I recently decided to upgrade to a VPS from shared hosting. I have decided to give VPSLand a shot, even though I am a little skeptical after reading a few negative reviews.
I will be providing an in-depth ongoing analysis of my experiences with them for the benefit of the WebHostingTalk community.
I signed up for the "Windows-EZ VPS Value" package.
RAM: 768MB (a great vlaue)
HDD: 8GB
Transfer: 300 GB
Price: $29/month
( with 50% off first month coupon my total was $14.50 )
After completing the sign-up process, I checked my email and noticed I had received 6 automated e-mails from them during the process
The order was placed at 9:46am.
They e-mailed me that my VPS was created at 10:10am (nice)
The followup e-mail with my server information arrived at 10:20am. For a total of 34 minutes from sign-up to server access. So far I am very happy.
I have a year's worth of Windows 2000 Server/ IIS 5 logs that I need to analyze for Web Traffic.
We used WebTrends 1999 for years, but we've lost the CD. I went to their site and their new offerings are too complex and too expensive.
I downloaded and installed SmarterStats to evaluate it. It seems to have only analyzed the first few days of the one-year's worth of log files. I couldn't find a number to call, and I couldn't get into their forum, so I decided I don't like them.
Webalizer seems to be just for *nix systems. This company is Windows based.
I need very basic information. Visitor sessions, popular pages, and, if possible, how many people clicked on an ad.
Also, the logs already exist. They just need to be analyzed. A solution that wants me to add something to my code might be appropriate going forward, but I need something that can read my existing log files.
Given the novelty, the backing of a primary hosting player, etc., I had expected more info on Mosso than I'm seeing. One advantage I bring is I'm not a developer or operate a hosting company, just an entrepreneur who deals with his own servers. Here goes -
I don't think Mosso is ready for prime time. The marketing on their site is beautiful. When a friend recommended it (an entrepreneur like me), coupled with all the promises on their marketing pages, plus the pricing, I thought moving my service to Mosso was a no-brainer.
First of all, kudos to them for having a user forum. I firmly believe this is the right way to go. Unfortunately it also confirmed my experience was not unique. On the day I signed up, the control panel was not responsive. It took a long time and several attempts to load. The user forum also points to almost daily downtime, though granted for only a few minutes in most cases (via the pingdom links provided).
The forums are currently password protected, but a Mosso employee said this is accessible via a demo account. I suggest you review the forums before signing up with Mosso, it would have saved me time and effort.
In short -
1. The service doesn't provide the uptime suggested by their marketing pages.
2. Initial review suggests the software needs security updates. I emailed them my findings, hopefully it helps them. No response after 2 days. I'm keeping this vague intentionally.
3. The cancellation of an account was a mini-AOL-like experience. You can't cancel via the admin console. Turns out you cancel via email. What kills me most about this is the lack of understanding of security. They want me to email them my account's username and password. Since I'm human, I only have 2-3 passwords for all my accounts (banking, registar, etc.). And for me to email them my password is not appropriate at best. I had to use the "forget password" function to create a new one so I could email it to them.
4. I really think they over promise on their marketing. I think they should label it as a "beta" product to better reflect its status. The parent company has a great reputation, and I've used them in the past, hopefully they'll better protect their reputation by more openly reflecting Mosso's status. How can they have an enterprise level system with almost daily downtime?
5. My bad, but I didn't realize until after signing up that they offer no SLA uptime, just a partial refund when it goes down.
I really like the concept, and except for the fact I felt deceived, I would happily go back to Mosso because it provides what I'm looking for, once the marketing matches the delivery.
For the last month I've had problems with my VPS being blacklisted, and it always seems to be around the same time of day.
Anyway, the VPS is managed, but it's a right pain the backside getting support to deal with the problem for me and sort it out. I get answers like "Its a PHP script", and when I ask which script they say they can't find out.
After getting advice from people on this forum, I asked support to setup exim so that it recorded the folder of any scripts sending out mail, but when I run grep so show any exim_mainlog entries with cwd= there is very little appearing appart from genuine mails being sent by contact forms on websites.
I managed to get evidence of a mail which caused the server to be blacklisted and sent this to support, who said the mails are being send via header injection on contact scripts, so I've got through the contact scripts and changed them, but again, still blacklisted.
I may be wrong here, but surely if someone was doing mail injection then I would be receiving copies of the mail myself as the website mails me with the enquiry, and also surely the exim_mainlog would so the folder containing the script as sending mails...but it doesnt.
I'm completely lost here, somehow mail is being sent from the server, whether it be via a script or what, but I can't(and neither can support) determine the exact script that is sending mail.
Here is a snippet of the exim_mainlog from around the time the evidence mail was sent.
