Want a nice VPS?
Go for slicehost or linode, you won't regret it. Also, try to use Ubuntu, as there's plenty of material about setting up an environment to deploy RoR applications, it's also dead easy to manage and configure.
And i never heard of those two hosting companies you spoke about.
I would also look at mosso or rackspacecloud. Their price as I said before is a bit more competitive then their own Slicehost.
Okay I did some more research into slicehost and spoke with people regarding that site:
The good news is they have a good article foundation for setting up slices.
However, each slice (vps) is bare bones and has to be setup completely from scratch. This means that they have absolutely nothing on them. You have to setup your SSH, firewall, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Ruby etc. all from scratch. In addition, they use 64-bit slices so this adds another piece into the puzzle. However, you can always add ia32-libs to work with 32-bit apps on 64-bit..
They also do not have cpanel or plesk to manage your vps. They use another type of manager (slice manager) to manage your vps. If you need to get Cpanel it's a monthly charge for the license. You can still setup plesk for free though..
I'm still going to look into the others and take my time. I just wanted to update this topic in case someone runs through here and finds it and reads my notes for what I discovered.
For those of you using slicehost, can you confirm or add to any of my notes and/or provide some of your own experiences with setup? Did you find it very difficult? How about porting over sites from another webhost to slicehost.
Okay I did some more research into slicehost and spoke with people
regarding that site:
The good news is they have a good article foundation for setting up
slices.
However, each slice (vps) is bare bones and has to be setup completely
from scratch. This means that they have absolutely nothing on them.
You have to setup your SSH, firewall, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Ruby etc. all
from scratch. In addition, they use 64-bit slices so this adds another
piece into the puzzle. However, you can always add ia32-libs to work
SSH is installed otherwise you cant ssh to their server. Apache, PHP, MySQL and Ruby are installed also. Firewall is also installed. These things come standard with most linux distribution nowadays.
I have never had any trouble regarding the 64 bit. With Mosso there is a very good documentation on installing and configuring the server. Slicehost also has a fairly detailed documentation.
with 32-bit apps on 64-bit…
They also do not have cpanel or plesk to manage your vps. They use
another type of manager (slice manager) to manage your vps. If you need
to get Cpanel it’s a monthly charge for the license. You can still
setup plesk for free though…
I dont run a hosting company, so I never felt the need for cpanel, havent been a big fan of cpanel or plesk either. I use their DNS system to add my domain names. Slice Manager is quite good. What I like most is their backup service where I can backup a whole image of my system and restore it whenever I want. It also keeps weekly and daily backups automatically. Slicehost charges an extra $5/month but Rackspace does it for free at the moment. So same server slicehost sells for $20+$5 ($25) can cost about $13 with rackspace.
I’m still going to look into the others and take my time. I just wanted
to update this topic in case someone runs through here and finds it and
reads my notes for what I discovered.
For those of you using slicehost, can you confirm or add to any of my
notes and/or provide some of your own experiences with setup? Did you
find it very difficult? How about porting over sites from another
webhost to slicehost.
As I said, I dont use slicehost for hosting. I must admit with just 256mb ram and a slice of the CPU it might not be the most ideal if you run a heavy site. You might be better off with a dedicated server and do your own backup.
Hope this helps.
Nayeem
I started using slicehost recently and have had a good experience with it. The articles are well written, and they're good about helping out via their chat service.
My only prior linux administration experience was running linux on an older laptop, which hardly compares with setting up a server. I had no real problems with getting it going (setting up postfix with google apps mail took a little finesse), and I found the learning experience to be useful in itself.
That said, you do incur a labor cost in administering your own server. You should look at engineyard if you want to take a lot of that work out of your hands. They're expensive, but they offer a lot of configuration and deployment automation/consultion, and they have the esteemed Ezra Zygmuntowicz on staff.
Älphä Blüë wrote: [...]
You have to setup your SSH, firewall, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Ruby etc. all from scratch.
Not quite. SSH is there, and I seem to remember that Apache is as well. I think Ruby is also, but I use Ruby EE for production hosting, which is a relatively simple installation. I've never looked for PHP or mySQL, since I don't really use either one.
In addition, they use 64-bit slices so this adds another piece into the puzzle. However, you can always add ia32-libs to work with 32-bit apps on 64-bit..
I don't think I've ever needed to do that (unless some package installed it for me). I've never had any compatibility problems on Slicehost.
They also do not have cpanel or plesk to manage your vps.
You're right, but those are generally more trouble than they're worth. I usually put Webmin on my servers, which in my opinion is far better. [...]
For those of you using slicehost, can you confirm or add to any of my notes and/or provide some of your own experiences with setup? Did you find it very difficult?
It's not difficult at all -- of course, it wasn't my first Linux setup either.
How about porting over sites from another webhost to slicehost.
I should think that you could either use Capistrano and you SCM for that, or you could just put the whole thing into a tarball and copy it.
Best,
Marnen Laibow-Koser wrote:
Not quite. SSH is there, and I seem to remember that Apache is as well. I think Ruby is also, but I use Ruby EE for production hosting, which is a relatively simple installation. I've never looked for PHP or mySQL, since I don't really use either one.
Marnen/Klochner:
Thanks for the feedback on this. I managed to get a full refund from the hosting provider I went with and so now I can go with a VPS that is managed with rails in mind.
I sent an email (awaiting a reply) from slicehost about what is installed already on their slices. I need to have PHP and MySQL because my old website was developed using both. I need to keep the initial site up until I'm ready to port over the rails distro..
I noticed you said you use Ruby EE for production hosting. I've been looking into this as it seems very interesting. Is Ruby EE difficult to setup? And, if you use Ruby EE for production, what are you using for development? Just curious..
Slicehost may be the way I will go...
For clarification the bare bones applies to "all" slices but the list of installed applies to ubuntu - which was what I was asking about...
Älphä Blüë wrote: [...]
I noticed you said you use Ruby EE for production hosting. I've been looking into this as it seems very interesting. Is Ruby EE difficult to setup?
No. You may have to adjust a few symlinks, but that's not hard and there's info on the Web about what exactly you need to do.
And, if you use Ruby EE for production, what are you using for development?
The Ruby 1.8.6 interpreter that came with Mac OS X 10.5.
Best,
I am now a new member of Slicehost. Thanks everyone for assisting me here.
In case anyone reads this thread - Slicehost measured up to all the hype given it. It is fantastic. I got my slice yesterday evening and by the next morning my complete site is up and running from start to finish. It was not as difficult as I thought it would be.
Also, the admins have a chat room and I sat in the chat room and anytime I encountered an issue or had a question they answered me immediately! They are there 24/7!
Everything has gone as smooth as a baby's bottom. I'm very happy and excited.
I wanted to say thanks again for letting me know about the site.