Hosting Expertise
Hosting Provider Comparison
| 1and1 | Rackmounted | ThePlanet | ServerPronto | Aplus.net | |
| Cost | $99/month | $94/month | $89/month | $69/month | $79/month |
| CPU | AMD Athlon 3500+ @ 2.2Ghz | Intel Celeron @ 2.66GHz | Intel Celeron @ 2.0GHz | AMD 3000+ | Intel Celeron @ 2.8GHz |
| RAM | 1GB | 512MB | 512MB | 768MB | 1GB |
| Hard Drive(s) | 2x160GB | 2x160GB | 1x250GB | 1x120GB | 1x160GB |
| Monthly Xfer | 2000GB | 2000GB | 750GB | 600GB | 1000GB |
| Backup | 160GB FTP | No FTP | 10GB +$5/month | 2GB FTP | 10GB FTP +$10/month |
| IP Addresses | 1 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 |
| Read Experience History | Read Experience History | Read Experience History |
| NDChost | ServerBeach | CalPOP | Server4You | GoDaddy | |
| Cost | $99/month | $89/month | $99/month | $89/month | $80/month |
| CPU | Intel Celeron @ 2.4GHz | AMD Athlon XP 2200 | Intel P4 @ 2.4-2.8GHz | AMD Opteron 144 | Celeron 2.0GHz |
| RAM | 512MB | 1GB | 1GB | 1GB | 1GB |
| Hard Drive(s) | 1x80 GB | 1x80 GB | 1x80GB | 2x80GB | 1x120GB |
| Monthly Xfer | 320GB | 2000GB | 3300GB | 3000GB | 500GB |
| Backup | No | No | No | 10GB | 20GB +$5/month |
| IP Addresses | 3 | 1(?) | 1 | 1 | 3 |
Provider Experience History
1and1
March 12th, 2008: Customer ID auto generated, but password for their portal prompted for. Only choice of O/S is Fedora 6, but can be re-imaged with alternate afterwards. Paid via credit card, monthly. Should receive login information within 24 hours. At 5 hours, received Portal login information, using password picked on signup. Server is being configured, should be down within 5 days.
March 14th, 2008: Received notice that server is ready with IP address and root login information. Server has FC6 with 2 drives mirrored and nicely partitioned (/var has the most space). Big note that server has restricted access to Internet and must call support to have that lifted. Took <5 minutes to make that call and they said ~20 minutes before we're all set. In the mean time, ssh access works to host. Had to install sudo... rather odd.
April 28th, 2008: Changed logwatch configuration to send email to my home account. Discovered no NTP running and had to configure it. Also implemented really neat iptables rules to severly limit ssh attacks.
Rackmounted
March 11th, 2008: Server configured "built to order" estimated turnaround time 3-5 days. Order process via web site with monthly, quarterly, bi-annual (5% discount), or annual (10% discount) options. When creating a new account, you are asked for a password. It is then repeated back in clear text when verifying order. What's the password for? Paid via credit card, monthly. Requested CentOS 5.1 installed as CentOS 4.4 with single partition is default. Received confirmation email with HTML tags embedded in a non-HTML message - very difficult to read. hostname: rackmounted.scheller-consulting.com At ~5 hours after form submit, received request from "fraud dept." requesting CC image (front & back) be faxed to them. Fax number matched the opening web page, so I did. Hoping no weird charges show up on next statement!
March 13th, 2008: Received email this evening stating server was ready, and provided IP address. The password I entered earlier is the root password for this server.
March 14th, 2008: Time to log in and check it out. No reverse DNS entry (even a placeholder) has been set up for my IP address, so ssh is not happy logging in. No packages require update! Pair of drives has been configured as a mirrored set - very nice. Created support ticket for PTR record entry (9am). Received confirmation email that PTR record set about 2pm.
April 28th, 2008: Changed logwatch configuration to send email to my home account. Discovered no NTP running and had to configure it. Also implemented really neat iptables rules to severly limit ssh attacks.
May 24th, 2008: After migrating my email from a previous shared server (at 1&1) to this server, I found that previously refused domains (mycomcast.net) were accepting mail. Good news! However, a friend working at qualcomm.com could not get my email. Turns out they are closing the connection as soon as the connection to the SMTP server is established, and I assume the IP address is looked up in a table. Opened a ticket with Rackmounted support to see what they could do. Testing from their admin servers (on a different /24 network) did not show this same problem. I tried switching my host's IP address to another that had been issued for a 2nd SSL enabled site on the same /24 network and same problem. So they must have this whole /24 on their block list. Rackmounted support has offered a new network assignment, but I don't think it's worth the effort at this point.
The Planet
March 11th, 2008: Order directly from web site. Very processor intensive website using Firefox. Default configuration has 80GB hard drive; upgrade $20/month to 250GB hard drive. Host name prompted right at configuration time. CentOS 5 chosen as OS. Paid via credit card, no options for pre-pay. Received confirmation email with following statement "Most customers are able to access and begin receiving full value from their new server within 3 business days." hostname: theplanet.scheller-consulting.com. 2 hours later, received account to Orbit-support ticketing system w/hardware creation ticket already in system. 1 hour later, ticket closed. ~30 minutes later, email with connection information to new server. Received phone call to verify credit card use was proper. Logged into server with root access - 2.40GHz processor; 512MB RAM; 225GB / partition; CentOS 5. And we're off to the races!
March 14th, 2008: Entered ticket (~15:30) in Orbit to change PTR record. Must have inherited an old IP address, so let's see how long it takes to change it. Ticket closed in under 10 minutes – done!
April 28th, 2008: Changed logwatch configuration to send email to my home account. Discovered no NTP running and had to configure it. Also implemented really neat iptables rules to severly limit ssh attacks.
General Hosting Notes (Security, etc.)
IPTABLES rules to limit ssh attacks:
*filter :INPUT ACCEPT [0:0] -N SSH -N SSH_ABL -A SSH -m recent --name SSH_ABL --update --seconds 3600 -j REJECT -A SSH -m recent --name SSH --rcheck --seconds 60 --hitcount 5 -j SSH_ABL -A SSH_ABL -m recent --name SSH_ABL --set -j LOG --log-level warn --log-prefix "ABL: +SSH: " -A SSH_ABL -j REJECT -A SSH -m recent --name SSH --rcheck --seconds 2 -j LOG --log-level warn --log-prefix "RATE: " -A SSH -m recent --name SSH --update --seconds 2 -j REJECT -A SSH -m recent --name SSH_ABL --remove -j LOG --log-level warn --log-prefix "ABL: -SSH: " -A SSH -m recent --name SSH --set -j ACCEPT -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -p tcp -m tcp --dport 22 -j SSH