Code: Aug 25 21:59:40 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <16291601c7e75a$d5a016e0$0d4cb34c@ALLEN> for thegran:32010 Aug 25 21:59:46 awt spamd[23731]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 47366 Aug 25 21:59:46 awt spamd[23731]: spamd: setuid to libraifa succeeded Aug 25 21:59:46 awt spamd[23731]: spamd: checking message <494307824222.548029453854@flcjn.net> for libraifa:32006 Aug 25 21:59:48 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (17.1/5.0) for thegran:32010 in 7.7 seconds, 1050 bytes. Aug 25 21:59:48 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 17 - BAYES_99,DATE_IN_PAST_06_12,FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,INVALID_MSGID,RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET,RCVD_IN_PBL,RDNS_DYNAMIC,STOX_REPLY_TYPE,URIBL_BLACK,URIBL_RHS_DOB,URIBL_SBL scantime=7.7,size=1050,user=thegran,uid=32010,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=47347,mid=<16291601c7e75a$d5a016e0$0d4cb34c@ALLEN>,bayes=1.000000,autolearn=spam Aug 25 21:59:48 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: IB Aug 25 21:59:52 awt spamd[23731]: spamd: identified spam (12.3/2.5) for libraifa:32006 in 6.4 seconds, 6742 bytes. Aug 25 21:59:52 awt spamd[23731]: spamd: result: Y 12 - AXB_XMID_1212,BAYES_60,EXTRA_MPART_TYPE,HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_04,HTML_MESSAGE,MIME_HTML_MOSTLY,MPART_ALT_DIFF,RCVD_IN_PBL,RCVD_IN_XBL,RDNS_NONE scantime=6.4,size=6742,user=libraifa,uid=32006,required_score=2.5,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=47366,mid=<494307824222.548029453854@flcjn.net>,bayes=0.654621,autolearn=no Aug 25 21:59:52 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 21:59:53 awt pop3d: LOGIN, user=andrew@myhomeonthe.net, ip=[::ffff:212.159.101.86] Aug 25 21:59:56 awt pop3d: LOGOUT, user=andrew@myhomeonthe.net, ip=[::ffff:212.159.101.86], top=0, retr=39944, rcvd=56, sent=40746, time=3 Aug 25 22:04:12 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 48176 Aug 25 22:04:12 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to libraifa succeeded Aug 25 22:04:12 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <E1IP2ng-0002eI-Eg@wear.readytogo.net> for libraifa:32006 Aug 25 22:04:20 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: clean message (-2.6/2.5) for libraifa:32006 in 7.6 seconds, 1827 bytes. Aug 25 22:04:20 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: . -2 - AWL,BAYES_00 scantime=7.6,size=1827,user=libraifa,uid=32006,required_score=2.5,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=48176,mid=<E1IP2ng-0002eI-Eg@wear.readytogo.net>,bayes=0.000000,autolearn=ham Aug 25 22:04:20 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:09:29 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 49145 Aug 25 22:09:29 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to gbtravel succeeded Aug 25 22:09:29 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <putcgcbfbhamfer@fruitpads.com> for gbtravel:32017 Aug 25 22:09:39 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (12.6/5.0) for gbtravel:32017 in 10.2 seconds, 5003 bytes. Aug 25 22:09:39 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 12 - BAYES_99,HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_32,HTML_MESSAGE,LOCALPART_IN_SUBJECT,MSGID_SPAM_LETTERS,SPF_PASS,TVD_RATWARE_MSGID_02,URIBL_BLACK,URI_NOVOWEL scantime=10.2,size=5003,user=gbtravel,uid=32017,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=49145,mid=<putcgcbfbhamfer@fruitpads.com>,bayes=1.000000,autolearn=no Aug 25 22:09:39 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:10:06 awt pop3d: LOGIN, user=andrew@myhomeonthe.net, ip=[::ffff:212.159.101.86] Aug 25 22:10:07 awt pop3d: LOGOUT, user=andrew@myhomeonthe.net, ip=[::ffff:212.159.101.86], top=0, retr=0, rcvd=12, sent=39, time=1 Aug 25 22:11:27 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 49520 Aug 25 22:11:27 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to libraifa succeeded Aug 25 22:11:27 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <000601c7e75c$894ed180$0100007f@fpviosw> for libraifa:32006 Aug 25 22:11:36 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (16.3/2.5) for libraifa:32006 in 8.5 seconds, 19328 bytes. Aug 25 22:11:36 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 16 - BAYES_60,HTML_IMAGE_ONLY_12,HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_SHORT_LINK_IMG_2,RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET,RCVD_IN_PBL,RCVD_IN_SORBS_WEB,RCVD_IN_XBL,RDNS_NONE,SHORT_HELO_AND_INLINE_IMAGE,URIBL_BLACK,URIBL_JP_SURBL,URIBL_SBL,URIBL_SC_SURBL scantime=8.5,size=19328,user=libraifa,uid=32006,required_score=2.5,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=49520,mid=<000601c7e75c$894ed180$0100007f@fpviosw>,bayes=0.726583,autolearn=spam Aug 25 22:11:36 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:16:17 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 50217 Aug 25 22:16:17 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to sr8 succeeded Aug 25 22:16:17 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <984907979.55364767348457@utsc.utoronto.ca> for