Making an Independent Web Site? 484
KinsmanCa asks: "Lately I've been thinking of opening a website - but looking over what web hosts provide, I don't like the idea of having a bandwith limit of so many gigabtyes per month, or having to be mindful of what the provider considers community standards. How can I create a website that's as independent as possible? By which I mean, pay as few bills to as few people as possible, and have to answer to nobody but the law itself as far as my content goes? Assume that I'm willing to pay a lot as far as hardware or initial setup costs go.
How much autonomy can a regular person get on the Internet?"
Get your own T1 (Score:3, Informative)
Only through this method will you get the control and administrative capabilities you seek.
heyitsme
Simple. (Score:5, Informative)
Hint: You won't avoid bandwidth fees one way or the other. Bandwidth costs money.
You won't avoid them *especially* if you want to be left alone to do what you want to do.
Buy a server, colocate it somewhere, and set up what you want. Do your own mail, dns, everything.
Or... lease a cobalt raq somewhere, that might be a good start. Quick, easy, your own machine.
bandwidth fees (Score:2, Informative)
It could also be pointed out that colo isn't for the "average joe". Not everyone wants the hassle of running their own box.
Re:bandwidth fees (Score:2)
Some providers offer "Managed Colocation." Your box, their admin. Routine config changes, security patches, and typical setups are all part of the service. Normally, plans include an hour/month of sysadmin service on top of normal colocation services.
I created a program like this at my last employer [5points.net] for example.
I agree though: Colocation isn't for everyone. Aside from inexperience causing problems, it may be more costly than a beginning site really needs.
Re:bandwidth fees (Score:3, Insightful)
So, of course you pay for bandwidth. But the question is: will you overpay for bandwidth? On a fixed Gb xfer plan, you may well be.
Re:Simple. (Score:2)
Netmar (Score:3, Informative)
It's $10 a month for 100 megs, no bandwidth limits (within reason). No porn allowed, but other than that, they aren't trying to censor you.
Other than that, I'd recommend co-loc or a T1. The only real way to get totally free from any restrictions is to get a real T1 from a first tier provider.
No, I don't work for Netmar
Re:Netmar (Score:2, Insightful)
So therefore there is a limit. I highly recommend staying away from any company that says "unlimited bandwidth" -- because its BS. You will get charged for the bandwidth, or kicked out of their service. Anyone who has delt with a lot of hosting companies will know this is true.
Re:Netmar (Score:2)
Our ultra-high bandwidth hosting plans [tiernetworking.com].
$20 - 20 GB transfer, 500 MB disk, 100 emails.
$50 - 50 GB transfer, 2000 MB disk, 500 emails.
Re:Netmar (Score:2)
Rackshack offers 400 GB for $100. This is $0.25 per GB with each additional GB costing $1.50. That's $600 for that second 400 GB.
Tier Networking
We offer 316 GB for $87. This is $0.27 per GB with each additional 316 GB costing the same $87. However, since we'll beat any one else's price by 5%, We'll offer their same 400 GB for $95 which is $0.23 per GB.
Summary
So basically, if you need much bandwidth at all, we're by far cheaper but if you only need a little bandwidth, we'll beat anyone else's price by 5%.
Re:Netmar (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Netmar (Score:2)
They are a good hosting service, and they aren't going to jerk you around, but you have to have some respect for them too. Play by the rules and you have superior hosting at a good price. Host a huge pirated movie archive that sucks down all their bandwidth and catches them flak from the MPAA, and I'm sure any hosting would kick your ass off.
I'm not sure what you guys want. Maybe you all are just anarchists that don't believe in laws.
Re:Netmar (Score:2)
Trust me, I do know the guys that work at Netmar, and they would not just kick you off the service without notice for something petty.
Put it in the contract. "The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of the Netmar management" doesn't cut it.
Play by the rules and you have superior hosting at a good price.
You can't expect someone to play by the rules when your AUP says "we can make up any rules we want".
I'm not sure what you guys want. Maybe you all are just anarchists that don't believe in laws.
What I want is very simple. You don't take down my site unless I'm doing something obviously illegal. If it's not obviously illegal, you aren't an accessory, and I'll take the full blame if it turns out to be illegal.
Most of all what I want is a promise that you won't intentionally disable my site unless I'm doing something illegal with it.
Re:Netmar (Score:2)
What you want is called a lawyer, not an ISP or hosting service. If you think $10 a month can buy a lawyer on retainer, you are sorely mistaken.
Re:Netmar (Score:2, Informative)
I had a company try to shut down my personal website because they (cautionwear, inc) thought my domain was too close (cautioninc.com). My domain was registered through Namezero, and their TOS states they won't fight any kind of copywright/trademark dispute. I sent an email to Namezero, pointing to the complainer's site (which I had to find, it wasn't named), and pointing out that there's no possible way my domain name was infringing on anything they did. I totally expected to lose my domain, but Namezero backed me up. I can't say enough how happy I am to let them handle my DNS.
