From: Jim Freeze <jim@...>
Date: 2001-12-07T08:28:39+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:27766] Re: web hosting

On Fri, 7 Dec 2001, Dave Thomas wrote:

> Jim Freeze <jim@freeze.org> writes:
>
> > You can try http://www.iserver.com.  They give you your own virtual
> > server with freebsd.  You can install any package or software you
> > want because it is your server...virtually. :)
> Has anyone done this? Is it feasible to run Ruby up there?
>
Yes and Yes.

> This looks interesting (even if it is Verio :)
>
>
Well, iserver didnt' start out as Verio.
I went to school with the founders of iserver.
The technical founder created a virtual server, not
a virtual host. When you connect to the computer and
do a ps, you do not see the other users of the system
or their jobs. You have your own apache process, your
own db process, etc. You also have a virtual root
account and can create your own user logins.

The original server was developed under BSD. During this last
year they switched to FreeBSD. With FreeBSD, you have the
most stable web platform server. In addition, you can
install any of the 4000+ packages that are part of the FreeBSD
ports collection, including the 100s of Ruby ports. Yes,
even Dave's documentation is in the ports collection.

When verio bought the company, iserver was the only company
that they purchased that was making money, so they let
them alone to operate under their own charter.
However, now that they are owned by verio, they will
also sell you NT servers and they recently released
Sun servers. The NT servers are housed in Florida and
the FreeBSD servers are in their Virginia data center.
I guess that is also where the Sun servers are located.

When I last chatted with the founder, he said that the
FreeBSD servers typically hosted about 100 users, while
the NT servers hosted >1000 users. In other words, the
NT part of the business was really cramming a lot of users
on one machine. The accounts were typically the 'cheap' accounts
and performance was not great.

What about the sub-domain hosting?
Well, you can add as many domains to a single account
as you wish. However, last I checked, they charge you a
$25.00 setup fee per domain (bummer). But while this
is a good thing (it is called subhosting or vhost), it is not
something that is recommended unless it is yourself or
someone you trust since they have access to your account.

Cheers

=========================================================
Jim Freeze
jim@freeze.org
---------------------------------------------------------
Today is a fine day for Ruby programming.
http://www.freeze.org
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