sr8:32004 Aug 25 22:16:26 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (12.9/5.0) for sr8:32004 in 9.3 seconds, 9431 bytes. Aug 25 22:16:26 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 12 - DATE_IN_FUTURE_03_06,FH_HELO_EQ_D_D_D_D,FUZZY_CREDIT,HELO_DYNAMIC_IPADDR2,HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_OBFUSCATE_10_20,MIME_HTML_ONLY,RCVD_IN_PBL,RDNS_DYNAMIC,TVD_RCVD_IP scantime=9.3,size=9431,user=sr8,uid=32004,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=50217,mid=<984907979.55364767348457@utsc.utoronto.ca>,autolearn=spam Aug 25 22:16:26 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:19:29 awt pop3d: LOGIN, user=andrew@myhomeonthe.net, ip=[::ffff:212.159.101.86] Aug 25 22:19:29 awt pop3d: LOGOUT, user=andrew@myhomeonthe.net, ip=[::ffff:212.159.101.86], top=0, retr=0, rcvd=12, sent=39, time=0 Aug 25 22:20:33 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 51016 Aug 25 22:20:33 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to thegran succeeded Aug 25 22:20:33 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <21ecc01c7e75d$bbd32420$2f01a8c0@windowsa607f1d> for thegran:32010 Aug 25 22:20:41 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (17.5/5.0) for thegran:32010 in 8.1 seconds, 1174 bytes. Aug 25 22:20:41 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 17 - BAYES_99,DATE_IN_PAST_06_12,FH_HOST_EQ_VERIZON_P,FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK,INVALID_MSGID,RCVD_IN_BL_SPAMCOP_NET,RCVD_IN_PBL,RCVD_IN_SORBS_DUL,RCVD_IN_XBL,RDNS_DYNAMIC,STOX_REPLY_TYPE,URIBL_RED,URIBL_RHS_DOB scantime=8.1,size=1174,user=thegran,uid=32010,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=51016,mid=<21ecc01c7e75d$bbd32420$2f01a8c0@windowsa607f1d>,bayes=0.999360,autolearn=spam Aug 25 22:20:41 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:26:21 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 51946 Aug 25 22:26:21 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to gbtravel succeeded Aug 25 22:26:21 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <264166.236793146.1188032962@ourfirststep.net> for gbtravel:32017 Aug 25 22:26:30 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (7.1/5.0) for gbtravel:32017 in 9.2 seconds, 6091 bytes. Aug 25 22:26:30 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 7 - AWL,BAYES_50,HTML_IMAGE_RATIO_04,HTML_MESSAGE,HTML_TAG_BALANCE_HEAD,MPART_ALT_DIFF,SPF_PASS,URIBL_BLACK,URIBL_JP_SURBL scantime=9.2,size=6091,user=gbtravel,uid=32017,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=51946,mid=<264166.236793146.1188032962@ourfirststep.net>,bayes=0.592462,autolearn=no Aug 25 22:26:30 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:34:09 awt pop3d: LOGIN, user=mike@camberleydrivingschool.co.uk, ip=[::ffff:86.13.153.74] Aug 25 22:34:10 awt pop3d: LOGOUT, user=mike@camberleydrivingschool.co.uk, ip=[::ffff:86.13.153.74], top=0, retr=2252, rcvd=50, sent=2521, time=1 Aug 25 22:51:28 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 55911 Aug 25 22:51:28 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to libraifa succeeded Aug 25 22:51:28 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <3235985408.20070825170556@qmuqybrxw> for libraifa:32006 Aug 25 22:51:35 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (9.8/2.5) for libraifa:32006 in 7.2 seconds, 836 bytes. Aug 25 22:51:35 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 9 - BAYES_99,RDNS_NONE,SPF_HELO_NEUTRAL,SPF_NEUTRAL,URIBL_BLACK,URIBL_JP_SURBL,URIBL_SBL scantime=7.2,size=836,user=libraifa,uid=32006,required_score=2.5,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=55911,mid=<3235985408.20070825170556@qmuqybrxw>,bayes=1.000000,autolearn=no Aug 25 22:51:35 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:54:30 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 56343 Aug 25 22:54:30 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to sr8 succeeded Aug 25 22:54:30 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <8678967196.190217665470@yahoo.com> for sr8:32004 Aug 25 22:54:37 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (14.0/5.0) for sr8:32004 in 6.9 seconds, 847 bytes. Aug 25 22:54:37 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: result: Y 14 - FORGED_YAHOO_RCVD,RCVD_IN_PBL,RCVD_IN_SORBS_WEB,RCVD_IN_XBL,RDNS_NONE,REPTO_QUOTE_YAHOO,URIBL_BLACK,URIBL_JP_SURBL,URIBL_SBL scantime=6.9,size=847,user=sr8,uid=32004,required_score=5.0,rhost=localhost,raddr=127.0.0.1,rport=56343,mid=<8678967196.190217665470@yahoo.com>,autolearn=spam Aug 25 22:54:37 awt spamd[28500]: prefork: child states: II Aug 25 22:57:06 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: connection from localhost [127.0.0.1] at port 56732 Aug 25 22:57:06 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: setuid to thegran succeeded Aug 25 22:57:06 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: checking message <1IP4?n-000NOC-YL@pool-72-82-6-40.prvdri.east.verizon.net> for thegran:32010 Aug 25 22:57:14 awt spamd[5164]: spamd: identified spam (13.8/5.0) for thegran:32010 in 8.3 seconds, 1185 bytes.