Re:wtf is wrong with satantic materials? (Score:2)
Basically, this is a legal issue, not a moral one. Whatever's illegal in Durham NC (where the company is incorporated) is forbidden by the TOS, plus porn. We can't afford to go to bat for someone who hosts a website with questionable content. Questionable is intentionally left vague because we basically have to leave it vague in order to anticipate the unknown. If we explicitly set out the limitations (You can have pro-Nazi sites, but not Anti-African-American sites) etc, first it would make the TOS rediculously long, and second, someone would find a way to break the spirit of the rule while staying within the letter of the rule. And as previously mentioned, we can't afford to go to bat legally for someone who hosts questionable content and comes under question from law enforcement agencies.
Seriously, though, if you have questions about content limitations or policies and issues with the TOS, feel free to email us:
staff@netmar.com [mailto]
Regards,
Will
Netmar Staff
Limitations are built in. (Score:3, Interesting)
From the Netmar web site: "Our Linux server is a 1500 megahertz Pentium 4 processor, equipped with 128 megabytes of RAM to handle computation-heavy facets of your site."
I don't think it is possible to buy less memory than that. Do I mis-read that? They have ONE computer?
The reason many companies have no limits on bandwidth is that they are very, very small, and don't have much bandwidth for their entire company. They expect to host mom's family fotos website.
Re:Limitations are built in. (Score:5, Informative)
We are a small company, I will admit that. Bandwidth is by far what we pay the most for on a month to month basis. However, we want your website to prosper, not feel hindered by our limitations of 5 gigs a month or whatever. If you buy a leased line t3 to your facilities you pay for that t3 whether you are using 1% or 100% of its capacity. Why should we charge you for that? It's our problem, and something you cannot control.
A lot of complains here is see are about our Terms of Service, read them, see what they say. It essentially says that we will not host anything that is pornographic, lewd, or illegal in Durham, NC. ( Where the company was Incorporated ) I can't think of anytime in the last two years we have taken down anyones site because of "objectionable" material. The biggest problem by far we have is people who post up pirated software ( Most recent I know of was OfficeXP ). We do not host porn sites, the owners of the company strickly forbit it.
If you have any questions of comments please let us know, our email is staff@netmar.com. If you want to address it to me I'm Ethan. ( Yes, the same one referred to in the FAQ )
~Ethan
Re:Limitations are built in. (Score:3, Informative)
That's the operative part. Our linux server. Which technically should be "Our linux shared hosting server". Our router runs linux, as does our primary name server, and several of our customer machines. Most of the staff workstations run linux too. But the majority of the machines are Sparc's and run solaris 7. To elaborate on what Ethan said in the other reply to this, our other shared hosting servers are a Sparcstation 10 and a quad processor Ultra Sparc II 3X300 Mhz (woohoo, is it fast - we cross compile stuff there that otherwise takes hours in minutes).
We do have about 50 machines, mostly beause of redundancy - 2 login servers, 2 mail servers, 2 NIS servers, 2 monitoring servers, 2 name servers, 3 meters that do nothing but display realtime graphs, and various other standard servers (backup system, model system for easy drive imaging, etc). Plus customer dedicated servers, which range from Sparc IPC's up to Dual P3 1.13 Ghz machines with 1 GB of ram and ~450 gigs of hard disk space.
Feel free to give us a call 8-5 EST monday - friday, 540 951 9404 or 1 800 691 7191, or email us at staff@netmar.com [mailto]. We'll be happy to address any questions or concerns you have.
We understand that there's a lot of competition out there in the web hosting world. We're competing against the big guys, it's true. But we do our best to be friends with our customers, and to accomidate them. We care, honestly. We want your business, and we understand that it takes a pretty big commitment to our customers to keep them in this marketplace.
Regards,
~will
Re:Get the straight poop before you buy. (Score:2)
Re:Get the straight poop before you buy. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a systems administrator at Netmar (I'm Will, for those of you who use us).
Specifically read the part about "What does bandwidth cost? / Is bandwidth really unlimited? / How can you offer unlimited bandwidth? "
I made the website (..you shoulda seen the old one). I put that in the FAQ SPECIFICALLY because of people who ask questions like this.
Lately we've had a guy using a lot of bandwidth, and our Sprint link has been up and down more times than I can count (i've received 135 pages today, from 3 monitoring systems, as of 9PM est). So we've ordered more bandwidth. We try to stay ahead of what people are using.
It's a fact, however, that BY FAR the most common cause of spikes in our bandwidth is illegal software. We don't tolerate it, because it hurts our business and because we can't afford to get sued by the MPAA RIAA Microsoft, etc.
