I have been reading with great interest the posts in this forum for several days. I am a reseller, right now with 3 different hosting companies, and feel that maybe it is time to step up to a dedicated server.

I am not a server admin type of person, other than I would like to have the control to set up and manage and the like.

I have been researching dedicated servers for awhile, and it appears that what I am looking for is a "Managed" Dedicated Server. However I am having a little trouble finding what I want.

I am looking for suggestions. Not so much in a sale pitch way, but from others and their experiences.

welcome Red :)

I would recomend you stay with reselling for the next few months and study. Get a computer at home, setup it up the the OS you want and install the cp of your choice and learn it. Thats just my opinion any way.

If you install redhat make sure you install development tools or the compilers will be missing (managed to do this twice :D )

I am also new here!

davidb,

How can I get CPanel to install on my home PC?

Thanks

Originally posted by Mans
I am also new here!

davidb,

How can I get CPanel to install on my home PC?

Thanks

lol cpanel costs about $90 a month

Well, we are in the process of setting up a box here to "learn" on, however in the mean time, this is obviously a "niche" that might be a reasonable market for the savy hosting company.

In other words, I have to share a box with others.. on a Managed server. Now I don't want to share anymore, I wan't my own box...but I still want the managed part. There has to be a market for this out there.

Well you can dl the source from cpanel.net - I don't know how you go about getting a test licence, whethere that is necessary, or if such a thing is available.

Originally posted by Redsunflower
Well, we are in the process of setting up a box here to "learn" on, however in the mean time, this is obviously a "niche" that might be a reasonable market for the savy hosting company.

In other words, I have to share a box with others.. on a Managed server. Now I don't want to share anymore, I wan't my own box...but I still want the managed part. There has to be a market for this out there.

Yes there is a market out there. It just costs you an arm and a leg. :-)

Can you PM me some names?

You would be suprised at some of the dedicated prices I have seen.

Plus a couple of my reseller programs are not cheap.

I am very gratefull to find this forum. I have seen others and felt they were really just nothing but an advertising outlet, and really didn't find the real information that I needed. This forum is great, I have spent days here reading and absorbing, and it really gives you the insight you need to make decisions, when you read the collective remarks that people have posted.

This is an excellent source of information.

Hey Red,

The pricing won't be so bad on a dedicated managed server, depending on what your looking for. You will probably have to sacrifice some hardware in exchange for the managability option but at least you can sleep at night knowing your server is running okay with the latest software, kernels and upgrades.

In addition, you don't have to share a managed server. And I know some providers that won't hit you over the head just because it's "managed" either.

You can contact me via PM, E-Mail or ICQ if you wanna talk a little bit more about this. I wouldn't mind guiding you because I like helping people.. ;)

I will email you.

Thanks

I was in your same situation, so I will relate my experience.

I started on the Internet in 1998, and started hosting some sites for people on a shared server. Wasn't trying to grow much, because what I offered my customers was turnkey situations. I designed the web sites, got their domain name for them, and put then online. I managed their web sites, they didn't get (or want )access to the server to them, they wanted me to handle everything. All the sites I host are for a specific professional industry, and they didn't have time or the inclination to learn html, web hosting, ftp, etc.

Well I grew until in 2001 I was paying a WHOLE LOT of money to my old host on the shared server and even though I had been with them for 3 years I was not fully satisfied, so I started looking at a dedicated server.

My biggest fear, as yours is, is that I wouldn't be able to manage the server. You read these forums and some people talk like it is a big mystery. The biggest thing that I have come to find out is that it is NOT a big mystery, it is relatively easy, and if you are smart enough to design web pages, upload them to a server, then you can easily take care of a dedicated server given the proper tools and the right hosting company!

The most important thing to look for is a company that don't mind giving free advice! Yes, most of them will charge when they have to do something like upgrade apache, or upgrade the kernel, however these things don't have to be done that often. Also, most companies will do these things for you at a nomimal charge. In time you can learn to do some of them yourself. If you get with a company that is patient when you ask "newbie" questions, and also a company that has active support forums where you can learn from others, then it is really not that hard.

Really I have slept better at night in the past year that I have had my dedicated server than I ever did on shared hosting, because with shared hosting so many things can go wrong that you usually do not cause, but are caused by other users, overloaded servers and the like.

Of course the company's reputation is important also, talk to current customers that have been with them for a while.

The next thing I deem important in a dedicated server is the control software. My host uses Web Host Manager/Cpanel and I have been very satisfied with it. It is user friendly, allows me to do many things with a point and click interface and takes a lot of the mystery out of it. There are other Control panels and i am not familiar with them, I am sure they are good also. Most hosts have a demo of the control panel you can use before you sign up. Spend some time with the control panel and see if you feel confortable with it. If you do not, take a look elsewhere.

Make sure you get a host that offers daily backups, and you will probably have to pay extra for it, but it is worth it. Also make sure you get enough memory to begin with in your server, it is cheaper to get it to begin with and your server won't have to be brought down to upgrade later.

