Yes, yet another web hosting company is starting up. In this case, BSDwebhosting (http://www.bsdwebhosting.net).

In following the customary format of announcements in this forum, this is where I'd normally list our hosting plans... except that we don't have any.

BSDwebhosting is a new type of webhosting company: Instead of offering fixed plans like other webhosting companies do -- and we all know how poorly those usually fit most customers needs -- we charge based on actual usage. We have a rate per GB of traffic ($3.50/GB right now, that may decrease later), per MB of disk space ($0.05/100MB/day, or about $1.50/100MB/month), and per minute of cpu time ($0.25/minute, this will only matter to people with lots of slow cgi scripts); further, all the charges are pro-rated, so 100MB of bandwidth would cost only $0.35. (As opposed to other web hosts where you pay the same price regardless of whether you receive any traffic).

We also remove many of the restrictions imposed by most webhosts; for example, you can have any number of domains/websites attached to your account at no extra charge. You pay for the total disk space and total bandwidth of all of your sites, whether it is one website or 92.

Come take a look: BSDwebhosting (http://www.bsdwebhosting.net).

PS. Comments/questions/constructive criticism are welcome. Unconstructive criticism should be piped to /bin/true.

Some will love this idea, as they will pay less, but I think most customers want to know in advance what it costs which will be difficult with $/cputime.
?

We'll see. Personally I'd prefer to know in advance that I wasn't going to be charged for several GB of traffic I *didn't* receive... or, for that matter, subsidizing a site running cpu-hogging scripts.

I'm sure this isn't for everyone, but the last thing I wanted to do was create "Yet Another Web Hosting Company". ;)

Hi, can you give us a demo of your account management section? Or maybe screen shots?

Mivo: right now if you sign up and forward your welcome email to special@bsdwebhosting.net we'll deposit $5 into your account for you, at which point you can wander through the account management system, create domains + users, and even have free hosting until the $5.00 runs out.

I'm out of luck. My country is not yet covered by PayPal.

How exactly are you logging CPU time? Does FreeBSD have yet another useful port that I'm unaware of? :) I'd love to use it if it exists.

Originally posted by allera
How exactly are you logging CPU time? Does FreeBSD have yet another useful port that I'm unaware of? :) I'd love to use it if it exists.

BSD comes with something called "process accounting", which basically means that whenever a process terminates an accounting record specifying name,user,cpu time used,average memory used,I/O operations, etc. is appended to a file on disk.

Originally this was actually used for accounting purposes -- hence the name -- in computing centers where individual researchers would be given a monthly quota of cpu time; now when it is used at all it is generally used simply as a process log for security purposes.

Much as I'd like to claim this as specific to FreeBSD, even linux has support for "BSD process accounting", although I don't know if any distribution has the kernel option enabled by default.

Cperciva,

Nice to see another hosting company that charges by actual usage. Best of luck with your company.

Best Regards,

this is interesting. I have a some questions.

1. are you accepting credit cards through PayPal, or just cash transfers?

2. are any email accounts included? how many? do you have web-based email?

3. are they fixed IP accts? if not, is that an option?



interesting :)

Hostking -- another? I wasn't aware of any other similar company, is there one I don't know about? The practice is common for IP carriers, but I haven't seen it applied to hosting before.

amalgam -- 1. yes credit cards are fine; we don't have anything against credit cards, it is the icky details of processing credit cards we want to avoid. 2. You can create as many user accounts as you like (of course you pay for the disk space they take up), and each of those would have POP3 accessible email (although, of course, for security reasons we don't recommend using POP3 except through an SSH tunnel). 3. In keeping with IANA/ARIN recommendations, we only provide name-based hosting.

Your system logs the CPU time used by things that are run as the user (like cgi scripts).
What about something like PHP that does not usually run as the user, how do you log CPU usage?

Originally posted by energy
Your system logs the CPU time used by things that are run as the user (like cgi scripts).
What about something like PHP that does not usually run as the user, how do you log CPU usage?

For security reasons all cgi code -- whether they are shell scripts, perl scripts, php scripts, or simple executable files -- get run with the user's priviledges (ie, suexec'd).

Actually cpercivia they lifted that name based hosting restriction months ago...

Unverified Business Member for payment@bsdwebhosting.net

You'll want to become verified if you plan to use PayPal.

How do you use suexec for PHP scripts?

Originally posted by energy
Unverified Business Member for payment@bsdwebhosting.net

You'll want to become verified if you plan to use PayPal.


