I used the shared hosting plans of Tera-Byte for 2.5 years now.
I trust this company like no one else.

I read that they will replace their raqs with new linux machines.
Does anyone knows when they will be ready and if these services will be at the Tera-Byte or 4Webspace site ?

I wait to see a 99USD per month and no setup fee plan like the raq3 and take my dedicated server.

Even i'm in a harry i don't trust other providers.
I read at this forum that their virtual server plan is no so good because the users sharing the machine resources are power users and take the machine to its limits

PS. Steve and his team are great for support.

As i saw there are not many people know about it.

Maybe Steve from Tera-Byte can answer this question

WebSeeker

I think so too....

Isn't this it?

http://tera-byte.com/vir.html

Edit: Actually, this isn't what you are looking for I think. I know what you are looking for...

no there is another plan i outlined a while back for 4webspace, however i am holding off on that until i get the migration for my shared hosting finished with. there are many more issues than i first thought in moving that many accounts, it will at least be another month before im ready to roll out the new 4webspace linux servers.

Steve

Originally posted by Keeg
...it will at least be another month before im ready to roll out the new 4webspace linux servers....


Any server specs / pricing hints yet? :)

will all shared accounts from raq's be transfered to new servers?

I believe that is what I heard.....

Originally posted by Chicken
Isn't this it?

http://tera-byte.com/vir.html
What is this? It says it's virtual hosting, but it also says that you have full root access... Is this some kind of VM setup? Anyone got any experience of it? It looks like it might be good for secondary MX, DNS, and for running scripts to check that my main site is responding correctly...

That offer is a Virtual Private Server (similar to what vservers used to/still offers). More control and space han a shared account, yet less than a fully dedicated solution.

I think this link will give you the basic demo of what this is:
http://ensim.com/demos/webppliancels/site.html

(Demo is actually from ensim's stand alone system, but I believe the cp is the same as what tera is using, - hard to explain, point being, this is what I think the VPS would look like).

If I'm wrong, please let me know, this is as much as I am familiar with the VPS...

It doesn't look the same. The tera-byte page definitely says full root access which is very different to having a web-based control panel to add users and domains and stuff.

I don't understand how anyone can provide a shared server with full root access, given that with root access you can screw things up for other people. The only way I know how to do this is with VMs, such as VMWare's enterprise solutions or IBM mainframes. If they're doing this then I'd be facinated to learn more. If they're not then I'd be concerned about other customers stuffing up the server.

I freely admit that I may have no idea what I'm talking about, so corrections are most welcome ;)

Originally posted by jp_howard
It doesn't look the same. The tera-byte page definitely says full root access which is very different to having a web-based control panel to add users and domains and stuff.

I don't understand how anyone can provide a shared server with full root access, given that with root access you can screw things up for other people. The only way I know how to do this is with VMs, such as VMWare's enterprise solutions or IBM mainframes. If they're doing this then I'd be facinated to learn more. If they're not then I'd be concerned about other customers stuffing up the server.



You are correct with the virtual machine concept. Intel have allowed for 'virtual machines' since the 80386 CPU. It looks like Ensim has gotten a Linux and Solaris environments to work with them.

Here is an overview: http://www.ensim.com/solutions/sxc-arch.shtml#ps
and here: http://www.ensim.com/solutions/ps.shtml

Thanks for the link. It turns out that they're using their own proprietary 'patented' virtualization software. Strange that they don't just use something like http://www.vmware.com/products/server/esx_features.html rather than building their own from scratch, but I'm sure that they have they're reasons...

Originally posted by jp_howard
It doesn't look the same. The tera-byte page definitely says full root access which is very different to having a web-based control panel to add users and domains and stuff.

Errrr... well, I was just linking to the cp, I'm not certain what you can do via telnet and what all that looks like. It may or may not be correct, but...

I don't know what they are using for 'virtualization software', thought it was ensim for that, but ask them to be sure.

Far as I can tell it is basically like installing more than one full server suite on each physical server (controlled by admin software). So if one web server goes down, it doesn't take another web server down (again, controlled by software).

Hi,

I suspect they are using the freeBSD jail command. It is a really nice and powerful way of creating virtual servers. It is also possible to modify it/adapt it, so it might be the base of their proprietary system.

The freeBSD jail allows to create a virtual system inside a host system. You create a complete file architecture with the same stuff as in a usual freeBSD system. Each process inside the jail cannot get out of the jail, communicate with processes from other jails / host system and basically cannot do anything that would cause harm to the rest of the system. There is a separate /etc/passwd file for the virtual server, allowing for a root user in the virtual server, but it's access is limited. I highly doubt they really offer "Complete Root Access" which would be stupid. No need to see that it is the most secure way of running standard daemons like name servers, as in the worst case, a hacker can get access to the jail, not the real system. There is other important limits, for exemple it is not possible to use more than 1 IP (the IP dedicated to the jail) inside the virtual server.

There are other implementation of this concept. On linux, the most interesting one is freeVSD I think.

Just to clear up the fuzz here.

Ensim's virtualization technology is developed by Ensim and has some 20+ patents pending around it. This is accomplished with
Extremely low overhead to the physical machine.

We create a virtual OS environment (Private Server) that lets you have root access to your Private Server. Just about anything you can do on a physical machine you can do on a Private Server.

Each Private Server gets a guaranteed QoS on CPU/Memory/Disk and Bandwidth. Each can be restarted (or crashed) independently of others.

