technology came to my street in the form of good multiple pipes and my zoning is acceptable because I am off a major highway.
3.0 Business Objectives:
My business objectives center around a very long-run project that I have already long ago completed and keep updated to viability. And I would rather keep that subject to another venue.
4.0 Budgetary Information:
I have enough ‘resources’ to pull it off.
4.2 What is your operating budget (How much money do you plan to spend on an ongoing basis to keep the place running for 12-24 months?)
Same as previous and I will note that ‘time and attention’ is keenly important.
4.3 More importantly, where is this money going to come from? If from investors they generally require a sound business plan.
I require a sound business plan and have it.
5.0 Return on Investment:
Accomplish goals on and on…
5.1 After you account for the initial capital expense to get everything up and running + your on going operating costs, how long will it take you to make back your initial investment and then reach profitability? (12/24/36 months for longer?)
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Dec 11, 2008
What are the pros and cons of each of them?
If I want to build something that allows as many people as possible to post their thoughts without complicate registration process, and I want to place ads on my sites or forum or wiki, which is the best choice?
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May 14, 2008
I am running a very successful wiki based website that has outgrown our current web host. The site runs very slow because our host says we are hitting the memory limit on the server (currently under a shard hosting plan).
Thousands of visitors per day
Ten thousand page views per day (all PHP)
20GB bandwidth per month
MySQL database
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Jul 31, 2007
I run my current site from asmallorange. I am currently using their shared hosting, but I am about to out grow it.
Im currently using 120GB of bandwidth a month, and it keeps growing. I have about 800 users on the forum, 150-200 active. 30 people on at normal hours, and peeks of 150-200 on tuesdays (when new stuff is released we talk about).
I am in talks to moving to a VPS at asmallorange, but I have never seen them recommended here as a VPS.
Id like room to grow, so at least 250GB bandwidth, 10(ten)GB of storage and something that is fast and reliable.
Also, im used to running a shared site from cpanel, so anything with cpanel, and as manages as possible would be better. I dont have too much time during school to upkeep the site. (why I love shared) PHP5 as the main php would be a huge plus, but if it runs side by side with 4 that is also ok.
I figured Id need 512RAM but I really do not know.
My budget is about $900/ year or about $75/mo.
(using phpbb and mediawiki)
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Apr 23, 2009
I'm trying to find at least three web hosting companies to choose from to host a Joomla websites on a shared server. Would consider dedicated if the deal was right. I have a friend of mine who wants to create a church website, and is looking for the best deal. I use Netfirms which I have never had an issue with, but I didn't want to be bias, and would like give him other options to choose from.
Is there a good WebHosting Review site, I could check out, or maybe someone could recommend their top three. I reading threw the forums here and I noticed there are not that many complaints with Hostgator. Again, I just want to see if there was anything out there better.
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Mar 5, 2009
I'm hosting wmv,wma,mp3 files, streaming of video can be done with Windows hosting, but my website script is with php.
Do you suggest Windows Server 2008 hosting or redhat linux hosting?
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Jun 4, 2009
Lets say you're a customer looking for web hosting, but do have technical experience - you know, you develop your own websites, you've had experience in this sort of thing before.
What if you came across a provider who seemed to offer a good service, they're high quality, they can host your website on their brilliant setup etc... but they do not provide any e-mail accounts with your hosting?
We're developing our own shared hosting setup, our own control panel too. Regardless of the control panel though, we wouldn't feel comfortable hosting peoples e-mail. We have plenty of experience in every other aspect of general shared hosting - but not looking after e-mail accounts nor the associated software.
To be honest I don't think that many shared hosting providers truely handle e-mail properly, and that job should really be left to the professionals.
We could of course guide customers or potential customers on why we won't offer e-mail accounts (i.e. not wanting to offer something we know we can't provide to a high enough standard) and instruct them on how to setup e-mail with another provider (such as Google, who will do this for free with limitations).
The alternative to the above is that we mask in a third party to look after e-mail, i.e. resell someone elses e-mail services as part of our hosting packages. The third party would require API access to setup/remove accounts..
What do you think? Are we just acting stupid trying to provide web hosting without e-mail hosting included? I noticed a while back Dreamhost encouraged their customers to use an alternative e-mail provider!