Yes, that's a slight mistake on our part, it will be fixed soon.

How do you use suexec for PHP scripts?

Same way as you do for perl scripts... don't include mod_perl, but instead require that scripts start with "#!/path/to/interpreter" (in this case, #!/usr/local/bin/php).

Originally posted by cbaker17
Actually cpercivia they lifted that name based hosting restriction months ago...

Sorry I wasn't clear. Although there is no *requirement* that people use name-based hosting, "everyone" (ie, IANA, ARIN, IETF, IESG) "highly recommends" it. Since there isn't any overwhelming technical reason to use IP-based hosting (many ISPs use IP-based hosting for accounting reasons only) there wasn't any reason to not be a "good internet citizen".

cperciva,

Sorry for my ignorance,

What's the difference between IP-based hosting and name-based hosting? I have seen it mentioned on most Ensim servers control Panel such as revenuehost.com where a reseller set -up an account and have to select one of the above.

If you could enlighten or elaborate on it will help us resellers very much.

Regarding your Hosting plan, any special plan for resellers?

Thanks.

Originally posted by cactus
What's the difference between IP-based hosting and name-based hosting? I have seen it mentioned on most Ensim servers control Panel such as revenuehost.com where a reseller set -up an account and have to select one of the above.

IP-based hosting is where you have a different IP address for each domain. Name-based hosting is where all the domains use the same IP address. Pre-2.0 web browsers generally didn't support name-based hosting, but that is hardly a big deal any more. IP-based hosting also has the advantage that IP characteristics can be used to distinguish between domains for accounting or theoretically for blocking DoS attacks.

However, IP-based hosting has the disadvantages of 1. needing lots of IP addresses, and 2. on some operating systems imposing limits on the number of domains a single server can host.


Regarding your Hosting plan, any special plan for resellers?

No, but the entire system is pretty reseller-friendly (people can create any number of domains and users under their account).

Thanks!

You have a great idea! Best of luck with you comapny.

Originally posted by Woody
You have a great idea! Best of luck with you comapny.

Thanks. So far we've had several hosts come in and look around, and a couple offers to buy the scripts... but only one customer, and he wasn't from WHT.

Come on customers, where are you? :bawling:

Well, if that one customer is happy then he will start recomending you. If people see positive reviews on a company they will be more inclined to sighn up. Eitehr way, this is the first host I have seen that does what you are doing. You have taken a risk, something most people would never do. Once again, I wish you luck!

The primary post is interesting, however it brings up teh fact that the user will finally pay more for less.

In most hosting companies, the prices are calculated thinking about the total usage. That means that if someone is allocated 8 GB of transfer for $10, and uses it all, the host is not making any money. however, since the majority of the domains use less, the prices can be decreased.

As you can see here, the customer with low usage will pay less, but as soon as you have over 5 GB of transfer and a few 100s mb of HD space, it'll become expensive... but interesting for the host :)

Do you plan to round up or down your prices? OR charge the exact amount?

Also, how do you charge customers by cheque / credit-card?

Originally posted by Félix C.Courtemanche
Do you plan to round up or down your prices? OR charge the exact amount?

Also, how do you charge customers by cheque / credit-card?

Costs are rounded to the nearest $0.00001 daily; I suppose that isn't *exact* but I imagine it is close enough. Payments must be made through Paypal -- yes I know some people aren't going to like this, but it makes the processing of payments so much easier, cheaper, and more secure (if we never have your credit card number we can't lose it) that I think the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

well, I am interested. I am a little busy to set it up right now. I have a domain hosted that I only use for a small amount of online storage, and for several email accounts. this sounds like a good plan for that. :)

I already use paypal, so that is actually a plus for me.

I sent you an email with a couple other ideas/questions.

Well You've just got yourself another customer!

Just one question do you have mysql support? If so is there any quota on DBs?

A friend of mine has been looking for a place to host a load of domains on one a/c for weeks now so I've just sent him an e-mail.

Thanks

Ben

Originally posted by benw
Just one question do you have mysql support?

No. MySQL is unstable under FreeBSD, runs as its own user rather than with the caller's permissions, lacks any sort of decent logging facility, and in any case is generally associated with high-cpu-time scripts like bulletin boards which would likely prefer to find a different host anyway (one where they don't pay for cpu time).

I suppose that theoretically there is nothing stopping an individual user installing mysql in their own userspace -- assuming, of course, they pay for the disk space and cpu time -- but it isn't going to be provided as a system service anytime soon.

