Hi, i'm looking at getting a Raq4i but being aVERY new to the Raq side of things is have questions;

1. Looking at the CP you can install stuff- what would you do under this? install updates and MySQL and stuff? how would a user setup MySQL databases?? penultimatly- IS IT EASY?

2. Does each account need its own IP?

3. Can you set sub-domains?

thats all i can think of at themo. oh also

4. how many domains can you have on your server?

thanks a lot!

5. do you have your own DNS servers on a Raq?

Q1/You have a GUI which is quite simple (there is a demo at cobalt.com)

Q2/ No

Q3/ Yes

Q4/ Cobalt recommend 200, I say about 80 - 130

Q5/ You can have DNS servers on the RAQ

Host Rat is correct on all of the above. I might add that performing DNS on the same box is really a bad idea, with the past BIND (DNS) exploits. If somone hacks BIND then your sites are compromised as well, pretty risky, I saw ALOT of RaQ's get hacked because of BIND last year (keep it updated), they had to do total reloads.

i see thx. is it easyenough to install mods? like MySQL?

Originally posted by The Laughing Cow
i see thx. is it easyenough to install mods? like MySQL?

As easy as typing or pasting a url into a text box and clicking the install button. Some things aren't that easy, but the standard patches and mysql are. Upgrading php from 4.0.3 to 4.0.6 is a little more involved but there are instructions on this board so just do a search, and it is pretty easy too.

Originally posted by HostRat
Cobalt recommend 200 sites on a RAQ, I say about 80 - 130 sites.

Has anyone ever hosted more than 200 sites on a RAQ? Is that possible? If yes, can a host put more than 500 sites (static pages mostly) on a RAQ?

I specifically ask this because I notice the word *recommend* being used in the above statement.

The hard limit on an RAQ is 250 sites.

People recommend around 100 sites because more than that an you will encounter a lot of problems.

What soft of problems, technics? Could you please hint at some?

I think his point was that they aren't super boxes, able to handle 500 busy sites. You want to keep usage low, and not load sites on these appliances. It just won't be able to take it.

Sometimes people make the argument, "Well, but these are 1,000 very low usage sites..." - and I'd still put them on something else. Personal opinion.

Your answer confirms my previous doubts. Yes... the hard limit thingy is a fact it seems.

Also, i found out RAQ's use a specially modified version of the RedHat OS.

If you were me, whom would you get a RAQ from for such use (as described above)?

I know my above question would put you in a tight spot due to your position in this forum, so please PM or EMAIL me if necessary.

I never knew chickens could ever be this knowledgable about servers !!! :) I was chickening out for more than a year about investing in a server, but now am **** enough to do so !!! ;) I just wanted to make sure I was being cocky in my thinking !!! LOL !!!

God bless ya', I wish you a lot of hens for as long as you live... while you rule your roost !!!

Ok, in doing some digging (because I always get confused and forget what the hard limit refers to), it seems the hard limit is 254 IP-based virtual sites.

This may also be an apache configuration issue with these machines: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html#fdlim

Some of this information was found on the cobalt users mailing-list, you might want to check there for other's experiences, and take a peek at the httpd.conf to see if there is a mention of a limit there. My foggy memory tells me that I've seen something relating to it, but I'm not certain.

It doesn't sound like this would be a huge load on any server, and if it works RaQ3/4 should be fine (in theory). Sorry, but I've never personally tried putting that many sites on one of these so I can't (with 100% certainty) tell you if it can, or cannot, be done.

Eyaaaaaaaaah !!! I accidently pressed the edit button above to get the quotes to reply to your last post... and ended up wiping out the previous post !!! sigh !!! so my next post is above your last post now !!! grrrrr@me !!!

Originally posted by Chang Lee
Your answer confirms my previous doubts. Yes... the hard limit thingy is a fact it seems.

Also, i found out RAQ's use a specially modified version of the RedHat OS.

If you were me, whom would you get a RAQ from for such use (as described above)?

I know my above question would put you in a tight spot due to your position in this forum, so please PM or EMAIL me if necessary.

