Weblog entry #6 for oxtan
See all weblog entries made by oxtan.
I have a ´home´ server with a dsl line. It works fine, but, now come the holidays and I am feeling a bit worried about leaving it online. Fire hazards and so. Not a nice feeling for your holidays.
So I´ll take it offline, meaning all my family members lose their family email. I never thought this would be a problem, but as it turns, it is. They really like their own domain-email and such.
So, the question. I am looking for a cheap hosting solution. Ideally with debian, but not a must if the price with another linux/bsd is really cheaper. root access is a must. I do not have a lot of traffic, just 10 email addresses. Is this going to cost me a lot of money?
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I'd not expect to pay very much for a "small" server. But if you wanted to have root then you'd be best getting an UML/Xen "virtual" server - since that would let you do anything you wanted with it.
Of course the downside with that is that you'd have to install and configure all the services yourself. Still that is the ultimate in control, and may well be what you want.
You don't say where you are based otherwise I'd recommend a company in the UK. (If you're in America the exchange rate will probably work against you!).
Over here I'd expect to pay 15ish quid a month for a 4Gb Debian server with remote serial console access, the ability to powercycle and reinstall remotely.
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NMP
P.S. I'd rather my house burned down when I was on holiday than when I was at home...
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A VDS (virtual private server) would be ideal in this case. I rent one for 10€/month (all included) with 2Go of disk space, 256Mo RAM and 3Mbps of bandwidth. This server runs Debian, without any configuration panel (you can get one for free), and you can do what you want with it (of course except what is not permitted by law and very particular things such as p2p server etc.).
This company is in Paris (France), depending on your location, you may want to look for such a provider - I do not want to make any advertising here without Steve's permission.
I use this VDS as secondary MX, primary DNS (I have a dynamic IP, and this allows me to use nsupdate to run my own dyndns service), and web services which require more bandwidth than my ADSL line. Now, I also plan to leave my flat for a few weeks, and would like this VDS to keep temporary all my e-mail for this time, but do not know how to configure the MX for this purpose... If someone has an idea ;-)
Cheers,
Julien
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Articles which are veiled adverts aren't ever approved, but if you want to recommend something in a blog, or blog comment then I'd say go for it.
I didn't recommend any company in particular partly because the only ones I know well enough to recommend are UK-centric. And nowadays I actually work for one of them, which probably makes me too biased to take seriously...
I'd definitely agree with VDS/VS recommendations nowadays. There doesn't seem like too much place for shared hosting of other types, unless you have a very untechnical user. Even with full root control/responsibilities there are very useful control panels for people who don't want to be a real admin..
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well, for the not dutch-speaking among you (everybody I guess) it comes down to EUR 10/month for 4gb hard drive. I can get debian sarge too!
I am really surprised about this vps/vds thing. I had heard of Xen, obviously. Also read the nice articles by Steve. But I never thought it was so big already. Bound to get bigger and cheaper. This is great news for everybody. And will keep my energy bill down ;)
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