1 GB of traffic1 $3.50

I don't know but I will be spending more money with that rate.
I am currently using $23/month hosting with 12 gig bandwidth allowed. (And I am using around 10 gig per month)
With your plan, I will be paying at least $30+.
See what I mean?

Originally posted by klisis
I don't know but I will be spending more money with that rate.


*shrug*

Some people will pay more. I doubt your web host is making any profit from hosting you at those rates.

Most people -- the people who do not use up their complete bandwidth or disk quotas -- will pay less.

Originally posted by cperciva


*shrug*

Some people will pay more. I doubt your web host is making any profit from hosting you at those rates.

Most people -- the people who do not use up their complete bandwidth or disk quotas -- will pay less.

Agreed. I hope you didn't take my post offensive.

Correction : $35/month, I am paying. not $23. I have two accounts and mistaken cheaper one with my main one. :o

Originally posted by cperciva


No. MySQL is unstable under FreeBSD, runs as its own user rather than with the caller's permissions, lacks any sort of decent logging facility, and in any case is generally associated with high-cpu-time scripts like bulletin boards which would likely prefer to find a different host anyway (one where they don't pay for cpu time).

I suppose that theoretically there is nothing stopping an individual user installing mysql in their own userspace -- assuming, of course, they pay for the disk space and cpu time -- but it isn't going to be provided as a system service anytime soon.

How is mySQL unstable under FreeBSD? We allow users to use mySQL under FreeBSD and have had no problems so far. How is it different than running it under Linux?

mySQL also has no need to run as another user, it's just a database program and the databases are owned by users. mySQL also doesn't clock much CPU time that I've noticed (using top). I think it is the other programs, such as PHP and perl that use mySQL, that are clocking the CPU time (which is what bulletin boards use -- PHP and perl (cgi)).

I have asked around too and can't seem to find anyone that finds mySQL unstable under FreeBSD (which, if true, is definately something I want to look into). :) Even if mySQL does clock time, I still don't find it unstable.

Better to ask than to regret. :D

Originally posted by cperciva
Yes, yet another web hosting company is starting up. In this case, BSDwebhosting (http://www.bsdwebhosting.net).

We also remove many of the restrictions imposed by most webhosts; for example, you can have any number of domains/websites attached to your account at no extra charge. You pay for the total disk space and total bandwidth of all of your sites, whether it is one website or 92.

Come take a look: BSDwebhosting (http://www.bsdwebhosting.net).

PS. Comments/questions/constructive criticism are welcome. Unconstructive criticism should be piped to /bin/true.


What's to prevent someone from using up a huge amount of resources and then not paying you?

--Tina

Originally posted by allera
How is mySQL unstable under FreeBSD? We allow users to use mySQL under FreeBSD and have had no problems so far. How is it different than running it under Linux?

I haven't been keeping completely up to date on this, but last thing I heard mySQL would start using 100% cpu time and not servicing any requests randomly; it appeared that the chance of this happening was highly correlated with the number of queries/second, ie with each query there was a roughly 1 in 2 million chance of mySQL dying.

The general consensus seemed to be that it was the result of a problem in FreeBSD's pthreads implementation; some people mentioned running extremely high query rates with mySQL/linuxthreads/FreeBSD with no problems.


mySQL also has no need to run as another user, it's just a database program and the databases are owned by users. mySQL also doesn't clock much CPU time that I've noticed (using top). I think it is the other programs, such as PHP and perl that use mySQL, that are clocking the CPU time (which is what bulletin boards use -- PHP and perl (cgi)).


Whether you would want mySQL running with the caller's priviledges depends upon how security paranoid you are. As it is right now any security hole in mySQL could expose all user databases to everyone; if it setuided to the appropriate user priviledges then user databases could be protected via the operating system's user access model (which is far more extensively tested).

As for the CPU time, it depends largely upon how well-written code is: It is very easy for someone to send a query which would take a long time to resolve (selecting on a non-primary key, for example). Also note that top generally does not display time spent wating for IO, and databases are notoriously ugly users of disks.

Originally posted by AffordableHost
What's to prevent someone from using up a huge amount of resources and then not paying you?


People have to deposit funds into their account in advance; when their account reaches zero it will be disabled (except under special circumstances).

Since accounting is only performed daily someone could theoretically use an excessive amount of resources in a single day and rack up a bill much larger than their account would cover... but the odds are that we'd notice that and put an end to it before it got very far.