Is there a way to find out what company a host in reselling from?

Whois, check IPs, etc. Some hide it better than others, some providers of services hide their resellers better than others.

For one, you can try asking. Most hosts do not hide whose services they are reselling with especially if you already know they are reselling someone. If that fails, you can always try to trace their ips and see where it ends up and who's it registered to.

cool, thanks guys.:)

I would have to agree - just outright ask them "Who are you reselling for and how many people work at your company?"

If that gets a bad response, move on to the next company - if they don't have enough patience to tell you who they resell for in pre-sales then I wouldn't want to hear about their support in post-sales....

You can trace there network, DC, IP's, Namerserver
Best is to trace nameservers.
http://visualroute.visualware.com/

So if I did a tracert and I see the networks listed Verio, Inc., Performance Systems, Cognet Communications, Wholesale Bandwith and Acecolo communications and the host company IP was found in 15 hops would that be good results? A part from asking how does a tracert really proove they resell? I'm familiar with Cognet and Verio as BW providers but not sure of the others. I looked up http://www.wholesalebandwidth.com and they seem to be another BW provider.

Great link BTW jolly!

take a look at the last hop or two of the traceroutes. Chances are they won't resolve to an IP - this is on purpose... Do a whois -h whois.arin.net to see who owns those ip addresses (assuming their registered through arin, thus in North America... at a unix shell just "whois <ipaddr>" will find the right server for you, <ipaddr> could also be any domain name. Also nslookup the web host and do a whois on those IP addresses....

Note that this will give you an upstream provider - its your own judgement by visiting that upstream provider to find out if they are reselling or colocating or buying dedicated servers.... Its also possible that those IPs are directly assigned to them, which almost certainly means colocating somewhere (its VERY rare that a host runs its own data center... anyone claiming to is likely lieing or really big - in the latter case you would see them from doing a search here and find quite a few threads on them. In the former you may also find threads.. though probably bad ones (always a good idea to look for threads from the host in question anyway.)

Most providers will say "servers located in xxx datacenter" or "connected to the network at xxx" or just say "connected to a network connected to xxx and xxx and xxx and xxx and xxx providers"... read carefully.

On our site we list both data centers we have equipment in, and we list (somewhere in news) where we will be expanding future equipment into (here in Montreal to better service the local / Canadian market as a whole.) We are clear that we colocate, and with whom. Other providers aren't so clear, and yet others will list "we rent 3 dedicated rs boxes with the following stats: ..."

I still think outright asking is also a good way to go. I mean, afterall, their response says a lot more about them and the way they act, and how you will get along with them. Do you want fun, or professional? Or a mix? You have to talk to the host and get some communication going - in my opinion better two-way communication all on its own would resolve about 50% of the problems in the industry today.

Why would you want to find out who they are reselling from? Unless you're doing some kind of "investigation", it shouldn't be necessary.

If you don't want to be hosted by a reseller, I'd move on to another host then. :)

You can read the terms of service. They will say who is not responsible for liabilities etc.

Originally posted by TheTech
Why would you want to find out who they are reselling from? Unless you're doing some kind of "investigation", it shouldn't be necessary.

Some resellers have crappy hosts :(

Also, if you ask them outright and they tell you they buy dedicated or colo, then upon some investigation you find out they are actually resellers, it will speak volumes about the integrity of the company :)

Every one let me know how to check www.salanhost.com use the dedicated server ? I want to show for my clients

Thanks in advanced