NYCPHP Meetup

[Hans Zaunere]

> >I was just doing some research into budget virtual dedicated servers
> >and thought I might "inquire within".
> >
> >a. Has anyone tried VDS hosting?
> >b. what kind of experience did you have?
> >c. what are the major factors to look for in a good VDS host?
> >
> >TIA
> >
> >- Jeff Loiselle
> >_______________________________________________
> >
> >
> I used Westhost VDS for several clients and have used 2 others but
> wasn't the systems guy for those and don't even remember the details.
> 
> I can say two things about it that might be helpful:
> 
> 1. For me it's more about the hosting company and CP than the server
> technology, IMHO. That's just where 80% of the effort is spent after
the
> architecture is set, and a bad CP or a bad host staff can ruin
> everything. It seems to me VDS vendors like to produce custom CPs
> (WestHost's is in PHP and is at best "ok" in my experience).
> 
> 2. My systems guy had some issues with the VDS when he went to do fun
> stuff like syslog across the servers, BigBrother monitoring, and
setting
> up data streams for the Arkeia backup system. When it got to that true
> systems level, where his expectation was that he'd have full root on a
> virtualized server, he found he did not. I'm sure Hans Z understands
> this stuff and I don't , but I uhnderstand there are some things that
> can't be chrooted, and when it comes to those you are locked out and
> once again reliant on the host staff, flexibility of their server
setup
> etc etc. My guy was surprised to find so much was falling into that
> category, and VDS was not a solution (we went back to dedicated
machines).

These are valid points, but let me try to make one thing clear regarding
the classing virtual server environment.

To me, and it's quite possible I've misunderstood this entire thread, a
VDS (virtual dedicated server) or VPS (virtual private server) are the
same thing.  And, this doesn't include a control panel.  In fact, most
of these providers simply supply a stripped down server, with root
access.  There are some limits, but in a typical web hosting
environment, these aren't a factor.  For instance, you can't (at least
with a FreeBSD jail) use raw sockets.

There's an important distinction between these types of services, and
those that simply supply a chroot environment or other shared hosting.
chroot supplies only one thing; it limits your directory access to below
a specified directory.

A jail, on the other hand, has implications on the entire server picture
that you see.  This means that users are up to you, processes are up to
you, etc.  A VPS/VDS won't typically provide a control panel because
they expect you to either configure your own, or not need one at all.

At the end of the day, a VPS/VDS gives you all the root functionality
you need for an AMP deployment, and you wouldn't even notice that you
are in fact sharing the hardware with someone else.  This also means
that it's unlikely there are any services running; although they might
be nice enough to get some level of email running for you.

The only production level implementation of this is using FreeBSD jails,
which is deployed using this technology:

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch-handbook/jail.html


---
Hans Zaunere
President, Founder
New York PHP
http://www.nyphp.org