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Oct 26, 2009
I have about 5 sites all hosted on my same hosting account. One of those domains is attached to the hosting account. I place my other domains in a folder of a sub-directory of my main domain. This has been working fine, up until today when i noticed a weird error. I give you a little example of how my sites are setup
my main domain:
www.maindomain.com
My other sites hosted in a sub-directory of my main domain:
www.maindomain.com/sites/site2/
www.maindomain.com/sites/site3/
How my other sites appear on the web:
www.site2.com
www.site3.com
This works fine for every page until i go to www.site2.com/index.php
It redirects to www.maindomain.com/sites/site2/index.php for some reason
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Feb 27, 2008
Can WHT'ers please suggest some reliable UK hosts so I can do some research on them? I am just looking for a small hosting account hosting one domain.
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Aug 31, 2014
Plesk 12 - Domain with no hosting I'm getting error when changing hosting settings to Website Hosting
Error: Some fields are empty or contain an improper value. ('home' = '')
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Jun 4, 2008
*web hosting
*game server hosting
*voice server hosting
Ive finished the template at the moment here is how it looks: ...
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Apr 2, 2009
This question gets asked a lot in our Helpdesk and I figured I would post our knowledgebase article here to help anyone else wondering the Pros and Cons of Unlimited Domain Shared Hosting vs. Reseller Hosting. If anyone has anything else to add, I appreciate any feedback on how we can improve our KB article.
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Given the present state of shared hosting, many clients may ask "Why would I need a Reseller account if I can host unlimited Addon and Parked domains within a single shared hosting account?". There is certainly enough Disk Space and Bandwidth provided in many of today's hosting packages, so why bother to purchase a Reseller account?
Many don't realize the drawbacks of hosting large numbers of domains within a single hosting account until they've already packed tens of them onto a single package.
So how do you know whether a Reseller account or Shared Hosting account is right for you? The answer is in how you plan to provide access to others and how "mission-critical" the sites are. You should consider the following factors when deciding on hosting a large number of domains:
1. Who will be managing these sites?
2. How important is site security between sites?
3. Will these domains need dedicated SSLs?
4. How resource intensive will these sites be (RAM, CPU, MySQL)?
In a nutshell, Reseller plans are for those who wish to host websites for other sub-clients and a shared hosting package is for a single individual managing multiple personal domains. We'll go over the 4 points above in greater detail.
1. Who will be managing these site?
If you personally own multiple domains and wish to host them within the same hosting space, you can easily do so with an Addon or Parked domain. An addon domain will allow you to host a new domain within a subdirectory of your hosting space. A parked domain will allow you to have multiple domain names point to the same content. Since addon domains reside within the same user space as your main domain, you can manage all of your domains with a single login. You can see the problem if you want to provide another user with access. Since all accounts are managed with a single set of login credentials, if you give another user access to their addon domain you are also giving them access to your main domain. If you have vital information stored on your main domain and you are hosting another domain as an addon domain for someone else, you cannot provide them access to their hosting without compromising the integrity of your main domain.
When hosting sites as a Reseller, your clients in turn will want access to their account and will want exclusive rights to their disk space and server resources. With a Reseller account, each sub-account you create gets its own username, password, and isolated user space on the server. Individual clients of yours have access to their user space and their user space alone. In addition to the isolation with regards to access concerns, each account also gets their own cPanel access. All of the same great features that you use to manage your sites can also be given to your clients. Next time client Y wants to add an email account, you don't have to do it for them for fear of giving them access to your cPanel, you can simply give them their login details and they can manage their own email accounts.
2. How important is site security between sites?
This is along the same lines as point 1. This is not necessarily related to who you are hosting for, but what content you are hosting. Imagine that you are a webmaster and you are hosting your own personal site-in-a-box community forums (such as PHPBB or vBulliten) on your main domain and a company website for a paying client on an addon domain. It is not uncommon for popular scripts to have security flaws in older versions. Script authors will often update security flaws in later versions of their software. For this reason, it is very important to keep scripts up to date on your site. But let's assume you forget to update your scripts for a couple of months and an unscrupulous individual takes advantage of a well known security hole. Using this exploit, they gain access to your forums and any subdirectories. Since you are hosting another domain as an addon, they now have access to this domain's content as well. A site defacement on this company's site may not bode well for you when they are considering you for web master services in the future.
If these two domains had been separate into two individual users (i.e. two subaccounts created through a Reseller), their content would've been inherently isolated server side by Linux's user management. Sure, your forums still would've been affected by the security hole, but the break-in would've been isolated to your site alone.
Going back to our example, let's say that instead of a corporate website as an addon domain you are hosting an image gallery site for all of your cats. In this case, it may not be a big deal if a compromise in your main domain spreads to your addon domain. After all, they are both owned by you and you're only losing some time and effort to restore these sites from your local backups (which I'm sure you've actively maintained ). But then again, you are losing time and time is money. If these sites had been separated into individual users, again, you'd only have to restore one site's content.