I'm going to use this thread as a my home for an ongoing review of wholesaleinternet.com
Before Signing Up
I've been stalking wholesaleinternet for a few months now, mainly because they are the closest datacenter to my house with reasonable prices. In fact, they seem to actually be one of the few datacenters that price their servers at a level that will make them a profit, while still beating everyone else out there.
Before actually signing up with them I wanted to test their datacenter, mainly ping times, etc... So instead of getting a dedicated server with them, I went through a few other companies who colo with them.
Over the past three months there was only one issue, a bad switch. However, they had it fixed as fast as they could and kept everyone updated via WHT.
So after that I decided it was time to get a server with them.
Initial Contact
Aaron (the owner) was quick to respond to my emails and has always been very helpful. He worked with me on a custom setup, which is quite frankly, the best deal I have ever received on a server, ever.
The Setup
They work fast. I had them install CentOS with partitioning for OpenVZ and RAID1... There was only a couple of hours between the time I paid and the time my server was online.
The server is exactly what I ordered (in fact, it's more than I ordered), which is rare for me. Maybe I just have bad luck, but I seem to get misconfigured servers from other datacenters and it takes hours/days to get it fixed.
I have been hosting (reseller account) with HostGator for about 1-2 years now. While I have had no problems with any of my own personal domains, some of my clients for whom I provide hosting are reporting email problems.
One client is a company that hosts about 15 email addresses on the server. They have complained that they don't receive all their emails. People tell them how they sent them a message, yet they never received it. The problem isn't consistent. Also, not all messages they send are being received. After much fussing with this, and looking into every possible solution, we came to learn this scenario:
- Someuser@hotmail.com sends an email to johndoe@mycompany.com
- Hotmail looks for an MX record for mycompany.com and finds it’s IP to be 10.10.10.1
- The Hotmail server contacts 10.10.10.1 and delivers the message
- John Doe receives the email fine
- John Doe then replies to the email back to someuser@hotmail.com
- Mail server at mycompany.com looks for an MX record for hotmail.com, finds the IP, and delivers the message to it
- Hotmail, because it does spam checking, uses reverse lookups as one of it’s spam checks. It takes the IP that sent it the message, 10.10.10.1, and looks for a PTR record. It finds one and it maches ‘astra.websitewelcome.com’ instead of ‘mycompany.com’. As a result, the spam check fails and the message is dropped
- Some User never receives John Doe’s response
I asked HostGator about this.
HostGators response: "Unfortunately that IP a ddress is a shared IP address and so you will run into issues such as this, however, we have quite a number of other accounts that use this sort of setup without any issue and are able to send to Hotmail. *Another issue would be that ultimately the IP address that is sending a the message to them would not be from the server that you are on, but on one of our gateway systems, however, this should be overcome with the SPF record that you have in place."
Since then, another one of my clients (this time a Hotel that needs to receive it's reservation requests) is beginning to report the same problem. Some (not all) emails just don't make it to the inbox. Customers call and report that they had sent an email; but said email was never received in the first place.
I have again consulted with HostGator who have not been able to help because they don't see any of said emails on server, so what can they do? Nothing, I guess.
So what can I do about this. Do I need to switch to another host? Do you know of any hosts with whom I can be sure not to have this problem?
In looking at new webhosts, I have begun to consider VPS options. However, I am afraid that if I get a VPS server I will have to configure all of these MX Records, PTR Records, SPF records, and so on. I don't want to have to deal with all of these technical details. I am a website developer who sometimes provides hosting. I don't have time to learn the ins and outs of hosting and email server configuration.
I was at the planet for the last several years and decided to make the switch based on reviews on this forum and talking with their reps.
