i think this is the right place to ask. if not, please point me in the right direction. after intense negotiations with my wallet, my mind and visa, i am considering getting this raq. i have a few questions i hope you people can answer. i want to run a vbulletin. for that, i know i can install php/mysql easily from all the instructions on this forum. next, i plan to offer plans to people, as far as the specs of the plan, can i offer sub domains, extra ftp accounts, ssh/telnet access? also, how many pops/email fowards am i allowed to have on the server? what about mailing lists? i assume i can install some type of software. as far as control panel goes, what can i offer my customers? i know these might be silly questions but please bear with me on my quest to get a dedicated server. thanks a lot guys.

<begin> edit: okay, i read in the dedicated forum that subdomains are not "easy" to make but with some scripts, it "may" be possible.

i suggest we create a listserv for people with a raq3 so we can communicate with each other concerning security, installation...anything. if not a listserv, a centralized place like this forum where everything pertaining to a raq is discussed and archived. i'm sure with the new promo by 4ws, a lot of us are new to the raq revolution even though it's been out for quite a while. </end>

[Edited by teck on 12-26-2000 at 10:27 PM]

Originally posted by teck next, i plan to offer plans to people, as far as the specs of the plan, can i offer sub domains, extra ftp accounts, ssh/telnet access? also, how many pops/email fowards am i allowed to have on the server? what about mailing lists?

Your plans can have whatever you want in them. As you pointed out in your edit, sub-domains CAN be done, but it's a trick to get it on the RAQ. If I am correct, the RaQ control panel allows you to edit the nameservers to allow wildcards, and then you can setup a modrewrite in your httpd.conf, but someone will have to double check that for me. ;)

Each user you setup can have extra ftp, ssh/telnet, etc. They can also have as many pop/e-mail forwarders as they want, but obviously you wouldn't want 2,000,000,000 pop's setup. And MajorDomo is setup, so they can use that.

i suggest we create a listserv for people with a raq3 so we can communicate with each other concerning security, installation...anything. if not a listserv, a centralized place like this forum where everything pertaining to a raq is discussed and archived. i'm sure with the new promo by 4ws, a lot of us are new to the raq revolution even though it's been out for quite a while.

Check out http://www.cobalt.com. I'm pretty sure they have a listserv, newsgroup, everything you could ask for.

Hope this answers your questions. :)

thanks, okay i'm about 3 steps into getting one now. i think about 7 more steps and i'll be on one!

i would assume it's impossible to have resellers on your raq right? or has this been discussed? another thing..what about backups? i think one way is to tar up your whole users directory like once a week. or if you're a superior host, every day :)

one other thing..what if you break your raq or if someone hacks the server. what are your options?

Ok, original message first:

Subdomains - You can offer them, but you'll have to set them up (unless you get around how it is usually done).

Extra FTP accounts - FTP accounts are set up when you set up *any* user. If you don't make them a siteadmin, they are limited to their space, if you make them a siteadmin, they can roam freely around the whole site's files (not recommended).

Telnet Access - someone once told me not to offer it to the majority of people, I pass this on to you.

How many POPs - Note that the RaQs (and the wonderful tweaked OS), only allow you to set up a user (POP) with a minimum of 1MB assigned. Hence, a 100MB site that you set up, can only have 100 POPs max. Want more? Increase the site to 150 (you'll be able to set 50 more POPs max.)

Mailing lists - someone once suggested to install your majordomo yourself. I pass this information onto you.

Control Panel - I'm assuming you're aware that the RaQ does provide a CP for your users (once you set up a domain on the server). Done automatically, works, not great, but adequate.

Mailing List - Yes, Cobalt has done this for you:
http://list.cobalt.com/pipermail/cobalt-users/

Resellers - Not impossible to have, just have your reseller forward you whatever you need to set up the account and charge them. They charge their customer.

Backups - There is an option to create a backup file which you can download (and restore from if needed), thogh I'll warn you that I did one recently and I don't have all that much on the server and mine weighed in over 78 MBs. Quite a file. Tell your customers that they are responsible for backing up their site as often as they want to (might work). They can do it through their control panel.

Broken RaQ - You're SOL. Contact provider and beg them to help you. Expect them to charge you to restore the machine.

Originally posted by Chicken
How many POPs - Note that the RaQs (and the wonderful tweaked OS), only allow you to set up a user (POP) with a minimum of 1MB assigned. Hence, a 100MB site that you set up, can only have 100 POPs max. Want more? Increase the site to 150 (you'll be able to set 50 more POPs max.)



firstly, you da man. thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. now for the pop question. so if i offered a 50 meg site, they can create at most 50 pops right? okay, so assuming this, does your email quota count against your quota on your account for your webspace? if so, if you have lets say 5 pop emails all having 10 meg of emails in each, you just filled up your quota right?

i'm i'm totally wrong the, i would assume your email quota is totally different from your regular account quota.

