Getting the server ready to build applications from source:

Check for any RPM installations of the applications.

rpm -qa | grep -i apache
rpm -qa | grep -i httpd
rpm -qa | grep -i php
rpm -qa | grep -i mysql

Remove any RPM installations found with the “rpm -e” command:

rpm -e application_name_here

Install some base requirements to compile and install the software.

yum -y install gcc gcc-c++ ncurses-devel libxml2-devel libpng-devel

Download the appropriate sources for Apache, PHP, and MySQL and decompress it.

cd /usr/src
wget http://us3.php.net/get/php-5.2.11.tar.gz/from/us.php.net/mirror
wget http://apache.inetbridge.net/httpd/httpd-2.2.14.tar.gz
wget http://downloads.mysql.com/archives/mysql-5.0/mysql-5.0.87.tar.gz
wget ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/ALPHA/freetds/stable/freetds-stable.tgz
tar xzf php-5.2.11.tar.gz
tar xzf httpd-2.2.14.tar.gz
tar xzf mysql-5.0.87.tar.gz
tar xzf freetds-stable.tgz

Build and Install MySQL.

Add the MySQL User and Group

groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql -c "MySQL Server" mysql

Install MySQL.

cd mysql*
chown -R root.root *
make clean
./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data \
--disable-maintainer-mode \
--with-mysqld-user=mysql \
--with-unix-socket-path=/tmp/mysql.sock \
--without-comment \
--without-debug \
--without-bench
make && make install

Configure MySQL.

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_install_db
chown -R root:mysql /usr/local/mysql
chown -R mysql:mysql /usr/local/mysql/data
cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
chown root:sys /etc/my.cnf
chmod 644 /etc/my.cnf

Set MySQL to start on boot

echo "/usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql" >> /etc/ld.so.conf
ldconfig
cp ./support-files/mysql.server /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql
chmod +x /etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql
/sbin/chkconfig --level 3 mysql on
service mysql start

This sets up symlinks for all MySQL binaries so that they can be run from anywhere.

cd /usr/local/mysql/bin
for file in *; do ln -s /usr/local/mysql/bin/$file /usr/bin/$file; done

Set a MySQL Root Password for security (obviously use something other than “new-password-here”.

mysqladmin -u root password new-password-here

Test the Password:

mysql -u root -p

While logged into MySQL delete the test database.

drop database test;
use mysql;
delete from db;
delete from user where not (host="localhost" and user="root");
flush privileges;

Building Apache

cd /usr/src/httpd*
make clean
./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/apache \
--enable-shared=max \
--enable-module=rewrite \
--enable-module=so
make && make install

Build and Install FreeTDS for MSSQL Extension Support.

cd /usr/src/freetds*
./configure
make && make install

Build and Install PHP

cd /usr/src/php*
./configure \
--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs \
--disable-debug \
--enable-ftp \
--enable-inline-optimization \
--enable-magic-quotes \
--enable-mbstring \
--enable-mm=shared \
--enable-safe-mode \
--enable-track-vars \
--enable-trans-sid \
--enable-wddx=shared \
--enable-xml \
--with-dom \
--with-gd \
--with-gettext \
--with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-regex=system \
--with-xml \
--with-zlib-dir=/usr/lib \
--with-mssql=/usr/local/
make && make install
cp php.ini-dist /usr/local/lib/php.ini

I prefer to symlink configuration files to /etc so that they are easy to find and edit.

ln -s /usr/local/lib/php.ini /etc/php.ini
ln -s /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf /etc/httpd.conf

Edit the Apache Configuration File – I prefer nano.

nano /etc/httpd.conf

Uncomment the following lines or add them (uncommented) if they do not exist after “AddType application/x-tar .tgz”

#AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
#AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps

Find the DirectoryIndex (CTRL+W in Nano) and add index.php to the beginning.

DirectoryIndex

Set Apache to start on boot and start it for the first time.

ln -s /usr/local/apache/bin/apachectl /etc/rc.d/init.d/apache
ln -s /etc/rc.d/init.d/apache /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S90apache
/etc/rc.d/init.d/apache start

Then, you must configure FreeTDS to point to your MSSQL DB server. To do so, edit (or create) the /usr/local/etc/freetds.conf file and put in there exclusively these lines:

[global]
host = xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx (ip of the MSSQL server)
port = 1433
client charset = UTF-8
tds version = 7.0 (or 8.0 if using FreeTDS 0.82 or later)
text size = 20971520

There is one small thing that is bothering me…  I run dual monitors as I use this as my workstation and it often helps to have things side by side instead of on top of each other.  I have seen the commercials of the “snap” feature and it looks like it would be very nice but the implementation when using dual monitors is less than I would expect.