First off, Mike with the sales live chat was VERY helpful and answered all of my questions.
Answered questions about power, # of uplinks, average hardware replacement time etc. All were satisfactory to me.
In the end we went with the Celeron 352/2 GB ram/80GB SATA for 64.99 a month. I will be saving 25 a month off my dedicated server over the planet. A killer deal! Plus we have double the ram now. I couldn't convince my partner to go the X2 4000+ route for 10 more a month . We really don't need the power.
Initial impressions of the client panel are good (rokstar or something). Now for them to turn the power on .. 15 minutes and counting..
I searched around for hours and found ones close but not quite what I wanted for close to the same price. I finally placed my order at around 4:00pm CDT and had the forms filled out and faxed in by 4:30pm CDT
Yesterday I got no contact except for a reply from billing confirming they received my forms(in reply to an email I sent them).
This morning I had an email from billing stating they couldn't read my handwriting on my credit auth form(I have bad handwriting). I resent the form with the information typed in. I found out later that this delayed the setup of my server. (Hour 53 now)
I will say their Live Chat was not very helpful nor was phone support, nor my account manager. I got no response from my account manager, and live chat kept telling me to conatct my account manager and phone support directed me to email sales@iweb.com instead of jeanluc@iweb.com. In desperation I started scouring google and came across WHT and saw some of Martin(atchooo)'s response to other customers problem and was impressed, so I followed the link to his blog and found his (creative) email address. I sent him an email detailing the issues I was having. Within 10-20 minute he had responded letting me know he would look into it, about 10 minute after that I got this response ....
While talking to as many people as I could find and comparing prices I decided to go with webnx.
I am currently hosted with iweb but my current p4 is getting slaughtered by my users so I needed to upgrade.
First result was I clicked live chat and asked to talk to support to help me pick out my server, I talked to dan for probbly 3 hrs discussing options and different setups that we could do.
I decided on : Dual opteron 254 ( 2 processors 2 cores (one processor is faster then our current setup)) 2x 146gb 10k rpm scsi drives (mirrored) 4gb ram
I am just waiting on my bill now but if this impression I received from the company based on Dan then I am sure I will be happy, I will post next week with setup time, and then next month on uptime.
Yesterday LT pulled the plug because of a DoS that took place on my server. I asked LT to bring back my server online so that PSM can investigate. PSM did that and then said that they had cleaned out all the tmp directories, and scanned my server with rkhunter and that it was clean. LT got the message and problem was fixed...or so I thought.
Today I got another email from LT saying that DoS is an ongoing issue with my LT server and that they will unplug my server and do a mandatory server reload if I don't do something about it and provide documentation of what was found and removed. Again, I contacted PSM about this and they investigated, only to tell me the same thing that they had cleaned out the tmp directories, and that if this continues they would have to disable common server functions. Doesn't sound too good.
Anyway, is it really hard to find out and fix this DoS problem? My server has modsecurity but no phpsuexec is installed. LT recently offered a DDOS protection server for my server and don't know if it's really necessary, is it?
Here's part of the log file that LT sent to me. There's a whole bunch of the following:
I recently picked up an account with Downtown Host to host my dad's site and wanted to start a thread that I will update as time goes by. I know there's a "honeymoon period" with most hosts and sometimes, like my wife (LOL.. kidding *hides*), things change as things progress..but I have been very impressed.
So, to get things started...
Ordering Process
Easy as it usually is these days. Although the space isn't really needed, I picked up their Bronze plan for 6 months and it worked out to be about $50 USD thanks to a handy coupon. This is the first time I have ever had enough preliminary confidence in a host to go for 6 months up front (outside of getting a ridiculous deal) and I hope to not to be disappointed and regret the decision.
DTH does use a phone call fraud verification system on new orders which I appreciate. I think it shows that they are proactive in sorting out bad purchases and is one of the nicer fraud-detection interfaces I have come across. I believe Wirenine is the only other host I have used that employs a similar system.
Jorge (Jedito on WHT) was very helpful in the ordering process which, again, I appreciate and was pro-active in helping me getting me on board quickly even going so far as to drop me a line welcoming me aboard.
Initial Transfer, Etc.
Once again, very easy. There were a few hiccups that were issues on the previous host's side in terms of creating cPanel back ups so things could get moved over. Both techs were extremely helpful and kept me updated throughout the process, notifying me of even the slightest issue (again, none on their side) in getting files moved over for two domains, some of which included add-on domains.
One of the sites I moved over included a wordpress blog that was previous its own account under a reseller plan so I had a question regarding the process of switching over the MySQL database information to ensure the blog worked off the tip. Again, DTH was very helpful and gave me instructions on what I needed to do to make sure there was no interruption in serving the blog. They certainly didn't have to help me with the changes so it was really nice of them to do so.