Keep in mind too that the raq's dont have automated signup systems like alabanza offers on their machines. So unless you:
1. create your own cgi, php system to automatically process the persons billing method and then setup the account on the server OR
2. find a set of scripts that is already written for the raq to do this for you
You will be setting up each account manually, normally not a big deal unless a customer comes to your site and wants the site setup right after paying, yup, some customers are like this and want it immediately. Others dont care that it may take anywhere from 1 hour to 12 hours to get their account info.

Subdomains are not a big deal to do on a Raq, in the add new virtual site screen in the admin panel, you simply substitute the www with the subdomain name, so it would be subdomain
domain.com
instead of
www
domain.com

But you can't accept mail at the subdomain if you do that at least not on the control panel, but what I tell people is that they can create a new user under the full domain and accept mail for the subdomain through that.

As far as backups, the individual customer can make a RAQ backup through their site admin control panel, or you can do it for a particular user or all the files including server config through the main admin panel. I think that the backup that is done though is a RAQ specific backup, so the user might expect that if they do a backup, that they can use the backup files right from their hard drive to use somewhere else. I could be wrong here, but Im pretty sure it's a raq specific backup, and I dont' really know if they could even take the backup from one raq to another, perhaps someone else here has tried it.

Depending on the raq, 4 or 3 your plans may be limited to offering more of a certain feature.

For example, the main items in the admin panel that you can add to a domain account are cgi, ssl, anon ftp (if you assign an ip to that account), frontpage extensions

Php is not in the raq3 admin panel, nor is a mysql (mysql would have to be setup manually, though it would also have to be setup manually on a raq4 too). So you may need to get creative with your plans to make them different.

Our main plan differences is space and bandwidth and mysql databases as well as subdomains.

With one plan we may offer 100mb and 2gb and no mysql or subdomains, on another we offer 350MB and 15GB and 2 mysql databases, and 5 subdomains.

In any event, the raq's are easy to work with through the panel and I have heard that you really shouldn't tinker with the workings of a raq, though I have done only minor tinkering with mine for what was necessary to me and customers.

Anyway, hope you get what you need and want.
Bbox

bbox, thanks for the detailed response. so from what you're saying, it would be easy to restrict/limit access to php/mysql through the editing of a file local on the machine correct? also, through the admin cp, if i give a user access to cgi, the system will automatically create a cgi-bin for them to use right? or do all accounts automatically have one?

Correct 50 MB, max. 50 POPs.

And you are correct. Emails count against the user's quota and ultimately the site quota. I generally set up users with 5MB minimum. Don't try to have 1 MB sites (or set users with 1MB) or you'll see flashing lights in your CP (generally you'll see that anyhow, but setting 1MB limits will guarantee it).

Originally posted by brainbox
Subdomains are not a big deal to do on a Raq, in the add new virtual site screen in the admin panel, you simply substitute the www with the subdomain name, so it would be subdomain
domain.com
instead of
www
domain.com

But you can't accept mail at the subdomain if you do that at least not on the control panel, but what I tell people is that they can create a new user under the full domain and accept mail for the subdomain through that.

I don't exactly get what brain means here. If you just set up a sub, and don't assgign a user to control it, then you can't do much of anything. If you do assign a user to the subdomain, then you can accept email user@subdomain.domain.com

Originally posted by teck
bbox, thanks for the detailed response. so from what you're saying, it would be easy to restrict/limit access to php/mysql through the editing of a file local on the machine correct? also, through the admin cp, if i give a user access to cgi, the system will automatically create a cgi-bin for them to use right? or do all accounts automatically have one?

On the Raq4, it would be easy to restrict the php, you either checkmark for yes to access to php or you uncheck it in the admin gui control panel for that virtual site, as far as Mysql, you either create a user account, and user database or you dont theres nothing in the admin gui control panel that has anythign to do with mysql. The mysql is a manual process, theres nothing automated about it.

The same goes for cgi, and No it doesn't create a cgi-bin, it basically allows cgi scripts to run in the user space, so the user could drop his/her formmail.pl script in either their root directory, or make a directory named cgi-bin and put it in there or make a directory called mail and put it in there. But activating it does not create a directory, it basically just adds some lines to the httpd.conf file to allow cgi.

No, not all accounts have a cgi-bin, on an old server that was a cobalt raq3 that we had before our current beloved provider we forgot to turn on cgi for our own domain but turned it on for everyone else, so by default all accounts do not come with cgi, unless you configure your defaults in the admin panel to do so, by doing that it just saves you the extra click. All accounts that we offer have cgi, so our default is to have the cgi checkmark ticked so we dont have to tick it for each new account.


