Programming is passion made real
I’ve finally moved the site to a new server. My new host is a 1 gig slice at SliceHost, which will be hosting all my sites (yes, I really need a 1 gig slice) from now on.
One of my big goals was to completely drop Apache. I just don’t like that server. Ugly to configure, huge, slow & bloated. I much prefer Lighttpd for my Django & Satchmo projects, but I hadn’t ever tried using it for PHP. Today I bit the bullet and started the transition.
At the request of people on the satchmo-users mailing list, here’s my step-by-step guide to installing Satchmo on a Debian server.
Debian is a wonderful base for Satchmo, much easier to set up and maintain than RedHat in my opinion. The magic is in the “apt” packaging system, it simply eliminates most of the ugly tracking-down of the right versions of software and their dependencies.
This is a step-by-step, not a full discussion. To read more about “why”, please see the excellent article Creating my Dream Server for Django, which I heavily borrowed from.
I use and prefer Lighttpd for serving my Django applications. Tonight I worked out a nearly perfect configuration which allows me to serve the app through fastcgi in both http, and SSL-enabled https. The media files are directly served by Lighty, without hitting the django backend at all, for maximum speed.
Better yet, this configuration allows me to directly serve the media files through ssl without having to get a separate certificate for the web server. Lastly, it serves both “www” and “non-www” versions of the domain, automatically redirecting “www” traffic.
On my new dedicated server, I’ve been getting reports of mail bounces. Looking more closely at them, I found they said “451: Deferred sender callout cannot be verified.”
This is the result of an anti-spam measure that Cpanel enables by default for Exim. It took a while, but I finally found the well-written discussion and fix on Michael Brandonisio’s blog.
Basically, you simply add a white-list to exim for people who have misbehaving ISPs. The problem is really on their side, but telling them to fix their mailservers just doesn’t seem to work very well.
[tags]exim,cpanel[/tags]
Working on a new project for a client, I need to run Django/Satchmo. At my advice, the client purchased a VPS from LiquidWeb to run it on.
The problem is that I want to run with Python 2.5 instead of 2.4, and I don’t want to use Apache 1.3. Unfortunately, that’s what comes stock with CPanel. So, I came up with a decent workaround that I haven’t seen documented anywhere else.
What I did was to set up Lighhtpd on one of the other IPs provided with the account, and I simply use my custom-compiled Python with that.
As a last minute opportunity, I’m going to attend HostingCon 2006. My boss can’t make it, so I’ll attend in his place.
This is a nice opportunity, since it will be the first time I’ve ever attended a conference with the explicit instruction to “make contacts and develop relationships with __________ vendors.” I’ve never even attended a con where people were particularly interested in me or my business, but this time I’ll be the representative of a large hosting provider.
I don’t gamble or drink, so I always feel a bit out of place in Las Vegas, but the place still fascinates me with its huge money, superficiality, growth, excess, and runaway success. I’ll have a good time.
[tags]Las Vegas, Hostingcon, conventions[/tags]
This is just a quick post to confirm that Django does indeed work perfectly on Rimuhosting with very little effort required to set up. It is fast, it connected to my Mysql db without a peep of a complaint, and it is making me a happy developer.
I’m using Rimu’s “MiroVPS3″ plan. It is $39 a month, less 10% for being an open-source developer. It provides 4G hard drive space, 60G bandwidth (in and out combined), and 160 MB ram.
I’m running the following “stack”:
It is a very responsive environment. I can hardly wait to deploy some real apps on it very soon.
[tags]django,rimuhosting,debian,vps setup,python webhosting[/tags]
Argh! I simply cannot get Django to work on Dreamhost. I hereby eat my words.
I’m really not worried about it, to be honest.
I tried for hours, and the best I got was extremely spotty results. Even the simple “hello.fcgi” directly copied from the Dreamhost Wiki only works about 30% of the time. This is not acceptable at all for a business site, obviously.
I’m not irritated, since they directly say that Django is not reliable on Dreamhost, but it is unfortunate. Instead I’m going to move up to a VPS system. On the Django mailing list, that’s the suggested arrangement, plus I really miss having root powers on “my box”, like I do at work.
If it goes well, as I am sure it will, I’m considering offering developer/starter Django accounts through my VPS as a reseller. I think I could provide that for about $10 a month. It would be very useful for others in my situation.
[tags]VPS,Dreamhost,Django[/tags]
I’m decided to use Rimuhosting as my new VPS provider. In my last post, I gave a comparison table for the VPS providers that made my short list.
I really spent a long while reading and researching my choices. Please keep in mind that my priorities are almost certainly not yours. For me, Rimuhosting was definitely the best choice. Let me explain my thinking:
First, I made a “gut-level” cut.
No-Go:Anything with less than 148 megs of ram, which had (in my very subjective opinion) a lesser rep, or which had a lame website. Out: Powervps level 0 (memory), VPSLand (spotty rep), XELHosting (clueless, uniformative website), Jaguar Discovery (memory), Liquidweb (Price), Solarweb (memory, rep)
Next: I assigned points based on features.