The idea here is isolation. Reseller plans provide you with the peace of mind to know that if one of your users doesn't keep up with their site's content as actively as they should, their actions won't negatively impact the content hosted on other domains. If you and those you host in your addons are diligent webmasters, maybe this point won't have much bearing on your decision. Only you can say for sure.
3. Will these domains need SSLs?
As of this writing, SSL certificates must have a dedicated IP address to be installed. If you are hosting multiple domains on the same shared hosting package, you can still install an SSL (or purchase a dedicated IP address and install one) but you are limited to exactly one SSL on your account. If you are hosting multiple domains on the same package (and consequently the same IP), you must choose which domains gets to have the dedicated SSL.
Sub accounts of Resellers can each be placed onto separate IP addresses and, as a result, can each have their own dedicated SSL installed.
Of course, both shared accounts and Resellers' sub accounts can use the server's shared SSL free of charge. However, some clients prefer to see their domain in the URL bar when they visit https.
4. How resource intensive will these sites be (RAM, CPU, MySQL)?
We've already established that disk space and bandwidth will be no problem. But what about CPU, RAM, and MySQL resources?
It's important to be aware of the resource needs of your website. As administrators, we have to make sure all users "play nice" on the server. We can't have user X eating all of the CPU cycles computing pi to the trillionth decimal place while you are trying to serve web pages to your loyal visitors. We have to monitor the actions of all of our users and in the event someone is stepping beyond the bounds of acceptable resource consumption, we have to take action. In most cases, this entails disabling the abusive script, but in extreme cases we have to suspend the abusive user account to prevent other domains from encountering performance degradation on their sites.
If you are hosting 100 domains as addon domains, all serving nothing but static HTML pages, maybe you will stay off the radar.
But considering most sites are more complicated than static HTML, you may want to be aware of how many sites you host as addons and what content they serve. If you're hosting the latest and greatest Joomla modules, with up to date news feeds, integrated forums modules, polls, blog posts, etc your site can certainly require a degree of CPU to serve your pages. Now imagine you have 5 or 10 of these sites all hosted as addon domains. The resources these sites need to generate their content can quickly add up and before you know it you've got a friendly email from Acenet, Inc. in your inbox wondering why your user is consuming 2 of the 8 CPU cores on the server. That may be an exaggeration, but you get the idea. In the event your resource usage becomes so excessive that we have to suspend your user, now all of your sites are down instead of whichever one may be the direct cause of the spike in CPU, RAM, or MySQL consumption.
If each of these had been separate Reseller accounts, the offending account could've been suspended temporarily while we work through the cause, leaving the rest of your domains live and kicking.
The conclusion here is that you need to be aware of the needs of your sites in a general sense. Hosting unlimited domains within a shared hosting space is certainly a nice feature. For those webmasters who have multiple presences on the web, it's very convenient to be able to manage all of their personal domains from a single control panel. For those entrepreneurs who are hosting multiple domains for other individuals, the features and security associated with a Reseller plan and the inherent isolation of Linux users is a must have.
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Jul 31, 2014
I'have a problem with my aps setup on sanbox.When i create on customer ccp when i click finish i have this error. I must only test.
Error: Instance of application with id 124 and version '1-4' can not be provided: There is no resource of class 'Shared hosting Apache' with provisioning attributes 'Web Cluster' in subscription with id 1.:There is no resource of class 'Physical hosting (IIS)' with provisioning attributes 'Web Cluster' in subscription with id 1..If i add the shared hosting apache resourse i get this error : There are no "apache" services that satisfy given attributes: "Web Cluster".
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Jan 29, 2015
I have a problem with Parallels Plesk v12.0
Hosting type on website became "No web hosting."
When I try to change hosting type to "Forwarding" it changes ok.
If I change hosting type to "Website hosting", I get message "The hosting type for "website name" was successfully changed.", but hosting plan still stay "No web hosting"....
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Jul 13, 2005
I am developing a website for a client of mine (the client is a close friend and know's that he is getting a newbie). This site will be larger (project wise) than anything that I have ever done (everything I have done in the past has been FrontPage). We will be using several third party applications that need to run on the server as well as our own custom developed applications. We do not yet know how much access to the server's deeper structures we will need for all of the applications that we want loaded on our server to run. Things we have in mind: oscommerce, mysql, php5, apache, linux, vbulletin, blogger, phpbb, adserver, ect... Would these things run ok on a shared host and would I have full authority to configure them without needing full access to the server? Or will I need access to the entire server (dedicated server) in order to have full customization capabilities? I guess all I am trying to figure out at this point is will shared hosting for a large project limit our abilities to use 3rd party apps, or do most 3rd party application designers build their stuff to work in a shared hosting environment anyway? If we need to get a dedicated server we will, but if we can get away with shared hosting for a while (especially during development when the site will not be generating revenue) it would be nice to avoid the price of a dedicated server. Many thanks for your comments, insight, and expertise! Also, if anyone can sight some common scenarios that may require a dedicated server over a shared hosting plan, that may help me to understand what the limitations of a shared hosting plan vs. a deicated or virtual dedicated server are.
