[olug] Basic cheap local hosting?

Mon Dec 5 17:51:03 UTC 2011

I have a friend who owns a business and needed a Web site / E-Mail.  He 
also has a pretty fast DSL pipe going to his office.  I persuaded him 
that he could house a Linux box in his office to serve as his router, 
his E-Mail server, and his Web server; I am his tech support, and the 
price of my service is that he lets me put a couple low traffic Web 
sites on that server.  He saves money and gets better service plus 
attentive tech support; I get free server space and total control over 
the server; everybody wins.

Using a Linux box for a combined router / mail server is actually pretty 
handy in a lot of ways.  Intraoffice E-Mail is lightning fast.  Outbound 
E-Mail is handed to the SMTP server almost immediately, and for that 
matter, by the time you become aware of incoming E-Mail, it's already on 
the LAN.  And whatever bottleneck there is on Web service because of 
slower up speeds, well, for small sites it's not much of an issue.

> I have the 15 meg down residential package, and the equivalent business
> hosting is $150 a month with a two year contract. It would be identical to
> my $50 plan, except a static IP address and they're not blocking ports.
>
> Neither really costs Cox anything more to provide. But they know they can
> gouge businesses, and they have no choice but to pay.
>
> I'm not going to make my url and web server use another port, so unless I
> could somehow transparently forward port 80, I think the best solution is
> to bite the bullet and sign up for a VPS. Patrick Swartz has contacted me
> off list, and he is offering a very attractive VPS offering.
>
> The web page in question is just a guild webpage for Star Wars: The Old
> Republic. My wife has already chastised me that we're paying two monthly
> subscriptions (including the initial retail purchase of the game). We don't
> normally pay MMOs. Adding a monthly VPS cost as well is surely going to be
> a point of contention because it is for a game, even though the cost really
> isn't all that much.
>
> I will also look at Hostgator since it has been suggested. The three shared
> hosts I haven't used in recent years but seem to get suggested frequently
> are Dreamhost, Bluehost and Hostgator.
>
> I've just had such bad experiences with shared hosts recently that I'm
> reticent to try more. 1and1 is still billing me for a hosting package I
> cancelled over a year ago and I'm really not happy with them in particular.
>
> On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:18 AM, SndChaser<sndchaser at cerebralrift.org>wrote:
>
>> Actually, right now Cox's two year Business Internet Starter contracts are
>> going for $75.05/mo.  That really isn't far off what I'm already paying,
>> but it only has 1 IP address and is 5Meg down, 1Meg up -- my current seems
>> to get 7Meg down, 1Meg up.  If I dumped the cable TV, this would end up
>> being cheaper.
>>
>> George
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 5 Dec 2011 02:24:39 -0600, Rob Townley wrote:
>>
>>> Maybe less if sign a 5 year contract.
>>>
>>> On Sunday, December 4, 2011, Jason N<dashrender at cox.net>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm not sure cox can force you into anything, but I do know they block
>>>>
>>> inbound port 80 and port 25.
>>>
>>>> A business line if you want to host from home costs about $89/mnth.  If
>>>>
>>> you already pay for a the highest level of service with Cox this won't be
>>> much more than you are already paying.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---- "T. J. Brumfield"<enderandrew at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> I was under the impression that Cox won't offer a static IP with home
>>>> internet, so you have to a pay a fortune for business internet.
>>>>
>>>> I have considered looking a dynamic DNS service, but I heard that Cox
>>>> will
>>>> force you into business internet if they detect your hosting a web
>>>> server.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Lou Duchez<lou at paprikash.com>  wrote:
>>>>
>>>>   I went for years from one hosting company to another, and in each case,
>>>> at
>>>> some point tech support failed me mightily.  At the last company, after a
>>>>> seventeen-day server outage because I couldn't get past tier one tech
>>>>> support, I resolved to host my own site.  Just about any old computer
>>>>>
>>>> will
>>>> run Linux well enough for a low-bandwidth site, and now when I need to
>>>>> contact tech support, the guy may be a jerk but he takes my problems
>>>>> seriously.  It's been five years now and I haven't looked back.
>>>>>
>>>>> I assume you've got DSL or cable at home; how much to add a static IP
>>>>> address?  If static is too pricy, you can always get dynamic DNS thru
>>>>> www.dyn.com or elsewhere.
>>>>>
>>>>>   I need to host a low bandwidth Wordpress site. Really, I don't need
>>>>>
>>>>>> anything more than a shared hosting account. But everyone I've tried
>>>>>> doesn't allow me to do page caching, so performance is pretty poor.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I actually just signed up for a hosting service the other day because
>>>>>>
>>>>> the
>>>> sales staff assured me without a doubt that I could do opcode caching. I
>>>>>> migrated my domain and site over, only to find it isn't enabled on the
>>>>>> server. In fact, pretty much any Apache module I need for that caching
>>>>>> plugin isn't installed and they're not willing to install any of them,
>>>>>> including some really basic/common modules like mod_deflate and
>>>>>> mod_rewrite. The technical staff state that no one should have reason
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> use those.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After migrating this site five times already from one terrible host to
>>>>>> another, I'm curious if anyone on this list can recommend a good, cheap
>>>>>> service, or if they one of their own?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I could rent a VPS through Linode, except that seems overkill for a
>>>>>>
>>>>> single
>>>> Wordpress install that will get minimal traffic.
>>>>>> -- T. J. Brumfield
>>>>>> "I'm questioning my education
>>>>>> Rewind and what does it show?
>>>>>> Could be, the truth it becomes you
>>>>>> I'm a seed, wondering why it grows"
>>>>>> -- Pearl Jam, Education
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>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> "I'm questioning my education
>>>> Rewind and what does it show?
>>>> Could be, the truth it becomes you
>>>> I'm a seed, wondering why it grows"
>>>> -- Pearl Jam, Education
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>> --
>> We need to heed the words of the Dalai Lama,
>> Or at least, the words of your mama.
>>
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