I'm one of the guys that makes the decision about who stays and who goes based on TOS violations. It doesn't happen often. You have to be clearly bad. The whole satanic thing is cause the guy that owns the company is a strong christian dude (call and listen to our hold music 540 951 9404). But we don't censor people. At all. www.fredrock.org (my site) is there, and there's "swear words" on the front page.
Anyway, if you, or anyone, has questions, just email staff@netmar.com - we'll be checking it all weekend (we always do).
The difference between us and rackshack (ask www.web-xperts.com dude what he thought about them) is that they don't care. He said he asked a question about some problem he was having or other and they were like "that sux, good luck".
He asked us a question about qmail (plesk uses it) and my co-associate was like "never used it, lemme read about it" and spent the day learning how to use it, so he could help the guy.
We may not know everything, but we know a lot, and if you have something you need us to know, let us know =). We do personal service. We're friends with our customers. We work for you.
~Will
Re:Get the straight poop before you buy. (Score:2)
Lately we've had a guy using a lot of bandwidth, and our Sprint link has been up and down more times than I can count (i've received 135 pages today, from 3 monitoring systems, as of 9PM est).
Sign me up! Sounds like a nice reliable service. Have you refunded your users for this month of intermittent service?
Re:Get the straight poop before you buy. (Score:2)
We have a ticket open with sprint, and they're doing thorough line testing, finging out where the bad link is comming from.
The pages are because everytime any machine goes down and back up, I get paged 6 times (2 SMS and 1 numaric for the down and 2 SMS and 1 numaric for the up). Mostly, it's dedicated server customers resetting their servers, which is their perogative. Today's been especially busy, that's all.
Regards,
Will
Netmar Staff.
Re:Get the straight poop before you buy. (Score:2)
Basically, this is a legal issue, not a moral one. Whatever's illegal in Durham NC (where the company is incorporated) is forbidden by the TOS, plus porn. We can't afford to go to bat for someone who hosts a website with questionable content. Questionable is intentionally left vague because we basically have to leave it vague in order to anticipate the unknown. If we explicitly set out the limitations (You can have pro-Nazi sites, but not Anti-African-American sites) etc, first it would make the TOS rediculously long, and second, someone would find a way to break the spirit of the rule while staying within the letter of the rule. And as previously mentioned, we can't afford to go to bat legally for someone who hosts questionable content and comes under question from law enforcement agencies.
Seriously, though, if you have questions about content limitations or policies and issues with the TOS, feel free to email us:
staff@netmar.com [mailto]
Regards,
Will
Netmar Staff
your options (Score:3, Informative)
There is no getting around bandwidth costs/limits (Score:5, Insightful)
Bandwidth is the primary cost of every web host on the Internet. The backbone providers allow a specific amount of bandwidth for a specific price, and resellers carve up that bandwidth for sale to you (or to other resellers) at smaller prices for smaller amounts of data transfer.
As you might imagine, it's usually a good idea to avoid any provider who promises "Unlimited Bandwidth". They're lying. Anyone who says that really means, "Unlimited Bandwidth, Unless You Use More Than We Think You Should".
Re:There is no getting around bandwidth costs/limi (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlimited bandwidth, but everyone else on the service trying to get the same unlimited bandwidth acts as a pretty effective throttle.
And, along the lines of content restrictions... (Score:2, Informative)
The few providers that have a completely "hands off" approach to their customers tend to have customers who traditionally deal in spam, pr0n, copyright violations, or some combination thereof. Those are sites you likely wouldn't want to be associated with, and those kind of providers also tend to get blackholed and/or sued on occasion.
Co-location is also an option others have mentioned, but the same basic rules will likely apply (no spam/pr0n/warez, pay by the byte) with any solid provider. It's also not for the beginner, and definitely not for anyone who's not incredibly serious about their site.
Re:And, along the lines of content restrictions... (Score:2)
Re:There is no getting around bandwidth costs/limi (Score:5, Informative)
Theoretically, I suppose, you could be a backbone provider and not have anyone upstream. But unless you're planning on buying Sprint or something, you will have to deal with the fact that there is someone upstream who can pull the plug on you solely because your content has been complained about by a copyright owner.
Also, realistically, every provider has some terms of service. Some of them no one on
Re:There is no getting around bandwidth costs/limi (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah there is. Not every country has laws as fucked as those of the US (remember, johanson's code was legal in Norway) -- if an american accesses my website, it's no more under the DMCA than if they were offended at a sign in my garden they could only see with a spy satellite.
Not entirely true... (Score:4, Informative)
The provider, to avoid taking on the liability for contributory copyright infringement, must remove your site unless you certify that you have not violated their copyright. Now that's the thing though, you have to be willing to take the chance in a court of law that you did not violate their copyright. If you aren't, then an ISP will, wisely, remove your offending content.