Scores:
[tags]VPS,Reviews,Rimuhosting,JaguarPC,A2B2,PowerVPS,HosteEasier,DEHE,ServInt[/tags]
I spent hours and hours yesterday deciding on a VPS solution for my new store. Dreamhost is OK for blogs, but it just isn’t going to cut it for a business site.
I don’t need a dedicated server though. They are expensive, and complete overkill for a startup store. I’ve decided to go with a VPS, the sort-of-new bridge between shared hosting and dedicated servers.
What you get is a “virtual” server. Which is best thought of as a slice of a full server, which looks and acts like a server when you are administrating it. You have full root access, can compile and change settings as you please. It is an incredible step up from shared hosting, which you can only “trick” so far before you run into a hard wall of accessibility.
Choosing a VPS is difficult. There are a huge number of variables, such as bandwidth, disc space, operating system, reputation, uptime, price, backup solutions, level of assistance from the hosting provider, and reputation. Here’s my short list:
| Selecting a VPS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Provider | ServInt | PowerVPS | PowerVPS |
| Plan Name | Essential | Linux Webmin Power 0 | Linux DA-1 |
| Price | $49.00 | $24.95 | $44.50 |
| Setup | $0.00 | ||
| Rep | Great | Great | Great |
| OS | RH | Fedora Core 2 | Fedora Core 2 |
| VPS | Virtuozzo | Virtuozzo | Virtuozzo |
| Mem – min | 256 | 128 | 256 |
| Mem – max | 1024 | 256 | 1024 |
| Space | 10 | 5 | 10 |
| Bandwidth | 200 | 100 | 150 |
| Ips | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Panel | Plesk/cPanel | Webmin | DirectAdmin |
| Managed? | Yes – full | ||
| Backups? | Yes – full | Yes | Yes |
| Extra | Great server specs | Clientexec | Clientexec |
| Provider | VPSLand | XELHosting | Hosteasier |
| Plan Name | XL-192 | Plna 2 | VPS-1 |
| Price | $21.99 | $26.00 | $35.00 |
| Setup | $0.00 | $0.00 | |
| Rep | Spotty | 1 recc | |
| OS | Debian, Choice | Debian, choice | |
| VPS | Xen | Xen | |
| Mem – min | 192 | 256 | 256 |
| Mem – max | 768 | 8192 | |
| Space | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Bandwidth | 200 | 100 | 200 |
| Ips | 1 | 3 | |
| Panel | +$6 DA | +$5 DA | |
| Managed? | |||
| Backups? | Yes | ||
| Extra | Firewall | Site not informative enough | |
| Provider | DEHE | Rimuhosting | Rimuhosting |
| Plan Name | Starter | MIROVPS2 | MIROVPS3 |
| Price | $39.00 | $29.00 | $39.00 |
| Setup | 0 | ||
| Rep | Good | Good | |
| OS | Debian, choice | Debian, choice | |
| VPS | Xen | Xen | |
| Mem – min | 256 | 128 | 160 |
| Mem – max | 1024 | ||
| Space | 10 | 4 to 8 | 4 to 8 |
| Bandwidth | 200 | 40 | 60 |
| Ips | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Panel | +$5 plesk | Plesk with +$10 upgrade to VPS3 | Optional Plesk |
| Managed? | Yes – full | Yes | Yes |
| Backups? | Yes – nightly | Yes | Yes |
| Extra | Free dynamic dns to subdomain a home system, advertises Django capability | ||
| Provider | JaguarPC | JaguarPC | LiquidWeb |
| Plan Name | Discovery | Freedom | VPS 1 |
| Price | $20.00 | $40.00 | $60.00 |
| Setup | $0.00 | ||
| Rep | Good | Good | Good |
| OS | Debian, choice | Debian, choice | |
| VPS | Virtuozzo | Virtuozzo | |
| Mem – min | 128 | 256 | 256 |
| Mem – max | 1024 | ||
| Space | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Bandwidth | Unlim | Unlim | 200 |
| Ips | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| Panel | No | Choice | Cpanel |
| Managed? | Yes | Yes | Yes – full |
| Backups? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Extra | Fantastico, Xcontroller, Promises initial server Is delivered ‚"hardened" | ||
| Provider | Solarweb | A2B2 | |
| Plan Name | IRC 128 | 256 semi managed | |
| Price | $25.00 | 35 | |
| Setup | $0.00 | 0 | |
| Rep | |||
| OS | Debian, choice | Debian ,choice | |
| VPS | Virtuozzo | ||
| Mem – min | 128 | 256 | |
| Mem – max | 1024 | ||
| Space | 50% off first | 30 | |
| Bandwidth | 100 | 300 | |
| Ips | 3 | 2 | |
| Panel | (with managed) cPanel, DA, Plesk | $7.50 | |
| Managed? | $15.00 | ||
| Backups? | |||
| Extra | 50% off first month, DDOS Protection | Fantastico with cPanel option | |
(next post, my VPS selection and why)
[tags]VPS,VPS review,Rimuhosting,Servint,A2B2,PowerVPS,VPSLand,XELHosting,Hosteasier,DEHE,JaguarPC,LiquidWeb,Solarweb[/tags]
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