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
freehosts (Score:1, Informative)
You'll have to put up with a banner ad top and
bottom, but it's unlimited bandwidth.
Look on xbiz for lists of them
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.
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
your options (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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.
Re:Netmar (Score:5, Informative)
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.
500 meg, php, asp, coldfusion -- $10/month (Score:2, Informative)
Adult freehosts -- Don't bother (Score:3, Informative)
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.
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
DSL and your own hardware (Score:1, Informative)
I've been hosting myself and a few other sites off of my old P200MMX (debian) on a 640/256 line for a few years at less than $50/month. I could go as high as 7Mb/1Mb for $250/mo, but I really don't need that.
Speedwise, it's great. Things start slowing down only when the server gets overloaded (hey, it's a 200...) and I've yet to have any serious problems with bandwidth. The dsl modem dies rarely, and takes five seconds to reset.
Don't believe me? http://www.dirgotronix.net/ (shameless plug) runs plenty fast!
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: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: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.
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.
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: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...
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.
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.
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: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
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.
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: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.
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.
Re:A useful point has been made. (Score:2, Informative)
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.