Now, I say not ENTIRELY true, because I'm sure that a number of providers will be more than happy to shut down your site completely regardless of what you say because it's not worth the hassle to them. That is a risk you take when you walk near the legal grey areas (and boy haven't those grey areas increased in size lately). I mean running any site today that allows for some sort of public user posting runs the risk of them violating copyright on your site. Then you get to have the choice of eliminating their posts or taking a moral stand. Moral stands are expensive...
Re:Not entirely true... (Score:2)
But, yes, you're right, for many providers, once you get involved in the process at all, you're not worth the time and money.
And I agree that it is one of the more sensical parts of the DMCA - it gives the ISP a positive defense and sets out pretty clearly the legal path everyone can use to avoid prosecution.
Theoreticaly (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Get to know someone (Score:5, Funny)
Next thing you know, you have a box on a T3 line. Try to get the thing slashdotted. That's pretty much the goal in life as I've seen it.
Re:Get to know someone (Score:2)
And they did. Don't underestimate the power of "networking"
HavenCo? (Score:4, Interesting)
HavenCo [havenco.com]
J
Redundant? (Score:2)
Sealand may be overkill though, and there is a pretty strict bandwidth limit.
A word of caution (Score:2, Informative)
Co-lo (Score:2, Informative)
For bandwidth, industry rates seem to go $3-5 GB for bandwidth if you're working on a usage type basis (some sort of shared connection), as opposed to a dedicated bandwidth type basis. If you're looking at the dedicated bandwidth type (drop with some guaranteed MB/s) the costs move in much bigger blocks, but usually cost you less if you use that much.
What I do... (Score:5, Informative)
Currently I have 16 servers to handle my Web sites (eg proboards.com and some others). I use RackShack.net for all my servers. They charge basically a hundred bucks a month (plus tax) per server, and you get 400GB of monthly transfer (25 cents a gig, pretty damn good!). I'm fairly happy with their service (hell I pay them $1700 a month, I better be happy).
Content wise, they basically have fairly lax restrictions. No cracking sites, no illegal stuff, etc. They don't have rules against pr0n sites. What exactly are you looking to put up on the Web?
If you do colocation, you will be paying upwards of $1 - $1.50 a gig on your bandwidth. I swear I've looked at a hundred companies for servers (I always want to save some money with the amount of servers I have), and I haven't found one that beats RackShack. The price, the support, everything is right. I highly recommend them.
Second RackShack.Net (Score:2, Informative)
I'd been hosting some servers for several years with Dialtone, but just shifted over to Rackshack [rackshack.net]. Got 2.5 times the server and more bandwidth for half the cost.
This morning they were offering a 1Ghz box with 512mb ram 40gb disk & 400gb b/w for $100/month and $1 setup. It's hard to beat.
So far the service has been fast and excellent.
rob.
Re:What I do... (Score:2)
If you do colocation, you will be paying upwards of $1 - $1.50 a gig on your bandwidth. I swear I've looked at a hundred companies for servers
The company I work for, ITmom.com [itmom.com], offers $0.50 per gigabyte for shared hosting, not colocation. i.e. you don't have to know how to run a server, just upload your content (of course, this isn't for everyone, but this is what our customers want).500 meg, php, asp, coldfusion -- $10/month (Score:2, Informative)
Re:500 meg, php, asp, coldfusion -- $10/month (Score:2)
" If at any time the Customer's website generates enough bandwidth usage to affect the performance of the other customer sites on the server, Ready Hosting, Inc. reserves the full right to terminate the Customer's domain name without refund.
Other Activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that we determine to be harmful to our customers, operations or reputation, including any activities that restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the service or the Internet. Any violations of this agreement will result in refund ineligibility."
This was in their ToS, which mentions they don't restrict anything....well, anything but spam, using it as an image repository, scripts, DNS transfer, data transfer, defamation, "pornographic" sites, adult content, viruses and crypto.
I've seen quite a few hosts play this game. I was with one, who plastered "free speech" and "uncensored" all over the front page, only to say in the fine print they would monitor the email accounts and yank the site if they didn't like what was on it.
Freenet. (Score:3, Insightful)
FreeNet is Your Goal (Score:2, Informative)
Right now FreeNet is slow mainly because there aren't that many people on it. Read some of the documentation at the site. More people = a better cache and better responsiveness. Now, given its current state, I'd say the relative (very high) anonymity of it makes it drollingly appealing. So START A NODE, people!
A FreeNet with millions running nodes globally is our goal, according to my wishes and yours, as well as both our economic means.
Bandwidth isn't free (Score:3, Informative)
1. Buy a circuit and pay for the bandwidth yourself (DSL, T1, etc).
2. Rent part of a circuit and (possibly) computer, and pay someone else to host. Most services cap bandwidth or charge directly for bandwidth. You can either go hosted or colocation (their computer or yours).
