Thinking of moving to Linode

[Crazyfruitbat]

Hey guys, I've been thinking of moving my site over to Linode after dealing with Hostmonster's constant downtime, slowness and database issues.

So my question is: Am I going to be able to deal with an unmanaged VPS server without any experience?

Obviously I know my way around making a basic website but server stuff, I have no idea. I noticed that it also has no Cpanel - do I really need a cpanel? I mean I use it on my current hosting but at $200 it seems a bit steep for something seemingly simple.

What do you guys think?

 

[SneakyDave]

I had slicehost, I moved to linode. I've had experience managing Linux and web servers though. I don't have any administration interface set up. You might be able to get by with webmin, which is free, and probably not as big of a hog as cPanel.

The tutorials on linode a great place to get started, as long as you know what kind of configuration you want (apache/nginx/lightspeed/etc.)

 

[dieketzer]

linode rocks. its fast, stable, and they dont oversell.
you will need to be comfortable using a cli, but its really not a tall task. there are plenty of step by step tutorials for setting up any number of distros with apache/light/ng and theres an active and helpful board to answer any questions.
unmanaged means unmanaged though. you will need to keep yourself patched up, but thats really only a couple console commands. you will need to configure your own security and whatnot as well, but there are tutorials and boards for that as well.
one strong recommendation: pay the extra couple bucks for the backup feature. not only will you have automated backups, but you can also dictate a backup at will. it backs up the entire disk image, so if you stuff up badly you can roll everything back.
a single 512 will easily power a xenforo running 50+ concurrents

webmin would probably make some tasks more convenient, but i think you need to work the console to really get an understanding of how it all works.

 

[Crazyfruitbat]

I had slicehost, I moved to linode. I've had experience managing Linux and web servers though. I don't have any administration interface set up. You might be able to get by with webmin, which is free, and probably not as big of a hog as cPanel.

The tutorials on linode a great place to get started, as long as you know what kind of configuration you want (apache/nginx/lightspeed/etc.)

cheers Dave. Actually i dont know the difference between (apache/nginx/lightspeed/etc.) but I'm willing to learn...all advice is welcome

 

[dieketzer]

here are some links for you:
http://library.linode.com/ those are tutorials
http://www.linode.com/community/ thats the community portal

 

[SneakyDave]

If you're familiar with cPanel, then I assume that it managed Apache virtual hosts. Apache isn't that hard to get configured with the help of Google. I'm most familiar with Apache, but I recently changed all my sites to use nginx. The only thing I didn't want to hassle with on the VPS was configuring an email server.

If you plan to use your domain for email, then you'll probably want to familiarize yourself about DNS and MX records, and installing/configuring Postfix, or some other email server. I never seemed to get it set up 100% correctly, so I change my email configurations to use Google apps email.

You'll also want to decide what type of Linux distribution you want to use, I think most people use a flavor of Ubuntu, but I"m more familiar with Red Hat from years gone by, so I chose the CentOS equivalent.

 

[Crazyfruitbat]

linode rocks. its fast, stable, and they dont oversell.
you will need to be comfortable using a cli, but its really not a tall task. there are plenty of step by step tutorials for setting up any number of distros with apache/light/ng and theres an active and helpful board to answer any questions.
unmanaged means unmanaged though. you will need to keep yourself patched up, but thats really only a couple console commands. you will need to configure your own security and whatnot as well, but there are tutorials and boards for that as well.
one strong recommendation: pay the extra couple bucks for the backup feature. not only will you have automated backups, but you can also dictate a backup at will. it backs up the entire disk image, so if you stuff up badly you can roll everything back.
a single 512 will easily power a xenforo running 50+ concurrents

webmin would probably make some tasks more convenient, but i think you need to work the console to really get an understanding of how it all works.

I was also considering the backup, not only due to the obvious reason of me stuffing up, but also if the site has a lot of user photos I would hate to be resposible for losing them if things go tits-up.

I have to admit, all this talk of patching etc makes me nervous - but surely I'll have a greater understanding of all this stuff after going through it. It's better than waiting for a crap host to upgrade stuff when the hell they feel like it.

I didn't realise that cPanel was a resource hog - heck, I'm happy with keeping it as quick as possible so if I can live without it, I'd be happy!

 

[Null]

If you want some help setting up a Linode, feel free to hit me up with a conversation and I'd be happy to help a fellow Xen'er.

But, as a few others have said, the Linode library is full of really accurate and easy to follow tutorials.