Performance
In a word - fast. Once the nameservers switched over for the main site (cincihost-dot-com), I entered the address and *bam*. No lagged delays with larger-sized images, they just popped up. Previously, the page loaded somewhat "in order". Not anymore. I hit "Enter" and it was there. Nice.
cPanel loads fast and in checking the server load here and there, it is always below 1.00.
Support
As I have alluded to above, support is fantastic. The first ticket I submitted took a bit to be responded to which was worrying. Who knows what happened, but it was responded to, oddly, shortly after I mentioned it to someone. From that point, support has been lightning fast. As I think happens a lot of times, I have submitted a few tickets in order to get everything set up and going and they have all been responded to or updated within 15 to 20 minutes. I recently submitted a ticket to have my cPanel theme changed (it default to a RVSkin which I do not like) and it was resolved in, literally, one minute. Fastest support I have ever experienced.
Summation
Really the only thing I didn't like was that cPanel loads the green RVSkin which seems cartoony to me and I much prefer the original x3 theme. This was quickly changed so no biggie.
Everything else has been absolutely fantastic as you can probably surmise.
I look forward to being hosted with DTH and have a good feeling that my father and I will be with them for a long time to come.
Thanks to Jorge, Sebastian and everyone at Downtown Host!
I've been building a new services over the last two month and needed a server to host it. I've initially ordered a server at an other provider (which will be getting a very bad review shortly) but after three weeks I still didn't get the server.
While desperately browsing these forums looking for a replacement I noticed a few posts by a server.lu staff member, I've heard some good things about them in the past so I decided to send them a pm with the question if they could deliver a server with the specs I needed. Within 5 minutes I got a response (it was past 00:00 at that point, talk about service). And I think it was about 30 minutes later my server was up and running.
And as an added bonus it was a quad-core instead of the dual-core advertised. What the other provider failed to do in 3 weeks server.lu had done in a matter of minutes.
To see if that was just a lucky coincidence I ordered a 2nd server yesterday and again it was setup with a few minutes.
Server.lu is off to a very good start, my 2 month review will tell you if they can keep it up.
I stumbled on a webhost today. icdsoft.com. Looks like a solid host. They do not have phone support, which left me hesitant. A newbie without phone support. OH MY GOD! I tested them and asked few questions via e-mail. My questions were answered in 10 minutes! Reviews are nothing but favorable, and they have been around for over 3 years.
They are also very reasonable (under $10, 1GB disk space, 20GB bandwidth). One note they do not supprt ASP or JSP.
Although the domain was registered in 4/15/08, I could find next to nothing on WHT or the ‘net in general in the way of reviews on FiveBean. Saw a lot of specials and things they have been running off and on at different venues and boards, but couldn’t find a review to save my life. I did search pretty thoroughly. No web cache on web.archive.org either.
So, I’ll be the first to post one (that I know of), with a special they are offering, it’s very affordable, if the service turns out to be good enough, then I have another node at a great price J. The more, the merrier. Win / Win 4 all. (FiveBean also offers shared hosting, so not exclusively a VPS provider.)
Hardware nodes – From their site: “VPS Nodes are built with Intel Core2 Quad Processors, Premium SATA Disks and RAID Protection powered by CentOS 5.x and MoxieVM. Each VPS server is backed up daily and we provide 2 full backups to our customers.”
Although I never rely on provider’s backups, it’s good to see them offered as standard. Could come in handy.
They offer 5 plans; I ordered the middle-of-the road “Starter”. All VPSs appear to be OpenVZ based.
Ordered Plan - 512M / 1G burst 40G HDD 450G BW 1 IP CentOS 5 for initial load
Initial order, small issue - Placed order at about midnight, got my welcome email at 7:40 AM. One issue was, I did not receive any emails from their ordering system, other than the PayPal-originating receipt. The emails were listed under the Client Area, so I still had access to read. Since I own and admin my own mail servers, I checked logs - Emails from ordering system were sent from a non-FQDN domain. From SMTP logfile: RECEIVED: MAIL FROM:<fivebean@kona> SIZE=3560 Mail server rejected because of the incomplete domain. This appeared to be an issue with the sign-up process only. All support ticket replies came from a FQDN. I described this problem in a support ticket, curios to see if they really do look @ and fix. Maybe on my second order? Everything initially ordered during the process was delivered, with no follow-ups required to correct anything. That's a little rare, from my experiences.
They offer online chat support, but have not caught it online as of yet, although I haven’t checked before 9PM on any given day, so not a fair eval on that aspect. FWIW.