3. Go on a hosted service that is advertising supported. Everyone I'm aware of caps bandwidth.
The decision should be based on how much you have to spend and how much bandwidth you really need.
As you can see from the above options, there's no free ride - bandwidth costs *someone* and usually those costs are passed down to you.
Of course, I shouldn't preach.... I share a T1 speed SDSL with folks in my building and only pay $20/month
Colocation (Score:4, Insightful)
Though mentioned several times before, I feel that no one mentioned the most important aspect of colocation: redundant connections. T1/T3 lines probably won't fail, but there's still the chance, and if they do, you're screwed for however long it takes the phone company to fix the problem (and if you've ever tried to get a Baby Bell to fix something, you'll know why this will be a problem).
A redundant connection will keep your site up and running even if the primary connection fails. Ideally, the redundant connection should be able to handle 50% of peak capacity and should be leased from a different provider than the primary line (so that an entire company outage won't shut down both lines).
Now, you CAN get redundant lines into your house, but it won't be cheap and you'll end up paying for a redundant connection that you may never use. Colocators already have redundant connections set up, which means you won't have to worry about any of this. You may have to pay a dollar amount per Gibibyte of throughput over a certain amount, but this is unavoidable when using anyone else as a host. Just be sure to agree on a deal that will provide you enough base bandwidth so that you won't wind up paying thousands of dollars in excess bandwidth fees.
With the right colocator and the right agreement, you'll end up getting the right amount of allotted bandwidth and you won't have to bother yourself with all the things that make hosting your site from home troublesome.
borrow your employer's bandwidth (Score:2, Interesting)
build a little server, buy the network administrator eight or nine beers, stick your machine in the server room, and go to down. (the beer trick works especially well if you happen to BE the network administrator.)
i haven't paid for server bandwidth in probably seven or eight years (i.e., "ever"); the downside is that you may have to move it around a lot, as you might change jobs, your company might fold, that sort of thing.
DSL works nicely for low-impact serving, too.
Colo with Us (Score:3, Informative)
From 1 Mb to 1000 Mb, if you find a lower price, we'll beat it by 5%. It's that simple.
Re:WARNING (Score:2)
Our $87 per Mb rate is multihomed burstable bandwidth with a 99.99% guaranteed uptime. Currently, this includes 250 Mb of Level 3, along with Epik, and Cogent. Verio and Global Crossing will be included within 30 days.
Yes, Cogent is mixed into our blended bandwidth plan. No, we won't charge you more for you to use the other carriers.
If you want non-cogent bandwidth, we can offer you pure Level 3 bandwidth with 100% SLA for $250 per Mb. I challenge you to find a better deal on Level 3 bandwidth anywhere.
We are not just another Cogentco outfit.
Re:Colo with Us (Score:2)
No need to colo.. host with an adult host (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for one myself (obligatory NationalNet link [natnet.com]) but you can find your own if you need at many review sites [tophosts.com]. Good luck!
Re:No need to colo.. host with an adult host (Score:2)
Unlike many sites that cater to porn, they aren't overpriced.
I use them for 2 vanity sites with low usage, one of which is tongue-in-cheek pseudo-porn, the other of which is an art web site [camilleart.com] with content that could conceivably be called objectionable.
They're pretty cheap.
One thing I like and don't like is that they are not so professional. This means that they don't care about content. "We don't care as long as you don't get us into trouble," is roughly what they told me when I spoke to them. Unfortunately, this also means that they are sometimes hard to get a hold of (but at least they do have a phone number) and don't have 99.999% uptime (probably more like 99%).
Anyway, they aren't too bad. I wouldn't use them for anything too important, but if this is just a vanity project, I think you'll find them pretty versatile and cheap.
For maximum freedom (Score:3, Funny)
Re:For maximum freedom (Score:2)
Thats a deal in anyones book....
-Tripp
My solution. (Score:2)
Set up your own servers, and get a broadband ISP with an account that has no restrictions. I pay $200 a month for a 1.54m/768k dsl account with 16 static ip addy's and NO restrictions. I can resell the bandwidth if I want to and its permitted, the TOS even says so. The law is my only restriction.
Then you run your own servers. You put whatever you want on them, and you can use all the bandwidth you need, up to the physical limits your service allows. I'd imagine that any company will offer comparable services. Where people get caught and start whining is they believe the $39 a month rate they pay for the same bandwidth should offer unrestricted services for that price.
Now, if you can find a host, you'll probably be better off in the long run, at least for the amount of money you'll be spending. More than likely, you'll get either a total bytes transfered limit, or a bandwidth cap rate. Any service that offers unlimited on both always has a disclaimer in there somewhere.