 

[dieketzer]

if all he uses email for is sending confirmation emails, installing postfix is really all thats needed. he wont need to worry about dns or mx records.

 

[Andy.N]

a single 512 will easily power a xenforo running 50+ concurrents

Where people talk about concurrent users, do they mean logged in users, sql connection, or total users (logged in+ guest) online?

I can easily have 300-500 online at any given time if we mean total users online.

 

[Ati]

My biggest concern with these types of hosting has always been the data transfer limit. Aren't you afraid that someone might make a huge transfer just to make your site inaccessible?

 

[Crazyfruitbat]

My biggest concern with these types of hosting has always been the data transfer limit. Aren't you afraid that someone might make a huge transfer just to make your site inaccessible?

compared to shared hosting on hostmonster....not really...

 

[Ati]

compared to shared hosting on hostmonster....not really...

I don't mean a DoS attack, more like loading the same page over and over again (with a script of course), until you reach your monthly 200GB transfer limit.

Or do they not count that data if it's an obvious attack, and not your normal traffic?

 

[Crazyfruitbat]

If you want some help setting up a Linode, feel free to hit me up with a conversation and I'd be happy to help a fellow Xen'er.

But, as a few others have said, the Linode library is full of really accurate and easy to follow tutorials.

Thanks very much for the offer of help- I think I'll be knocking on your door (don't worry i'll hit up their forums first).

As for e-mails, I only have my own. So it's no major issue hopefully

 

[SneakyDave]

I don't mean a DoS attack, more like loading the same page over and over again (with a script of course), until you reach your monthly 200GB transfer limit.

Don't you have that same potential problem with any type of hosting, unless a shared host is offering "UNLIMITED" bandwidth, in which case, they should probably be avoided.

There are some members of the Linode forums that offer some managed hosting solutions, but I don't know how expensive they are, nor which ones are trustworthy.

 

[Ati]

Don't you have that same potential problem with any type of hosting, unless a shared host is offering "UNLIMITED" bandwidth, in which case, they should probably be avoided.

I've always used hosting providers with unlimited bandwidth, and I always had problems with their shared hosting. Now I have my own servers at a provider, again with unlimited bandwidth. It works fine, but there are times when I don't want to install a 3rd party script on my server, and would like to run something from a virtual machine somewhere else. Linode's prices and specifications seem nice. Trouble is, if someone wants to screw with me, they can do it pretty easily, 200G is not that much traffic.

 

[dieketzer]

Where people talk about concurrent users, do they mean logged in users, sql connection, or total users (logged in+ guest) online?

I can easily have 300-500 online at any given time if we mean total users online.

when i say it i refer to active users. not including a google bot or somebody visiting a single page. people actively using the site.
if you have 400 ppl browsing your site a 512 probably wouldnt suffice! but i have had spikes of 80-100 and a 512 has coped with it well. 50 is a pretty conservative number, and i suppose the real message is that a 512 is definitely sufficient for the forum in ops signature.

I've always used hosting providers with unlimited bandwidth, and I always had problems with their shared hosting. Now I have my own servers at a provider, again with unlimited bandwidth. It works fine, but there are times when I don't want to install a 3rd party script on my server, and would like to run something from a virtual machine somewhere else. Linode's prices and specifications seem nice. Trouble is, if someone wants to screw with me, they can do it pretty easily, 200G is not that much traffic.

200gb applies to the 512. i cant imagine what you would be running on a 512 to eat through 200gb of traffic outside of hosting downloads. for the typical forum that suits a 512, 200gb is a huge amount of data.
average user count of 50 online, ten days into the billing cycle:

as far as somebody trying to burn through your bandwidth, linode has an alert function:

 

[Ati]

as far as somebody trying to burn through your bandwidth, linode has an alert function:

View attachment 10774

Wow, this hourly alert function looks really awesome. Thanks for the info!

 

[Floris]

We are using linode for irc, and the uptime is half a year now, the guy got the account half a year ago.
It's been very stable, the support is great so far on the other account as well. Adding, expanding, backing up, etc, it seems to be well organized.

My dedicated hosting bill is too expansive for me next year, and I am considering expanding my linode account with a second server to replace dedicated hosting with.

 

[dieketzer]

thats the other thing; its scalable.
if i come to the realisation that i need more ram, i dont need to jump up to the next 'plan'. i just add more ram to my existing account.

i cant say enough good things about my linode experience.