You can snap a window to the left of the monitor on the left, or to the right of the monitor on the right, but not to the opposite sides of either monitor.  Before you say that it’s because there is no “edge” between the two monitors – my primary monitor is 1600×1200 and my secondary is 1280×1024 and there is definitely an edge when going from the larger to the smaller monitor that i can hit the mouse up against.

I honestly can’t think of a real good way for Microsoft to implement the “snap” feature on a multiple monitor configuration that wouldn’t be more trouble than it’s worth and I can see the argument against even using it if you are running 2+ monitors but it’s the principal of the issue as far as I am concerned.

http://www.welshcorgis.com/
http://www.corgis.com/
http://www.corgiforum.com/

This is extraordinarily frustrating and it makes me wonder how many others out there have wanted to start a useful and informative site that gave up because they simply couldn’t register a domain related to what it was they wanted to run a site about.  There are a few Corgi sites out there but the vast majority of them are simply short excerpts with a “Buy my book” link at the end.

At any rate, I’ve got my eye on a domain that’s set to expire here within the next couple of weeks and we’ll see if I can snag it before a bot gets it as it drops off of the registrar.  I’m 99% sure a bot is going to snag the registration the day it becomes available before I even have a chance to check and see if it’s available.  It’s sad that it has come to this.

To close this post on a positive note, here’s a short video of the puppy that has inspired my desire to launch a forum for all breeds of Corgi dogs:

There are clients that see purchasing web hosting as a long-term relationship with their provider and they look forward to reliability, service, and support for a long time to come.  Realistically most clients tend to stay with their provider until their needs drastically change and this is how things really should be.

No host is perfect – every host is going to experience issues from time to time and what is more important than whether or not they ever have issues is whether the host is directly at fault for the issue or if the issue was something that shouldn’t be held against them such as hardware failure.  Just because your host experiences an issue is not reason alone to leave that provider unless they could have prevented the issue and chose not to or they simply handled the situation poorly.  Most clients understand that issues happen and as long as they are kept informed as to what has happened and what is being done to resolve the issue they are willing to work through the issue.  If you find yourself changing hosts every single time your provider has an issue you may want to consider giving your provider a chance to handle and resolve the issue before deciding to move.

Generally you are going to get what you pay for – you can’t sign up for a $1/month provider and expect the best service and support in the world just as if you sign up for a $30/month shared hosting provider you would expect a high level of service and support.  I have found in my personal dealings in the hosting industry that the less a customer pays the more they tend to expect out of the provider and the less they understand the provider/client relationship.  Now of course there are going to be exceptions as you may get an amazing coupon for a provider that drops your monthly cost to something ridiculous or you may sign up with a provider that is simply over-priced and provides a low level of service and support.  If you find yourself constantly changing providers to get a “better deal” or to “save money” the chances are that not only are you hurting the providers that you are jumping from quickly but you are hurting yourself as you are likely going to end up with a lower quality provider and have more issues with service and support.

Do you understand the provider/client relationship – The hosting provider is usually not your webmaster or designer and if you find yourself submitting tickets asking your host how to do things with your site then chances are that you are in over your head and you may want to look for a webmaster.  Realistically you shouldn’t have to put in more than one or two tickets every month and if you find yourself putting in a significant amount of tickets you may be in over your head.  I have found that most issues that web hosting customers put in tickets for could be answered by a quick visit to Google. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you not to ask support for help, what I am saying is that many times you can find the answers to your questions faster on your own by researching the issue before submitting it to your provider.  Providing support to clients does cost the provider money and some providers will go so far as to let clients who submit a large number of tickets go or worse they could reduce the priority of answering said client’s tickets.

If you find yourself moving from host to host you should look back and see why you have changed providers.  Are you choosing low quality providers or are you expecting more than you should for what you are paying?  You should determine why you are changing hosts frequently and do what you can to change this behavior as the change will not only benefit your provider but it will benefit you in the long term.

The most important quality required in a person starting their own web hosting provider is resourcefulness – when you are new to hosting there are certainly going to be roadblocks that you come across and questions that you do not know the answers to.  Being resourceful means that even if you don’t know the answer immediately you know where to look to find the answer.  The vast majority of support issues that clients raise could be answered simply by visiting Google.com and typing in the question or a description of the issue.  Unless you are an expert on everything (keep dreaming) then you either need to be resourceful or you will very quickly find yourself being asked questions you cannot answer which leads to very unhappy customers and bad reviews.