Each Private Server (or PS) is independent, meaning they can each run their own version of apache, php, perl, etc, allowing each Private Server to host multiple shared virtual domains within them (IP and/or Name based). You can even compile new code within a PS.

Example:
If you want a PS for E-commerce, each PS comes with its own Merchant and Empressa, there is No application sharing between PS's.

More is available on our web site or feel free to call.

Ken

How many accounts do you put on each server?
Is there a guranteed quota?
What kind of hardware is used?

thanks

How many accounts do you put on each server?
- the $100,000 question....the answer, it depends. How big are the accounts, how much storage, traffic do they get etc...only with that info can you really answer that question. More power equals more accounts, but there is no set definition.

Is there a guranteed quota?
There is a guranteed quota for CPU, Memory, Disk and Bandwidth per Private Server.

What kind of hardware is used?
You can use whatever hardware you like as long as it is compatable with Redhat.


thanks
welcome

ken

Ken,

My questions were with regards to their virtual sever accounts (as I saw in one of the posts, and thought this thread wa about that). I think this thread has gone in different directions.

Anywho.... I still would like to know answers to those questions, with regards to the virtual account at tera

Have you called or emailed tera directly?

Originally posted by haji
Ken,

My questions were with regards to their virtual sever accounts (as I saw in one of the posts, and thought this thread wa about that). I think this thread has gone in different directions.

Anywho.... I still would like to know answers to those questions, with regards to the virtual account at tera

The following comments were pasted on a public mailing list by an ISP that has thoroughly tested all of the various private server options available ATM, and is a very basic comparison of the technologies.

* NOTE - These are not my words, I just thought you might find them interesting :) - Thanks Matt ;)

Actually, ensim's product does create a chrooted environment. They differ the greatest from most virtual server packages because they have their own, proprietary, stripped down version of user mode linux. So you're not really running as root, you're running as 'root' purely in user space. Without root privledges to invoke system calls into kernel space, ensim's root = freeVSD's admin with very little difference.

Pretty much all the virtual server products do exactly the same thing, the variations just depend on where things happen (e.g. FreeVSD uses a patched glibc in the vs, Sphera plays with the linker and preloads their own library to override glibc system calls, and Ensim intercepts standard system calls with a kernel module)


So Ensim isn't based on the BSD Jail...

BSD Jail is pretty cool for doing this sort of thing though, but if I remember correctly it doesn't support multiple IP's within the 'Jailed' area and has a few other problems too which make it impractical.

One point to note though - in comparison to BSD's Jail and other solutions around, virtual machines are a big waster of system resources since each one runs a complete (albeit stripped-down) kernel and you need a lot of hardware to run relatively few private servers. They definitely have their uses for things like software development and sandboxing, but I personally think they are a little overkill for most hosting requirements... Then again I might be a little biased :D

Yes, I sent them an email. The answer I got with regards to the hardware they are using is "that they use latest" (don't know what that means) and with regards to allocations, 10% cpu and 128 Mb RAM guaranteed. I think their site lacks detailed information and specs with regards to their services.

I have heard good things about them in these forums and I have been here only since last 3-4 days. So, though it sounds ok I can not make a decision without having complete information and specs and I am looking at all options.

Have you called or emailed tera directly?

Originally posted by ComplexMind
One point to note though - in comparison to BSD's Jail and other solutions around, virtual machines are a big waster of system resources since each one runs a complete (albeit stripped-down) kernel and you need a lot of hardware to run relatively few private servers. They definitely have their uses for things like software development and sandboxing, but I personally think they are a little overkill for most hosting requirements... Then again I might be a little biasedIt was with this in mind that I asked the original question. I would have thought that separate servers provide better value--but I guess for low-end resource requirements (but where root access is necessary) having a VM on a box is OK if you're only using a bit of CPU/IO every now and again. Certainly virtualization technologies are only getting faster--see for example Connectix's VirtualPC which runs at 70-90% the speed of non-virtualized!

I run 25 FreeBSD jails on a dual PIII 866, each with about
20 - 30 domains. I gave each customer their own control panel, full root access to the jail and they are happy.

Disadvantages: you cannot run traceroute, ping out the jail and quotas inside the jail environments doesn't work (though you can
define the size of each jail, of course).

Advantage: very stable and low cpu overhead compared to freevsd, user mode linux (UML) or vmware.

Advantage: very stable and low cpu overhead compared to freevsd, user mode linux (UML) or vmware.
I'd argue that there's very little difference in CPU overhead between freeVSD and BSD Jail but otherwise agree with your comments...

UML is more efficient than VMWare (in terms of concurrent _usable_ private servers) but can be a little 'quirky' for medium-large scale web hosting.

VMWare is _really good_ (argueably the best) at HW virtualisation but is v.expensive and the most resource intensive I have tried.

Any news about the new linux servers of 4webspace / tera-byte ?
Will they be at the 99$ per month as Raq3 now ?


"I used the shared hosting plans of Tera-Byte for 2.5 years now.
I trust this company like no one else.
I read that they will replace their raqs with new linux machines.
Does anyone knows when they will be ready and if these services will be at the Tera-Byte or 4Webspace site ?
I wait to see a 99USD per month and no setup fee plan like the raq3 and take my dedicated server.
Even i'm in a harry i don't trust other providers.
I read at this forum that their virtual server plan is no so good because the users sharing the machine resources are power users and take the machine to its limits
PS. Steve and his team are great for support."