Re: Web servers with cable DSL
I actually do this, I run a family web site and a club web site, but I have a couple of special things with my DSL. My provider, Speakeasy.org, explicitely states that it is ok to run your own web services, ie you paid for the bandwith (going both ways!!) so use it as you please. If you greatly abuse it, they may have an issue tho. I also have a particular package which provides reasonable upload capability (600 kB upstream/1.5 mB down w/2 static ip addresses), which makes it so a page doesn't take forever to load. btw, I chose this provider for those very reasons, as I didn't want to do it offline. Dave Gomez On Mar 16, 2004, at 11:13 AM, Bill Stephenson wrote: I was wondering if anyone here is using a MacOS X box with a fixed IP cable DSL account as a commercial grade web server? Is this a reasonable alternative to using a hosting company like Verio? I could sure save some cash by switching to this set-up but I have concerns about performance and reliability. Will DSL provide enough bandwidth to 2-5000 visitors a day for web sites that serve standard HTML and web graphics? (ie. no broadband media like video, mp3, or other streaming media formats) Any help and advice will be much appreciated. Bill Stephenson
[OT] Re: Web servers with cable DSL
On 2004/03/17, at 11:29, Bill Stephenson wrote: Well, I think that Kevin (morbus) really did a good job of pointing out why I can't entirely do this yet. Some of the sites I host are critical to the businesses that use them and Verio has always provided a great service. Because they host on FreeBSD, developing on the Mac and porting to Verio is almost seamless even though Verio has never done anything special to accommodate this. However, the fact that so many on this list are hosting sites with cable DSL indicates that I can possibly move some of the sites I host to a home office based server and still save a little money. I'll spend some time reviewing the sites and costs and see how the numbers crunch. (I noticed with a certain amount of surprise that Verio seems to have merged with NTT Communications, which is not Nippon Telephone and Telegraph, but used to be a daughter company of the Japanese national telco before Japan decided to pursue the competition path like the US has.) I was surprised recently to notice that my local telco is now offering a really stripped-down 256K line with no-frills (no mail, no web space) ISP for about $22 a month, and static IP addresses for fairly reasonable. What about using http://directv.direcway.com/ to host servers? Anyone doing that? Says you need a clear southern exposure. I'd wonder about trees and cloudy days, too. And I didn't see anything about the download/upload differential, but my memory is its about the same as cable.
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
Bill Stephenson wrote: Well, I think that Kevin (morbus) really did a good job of pointing out why I can't entirely do this yet. Some of the sites I host are critical to the businesses that use them and Verio has always provided a great service. Because they host on FreeBSD, developing on the Mac and porting to Verio is almost seamless even though Verio has never done anything special to accommodate this. However, the fact that so many on this list are hosting sites with cable DSL indicates that I can possibly move some of the sites I host to a home office based server and still save a little money. I'll spend some time reviewing the sites and costs and see how the numbers crunch. What about using http://directv.direcway.com/ to host servers? Anyone doing that? Just my $.02, I host development at home over DSL and it is sufficient for development purposes. But have found hosting cheap enough for the features I must have to warrant it, and I don't have to worry about power failures (long ones), backups (as many), support, etc. Direcway is rumored to have incredible upward latency I would think hosting would be the last thing (next to hosting games) that you would want to do over their service. There was a fair amount of discussion of it on a /. story sometime in the last couple months. Using dyndns, hosting on linux over ameritech DSL. http://danconia.org
Web servers with cable DSL
I was wondering if anyone here is using a MacOS X box with a fixed IP cable DSL account as a commercial grade web server? Is this a reasonable alternative to using a hosting company like Verio? I could sure save some cash by switching to this set-up but I have concerns about performance and reliability. Will DSL provide enough bandwidth to 2-5000 visitors a day for web sites that serve standard HTML and web graphics? (ie. no broadband media like video, mp3, or other streaming media formats) Any help and advice will be much appreciated. Bill Stephenson
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
