iDude.org

As I’ve stated in the past, I’ve used a lot of different hosting providers and still have services remaining at most of them in some capacity.  With Rackspace Cloud (formerly Mosso), I still have Cloud Files CDN service on standby in case I need it.   On 2-2-2010, I got an email notifying me that they have started offering Windows VPS for beta testing.  This is very exciting for me as it was one of the main features I wanted in Slicehost (which I still have 1 256mb Slice).

I setup a 512mb Windows 2003 Server to test. So far it seems to be quite excellent and fast. On speedtest.net, I got 67mb down, 27mb up. Not bad. It looks like the Windows 2003 Servers are running under XEN and the 2008 are most likely under Microsoft’s Hyper-V.  The new machine I setup did have SP2 on it, but was unpatched otherwise.  First thing I did was update everything.  The Windows Firewall is completely closed off by default at least.

I’m definitely going to keep testing it on Rackspace, but it would be nice to have one control panel and have them available via Slicehost.com as well. Even it if is an extension to the Slicehost control panel accessing Rackspace Cloud’s API. Better integration of the Slicehost offerings with the Rackspace Cloud services would help both entities since they should be one big happy family now. ;-)

I almost wish they would merge completely and integrate all the features from both sides of the house.  I’m sure that’ll happen in time as the old loyal power users move off to Linode (I moved 4 VPS to Linode) and it’ll have the least impact, churn-wise, if done smoothly.

My setup, if anyone is interested, is the following:

• 1x256mb Slicehost VPS running Cherokee/MySQL hosting ~25 sites.
• 3x360mb Linodes + 1x540mb Linode.  3 Servers are dedicated to individual customers, the other is for more sites I maintain.  Mostly running Cherokee/MySQL or Apache/MySQL.
• 1x1024mb CrystalTech VPS  running Windows 2008 for hosting email and websites for a number of customers
• 1x2048mb SingleHop Server running Windows 2003 for a few sites that wouldn’t work correctly under 2008 for a number of reasons.  This is an Intel ATOM based Server w/ 320gb HDD.  Not bad for $99.
• 2xMedia Temple Grid accounts for customer sites that need higher scalability.

If the Rackspace Windows VPS works out well, I’ll probably move the stuff off SingleHop since the Rackspace pricing is much better for me and SingleHop’s server is overkill memory and HDD wise for a few relatively basic websites and apps.

But I will say SingleHop’s services have been EXCELLENT in the year or so I’ve been using them.  No complaints at all, 0% downtime that I, or my monitoring software, have observed.  Good customer service and GREAT prices for dedicated servers.  I just don’t need dedicated servers at the moment.  If I did, SingleHop would be the place I’d go for both Linux and Windows dedicated.

CrystalTech has also been extremely reliable and fast, but the pricing is way too high, in my opinion.  $149 (including backups) for a 1024mb VPS w/ 60gb HDD when I can get a dedicated for not much more at SingleHop.

I’ll post more on Rackspace Cloud as I start using it more.

I ran across a webserver called Cherokee a week or so ago while looking around for “light” alternatives to Apache on VPSes.  It looked pretty nice, so I downloaded it and compiled the latest version 0.99.9 and started it up.

The nicest thing, I think, about this server is the simple Web configuration UI (cherokee-admin).  When you start it, it generates a one time hashlike password that you then use to log into the web config.  From there, you can configure virtually (no pun intended) all aspects of the web server, including virtual hosts and many other settings.

The reason primarily for my use is serving up my static HTML sites and light PHP ones as well, light meaning minimal DB calls for things like contact form entry, single simple “SELECT * from where whatever = whatever” type querys with small recordsets and so on.  I moved about 20 of my customer sites to it and so far so good.  That is the level of confidence I had in Cherokee.  100% stable so far.

Compiling it from source may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it really isn’t that difficult.

Here’s how I did it from a new VPS.

apt-get install nano htop build-essential mysql-server php5 php5-cgi php5-mcrypt php5-mysql gettext

This installs nano (a simple text editor), htop (top on steroids), build-essential which is a meta package containing necessary packages to compile crap, mysql, PHP, a few extensions and gettext which the ./configure told me it needed and I’m surprised it wasn’t part of the build-essential.

If this is a fresh ubuntu build, you’ll probably get a locales error… Use this to correct.

sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

Download the latest cherokee source.

Untar it and enter the folder.

Now run these commands, modify the paths to your liking.  This runs the pre-compile config, makes then installs it, it then copies the init script to that folder and changes the permissions to allow it to execute.

./configure –localstatedir=/var –prefix=/usr –sysconfdir=/etc –with-wwwroot=/var/www
make
make install
cp contrib/cherokee /etc/init.d/
chmod 755 /etc/init.d/cherokee

to Autostart the init script on boot… Run this…

update-rc.d -f cherokee defaults

That’s about it, read the documentation for specific information on features and have fun.  It is a VERY fast and light webserver that is very well suited for basic websites running on minimal memory VPSes.