The second most important quality required is good business sense – such as knowing that offering unlimited master reseller accounts for $7/month is not going to lead to anything but a quick rise and and even quicker fall. It is very important that any entrepreneur sits down and writes up a solid business plan setting both short-term and long-term goals as well as planning out how the business is going to achieve these goals.  While it is possible to start a business and be successful without a business plan it is highly unlikely and I would say personally that it is the exception to the rule.  Without a business plan not only is it impossible to know if you are getting where you need to be but it is impossible to determine what changes should be made to help meet any goals that you may have in mind.  You need to be able to make the big decisions without having to go to your friends, family, or others in the hosting industry to ask them what they suggest.

The third most important quality is a basic understanding of marketing. Many new hosting providers try to compete on price with the major players in the industry which is another issue that anybody with solid business sense is going to know from the start is simply not going to work 99% of the time.  Larger providers are able to offer more features and resources at lower prices simply due to their ability to obtain hardware, software licenses, and other necessary tools at much lower prices by dealing in bulk.  As a small provider you will not have the ability to get such good deals on your resources and as such attempting to compete on price with the larger providers in most cases will lead quickly to the demise of your company.  Understanding the basics of marketing will help you not only get your company’s name out there but will also help to convert potential customers that do make it to your web site.

I will post more on Starting and Running a Web Hosting Business within the next few days so be sure to check back for Part Two!

Let’s face it – the world tends to be a very hostile environment and the internet is not much different.  From viruses and trojans to distruption of service attacks – it happens all day every day and it is only a matter of time before it affects you.  I have personally dealt with two DoS attacks in the last two weeks and both for very different reasons although the end result is about the same.

Last week the DDoS, or distributed disruption of service, attack was motivated entirely by financial gain for the attacker.  The attacker had previously attacked another hosting company called A Small Orange and had attempted to extort $7,000 from the company to stop the attack.  ASO did not bow to the demands of the attacker and simply worked to filter out the attack and return service to their customers.  While some of ASO’s customers were not satisfied, many times when a provider is put in this situation there is not much that can be done.

The attacker moved on from ASO to my company and sent a message to our sales department informing us that we were next.  The attack began about an hour later and peaked at about 4.5GBPS which is enough to  bring down most small data centers in their entirety however our data center SoftLayer Dallas was able to filter out the attack within 10 minutes to restore full service.  The attacker subsequently moved on to their next target which was VectorLevel who was hosted with Colo4Dallas at the time.  The attack at VectorLevel brought Colo4Dallas to it’s knees until the attack was null-routed at C4D’s upstream provider.  At the time of this writing Colo4Dallas’ web site was unreachable and as such I am not directly linking to it.

Fast forward a week and a half and another one of my servers was under a new attack from a new source.  This time the attack was not monetary and the goal was simply to take a particular site offline.  The target of the attack was a fairly popular forum that centers around firearms manufactured by a particular company.  The forum has information such as cleaning and maintenance of the guns and in my looking over the site is nothing apparently negative.  My guess is that whoever wanted to bring the site offline was more of a “pro gun control” type of person.

This attack was a bit more difficult to stop as it was smaller and “flew under the radar” of our automatic filtering systems but was still large enough to cause intermittent connection issues over the period of about two hours.  We worked to filter out the attack however whoever was administering this particular attack was doing a pretty good job of countering the counter-measures were putting in place to mitigate the attack.  Ultimately we were able to fully mitigate the attack after quite a bit of work and effort.

It seems that there are malicious people out there whose only goal is to cause harm and to disrupt the services of others.  If you do find yourself in a situation where your web site or hosting service is being disrupted by a DoS attack please do be patient with your provider and understand that there isn’t always something that can be done to fully mitigate the attack.  If your provider is able to restore full service to you within a fairly short period of time (less than 2 to 4 hours) you should consider yourself lucky as many DoS and DDoS attacks can last days if not weeks.

I was doing the math on the licensing structure (we’ll go with the 1-CPU Enterprise license as this example).

I will start by saying that I realize it is in LiteSpeed Technologies’ best interests for you to lease your license from them as this gives them the most profit/income etc… where as an Owned license is generally seen as a larger up-front investment to reduce long-term costs.

I am also aware that I am comparing monthly lease to a yearly ownership as I am wanting to compare the extremes (smallest up-front investment vs the largest).