If the company has open support forums, (the company I went with did), follow them for a few weeks and you will know if it is the right company to go with or not.

I have been with my dedicated server for just over a year and I had no prior dedicated server experience and I did it just fine and I know others that have also! Yeah, it you get a "barebones" server with no control panel where you have to do everything from the command line you are in trouble if you have no prior experience. Not saying you can't learn, but the learning curve will be steep. But with the proper control panel, good hosting company with friendly and helpful support personal you can't go wrong!

Hope this helped some! PS - I ended up spending much less for the dedicated server than for the many accounts I had on a shared server!

Hostseeker (formerly)

hostseeker that is exactly where I am right now.

Thank you so much for your excellent response.

You wouldn't want to recommend your host by PM would you? :D

Hello there, red, im in the same situation as you ;) ... I would like to hear a litle advise or comments of other users experiences.

I have managed my own colocated server for almost a year, though i only hosted my site i did have a problem with hackers at the beginning. I really didnt know anything about systema administration so someone broke into my server (i had all ports open and didnt upgrade my software).

With this kind of experience i learned a little more about security, i installed psionic software and tcpwrappers and i havent had any other problem since that.

Now i would like to get a dedicated server because in my country is very expensive to have a colocated/dedicated server. I would like to use cpanel/whm to manage the server.

The problem is that i dont know if im ready to manage my own server now that i will have others sites in it. It would be a lot of responsability and i dont want to fail my clients.

My primary concern would be to have Bind or mysql crash and realize that i cant set the server to work properly.

I bought a reseller account from HP a few days ago and have seen all the problems their having (Apache, DNS, etc) and are exactly the problems i would like to avoid.

So, should i be ready to manage my own dedicated server or should i buy a fully managed server?

I have some redhat experience but when it comes to installation/upgrade of software that is not RPM i get very confused.

I have seen hosts like fastservers.net and serverhost.com with good offers, but how much should i pay for a good service? what would be a fair/decent price for a managed server?

hope to hear some advice!
:cool:

The best thing to do is read a lot of books and build you a box to play with and remember that practice makes better and almost perfect :)

Depending on server specs and bandwidth costs, a managed dedicated server should run you $200 and up. A good rule of thumb is $50 to $100 for the managing part of it.

Originally posted by iago
Hello there, red, im in the same situation as you ;) ... I would like to hear a litle advise or comments of other users experiences.

I have managed my own colocated server for almost a year, though i only hosted my site i did have a problem with hackers at the beginning. I really didnt know anything about systema administration so someone broke into my server (i had all ports open and didnt upgrade my software).

With this kind of experience i learned a little more about security, i installed psionic software and tcpwrappers and i havent had any other problem since that.
:cool:

If you go with a good company they will have proper security software installed on the server before then turn it over to you. All you need to do is to pay attention fo any security issues that come up with the software you are running and that isn't hard to do.

I use WHM and Cpanel and they keep you abreast of lots of issues, and I would recommend them highly.

In reference to Bind and Mysql crashing, this is not a problem if configured properly. Also if something happens and they do crash, WHM will will attempt to restart it "automagically". You will get an email telling you this. If it continues to crash that's where a good company's support department will help you.

Get a good configuration to begin with, a good company with good support and it will be worth your while.

See, I know there is a market for this, you just don't see alot about it.

I don't want to have to worry about the updates and security, I want to have a dedicated server, that someone does all that for me, I just maintain my accounts.

Sort of like paying for a fully furnished apartment, that has a full maintenance crew and security. Same thing.

I would rather pay a bit extra for the peace of mind, and know my clients are taken care of.

To me this is similar to a reseller account, only instead of just having a few hundred megs of space, I get the whole box.

With this kind of experience i learned a little more about security, i installed psionic software and tcpwrappers and i havent had any other problem since that.

iago: What software are you talking about, TriSentry? ClearResponse?

Im using portsentry and logcheck. I filter connections trough tcp wrappers. I only have the essential ports open. I dont know if i can do more about security, as i said before, i still have a lot to learn.


- I would like to know what are the basics skills an admin should have to manage its own server,.. should i get a "semi" managed server?

The porpouse of getting a full managed service is not to worry about technical things and focus only on marketing and support for my clients.

- Does a fully managed service supports all my requests about installation and configuration of softare?: If I want to install/configure Chilisoft ASP, JDK, Jabber, etc, i would like to have someone to advice and help me if get some problems so i can run smoothly my server. The client is the most important thing so i cant afford having a server down because a mistake or misconfiguration. :eek:

- Also, im thinking of getting 2 dedicated servers because of DNS issues. I think is better to have at least 2 DNS in different machines in case one server fails.

Should i do this? or would it be a better option to start just with one server and then add the other? I have never worked with Bind, so i dont know how stable it is.

- Does Cpanel upgrades the softare automatically? (apache, php, sendmail, etc)

- What do you think are the most important issues i should take care about setting one or two dedicated servers for a starting a hosting business?

Regards!
:)