I never knew chickens could ever be this knowledgable about servers !!! :) I was chickening out for more than a year about investing in a server, but now am **** enough to do so !!! ;) I just wanted to make sure I was being cocky in my thinking !!! LOL !!!

God bless ya', I wish you a lot of hens for as long as you live... while you rule your roost !!!

Actually, it doesn't put me in a tight spot, since I can't really recommend or steer you away from anything that I don't have personal experience with. You will find that you will get a wider variety of opinions and comments from the forum at large, rather than just asking what I'd do.

My personal experience is with http://www.tera-byte.com (and their sister site http://www.4webspace.com ). I've colo'd a RaQ3 at Tera (which is now sitting under my coffee table in my living room, heh), and leased a 4r from 4webspace. Very few complaints about either experience, though Tera-byte has recently shifted from Cobalts to Ensim VPS (Virtual Private Servers)... the 4webspace site seems to indicate they still offer 3's and 4's, but I guess you'd have to ask them if you are interested.

Other providers have been discussed, and you may want to start a thread asking forum members where they have their RaQs to get some other opinions, suggestions, etc. You might also want to post a RaQ request in the Requests Forum to see what offers come your way.

The next server that is going up won't be a Cobalt (running Plesk), and we'll see how that goes, and how the service goes before I mention anything about them. So far, my past experiences with this provider have been great so I have high hopes.

As I said, I really can't tell you where you should get one, even via PM/Email. The majority of the providers here are solid, and you stand a good chance of being happy, at least better than if you just randomly picked one off the net.

OK... thanks once again for your prompt opinions and advice. I specifically wanted to hear your opinions, if you had any, and I am grateful to you for satisfying me by clearing my doubts.

I really appreciate your efforts in his, and your valuable time you dedicated to me from your busy schedule. I'm sure maintaining this large forum especially keeps you quite busy.

My grateful and warm regards...

Originally posted by Chicken
This may also be an apache configuration issue with these machines: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/FAQ.html#fdlim


I'm quoting from the above:

You are probably running into resource limitations in your operating system. The most common limitation is the per-process limit on file descriptors, which is almost always the cause of problems seen when adding virtual hosts. Apache often does not give an intuitive error message because it is normally some library routine (such as gethostbyname()) which needs file descriptors and doesn't complain intelligibly when it can't get them.

Each log file requires a file descriptor, which means that if you are using separate access and error logs for each virtual host, each virtual host needs two file descriptors. Each Listen directive also needs a file descriptor.

Typical values for <n> that we've seen are in the neighborhood of 128 or 250. When the server bumps into the file descriptor limit, it may dump core with a SIGSEGV, it might just hang, or it may limp along and you'll see (possibly meaningful) errors in the error log. One common problem that occurs when you run into a file descriptor limit is that CGI scripts stop being executed properly.


Just to refer to the number of logfiles - the RaQ 4i uses only 4 Apache logfiles (2 for the GUI and another 2 ("access" and "error") for all the virtual sites). Logrotate runs once per day, splitting the virtual site logfile into smaller files.

rgrds,

Johan

Question about BIND? is this used for name servers or? Do i have to use this when offering shared accounts? i know these are stupid questions but if you have a little time please bring the light :)

BIND: http://www.isc.org/products/BIND/

Suggested reading: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/dns4/

Originally posted by Patriot*~
Host Rat is correct on all of the above. I might add that performing DNS on the same box is really a bad idea, with the past BIND (DNS) exploits. If somone hacks BIND then your sites are compromised as well, pretty risky, I saw ALOT of RaQ's get hacked because of BIND last year (keep it updated), they had to do total reloads.

Who can I use, I just switched a domain from www.mydomain.com (which they run the mydns.com) to serverrac*.net

I don't know what I did on SR but plaied with the DNS settings on my raq and rerouted all traffic to my site (accidently).

Anyone you know that can help me out to login as admin and verify the settings. What I am afraid of is, I always change settings to try out and I might not wait 24 hrs to take effect and I change them again and again and maybe the settings were correct.

I talked to the data center and they are fixing the dns hole problem of what I did last time :eek: