Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Reseller Hosting : How did you start your own hosting company?

[Andrew Chen]

Hi people,

Hmm. May I know how did you people start your own hosting company? I mean, what made you to start your own hosting company?

Hope you people can share your experience with me!

[akashik]

As a hosting 'newbie' maybe I have something relevant for you. akashik.net has been a webdesign group since around '96. Once things got serious, and clients wanted more than static sites, it became necessary to advise them to move off the small hosts they were on (small meaning no CGI access, upgrade options etc). This often meant searching for viable hosts alternatives, that were going to offer equal uptime and speed to where they were happily at the time. You can imagine what would happen if we advised a move to another host only to see it go under 3 weeks later, or proved to be as slow as all hell.

A combination of thinking things would go a lot better if we hosted them, as well as being able to offer hosting as a product to improve the overall quality of service has led akashik.net here. It's not online yet as there's still a lot of research to be done (looking at selective advertising, company image, support options etc), but things are looking good. There's a master account we can add domains too already while other things get planned, and the original site is still operational. We can also expand our base of operations through other side project domains, at 'half-price' monthly fees, funneling back to the reseller domain for hosting options.

Also, and somewhat above all, I know my upstream provider right back to the NOC now, and feel far more confident in supplying space for clients, rather than the hit/miss of suggesting 'supposed' top 10 hosts (which are a crock!).

Short answer = we resell to improve our other operations, with an aim to eventually move into hosting as a primary path.

Oh yeah, and it's cool! *lol*

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

[CRego3D]

Like akashik we too were a web development company since 95/96, after a couple of years some customers just started to ask for full packages (hosting + design) so we would desing it, and host it with other companies, then the problems started (poor customer support, server problems, etc), all stuff we could not just go in and fix it, so hosting just seemed the next logical step.

And ..... it is "COOOOOOOOL"

[MikeA]

Sit back, I'll try to make this brief.

I used to be a web developer (in 98) for Landmark Publishing (they own several newspapers around the country). I quite workin for them and an old friend asked if I could do work on the side, by registering domains with search Engines. I talked to my then girlfriend Angela and we decided to start WebAuthorities and do these registrations.

Then in November of that same year, we put our website (a very cheesy website) online with FutureQuest. By January of 1999 we had 4 hosting clients and we hadn't really done anything except submit to the major search engines. Soon we realized that there were more people wanting hosting than wanting SE registrations, so we concentrated on hosting and development.

Originally we did this as a hobby, like I've told others, to buy neat toys like a photocopier, laptop, new PC, etc. After switching from FutureQuest due to a price increase and jumping by another host (host-all) who gave crappy service, we hit sitehost4u.com. After a while, there service began to suck, so by the end of July of 1999 we had enough clients to get our first server, a RaQ with Rackspace.

Then disaster struck and in February of 2000 our RaQ was hacked and we lost all of the configuration files. Well as anyone with a RaQ can tell you, it's a pain to reset up everything and there is no real backup method. So 4 days later we were back online. Then in March or April, we decided to leave Rackspace and go with Alabanza and have been there ever since.

When we started we had just webauthorities.com, now we have over 5 sites to include the new resellerinfo.com site. We have dropped development and concetrated on hosting and our newest baby, dedicated servers.

[CRego3D]

Wow Mike, I take my hat to you, all I remember since I started hosting is this ..... fog .... people screaming "Help, I just deletet my entir.....", or "Can you teach me HTML plea...se ?" and also "Hey I've been with you for 3 months now .. can I get a ... discount ?" ..... HAAARGH

[akashik]

Originally posted by CRego3D
"Hey I've been with you for 3 months now .. can I get a ... discount ?" ..... HAAARGH

*lmao* now THAT'S funny

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net

[kunal]

ehehee... thats was really funny!!

[MikeA]

Originally posted by CRego3D
"Hey I've been with you for 3 months now .. can I get a ... discount ?" ..... HAAARGH

We've heard that one too.

[Félix C.Courtemanche]

Mike... were you offering telnet access from your raq?

And our own business started... hmmm

I was contacted by out actual Admin, wich was starting the business alone.

I joined him (I am a web designer / programmer / system admin / multimedia creator) and hoped it would do well... So far so good, we went through all possible or impossible server bugs. We are now developping our own server brand, Web control panel and DNS control panel, planning our own NOC (hehe I even did a 3d render with the possible configuration) and so on.

Basically start small and grow slowly unless you want to make another TH.

Concentrate on your strengts, work on your weekness. Any tips regarding any new companies applies to this type as well.

[Edited by Félix C.Courtemanche on 09-19-2000 at 03:29 PM]

[MikeA]

Yep, Telnet and Anon. FTP. Two big no-no's.

[Félix C.Courtemanche]

you learnt the lesson the hard way
Last week, I found out that someone that gained a shell access while doing my daily monitoring on one of the raq I administer (cobalt sometime allows it for no reasons)... just for fun, I decided to use his account to retrieve Root password. It took me... 2 minutes.

Ouch.
RAQ are definately not configured to be telnet boxes... as are most of the web servers out there. Unless restricted heavily with chroot or using a VPS, it is generally a bad idea.

Now, try to have a client understand that

Even more, mod_perl on apache running cgi scripts under the nobody, httpd or web user have a wide access as well... they could eventually get someone else's DB pass and screw around.

Now, security is feasible, but most sysadmin are too lazy.

[Edited by Félix C.Courtemanche on 09-19-2000 at 03:27 PM]

[TheWingThing]

Felix,
If I use telnet over SSH and disable anon-FTP, are there still easy security holes on a RaQ? And how shall I fix the mod_perl security risk?

BTW, I was talking to my friend at his stall in a computer fair and there was this guy who wanted to buy a new computer and asked my friend to copy the Internet on his computer for him. He also wanted to know if he can 'store' the Internet on his floppy disks. And my friend is a web developer. AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

So if you wanna start yor own web hosting company, you gotta be really really really really really really really really really really really really patient.

TheWingThing.

[BC]

TWT, we all love newbie stories like that. Annette's 'off-sider' site is all about those stories and is updated on an irregular basis (when Annette can bear to tear herself away from HostMatters for around 5 mins ) - check out http://www.technogirl.net

You'll be there for yonks

[Félix C.Courtemanche]

Originally posted by TheWingThing
If I use telnet over SSH and disable anon-FTP, are there still easy security holes on a RaQ? And how shall I fix the mod_perl security risk?

The problem with Telnet or SSH isnt the protocole itself (although SSH is MUCH beter than Telnet) but that inside the server, there are no real limitation. Anyone can read any public files that apache would execute. For example, if you have a cgi script containing your username and password toy our preferred Database, someone with SSH or Telnet could read it with no problems at all. This can also create copyright problems since anyone can steal anyone's raw work.

The mod_perl issue I mentionned is not related to the RAQs. In fact, despite the slowness of cgis, cobalta at least managed to make them quite safe... More than shell access anyway.

I hope this clears things a bit