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Jun 1, 2009
Kindly provide the Webhosting comparison between EasyCGI Hosting and WebFaction Hosting.
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Aug 12, 2009
It's impossible to find a cheap webhosting service for Rebol, I found one which cost an awfull 20$ per month for 100 Mo
So I'm thinking about taking a VPS but would like to share the cost by reselling some spaces. What would be the best Hosting Resellers for that, I mean with GOOD TECHNICAL SUPPORT KNOWLEDGE OF CGI INSTALL.
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Apr 16, 2008
if i want to make image hosting such as allyoucanupload or imageshack , where hosting should i go to,... i was with hostgator and they suspended me for it.
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Aug 17, 2008
Here is my dilemma, thanks to a thread in these forums I was directed to a hosting website called pc-core.net and I was interested in using them, because it does not appear that they oversell at all. My question is regarding the fact that they have the shared hosting for $12/month with ~5gb of disk space and 50gb of transfer. I then just looked at reseller hosting for the heck of it, and noticed i could get a reseller hosting account with 45gb storage and 450gb of bandwidth for $10/month. Even though I wont be selling hosting, or anything like that, can I use a reseller hosting account like a normal shared hosting account?...just with more space and bandwidth?
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Jun 13, 2008
I'm new to the VPS scene, so could someone tell me the difference between VPS and say shared hosting or dedicated hosting? Actually I really like to know what a Virtual Private Server actually is.. I know shared hosting is typically a single account on a server with several hundred other accounts which is used primarily for the sole purpose of hosting websites, and I know that dedicated hosting is functionally the same as colo except that you rent the server, instead of having your own purchased server plugged into some network. So what is VPS?
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May 6, 2008
Do website builders generally go with shared hosting or dedicated server? I mean, if they work on several websites would they get a dedicated server instead of shared? From what I understand through reading shared hosting is basically if you only have one website. So one with multiple websites would go with a dedicated server?
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Apr 23, 2008
I would like to know the different between the shared hosting and reseller hosting?
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Mar 15, 2007
I wanted to know which one do you prefer these 2.
1.) Personalized hosting with custom made packages
Support via IMs, PMs & Emails. "Feel at home"
2.) Automated hosting & pre-made packages.
Support via inefficient "live help" operators who have the same answer - "Your support request has been forwarded to a higher authority" . No interaction with the owner & the "professional feel"
I like no. 1 & thus I provide hosting on the same principles.
So which one do you prefer, & if you are a host, which one do you incorporate?
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Sep 25, 2009
How long do you wait before moving from shared to VPS or dedicated? Apart from security and speed, what are the benefits of dedicated hosting? This says [url] that shared is better than dedicated because you have to do less..
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Jun 27, 2008
I have had UmBra Hosting for about a month now and my site hasnt gone down once, there plans start at 2.99 which is great and the 2.99 plan comes with 50gb space and 500gb bandwidth. Has cpanel which I love. But im leaving only because I have started my own hosting on a reseller. Which you will see soon!
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Mar 24, 2008
I recently got webhosting with godaddy which I have now decided was a bad choice. Its "user friendly" model makes it harder. My main problem at the moment is loading forum php script and such I have to have my permission changed which i know how to do but it wont let me through ftp or godaddy's filemanager (though it says you can). *Does someone know how to do this on godaddy **or what hosting do you recommend for: ....
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Jun 27, 2008
I'm not sure if we're leaning on dedicated or VPS yet, but as a starter post, what's a webhoster you guys would recommend for a hosting company that is reliable and robust that we can scale with....as our requirements grow.
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Jun 11, 2007
Anybody have any comments about Hosting Metro's services?
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Feb 11, 2007
I want to know the difference between windows hosting and linux hosting
and which hosting is the best? either windows or linux?
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Apr 7, 2009
I use shared web hosting service to get my website online. I'm wondering how many people use dedicated servers or virtual private servers instead and pay from $20 to several hundreds of dollars? Will I face any big problem with shared web hosting package which makes me choose dedicated servers?
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