I'm thinking of offering Free! hosting.. to up to 200-300websites.
My question is i am planning on setting it up with donhost , is it a good idea or bad :confused:


cheers,
elijah john

How would you finance the site???

I wouldn't see why it wouldn't work, actually would prolly be a good free host, tell me when you do it, and I'll be the first to signup :D

Right now, I have a pending problem with donhost, about an ftp listing problem, but I'm sure they'll be fixing it soon....

Ya it's only $56 per month...which is cheap ? imho

ps: there is no tech support though.. support is only via online knowledge base and yaBB :p

You might have a main domain for the site and give the users a sub domain, and maybe host there domains for them, or maybe for a price..

And also add onto software that Donhost doesn't offer such as Webmail and phpMyAdmin for the users, would be easy to install, and you could put links to them in the control pannel...

Yes... i'm setting up a domain and offer both subdomain and virtual hosting free :D

Very cool, but donhost only allows 50gb/month xfer before they start to charge you more, and if your hosting say 250 sites, each site would only get 200mb/month xfer... Not alot.....

hmmmnn, you are right it is only 50,000MB per month :( but i think half the sites will not be using over 500MB transfer ..maybe some uses around 3or4,000MB. i think i will add something in the TOS that says ..sites using an X amount of bandwidth.....will be notified via email.......?

Well with the donhost control pannel you can say exactly how much bandwidth a site can use, now once that limit has been reached I don't know what happens, maybe the site shows up 403....

Also, maybe you should think about theme basing your hosting, to weed out users that are not serious, maybe hosting for open source sites or something for developers or a gfx community....

what do you think about this
100sites
each site gets 200MB space and 500MB transfer(if there is extra bandwidth left, we'll give it for free, if not then sorry :D

Nice, you might also think about people and pop3 accounts, will you allow them to make more than one? and offering ssl, and Frontpage and Mysql support...... All are options on Donhost...

Originally posted by The Prohacker
Also, maybe you should think about theme basing your hosting, to weed out users that are not serious, maybe hosting for open source sites or something for developers or a gfx community....

that is a good idea :), i was thinking the site has to look good or something along the lines...

I'm waiting for Donhost to answer a few questions, i sent them...

Originally posted by The Prohacker
Nice, you might also think about people and pop3 accounts, will you allow them to make more than one? and offering ssl, and Frontpage and Mysql support...... All are options on Donhost...

ssl will not be offered though b/c i think it will cost some $$$
Is front page and mysql an option too ? i thought it comes with fp and mysql ?

Maybe offer hosting for email, offer to host the domains, and offer a web based email for that domain, that they can configure, their are many good web mail software solutions.... And might not take up as much bandwidth

SSL, MySql, FP are free, I was just asking if your going to offer those...

fp, php and mysql will be offered :)
maybe ssl but not so sure...

Very cool....

i will let you know :) ...
i'm waiting for Donhost to answer a few of my inquiries.
one of them is that i only need one nameserver b/c i will be using an existing dns server as secondary.
(that will save me $40/per year, b/c they charge $80/year for 2 nameservers and i don't need 2 just 1.

I'm happy to say that Donhost answered all my questions.

ME: 2nd, can i just order one(1) nameserver ? ...i will be using a different secondary namserver.


Donhost: No, we do not support that.

and i'm still waiting for him to re-confirm about the nameservers that i only need 1 :(

check their service aggrement may say you are not allowed to offer "free hosting" in some words like a community..
I know fast hosts do not allow this.

Cheers

Craig

I suggest you get a RAQ from www.rackshack.net and start from there. There you get 150 GB of bandwidth. Get the Cobalt Raq2+ for $79 a month. Hope this helps.

Originally posted by The Prohacker
Right now, I have a pending problem with donhost, about an ftp listing problem, but I'm sure they'll be fixing it soon....

There are no problems with our FTP service. The problem is with your client. Can you please contact us regarding this. If you do not let us know about the problem you are having we cannot help you.

I will as soon as my other admin comes online, so he can test the ftp to make sure its not me. He is in Spain, and since he is the owner of the account it'd prolly be better if he filed the email.... I'm not listed on the domain or account.....

Craig: i checked out their T.O.S and there is nothing that says you cannot use it to offer free hosting, well i'm not going to offer free hosting to just anyone, i'm going to pick the good looking/informative sites though... :)

Synergy: thanks for the info. if there is a non raq that is under $80 maybe $100/mo. i'd get it right away. The reason i was seriously looking at the Donhost site is that for $56/mo. i can host an unlimited number of domains and i don't have to administer the servers, b/c i currently admin a few co-located servers and my hands are full :p... if all else fails i'm just going to use my personal red hat box.

cheers,
elijah john :)