So if you read my earlier post on Alabanza hosts and email accounts, you know I'm looking for hosting alternatives for my clients. We're only talking about 20 or so domains here, not a bunch of power users either.

Still I want to support them with top services. Either by hosting them in a place that I can trust where I can give them better hosting services than I am already providing or by possibly moving to a low-end server like a Raq3.

Now here are my questions about the Raq3:

1) Interface: I see from the Raq demo, the interface looks very easy to use. Can anyone tell me their experience with their client's using the client interface for virtual hosting accounts?

2) CGI: I've heard the Raqs slow down with heavy CGI. Still the only cgi being used is from my own site - www.scarsdalenet.com (http://www.scarsdalenet.com) - ad banners, polls, forms. So overall I think we're talking about moderate cgi usage. All my sites together don't break above 2 gigs in bandwidth a month? Anyone seeing any problems for me here?

3) IP Addresses: My clients all currently have the same IP address as myself. I've had no problem getting them listed in search engines. In some other posts I read recommendations of getting multiple IP addresses for a Raq. What are the reasons for that?

4) SQL and Perl and PHP: The documentation says Perl is installed. I'm assuming they mean Perl 5. Fine. What about PHP and SQL? What other software would I have to install myself?

Anything else I should know? Any recommendations for my situation?

Thanks in advance.

Sean P. Cover


------------------
The Scarsdale Network: Online Home to Scarsdale, New York
http://www.ScarsdaleNet.com
Scarsdale Technologies - Changing The World One Computer At A Time
http://www.scarsdaletech.com

I emailed you the answers sp...

From my experience,

1) Yes, it is VERY easy to use. You can click a few times and boom, you have a customer's site setup, you have his e-mail setup, his space and bandwidth limits setup, etc. Even DNS. It's very easy.

2) Yes, the RaQ's do slow down CGI a little. Although we host a customer that transfers about 100GB a month on a RaQ and runs heavy CGI (UBB) and there's only ever been one or two problems that I remember. But if you are talking about 2GB of bandwidth, you should be fine, depending on the scripts.

3) The RaQ is designed for each site to have a separate IP address. Although, you CAN use one IP address for all of the sites. Most hosts offer unlimited IP addresses, or IP's at $.50 per IP. They are real cheap.

4) Perl comes installed. I am not positive that it is version 5, but you can upgrade it if you want. mySQL and PHP do not come installed, but we have compiled and installed it on several RaQs.


Now, there is one question which you have to answer. Are you good administering a Linux box? If so, don't even mess with a RaQ and go straight to a SuSE or RedHat box. If you are not that great, a RaQ is the perfect tool to learn it with.

If you want, e-mail me at vince@jtan.com and we can further discuss this. I could even get you an offer for a low-priced dedicated RaQ. Anyway, hope this helps you out! :)

------------------
Vincent Paglione
vince@jtan.com

For those needs I would go with a Raq3 over Alabanza. I have both and Alabanza would be a over-kill for this. The Raq3 can handle all that you mentioned and more.

Scott

I agree with scottlaw. I am not familar with Alabanza, but a RaQ can do everything you are looking for.

------------------
Vincent Paglione
vince@jtan.com

Yes, I would definitely recommend the Cobalt servers. We've been using them and have found them to be extremely easy to use and our clients love the look of the Control Panel.

Not having an IP address can have some drawbacks...like you can't publish to a site using FrontPage until the domain is fully transferred. Also, I don't believe you can use Anon-FTP either.

However, since all browsers since IE3 have embraced the name-based format, it doesn't put your site at risk from being seen by various browsers.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask...

Thanks!
Anthony www.gorillahost.com (http://www.gorillahost.com)

Originally posted by Gorilla:
Not having an IP address can have some drawbacks...like you can't publish to a site using FrontPage until the domain is fully transferred

Quick question about this (non-IP hosted domains). First, why wouldn't a user be able to publish to a site if they have a user name? Couldn't they upload to the site?

Also, (somewhat related to the last question)- what is the URL to a non-dedicated IP hosted site before the DNS propagates?

I have seen this asked, have asked myself, and no one (including me) ever got an answer.

Any thoughts?

Note: I have a RaQ, don't use FP (so am not all that familiar with how one uploads with it), and usually host domains on dedicated IPs, but am curious if it *is* possible (as I would think it should be) to view a site that does not have a dedicated IP before propagation.

FP tends to use a lot of BASE HREF info. Without a dedicated IP to use for publishing that will be attached to a particular domain name, you have to wait until the domain name is active, or run the risk that things will be broken/missing when publishing with FP when publishing to a temporary named space.

------------------
Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

[This message has been edited by Annette (edited 08-03-2000).]

Some hosts setup a subdomain alias for them. e.g. client.webhosting.com

Don't run Anon. FTP on a RaQ. You open all sorts of security doors.



------------------
Mike Astin
WebAuthorities
http://www.webauthorities.com
http://www.resellerinfo.com - A free reseller information site (coming soon!)

I remember you mentioned that tip mike, and the logs confirm this. There are many attempts daily on anon ftp for each of the IP's hosted on the server.

I also remember that you mentioned that I should use SSH for telnet (though I am not completely sure what that entails). Someone was nice enough to email me a link to a rather long explaination and I just keep forgetting to look at it.

You, Coreace, and Steve have been very helpful and I thank you all!

Is there any way to securely run anon. FTP on a RAQ3?

I was planning on getting a dedicated RAQ3, but I need anon FTP.

Also, how bad is a RAQ3 at running CGI? My main traffic is generated through UBB.