How many hosts in this forum is using ProVSD (based on FreeVSD)? Anyone planing on using it? If so can you tell us your experience with it?

Thanks..

I am looking into possibly using it, however I am leaning more towards the FreeBSD solution though.

I use freevsd, I took a look at the prcing when they sent it to me. That was a tad to rich for my blood. I am not even sure how different it is from freevsd. My advice, go with freevsd.

DigitalX, did you mean FreeVSD or FreeBSD solution? If not freevsd then what's the freebsd solution? Also davidb, what has your experience been with FreeVSD? Do you customers like it? Have you been able to install a control panel for it or has your customers? If so which one?

Thanks in advance for your help. The ProVSD is a little expensive that's why I want to make sure if I do decide to go with it it would be worthwhile. Unless there are options.

Thanks..

I just launched Freevsd to clients on Saterday, so no news yet. My testers liked it, you can ask Revalation, he was one of the testers who got a nice feel for it. We that the WebAdmin control panel that comes with it install and that works nicely with some small modifications. FreeVSD is great, once you get a good feel for it and make some customizations(I combined about 5 shell scripts of mine into one to simplify adding clients) and after you get the extra packages install it is really great. I am looking forward to see how others like it,.

Great, so you're using the web based control panel that FreeVSD provides? Does the WebAdmin give the same tools as most control panels? So that customers can administer their sites?

Keep us updated on your progress. This is a new area so I'm pretty sure others might be interested. Some of us can't afford Ensims and other expensive virtual server software.

Thanks

The control panel is pretty limited, but it does a good job. Mainly you can add domains to bind(only place you can do it), quick add virtual servers to the webserver, add users and set their permissions, reboot the server, and set user quotas, then manage alias's. Very basic, but I think a lot of people like it for the ssh access and what you can do in it. I think the reason the control panel is so limited, is because you have what is called the skel. Different software packages can be installed on it, so if the control panel supported proftd and you wanted ncftpd, the feature would then be useless. But, using bind, and apache are pretty basic so they have support for that. Also in my opinion getting it first up and running is COMPLICATED. My problems at first were not understanding what they wanted exactly, I made a few mistakes from time to time and ended up resinstalling the system about 8 times(Yes 8 reinstalls from scratch, did 2 in one day, went back to chicago for both each time). But once I relized the mistakes I made, it all just started comming togeather and I am where I am now. This is nothing like plesk or cpanel where you can just install the OS, customize it a bit, then install the cp and spend a week learning it. It took me since september to get this working right(I took about a one month break because I was going crazy at one point).

David,

That sounds pretty much like what I've heard. FreeVSD is pretty good once you understand it and get it installed. But getting there is the problem. I messed with it when it first came out on a development box looking to inplement it. But couldn't get it working right. I gave up. Then I heard about the ProVSd but they are asking for too much money and aren't really giving you much. They don't even say about the support you get. I think they give you 28 days of support assistance. Whatever that means. For that kind of money, I expect you to install the software and provide a 24/7 support on any problem I face.

I was still concidering it but I will have to get more details from them before I do it. I'll alsl want to know some of the customers who are using it.

Thanks for your input David.

I recomend getting the cdroms. I got those and they are pretty nice. I think I got it for 150 us or 100 and now its around 200 us. Its really the best way in my opinion, plus with that you get 30 days or so support. I was a fool and only used like 5 requests out of those days, so if you really want to impliment it, get the cdroms, there is now a little updated one. I got like 6.1-2 and now I think its 6.2. At any rate it comes with RH 6.2, install is pretty stright forward, makes it real easy for those reinstalls. The only problem I had, which started me off on the wrong foot was that bind did not install, they messed up and bind did install. So I kept wondering what I did wrong. Of course if you get the cds, be prepared for them to sell your provsd :0

Also if you have any direct questions you want to ask me, you can come to irc.liek.net #liek, my nick is parplex and i can try and help

Its good to see/hear from someone who got this to work. I tried numerous times on a RH7.2 and got a bunch of dependency problems. I tried it over and over and I think I started developing ulcers, and gave up briefly. But my natural curiosity and inherent belief that this will be a great solution has once again been peeked by your post David :)

So I'll probably drop by liek and bug you a little :) if you dont mind.

I love visitors, heh, but make sure you give me at least 30 min before u leave after I dont respond, I dont always check it right away. When the name servers did not automaticly install for me, I tried doing it by hand, but with the custom vsd stuff I got with it, yikes, nothing was working, to install named I would need a newer version of something, of course the rpm for that wouldnt work. then I started forcing the rpm to install, that caused more problems. I know what you are going through

Good stuff. When I start I'll defenitely use your help.

Thanks..

Originally posted by cahostnet
If not freevsd then what's the freebsd solution?

FreeBSD (the OS) has build in function (called jail) that will let you setup private servers in each jailed environment ... Wiht RH Linux, you will need another software to do this, with FreeBSD, it's just there for you to use ...

cheers,
:beer:

Yes I am familiar with the jail implementation. Aren't there issues with this as well? Have you done this before? It will be nice to have a nice VSD in FreeBSD environment.

Know of anywhere place to get more details on it?

I have not tried it (going to once our high performance server is ready). There is a discussion (http://webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=33546) regarding some issues in jail ... Take a look ...

cheers,
:beer:

I also went to the FreeBSd archives and did a search and saw some posting on it. Looks to be a little of some work. But then again everything is.

Yes I meant the jail feature built into FREEBSD, there are a couple of us working on this and have actually had pretty good progress so far, if you check out the thread mentioned above it has the link to where the project has been moved to.

Just wanted to let you know that we've been running the FreeVSD version of the Idaya-sponsored stuff (the commercial version is ProVSD -- and I'd have to agree, it's a little pricey). We've found it to be remarkably scalable.

We've got it up and running on a RH 7.1 box, and aside from having to do custom builds on a RH 6.2 box (VMWare is great for this kind of stuff) it's been a dream. We've customized the control panel, built our own provisioning system, and we're now putting the finishing touches on an admin backend to manage our servers at a touch of a button. So far, so good.

Dan

Just to slightly change the subject.

I tried FreeVSD and ended up nearly throwing the computer out. It's not easy for a first time user.

I started using http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/ the vserver package about 5 weeks ago. Installation is so easy it's not true. Functionality is all there but it's a project still in it's early stages of development.

Well worth a try if you're concerned about FreeVSD!