Need reliable hosting

neurophyre · #1 10-07-2006, 06:48 AM

I'm currently with Dreamhost but they're stepping on my last nerve at this point what with the constant flakiness and musical chairs of what can go wrong next. I've started the long process of researching another host so I can move if they don't get their act together. (I must say, Dreamhost was largely good before Spring 2006. I came from Pair, which in terms of reliability was far better, but simply too expensive.)

Must have:

Linux or FreeBSD
PHP 5/MySQL 4
shell and cron, and not in a crappy chroot jail. (Good chroot jails, VPS, etc. acceptable)
IMAP and webmail
GOOD UPTIME
3GB disk bare minimum, 5GB+ preferred
50GB transfer minimum
10 domains minimum
unlimited subdomains
99.9% uptime which is backed by actual uptime, not by service credits for downtime
known to work with MediaWiki and Wordpress

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Nice to have:

Ability to create OUTBOUND sockets with PHP. I'm amazed by the number of sales reps who think this means I want to open up ports. No. I want to open an outbound UDP socket and send a packet every so often from MediaWiki.
PostgreSQL
Subversion
Shared SSL
A referral program with kickbacks like Dreamhost's

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I was looking at LunarPages and HostGator, but neither of them offer shell. The hell with that.

Any suggestions for a relatively well-known and established host would be appreciated. I have zero desire to sign onto an oversold server running loads of 10+ from some dude's garage, etc.

Jedito · #2 10-07-2006, 08:59 AM

What's your budget?

jhadley · #3 10-07-2006, 10:13 AM

What do you mean by 'good chroot jail' ?

E.Emile · #4 10-07-2006, 10:52 AM

many hostings offer shell

neurophyre · #5 10-07-2006, 02:47 PM

Quote:

What do you mean by 'good chroot jail' ?

Heh, yeah. I've never encountered one, but if I did it would have ALL common Unix commands and utilities available, not just a tiny subset. It would have man pages and ideally compilers and things. (A chroot jail is where it looks like you have a server, generally stripped WAY down, all to yourself. Common with certain types of panel installations.)

As for my budget, I've currently got the $20/mo plan at Dreamhost. Feel free to suggest higher or lower and I'll sort out what'll work for me!

jhadley · #6 10-07-2006, 07:05 PM

Jailed shell is used to stop people abusing the server, if you want more than this you essentially need root access which means VPS or dedi.

To have that + all the other stuff you wanted will probably cost in the range of $30-$50 per month for a VPS, but if you didn't need this you could save yourself about $20/Mo and get a good shared plan. Expect to pay $10/Mo MINIMUM for what you asked.

Check the offers section for shared and VPS hosts.
Also check people signatures
DownTownHost and FutureHosting are good.

neurophyre · #7 10-08-2006, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VT6

Jailed shell is used to stop people abusing the server, if you want more than this you essentially need root access which means VPS or dedi.

I don't need root access, just a shell that isn't too stripped down. Dreamhost offers this, in fact Dreamhost has everything I want except the reliability. Thanks for the pointers to the other two hosts.