-----------------------------------------
Chicken,
What I meant was that if you create a user on the subdomain.domain.com account, they will receive email as user@subdomain.domain.com but not at user@domain.com unless you setup an account for that. Most people dont use an email address at their subdomain account, (most people, not all people), that was all I meant.
Bbox

Originally posted by brainbox
Chicken,
What I meant was that if you create a user on the subdomain.domain.com account, they will receive email as user@subdomain.domain.com but not at user@domain.com unless you setup an account for that. Most people dont use an email address at their subdomain account, (most people, not all people), that was all I meant.
Bbox

Well this isn't entirely correct. As long as you do not set up a catch-all email alias for the main domain, mail sent the the user@domain.com will hit the correct POP box. But, if you do set up a catch-all alias, then yes, it won't work.

brainbox/chicken, thanks! okay..now has anyone tried installing a shopping cart for their customers to use on their raq? if so..which and how easy/hard was it to setup?

one other thing. i wanted to know how fast the network really is. if someone on a raq from 4ws can do me a favor and telnet to your shell and try to 'get' something from a ftp and cut and paste the results, that would be cool. here is something i found at: ftp.uu.net

the dir is: /.vol/8/X/andrew

the file is: andrew.ah.tar.Z

it's only 1.4 megs...after you download it, you can just rm it :)

someone please help!

well i was curious and i have lots of the raqs to choose from so i did the test but i downloaded all of them here is what i got

226 Transfer complete.
1374576 bytes received in 4.41 secs (3e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.aj.tar.Z remote: andrew.aj.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.aj.tar.Z (949477 bytes)

226 Transfer complete.
1443034 bytes received in 4.38 secs (3.2e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ai.tar.Z remote: andrew.ai.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ai.tar.Z (1374576 bytes)

26 Transfer complete.
1294883 bytes received in 4.08 secs (3.1e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ah.tar.Z remote: andrew.ah.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ah.tar.Z (1443034 bytes)

226 Transfer complete.
1443951 bytes received in 5.59 secs (2.5e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ag.tar.Z remote: andrew.ag.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ag.tar.Z (1294883 bytes)

226 Transfer complete.
1334123 bytes received in 4.5 secs (2.9e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.af.tar.Z remote: andrew.af.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.af.tar.Z (1443951 bytes)

226 Transfer complete.
1293995 bytes received in 3.82 secs (3.3e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ae.tar.Z remote: andrew.ae.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ae.tar.Z (1334123 bytes)

226 Transfer complete.
1489303 bytes received in 4.43 secs (3.3e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ad.tar.Z remote: andrew.ad.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ad.tar.Z (1293995 bytes).

226 Transfer complete.
1364878 bytes received in 4.04 secs (3.3e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ac.tar.Z remote: andrew.ac.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ac.tar.Z (1489303 bytes).

226 Transfer complete.
1232801 bytes received in 3.63 secs (3.3e+02 Kbytes/sec)
local: andrew.ab.tar.Z remote: andrew.ab.tar.Z
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for andrew.ab.tar.Z (1364878 bytes)

so it looks like the average to that server is about 330 KB per second a fairly decent speed across the net if i might say so.

i telnet ftp one of my site's tar file at 270MB to my 4webspace raq3 at 430kb/s - beats uploading it at 16kb/s :)

keeg, yeah..fairly decent speeds..it would be much faster if guys had a pipe straight from alter.net :)

Originally posted by teck
brainbox/chicken, thanks! okay..now has anyone tried installing a shopping cart for their customers to use on their raq? if so..which and how easy/hard was it to setup?

no one has tried this yet? i want to be able to offer some sort of shopping cart to customers. can anyone verify if this can be done? also, what about ssl certs. can customers install their own ssl certs or would a server wide one be a better choice?

[Edited by teck on 12-28-2000 at 05:52 PM]

As far as i am aware they can install there own or you could make a domain with the certifatce installed and sell them space on the secure server for extra :).

A lot UK companies are doing this now £30 a year for access to the secure server. with 10mb to construct your shopping cart.

So long as you enable SSL in the site settings when you set up the account (or go back and check SLL), I believe they can just add them themselves.

Serverwide ones cost a bit more than the single license certs. Does it still pop up that annoying box if you use another site's cert? Maybe just an error symbol in the bottom of the browser, I can't recall. I know it used to with the older version of IE I had.

yeah, i'm planning on just buying a cert for the server. they can access their site by going to http://www.domain.com/~user right? if so, they'll just pop in https://www.domain.com/~user into their html. other than that..what about the shopping cart? anyone have any luck with any gnu ones?