Just thought I'd provide the community with some feedback on my experience with DialtoneInternet.Com.

I gave up my dedicated server on Verio due to costs and started investigating hosts here. After a few recommendations, I contacted the guys at DialtoneInternet.Com and was very pleased with their offer. I have basically ended up with 2 x 700Mhz servers with 512MB RAM for a very reasonable cost.

I can now offer my community users hosting for cheap on the second server, which is a bonus and the flexibility shown by DialtoneInternet.Com impressed me. They get my whole hearted recommendation on flexibility. It also allows me to get away from the dependancy on advertising revenues to pay the bills.

I started up on the 27th of Feb and I did not receive their "welcome letter". The sales person I deal with Rolando emailed me some details which got me up and running. Again, no problems, even though I am still waiting for the letter he said he would have a tech, mail to me. :D

About the server. The hardware was as promised. No problems once again.

The server setup was a bit archaic and had some fundamental problems (again not too big an issue for me as I have enough expereince reconfiguring servers):

-- The Apache logs are on the /usr partition which is only 1GB. Just one website of mine produces an average of 20-40MB logs per day. On my to do list to reconfigure. I suspect I'll have to tackle wusage issues also.

-- The var partition is also 1 GB which means I have to do a non-standard install of mysql to get it to put its database on the big /home partition. Again not a problem, as the server did not come installed with mysql and I needed to do a recompile.

-- Upgrading to Apache 1.3.19 broke their server interface panel for the virtual hosts (not sure why I upgraded, just out of habit to make sure I have the latest fixes in). I think it might be a configuration issue with suexec. Also, it broke when I switch to ActiveState Perl 5.6. (Thank god for backups ;) )

Their server interface is a bit flaky as it does not support postfix or mysql. I guess their excuse is that its free. I'm going to give webmin a try later to see if that works.

-- Had to install OpenSSL and sshd by myself. This is a serious issue and I think it should have been preinstalled. I have a feeling that upgrading the openssl libraries may be the reason httpsd crashes every now and then.

Their support was responsive but not very helpful (my issues mostly revolve around the mysterious "welcome letter").

On the postive side, they provide you with live bandwidth reports. I was told that I'd get billed for bandwidth from server to server unless I rented a mini-switch from them. This prevents me from seperating the web and sql servers. Again, not something majorly important at this point for me.

My users who have been banging away at a mirror that I have put on that server are actually reporting speed increases (which may be related to moving to fast SCSI disks and more memory). No observable deterioration in bandwidth related performance has been reported so far.

How would I rate them (10 point scale)

Pre Sales: 9.5
Pricing: 9.5
Server Hardware Installed As Requested: 10
Server Software: 5
Support Ticket System: 7 (They need more faqs!)
Support Response Speed: 9 (Responded on sunday)
Support Quality: 7 (Still waiting for my letter!)

Overall, so far the experience has been positive, except for the flaky software, which any webmaster who goes for a dedicated server should be competant enough to deal with (my humble opinion).

Cheers,
Shri

Thanks for the report, I have been considering moving to them and talked to Rolando a few days ago. He told me that they install mysql and SSL, did they tell you that?

Do you know if they will set up a server without the control panel? I hate control panels, the ones I've seen always try to override Apache, sendmail, etc.

Originally posted by Steve33
Thanks for the report, I have been considering moving to them and talked to Rolando a few days ago. He told me that they install mysql and SSL, did they tell you that?

Do you know if they will set up a server without the control panel? I hate control panels, the ones I've seen always try to override Apache, sendmail, etc.

Control panels do help but they kind of screw up when you try to do changes under the hood, even i would not use a control panel, all i use is webmin which does things they way they are actually done in linux that is it does not have its own prop files where it stores the configs.

You can say it is a tool to modify the regular linux configs with ease, though the mysql management etc etc becomes a breeze with webmin,

Shri i suggest that if you would be only person who would probably access the server as admin than there is no other control panel like webmin

Rgds
Manish

Steve,

SSL was installed. However, I needed to install a bunch of stuff to get sshd to work. I refuse to use telnet.

The control panel is goofy and I think needs to be dumped. You can safely remove it from the server if you're competant enough and admin (I'm probably going to use it for a while to get familiar with DNS thats about all..).

I submitted a ticket a couple of hours ago to install chilisoft as it was not installed and they did it VERY QUICKLY. Again, they score points on the support side.

Finally, yes, I did get the wonderful welcome letter ;)

Shri

Ugh... DI's control panel... that thing breaks easily.

I am the sysadmin of a dedicated server from them (dedicatedco-host.net). We've broken the control panel like twice before just by upgrading or reconfiguring Apache.

Personally I'd leave the silly thing broken, but the other guy who admins the server doesn't know how to edit configuration files manually.

:emlaugh:

why not give webmin a try, i personally think its better than DI's cp and its free too.

Yes, I agree. 99% convinced that I should go with Webmin. 1% convinced (And increasing by the day) that I should stick to editing files by hand or shell scripts.

Yes, Webmin is definitely the way to go.