On 2004/03/16, at 11:13, Bill Stephenson wrote: I was wondering if anyone here is using a MacOS X box with a fixed IP cable DSL account Cable with fixed IP? Does it exist? My current US Cable provider told me I could do static IP if I put my own router between the cable modem and my internal network, but the sales rep was apparently talking about the internal-only ranges. Their license proscribes published static IP. For similar pricing, I could have got full support for published static IP through phone company (A)DSL. In Japan, I have ADSL (1M) broadband over telephone, renting a full configurable modem/router, for just under half of what the stateside cable company is asking for a similar setup. as a commercial grade web server? Don't know, but, if you really can get your cable company to let you use fixed IP, such a setup should be about as good as a similarly outfitted Linux or FreeBSD system. Well, plus or minus a bit, depending on what server software and modules you're using, of course. If you go ADSL, your visitors' download rate is limited by your upload rate, of course. Is this a reasonable alternative to using a hosting company like Verio? I haven't tried it yet, I'm kind of planning on something like this working for me. I have heard some success stories with openBSD, but I haven't been hanging around where I'd hear about such things on Mac OS X. I could sure save some cash by switching to this set-up but I have concerns about performance and reliability. So does your ISP, of course. That's why they want to sell you something quite a bit more expensive, instead. Will DSL provide enough bandwidth to 2-5000 visitors a day for web sites that serve standard HTML and web graphics? (ie. no broadband media like video, mp3, or other streaming media formats) When's rush hour? Any help and advice will be much appreciated. I'd like to hear someone else's experience, too. (Before I try it myself, I mean. First, I'm going to try dynamic DNS, I think.) Joel
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
I was wondering if anyone here is using a MacOS X box with a fixed IP cable DSL account as a commercial grade web server? Is this a reasonable alternative to using a hosting company like Verio? This... this is a touchy subject, I think. I have my own feelings about it, and they may not be typical. Certainly take them with a grain of salt - I work at an ISP, and my opinions may be heavily deluded with you need more than consumer access. My opinion is thusly: * you can do it, yes, but I wouldn't. There are a few factors, really: * your dsl/cable provider may restrict you from doing so, both from the filtering of web traffic, from the restriction of their AUP, or just generically, DSL leases, equipment renumbering, and a dynamic static IP (where it's static for as long as they want it to be, but they've got no contract to continue providing you the same number). * the reason the Slashdot effect exists ISN'T because servers are old, or because of the mindless hordes, it is solely because a) pages contain a lot of data, or b) you run out of traffic. I've survived seven Slashdot effects on a meagre T1 and smart layout/design of pages. I doubt you'd be able to do the same on a dsl/cable equivalent. * you're not just web serving. you'd also have to find someone to wear the security princess hat (ie., you're putting your own box on your the web full time - who's handling security? who's running checks and balances? how many personal files are left on the machine? what happens when it goes down? what's your backup strategy?), as well as someone who is going to host your zone record. and, what about mail for the domain? are you sure you're just doing webhosting, or are you up for doing DNS and email as additional supplements? what about FTP/SSH services? * as a corollary to the above, are you going to handle the above on a full-time basis? I feel like everyday, at the ISP, I'm running around internet-cop'ing someone else's moron that thinks they can run their own servers off their MSCE and RHCE certificates. does your dsl and cable provider give you proper reverse DNS? * are you providing hosting on your box besides your own? I work at a web host/ISP. I have DSL (much to my chagrin). I write about Apache and OS X professionally. I don't think I'd run anything serious off my box (anything besides fileshare networks, interim FTP servers for massive file uploads, or port 'd web servers for demonstrative testing). It just feels *wrong* and *cheap* - I can recall too many stories of people advertising webhosting off their DSL accounts, and then pages coming to an absolute crawl during peak periods, bad weather, admin idiocy, or what have you. Please don't make the web a world of Geocities. -- Morbus Iff ( i put the demon back in codemonkey ) Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/ Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom icq: 2927491 / aim: akaMorbus / yahoo: morbus_iff / jabber.org: morbus