-Restil
Cheap-ass rock bottom solution (Score:2)
So what I did was use Personal Web Server, a free mini-version of IIS that does about everything IIS does. To get to my machine from the web I hosted a domain on a cheap host (HostSave, $7.95/mo) and did redirects to my home IP address. Although I wasn't paying for a static IP, it tended to stay the same for months at a time. Whenever it changed I simply fixed the links. The small number of users (parents from my daughter's school) were mostly hitting my site one at a time, and my DSL line was fast enough to give them decent response. Bandwidth was not an issue, but I bet it isn't for most people. This solution worked just fine, was dirt cheap and was perfect for a non-Unix person.
I was surprised Microsoft abandoned Personal Web Server. To run a server now under XP you have to upgrade to Professional. They have drawn in so many kids with Visual Basic, providing an easy and accessible way to play webmaster seems like a great idea. I guess it's part of casting the home Internet user as a consumer rather than a peer.
Re:Cheap-ass rock bottom solution (Score:2)
This all happened in early 1998 or so.
If you truly want the least restrictions possable (Score:3, Informative)
The downside? Cost. For a full T1 you can probably expect to pay between $1000-$1500/month between local loop and bandwidth, and that's just 1.544mbps. You want some serious bandwidth like fractional DS-3 and you can get real expensive, real fast.
The only real thing that having a line like this gets you over doing co-lo at a good facility is that you'll have direct control over the hardware and generally speaking the telcos are more wary of cutting off a big bandwidth line (due to contracts and the like) in the event of a problem, thay'll usually just pass things to yout NOC (in this case you) or people call that in the first place.
Re:If you truly want the least restrictions possab (Score:2)
Check out the Terms of Service. Most big ISPs cover their asses by saying they;ll boot you for objectionable content, just like any hoster.
Re:If you truly want the least restrictions possab (Score:2)
5 easy steps. (Score:2, Informative)
2. Find a co-location facility there.
3. Have a machine installed and sort out domain registration etc.
4. Stick up whatever dodgy content it is that you are dealing with to have such requirements in the first place.
5. If it's pr0n then wit for the money to roll in. Otherwise find a day job.
Split Up Your Services (Score:5, Insightful)
If you keep your mail seperate from your website, you should avoid mail interruptions if a web hosting provider pulls your site.
By keeping your DNS seperate, you can control which IP requests for your site get sent to. Make sure you DNS zone file records expire frequently so that a change in IP is propogated quickly. If your provider will let you manage the DNS, even better.
Setup a scheme to keep your site backed up. Running the site in two locations, plus maintaining a backup would be ideal.
Here's how it would work: If one provider pulls your site, you change your DNS to the backup provider and secure a new backup provider. Unless your being persecuted by someone with serious clue, you can shuttle your site around indefinitely with only brief interruptions.
Of course, as someone else has suggested, consider off-shore hosting. You can have a
One last thing: Anyone who wants your site down bad enough, may be able to simply get the domain pulled if you use a domestic registrar. Consider going off-shore with that as well.
So, my advice is this: Split up services; Maintain backups; Consider off-shore hosting; And consider off-shore registration. In general terms, don't keep your eggs all in one basket and hide the baskets.
What's the problem? (Score:2)
You can get a lot done on EZpublishing at the $14.95 per month account level.
Support is strictly via E-mail, but it's quite good. They assume you know what you're doing, but if you report some obscure problem, it gets fixed.
Be Your Own ISP... With Others (Score:2, Interesting)
My indie server (Score:2, Insightful)
www.dnsmadeeasy.com handles my domain name. I've since upgraded my PC but for just a hobby site, my original set up will work fine for you. I needed to upgrade simply for more disk space and because I'm not just running a web-site. I also do some indie game development and occassionally test my MMORPG servers on it.
If it's just a hobby site there's no need to spend a large amount of money. It took a year to get a 1 million page view month. I currently do around 800-900 unique IPs a day on my 256K line. Until you get to at least that level, there's no need to even consider putting down a large amount of money for your site. I've considered upping my bandwidth but at this point it isn't needed.
Ben
Look up unpopular sites' ISPs (Score:4, Insightful)
Bandwidth costs money, but... (Score:2)
What we usually do when a customer is using (or about to use) more bandwidth than they're contracted for, is to give them three options:
Get on the phone. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can only get in touch via email, you will find yourself up the creek when something goes wrong.
Many of your cheaper hosters don't offer phone support, and it is indicative of an unprofessional operation. It means they either don't speak English, are a very small shop without adequate resources, or know that their service stinks and just don't want to be bothered by the large numbers of irate customers.
You may pay a little extra to know you can speak to an actual human being, but even if you never need the phone call, its availability is the first good indicator that someone is on the up and up.
Also, calling them is a great time to make sure your site won't be objectionable for them to host.