- On to the goodies -
Control panel - Apparently, FiveBean previously used HyperVM, but has since disabled and rolled out their own self-spun VM manager, "moxieVM". It's a simple, yet effective, web interface that allows me to do everything I need to, and everything works. That's always a good plus! moxieVM control panel contains the following: VPS list facility / user profile control / pass reset VPS Controls -- Reboot / Start / Stop / Rebuild OS / Set Reverse DNS Report (simple) shows -- OS currently installed / Monthly BW Usage total / Current Memory Usage / Action Log of previous control commands
Noteworthy - when you select "reboot / start / stop" there is no confirmation, action is queued and executed immediately. Good info to know.
Rebuilds - FiveBean offers 13 OS rebuild option w/ 6 Flavors - Ubuntu / Suse / Slackware / Fedora / Debian / CentOS, 32/64bit in most. Reload of OS (From CentOS 5 to Fedora 10) took about 4 minutes. Note - keep your original root login password! On OS reload, the pass is reset to the original you receive in your VPS welcome email, NOT whatever you have currently changed it to. I can see this being an issue if it’s been a while since you have reloaded and end up digging out the old email. A little different than HyperVM.
Network - Ping times are consistently 15-16ms from/to Austin, 21ms from/to Atlanta, 12-18ms from/to Kansas City, MO. Traceroute to node (69.162.118.226) puts them behind Limestone Networks in Dallas, Tx. One thing I can report, their network seems to be very peppy. I've had a hard time hitting anything from / to the VPS with more than 20ms. I haven't seen a 30ms yet. From anywhere. An I have VPSs from coast to coast.
VPS / Initial Order- Hostname was set properly right off the bat, both initially and on OS reloads. Reverse DNS PTR self-set worked without having to put in a ticket, a first for sure! I just entered the rDNS PTR I required, waited about an hour, and it was set and propagated, ready to go. No muss, no fuss. Although I haven't put any load on the system, the CLI is responding very fast, and pings / traces / nslookups are very quick (as stated above). The only issue at all so far was the aforementioned order response email non-FQDN flurb. But, stuff happens. Small beans (pun intended).
AUP No porn, excessive violence, hate, deception, illegal IRC that causes no disturbances is allowed. I really prefer non-IRC networks, but they have a long lecture about it in the AUP, so it appears they watch activity pretty close.
Nuts n Bolts -
Benchmark (benchmark is on newly loaded system, minimal install FC 10, no load) ------------------ INDEX VALUES TEST BASELINE RESULT INDEX
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusions – so far, so good. I’m actually pretty impressed with everything I’ve seen up to this point. I’m planning on putting the server under load as a backend node of a busy website’s load balancer. I’ll post follow ups as we go along.
Today we are going to conduct a detailed study of RAIDability of contemporary 400GB hard drives on a new level. We will take two "professional" drives from Seagate and Western Digital and four ordinary "desktop" drives for our investigation. The detailed performance analysis and some useful hints on building RAID arrays are in our new detailed article.
Would just like to recommend vpsland[dot]com for your VPS Hosting. I ordered my VPS through there very High Tech looking billing system that has a seemless link to their Virtuozzo VPS's as they are both made by Paralells. It then took under 24 hours for my VPS to be setup. I have found no problems with the VPS, the company even assisted with the installing of IonCube Loader for my PHP.
The support is brilliant, LiveSupport is offered and so is ticket support. The support response is very fast and you can reply by email no need to login to a portal or anything. Its so simple to use. They use Kayako for their support, its very reliable and works smoothly.
I have also had completely no downtime caused by VPSLAND and their systems, they have been veyr reliable and I would recommend them to anybody look for a cheap VPS. They also currently have an offer on Doubel Memory on many VPS's aswell as 50% off the first month. THe prices are exptremly competetive.
They are the ideal company if you are either very experienced or if you have no experience of servers at all.
i just bought a vps from vpsland.com today,they setup up my account quickly,i think it will be my good chioce,but two hours later,the server is dead,my god,it just a short time to use,dont know what it will be happen,anyone is using vpsland?
writing this post to share with the community my "experience" with VPSLand.I've read a mix of good and bad experiences with this company, and this is just another... I'll let the dialog speak for itself......
I've seen nothing but bad reviews for VPSLand ever since I've been here. There have been the occasional good reviews, but those are usually posted by people with poor grammar and spelling and with less than 10 posts. So I got curious, and wondered if VPSLand really is as bad as everyone is saying.
Needless to say, I decided to try them out. They were running a 50% off the first month special which was perfect since I wouldn't be losing too much money in case anything bad happened. I chose the smallest Windows 2003 Virtuozo plan which came out to be $9 for the first month.
VPS was setup within 7 hours of payment. After tinkering around with my VPS, I decided I wanted to switch to 32bit (I was on 64 bit). I sent in a ticket asking for them to switch my OS. They said it was possible and proceeded to do it. After a day, I reminded them about it and within 2 hours they switched the OS.