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, Bill Stephenson wrote: I was wondering if anyone here is using a MacOS X box with a fixed IP cable DSL account as a commercial grade web server? Is this a reasonable alternative to using a hosting company like Verio? I dunno about the commercial bit, but my personal website, such as it is, uses that setup: Apache running on an OSX box connecting to the 'net with aDSL, using dyndns.org to do the name service, so that even if my IP address changes, my server can still be found. There are two main annoying bits I can think of: * my ISP blocks port 80, so I have to have Apache listen on an alternate port instead. I've been doing this for about two years, and they don't seem to mind (the traffic I get is minimal), but it would be nicer if there were no ISP-blocked ports to begin with * the a[synchronous] part in aDSL is significant: I get about 1/4 as much upstream bandwidth as downstream, and this is a real bottleneck for trying to publish anything from home. (On the other hand, it seems to mean that even if I've got a steady stream of incoming traffic, it's usually not bad to get back out...) For my needs, it's okay. For running a n-000's of visitors a day site, it might be tight. Moreover, for running that much traffic, a lot of consumer residential ISPs might balk complain that you should upgrade to one of their business accounts. Also, if I misconfigure something and my site is down for a week, I don't really care. This may or may not be true for you. If you want better reliability, then letting some co-lo facility do things for you may possibly be more trustworthy than rolling your own service at home. But for my needs -- which are much different from yours, admittedly -- the setup you're asking about works pretty well. -- Chris Devers
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
* my ISP blocks port 80, so I have to have Apache listen on an alternate port instead. I've been doing this for about two years, and they don't seem to mind (the traffic I get is minimal), but it would be nicer if there were no ISP-blocked ports to begin with And then you get into the whole evil backlash issue - most AUP's (including my DSL provider, Verizon) include verbiage that says just because we didn't tell you to knock it off, doesn't mean we allow it - the very fact that they block port 80 is an admission that they don't want you to run a webserver. If someone decides they're having a bad day, they can yank your access out from under you, close your account, and your website, including your generic connectivity, is gone. That's not so bad for a personal website, but I'd be pretty upset if it were my business or something community-helpful. In your case, I don't think it's an issue of they don't mind, but more of they don't know - if you are getting minimal traffic, it'd be very hard for me to detect that without a concerted effort, proportional to red tape and customer count. -- Morbus Iff ( i put the demon back in codemonkey ) Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/ Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom icq: 2927491 / aim: akaMorbus / yahoo: morbus_iff / jabber.org: morbus
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, Morbus Iff wrote:
Please don't make the web a world of Geocities.
On the other hand, it has always kind of bugged me that having a fully
functional web server out of the box isn't seen as a normal part of having
interenet access, or more simply, a network connection.
I really like how, on a network full of Mac where people have web sharing
turned on, if you go into the Rendezvous link in Safari, you get to see
all your neighbor's home pages. Even if most of them are just the default
Welcome to your new web site! page, the fact that there's anything at
all there is nice to me. Once people get used to the idea, there's no
reason why these people wouldn't start sharing information this way.
Why isn't it like this with cable or DSL? Wouldn't it be nice if, with
your five free email addresses, every subscriber got access to a domain
name like ${account}.home.${isp}.net, on which they could put up their
pictures of the cat or the newborn or the honeymoon in Paris that no one
but their friends family would care about? I think so.
You're right that things like backup security are real problems, and I
suppose an environment like the one I'm picturing would be vulnerable to
web server worms in the same way that unpatched Outlook clients allow for
all the mail worms we se all the time. But I'm sure it can be done Right.
Oh well. That Internet died a long time ago, didn't it?
Tim Berners-Lee must be disappointed, at least on some level...