Start your own ISP (Score:3, Interesting)
usurper_ii
Thank God I live in this quiet, little, piss-ant, redneck, po-dunk...white trash, kick ass retirement town
There are plenty of good deals out there... (Score:2)
Frankly, I think you have delusions of grandeur. If you can really generate that kind of traffic, you can find a way to capitalize on it- directly or indirectly- that the cost shouldn't be a problem. We should all be so lucky.
My 2 cents (Score:3, Interesting)
Ugh. . . . (Score:4, Informative)
go find your self a gigapop [google.com] and pay the per foot fee to run lines to a router which you will pay VERY dearly for; buy rights to an old office building someplace in town, run yourself a line between the Gigapop and the office building, host your data at the office building (assloads cheaper, trust me on this, I do not even think that Gigapops LET you have server machines there, other then load balances and such), and then set up a peering arrangement with the other backbones.
It will run you in the grands per month minimum (hell lucky if you break under a million) but hell, unless the law manages to get EVERY damn last backbone provider to cut your ass off (which pretty much never happens) and you have your server located in a country with 'suitable' legislation (though quite frankly with the price of satellites constantly dropping . . . . heh, any day now, right? Sure the latency sucks, but hey, the legal situation would be fun to play around with.
Please note that Gigapops technically refer to the new I2 POPs, but that Internet backbones tend to come together at them any ways.
Basically what you want is a direct relationship with a Tier 1 provider, which is VERY hard to get and VERY expensive, especially since you would not have a backbone of your own to deal with, but I am sure that if you offer them enough money, and especially if you do it a bit 'underhandedly' with one of the smaller tier 1 providers outside of the US.
Be your own ISP (Score:3, Interesting)
Colocation or Buy Your Own Wire (Score:3, Informative)
Late last year, I decided that I wanted the ability to execute .ASP scripts within .htm
files. You can do that, but only by tweaking
IIS so that every .htm file is interpreted as
an ASP file. That would represent a huge change
and would slow down a shared server.
So I decided it was time to re-establish colocation service. In the past, I have had my own servers colocated at Above.net (now MFN), and later at Maxim.net (later merged into another firm).
I bought a 1U Compaq server at the Webvan auction ($1,830, including tax).
The benefits of colocation are that the colo firm takes responsibility for making sure you have power (usually with UPS battery and generator backup), and they usually sell you bandwidth (though some colo facilities require that you contract for bandwidth directly with the provider, and the colo facility runs the wire from your box to your bandwidth provider's equipment at the facility. Another benefit, is that you can generally add bandwidth, or add more servers, very quickly (you can always add more servers at your own location, space permitting, but adding bandwidth may be more troublesome if you rely on a T1 or DSL line with inherent limits of 1.5 or 1.1 mbps).
When you sign a contract for colocation services, you pay for a specific level of bandwidth -- currently I am paying $200 per month to host a 1U server at Hurricane Electric [he.net] (he.net) with 95% usage not to exceed 128Kbps of bandwidth. I am actually plugged in to a 10mbps ethernet connection, and I can spike my bandwidth (I often see spikes to as much as 640K in my traffic reports), but I pay no surcharge unless my server is using more than 128Kbps more than 5% of the time. (Currently I run from 75K to 100Kbps at the 95% average.)
Freedom is pretty broad, but of course each colocation facility has its own restrictions and each bandwidth provider also has its own restrictions -- spamming is always prohibited by all backbone providers (since the demise of AGIS), and or course nobody wants your server to be doing damaging things (like launching DNS attacks, distributing viruses, threatening the president's life, etc.). But most colo facilities will allow things like porn (though I'm sure there are companies that will draw the line short of what the First Amendment allows). Probably the most troublesome area would be "file sharing," if you operate a service that allows (or encourages) people to illegally download copyrighted works (free copies of Microsoft Office, click here!).
No matter what promises you may get, don't expect any colocation facility to stick with you if there is a substantial threat of litigation. You may be in the right, but the colo facility or bandwidth provider doesn't want to get sucked into a Napster-style lawsuit, nor branded as supporters of child-pornographers.
In addition, my experience is that you rarely get what you pay for, when buying colocation services. At Above.net, I paid a premium because they promised fast response time -- for example, someone could run out and cycle the power within 15 minutes. After a few months, however, Above.net was overwhelmed (too many promises, not enough staff to fulfill) and I often had to wait 40 minutes and talk to 3 different people, before finding someone who could just walk out and check if the power was on to my server! The final straw was when I began experiencing multiple outages each day, and Above.net simply denied that there were any outages. It took more than a month before they conceded that my mountain of proof was adequate, and then they simply agreed to let me terminate my contract early -- no credits or adjustments in my favor. I was mostly pleased with the service at Maxim.net (until they merged and announced a huge rate spike, which was justified by new service levels but wasn't worthwhile for me). I've been very pleased with the service at Hurricane Electric so far.