How have you guys noticed the network performance at DI?
Everytime I run a traceroute to them it seems to timeout at their router and yet sites that are hosted there seem to load fast:


7 190.at-1-0-0.TR2.HOU7.ALTER.NET (152.63.99.90) 23.958 ms 23.75 ms 24.552 ms

8 132.at-6-1-0.TR2.ATL5.ALTER.NET (152.63.1.9) 43.796 ms 43.846 ms 43.9 ms

9 0.so-4-0-0.XR2.ATL5.ALTER.NET (152.63.9.234) 44.16 ms 43.406 ms 43.647 ms

10 194.ATM6-0.GW2.MIA4.ALTER.NET (146.188.233.189) 61.066 ms 61.748 ms 80.401 ms

11 157.130.85.230 (157.130.85.230) 152.525 ms * *

12 http://www.dialtoneinternet.net (216.87.223.5) 74.843 ms 73.94 ms 74.332 ms

We never used their services but they simply suck. I am not sure about their uptime and tech support because we never even got to that point. We only got to the point were they tried to reap off our company. We dealt with thesame sales man - Rolando Munoz. He hounded us for days trying to pitch his stuff. They promised same day set up and did a whole lot of Alabanza bashing. Once my bosses decided to go with them, then the problems started.

We sent them a payment at 9am hoping to get set up thesame day. Waited to hear from Rolando, to no avail. My bosses called him several times during the day and all we got was voicemail - strange for a guy who was readily accessable before he made his sale. He won't even respond to email. Then at 11:35pm a technician from here called DI and one of their techies said "your server is still in the back there and has not been setup!!!" The server was not even setup the next day. My boss decided to cancel the order and immediately called the bank to put a stop payment. They tried again to reach Rolando, left voice mail telling him to stop the order -- still no answer. They pretended as though they were not getting our calls or emails and then went ahead and stubbornly set up the server. Rolando finally calls pretending he did not here from us. They then tried to threaten a law suit and even contacted a debt collector claiming we owed them over $3500.00 for services we never used!!!!!!!

They never got paid and will never get paid and they will not even have the balls to go to court because they fear being exposed. I am not saying do not deal with them. They probarbly have some very satisfied clients. BUT WHATEVER YOU DO, WATCH OUT AND BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS GUYS:)

The control panel is goofy and I think needs to be dumped. You can safely remove it from the server if you're competant enough and admin (I'm probably going to use it for a while to get familiar with DNS thats about all..).

The control panel is a bit of a disaster area. I only use it very occasionally for email accounts- I try and do everything else by hand

How have you guys noticed the network performance at DI?
Everytime I run a traceroute to them it seems to timeout at their router and yet sites that are hosted there seem to load fast:

I understand that their router is configured to do this- I think it's in the FAQ's. Their network is blisteringly fast compared to other NOC's. Their lack of network problems since they outlawed IRC bots is outstanding.

Pre Sales: 9.5
Pricing: 9.5
Server Hardware Installed As Requested: 10
Server Software: 5
Support Ticket System: 7 (They need more faqs!)
Support Response Speed: 9 (Responded on sunday)
Support Quality: 7 (Still waiting for my letter!)

I would have to agree with this assesment- I would perhaps raise their pricing mark to 10 (Free IP's-SCSI disks and Pentiums for no extra cost).

Jburnley,

I do agree on your assesment of Rolando. Unfortunately, thats the business they are in...

As long as their server keeps humming and network keeps bursting, I am ok.

Shri

Originally posted by DaveC#
I would perhaps raise their pricing mark to 10 (Free IP's-SCSI disks and Pentiums for no extra cost).

What do you mean by "SCSI disks and Pentiums for no extra cost"?

Those of you considering DI should note that they've been added to Spamhaus.org (http://spamhaus.org/) as one of the hosts "who keep organized spamming alive by knowingly hosting stealth spamming services on their networks." As a result, I have removed them from the recommended list at http://forumhosts.com/hosts.htm.

I was looking at the spamhaus.org page and the offending web site status turned to DEAD while I was looking and all of the sudden the database said that they are dead since March 01.

Seems as if someone at DI got upset by the posting here ;-)

kryps

I was just at Spamhaus and could not find DI mentioned anywhere. Can you provide a link to the page where they are mentioned?

Originally posted by Duster
I was just at Spamhaus and could not find DI mentioned anywhere. Can you provide a link to the page where they are mentioned?

http://spamhaus.org/spammers.lasso?-database=spamhaus.fp3&-layout=list&-response=spamhaus.lasso&-noresultserror=norecords.html&-operator=cn&globalsearch=dialtone&-search=

I really don't pay any attention to spamhaus anymore does anyone else?

All I see at Spamhaus on DI is four references to sites once hosted at DI that no longer are. Kind of hard to figure how that gives DI a bad rep. Perhaps Deb could explain the reasoning behind her decision?

Kyle Sparger at Dialtone e-mailed Steve Linford at spamhaus.org to inquire about their listing after I posted my message, and cc'd his e-mail to me, as well as Steve's response:

"looks like they moved to ZoneEdit.com on 6th March. I've updated the spamhaus.org database, thanks for letting me know - and especially for booting the spambags off."

DI has been removed from spamhaus.org. All is well with the world.

Is there a way to make vBulletin display a separate table per message?

It gets hard to read things when a very long URL gets posted, thus stretching all the posts on the page longer than my screen width...

Thanks for the clarification Deb!