--
Chris Devers
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
On Tue, Mar 16, 2004 at 02:17:02PM -0500, Morbus Iff wrote: And then you get into the whole evil backlash issue - most AUP's (including my DSL provider, Verizon) include verbiage that says just because we didn't tell you to knock it off, doesn't mean we allow it - the very fact that they block port 80 is an admission that they don't want you to run a webserver. When I was looking for cable and DSL, I took a look at Verizon's advertising on their web site. At the time, it had a FAQ section that asked if users could run services on their machines and answered that they recommended that only users knowledgable about cryptrographically secure software attempt to run services. Part of my decision to choose Verizon was based on that response, and then I have proceeded to very rarely run any kind of server at all. (for the same sort of reasons you mentioned earlier. Servers on the internet need to be competently administered. I know I'm capable of doing the job, but I also know that I do not have the time to do the job properly.) Of course, marketing blurbs from three years ago have much less validity than AUPs.
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
Please don't make the web a world of Geocities. On the other hand, it has always kind of bugged me that having a fully functional web server out of the box isn't seen as a normal part of having interenet access, or more simply, a network connection. Well, now, hold on, that's a whole different story. I can run a phone sex line off of the single phone line I get my from my telco. I can also sell cookies on the corner whenever I want. Web serving does come outta the box on OS X, and that's a *great* thing, but the ease of which it comes shouldn't be construed as I am now a system administrator. *That* mentality creates a world of Geocities, and *that*'s what I was referring to. I'm *all* for technology for the end-masses. I'm *all* for ownership of guns. Both will allow you to shoot yourself in the foot, and they can both be used to harm *my* use of the same resources. Thus the need for the men in blue, or the geeks in grey. -- Morbus Iff ( i put the demon back in codemonkey ) Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/ Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom icq: 2927491 / aim: akaMorbus / yahoo: morbus_iff / jabber.org: morbus
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
When I was looking for cable and DSL, I took a look at Verizon's advertising on their web site. At the time, it had a FAQ section that asked if users could run services on their machines and answered that they recommended that only users knowledgable about cryptrographically secure software attempt to run services. Yeah, I couldn't find that when I did a search about three weeks ago. I did have a chuckle over their AUP though: they've got stuff in there about chatroom scrolling, about posting *off-topic* on Usenet groups, and similar insanities. Talk about covering all their bases, but how in lord's name would they ever police that? Was last-week's Randal parade policable? What if some of my messages were sent from work, and some from home? What if I used my own mail server, and not theirs? Blah, blah, blah. -- Morbus Iff ( i put the demon back in codemonkey ) Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/ Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom icq: 2927491 / aim: akaMorbus / yahoo: morbus_iff / jabber.org: morbus
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
Interesting thread. Any advice for those of us lucky enough to be at a university, with few rules and plenty of bandwidth for noncommercial web hosting? In particular, how much do I need to know about security in order to run a server with CGI scripts from my office OSX box? Dan Schroeder Weber State University
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
Interesting thread. Any advice for those of us lucky enough to be at a university, with few rules and plenty of bandwidth for noncommercial web hosting? In particular, how much do I need to know about security in order to run a server with CGI scripts from my office OSX box? Enough to be able to: * google for $scriptName before running any CGI. * bugtraq for $scriptName before running any CGI. * check $scriptNameOwner availability: has their site been updated recently? are they known (which can be good or bad, depending on how busy their knownness makes them)? what do other users say about the script in self-help forums? * don't trust any CGI you haven't personally written. * trust even *less* any CGI you've personally written. * figure out how to enable suEXEC (last I knew, not easy on OS X). * open up a CGI script and take a look for known warning signs: no warnings, no strict, improper use of open(), backticks, system/exec, reinvention of CGI.pm, etc.. Likewise, look for happiness signs: taint mode, internally documented code, reliance on well-known modules, strict, warnings, logging, etc. Your biggest realization needs to be that CGI scripts run code. Code can do anything to