I've sent in various support and billing tickets for different things and every time it's been resolved within 12 hours. My VPS has been up every time I have checked, but I haven't been monitoring it 24/7. However, every time I've needed it, it's been there. The speeds are pretty decent as well, I've only noticed lag a couple times within the 3 weeks I've been with them so far.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with VPSLand. I don't use their support as much since I prefer to learn everything myself so I just use Google to search for what I need and then I do it. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but for the price I'm paying ($18 a month for a 512MB Windows Server 2003 VPS) I'd say it's definitely worth it.
I have been using these guys for about 5 months now. I've never had a network problem with any of my VPS systems I have had with them. Uptime for me has been 100% without any issues.
Technical Support: Technical Support was A+. Every little problem I had that google couldn't explain right, was solve by their tech support by time I checked my ticket. Not once did they give me a problem or a run around about a problem I had. They fixed it without delays.
Ticket System: Send a support ticket, expect to get an answer very soon. All my tickets were answered in a timely fashion. Some in just 2-3mins, Talk about quick service.
System Resources: As everyone knows, a VPS is shared between a dedicated server, and sometimes your VPS will be slowed/dragged depending on the amount of VPS networks setup on a system. My system has 1.5gb ram and I dont even know about the CPU process I have available. I have had no kind of system lag. I almost feel like my VPS is an actual dedicated server sometimes haha.
its the 5th day, my site and service are down, so i'm writing something about vpsland.
After doing so much hard work i got a good position on all search engines, and day by day im losing my positions only for my poor hosting, cause its down
The Problem began when i told them to upgrade my php version . Well. they did it but after that my site went offline
i couldn't start my vps or mysqld from virtuozzo. Now they fixed the mysqld thing. but the service called "named" is corrupted, so site is still offline. SO thing is like...
If you tell them to solve problem 1 and 2, they will solve the problem 1 and 2, but the new problem will occur ex.problem 5 and 6. they will fix the problem 6 but problem 5 will exist. They will ask you to make backup for thousands time, if you reply them Hello i have all of my backups, they will still ask for your permission and ask for backup. how decent they are.
A few month ago I needed some Windows VPS server and checked out WHT.
Apparently some folks recommended VPSLand and I thought it would be a good choice. Well after a few weeks with them I decided to move to another firm, because their Support is worse then I have ever seen with any hosting company.
It takes days to get an answer and in one occasion i even had to cancel the server since they couldn't get it to work again
Then yesterday one server went offline and after waiting a half day on support I received an email telling me that the server was online since months.
Then the hit today was that they just shut down one of the server cause he would use to much CPU
The thing which puzzles me is that they shut it down without notice and have me, the client, figuring out why i can't login
Long story short. I will move all my server to another company and can only recommend you to stay away from those guys.
VPSLand has some pretty slick prices. In spite of all the bad stuff said about them I decided to give them a try. I purchased their Windows-EZ Starter Value plan which uses Virtuozzo.
Setup: - Not too bad, not great. Took a little while. - Their management panels are in multiple places - not just one centralized dashboard from whence to access all other areas.
General: - They don't automatically run backups, I had to run the backup myself. - They didn't tell me not to apply Windows updates so I hosed my slice almost
immediately. - Apparently my slice was rebooted without me knowing it b/c I had IIS set to manual and when I woke up one day it had stopped. I set it to automatic to avoid this. - I had all sorts of install and permission issues with SQL Server 2005/08 Express, eventually gave up.
Support: - Support is generally slow. Takes several hours for a response even if issue is emergency.
I'm not sure how many of these issues are Virtuozzo related and how many are VPSLand. I know I don't like Virtuozzo (call me old school, I want to apply my own patches), so I decided to purchase one of their Xen VPS. I purchased the WindowsXL-1024. Here's my thoughts on that experience thus far:
Setup: - Took a long time.
General: - Installed Windows Updates and suddenly couldn't get out to the internet (though I could still RDC in). - Submitted trouble ticket and they fixed it but didn't tell me how. - They told me not to apply Windows Updates - wait, I thought thats why I just got a Xen VPS? Waiting for their response.
Support: - Several hour response time. Well, its only been a day or so on the Xen VPS, I'll let you know how things go.
yeah,after a whole day research for a cheap/quality windows VPS,landed on vpsland.com from a blog review. (lol'd at myself because last 2weeks,i dont even know bout this forum) subscribed with the cheapest windows VPS with 512mb RAM with a hope that my tiny little mt4 will run lawlessly.for 9 days,it works perfect without any problem.but last night,I cant even login with RDC at all.so I open a support ticket bout it.I even updated the support ticket with explanation what i've done in order to login my VPS.all failed.around 10 to 12hours later,they replied saying that my RAM not enough and propose for an upgrade.i just like WTF...
in 9 days,no problem at all running my app.yesterday,suddenly not enough?so i replied back saying that MAYBE YOUR COMPANY oversold it? ...