Re:If money's no object... (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see how that solves the problem of potential content control. The T3 cable has to be connected to an ISP at the other end. And that ISP is just as likely to have content "standards" as any other. Just because you're using a T3 line instead of a cable or telephone modem doesn't mean you don't have to deal with an ISP. It would solve the bandwidth problem as T3's have a fixed, well-defined bandwidth with no total monthly limit on gigabytes, but there still might be content standards.
From my cold, dead hands. (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to be very optimistic about the role of the internet in combatting censorship. I was naive and silly. The internet resists goverment censorship, because it's difficult to enforce laws and regulations against such a decentralized entity. But as long as the key networks are owned by a few media monopolies, you will play by their rules, or your plug will be pulled.
Re:From my cold, dead hands. (Score:2, Interesting)
I was naive and silly.
Oh, you still are, but in new and different ways now.
Re:From my cold, dead hands. (Score:2)
Re:If money's no object... (Score:2, Interesting)
Too bad (Score:2)
Re:Cheap solution (Score:2, Funny)
"Unmetered" vs. unlimited (Score:2)
(I'm not a customer of theirs, but may probably become one in the future; the above is my reading of their terms of service)
Adult freehosts -- Don't bother (Score:3, Informative)
But he does have one thing right... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, this is assuming you want to be free of censorship but aren't going to be violating copyrights. The DMCA is unfortunately a powerful enough club that even hosts in Taiwan can be forced to concede to it.
Aside from breaking copyrights, child porn is the only other deal-killer I can think of if you choose a provider who already sells bandwidth to extreme fetish porn sites. Although, from what I hear there are a number of "borderline" child porn websites that get hosted in Russia for a long time without getting pulled, but I won't get into that issue.
Also, if I were looking for a non-censorious service firm willing to host controversial content, I'd look up whoever hosts Xenu, the anti-scientology website--those guys get harassed *a lot*.
So, unless you're looking to violate copyrights or to post child pornography, there should be plenty of potential choices you could look into based on the type of content already hosted or already being given bandwidth.
Re:But he does have one thing right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Aside from breaking copyrights, child porn is the only other deal-killer I can think of if you choose a provider who already sells bandwidth to extreme fetish porn sites.
Spam. You'd probably have a harder time finding a host for a spam site than any other, including child porn.
Re:But he does have one thing right... (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh... (Score:2)
Re:Got a good ISP for you (Score:2)
Re:DSL cable? (Score:2)
Sounds like my site, only mine gets less traffic (or else my outbound connection [lvcm.com] would be pegged) and I'm running Linux.
Been there, done that, wasn't able to do much with my connection for a day or so when it happened. :-) The server didn't mind at all (dual P!!!-500 with 256MB of RAM and 8GB of SCSI RAID-0 disk), but the cable modem stayed lit up like a Christmas tree.
Re:Server on Cable Modem (Score:3, Informative)
dyndns.org [dyndns.org] is your friend. :-) Even after switching from dynamic to static IP, I'm still using their services...with a dynamic IP, you just run a program that checks your address periodically and sends an update if it changes. It's a free service (though it'd be nice of you to send some of your burrito money their way) and it's been fairly reliable.
Re:Server on Cable Modem (Score:2)
Bzzt. (Score:5, Informative)
2) @Home, ATTBI, etc... don't want you running servers. They aren't too strict, but if they see you sucking up much bandwidth, it's perfectly legal for them to ask you to shut down your server or be disconnected. This pretty much rules this solution out due to the "don't have to answer to anyone" requirement.
Re:Server on Cable Modem (Score:2)
Now it's DHCP so no DNS possible.
Not neccessarily. I have Road Runner with DHCP, and I've had the same IP address for more than a month. Check it out, it's my url below. I'm just wondering how long it will take before I'll need to update my DNS with a new address.
I have a D-Link DL-713P router/firewall thingy. It has a 'renew IP forever' option, which renews my lease on my IP address. I've even unplugged my D-Link, just as an experiment, and I've gotten the same IP. I think RR keeps their subnets pretty small, so I'm choosing from a small set of IPs.
Whatever it is, I'm enjoying the benifits of a static IP without paying for it. I just know that something will happen though at the worst possible time. We'll see.
Re:You can use a cable modem (Score:2)
Psychotic moderators (Score:2)
That's the current moderation total for the above post. Now I haven't seen anything about using iTools yet so it would appear to me that it wasn't redundant, but I'll let that slide. The one that bugs me is the Troll. How is the above a troll? He is simply informing the person that if he has a mac, then he has a wonderful set of web tools availible to him. Admittedly, it's not the best option, but it works. He could at least use it till he finds a better alternative. So how does it qualify as a troll? Personaly I think we have some rather biased moderators here (more so than your average slashdotter) If you're going to be a biased jerk-off, don't moderate.
Re:LoebNet.com (Score:2)
2: Why so much flash on the index site?
3: Why a clock?