your computer - it can delete files, format drives, serve up password or protected files, etc., etc. Now, imagine the ability to run code, good or bad, given to anonymous visitors when you're awake, sleeping, or shagging your wife. Don't be interrupted in the midst of sex: be sure to have a decent grounding in coding securely, or at the very least, segregating untrusted scripts in protected environments (ala suEXEC, which forces scripts to run with a specific username/group, as opposed to that of the webserver). -- Morbus Iff ( i put the demon back in codemonkey ) Culture: http://www.disobey.com/ and http://www.gamegrene.com/ Spidering Hacks: http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596005776/disobeycom icq: 2927491 / aim: akaMorbus / yahoo: morbus_iff / jabber.org: morbus
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
Morbus Iff wrote: I was wondering if anyone here is using a MacOS X box with a fixed IP cable DSL account as a commercial grade web server? Is this a reasonable alternative to using a hosting company like Verio? Define commercial grade. This... this is a touchy subject, I think. I have my own feelings about it, and they may not be typical. Certainly take them with a grain of salt - I work at an ISP, and my opinions may be heavily deluded with you need more than consumer access. I can understand everything you said even if I don't agree - and I have a similar background. My opinion is thusly: * you can do it, yes, but I wouldn't. I've done it for the past four years on my home DSL, hosting both for myself, as well as for other people including some people running business web sites. There are a few factors, really: * your dsl/cable provider may restrict you from doing so, both from the filtering of web traffic, from the restriction of their AUP, or just generically, DSL leases, equipment renumbering, and a dynamic static IP (where it's static for as long as they want it to be, but they've got no contract to continue providing you the same number). Depends on your contract with the ISP. I have a handful of static publicly routeable addresses, and there is no filtering at all on their part. * you're not just web serving. you'd also have to find someone to wear the security princess hat (ie., you're putting your own box on your the web full time - who's handling security? I do. There have been no incidents that I am aware of. how many personal files are left on the machine? Several (all my mail to start with) what happens when it goes down? It stays down until I fix it. This is not a problem, my users know what the score is and if they complain I can delete their accounts so that my terrible service is no longer a problem for them. I have only had to do that once. So far the longest period of downtime was three days, and I am up over 99% of the time *including* planned maintenance. This is better than some commercial hosting outfits I have had the displeasure of dealing with. what's your backup strategy? rsync to another machine daily, CD backups whenever I feel it's necessary. If I lose all the backups at once I've got more important things to worry about, like my home being reduced to a pile of ash. as well as someone who is going to host your zone record. My ISP and, what about mail for the domain? What about it? Running a mail sewer is easy. The *only* reason that I am now in the process of kicking all the other users off the box and moving my own stuff to a hosted machine is because it's cheaper to buy bandwidth for my content that way than to get fatter DSL. -- Lord Protector David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david Educating this luser would be something to frustrate even the unflappable Yoda and make him jam a lightsaber up his arse while screaming praise evil, the Dark Side is your friend!. -- Derek Balling, in the Monastery
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
On 2004/03/16, at 12:29, Chris Devers wrote: On Tue, 16 Mar 2004, Morbus Iff wrote: Please don't make the web a world of Geocities. On the other hand, it has always kind of bugged me that having a fully functional web server out of the box isn't seen as a normal part of having interenet access, or more simply, a network connection. One day, when Microsoft quits sucking the money and bandwidth out of the internet, phone service will come with hosted web sites, with the option of hosting our own, in much the same way that we currently have answering services and answering machines. I guess that 'll make it a sort of world of geocities minus the ads, lusers, l33tz, and exploits. And google will run the yellow pages. WIBG
Re: Web servers with cable DSL
At 20:23 -0700 3/16/04, Joel Rees wrote: I guess that 'll make it a sort of world of geocities minus the ads, lusers, l33tz, and exploits. And google will run the yellow pages. http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/belllabs.html We, in the USA, once had the best in the whole world. -- -- The corporate income tax is a sales tax collected, on behalf of the government, through price increases. It is paid in the end by consumers of the products. --