Owned licenses are an investment into LiteSpeed Web Server/Technologies and I always look at investments based upon how well they will return and how long until they return. A 39 month wait until the investment begins to return is a tad too long in my opinion and as you read on you will see the details of my analysis of their licensing program.

The primary problem that I see is that the Owned licensing doesn’t really reduce long-term costs fast enough – the argument could be seen either way that either the leasing prices need increased (sorry, have to share both view points) or that the owned licensing needs to be reduced either the initial purchase or the support renewal costs.

The price of a 1-CPU Enterprise Leased license is $32/month or $384 paid monthly for a year.

The price of a 1-CPU Enterprise Owned license is $41.58/month or $499 paid yearly.

At these prices you could have a Leased license for 15.6 Months for the price of an Owned license for one year – which makes sense if you think about it.  At the end of the first year if you want to continue support and upgrades for your owned license you then have to pay $99 for a support renewal.  You do not have to pay any such renewal fee for Leased license.

The price of a 1-CPU Enterprise Owned license for two years is $598 which would get you 18.69 months of Leased licensing – so after you have your owned license for over 18 and a half months you’ve broken even on your investment of an owned license.  While a year and a half is not a tremendous amount of time – it is asking for a huge investment of your money up front.  To make the Owned license an option you have to be willing to invest over a year and a half into LiteSpeed before you even break even.

After 18.69 months of being on an Owned license and having paid the $99 support fee after a year you will be at approximately $8.25/month for each owned license which isn’t terribly bad (a savings over leased of $23.75/month), but keep in mind it took over a year and a half to get to this point which leads me to my next concern.

The next major concern in my eyes with the current structure is that for the Owned license to “pay for itself” (to return on my original investment) which is one of the primary reasons I look at owned licenses over leased – it will take an additional  21 months for a total of 39 months before going Owned has “paid for itself” and returns on your initial owned licensing investment will be realized if you don’t include the support Renewals. The first and second renewal for a total addition of $198 because by this point you’re already at 39 months before going Owned has paid for itself.

Is it really intentional on the part of LiteSpeedTech to make an Owned license holder have to wait 39 months before they can start to see a return on their investment of going Owned?

What are your thoughts? Post comments!

I have in the past fought tooth-and-nail for Apache’s ability to match LiteSpeed Web Server’s speed when serving web sites.  Apache can be configured to be nearly as fast if not just as fast as LiteSpeed but the problem is that Apache requires in my own personal testing nearly two times as much memory and FastCGI to come close to LiteSpeed comes out of the box.  LiteSpeed claims to serve static content up to 9 times faster than Apache and PHP up to 50% faster.  While I won’t go into depth as to which one can do what faster, I will go into why I chose to move my company from Apache to LiteSpeed and what benefits we have seen.  If you want to see benchmarks that compare LiteSpeed and Apache I recommend you search Google.

My company has relied upon Apache for years however I recently began testing the latest version of LiteSpeed which has come a long way.  LiteSpeed out of the box offers the performance of an extremely-optimized Apache installation with half or less memory consumption in my testing which is a major benefit.  Apache is very weak against certain DoS attacks such as a HTTP Request DoS which doesn’t require a large amount of outgoing bandwidth but can be devastating to an Apache web server where as LightSpeed takes such attacks in stride in my testing.

I found personally that the overall “feel” of browsing various test sites, both dynamic and static, felt snappier or zippier which is an additional benefit to running LiteSpeed.  In the end if you know what you are doing and you have the RAM in your server to accomplish it you can match LightSpeed Web Server’s speed at the cost of efficiency.

LiteSpeed’s Web Server is a direct replacement for Apache and installation was a breeze.  LiteSpeed supports all of the popular control panels and all of the features of Apache except for your old Server Side Includes but who uses those any more?  In my experience on a cPanel based web server you can log into WHM and switch between LiteSpeed and Apache at any time and you can run LiteSpeed on an alternate port for testing any sites that you wish to make sure will function correctly before “making the switch.”  I have yet to run into any issues that are caused by LiteSpeed however I will post an update if I do run into any.

At the end of the day my advice is to spend the extra money you would be paying to add additional RAM into your server on a LiteSpeed Web Server license.

Edit: LiteSpeed 4.0 *does* support Server Side Includes even though the current FAQ on LiteSpeedTech.com says that it does not.

The issue is that the Michael Jackson funeral is the largest web event in history. This is causing sluggish response times everywhere.

David E
SoftLayer CSA

We have had several clients submit tickets saying things such as “My site is loading slowly or not at all” and in my testing I have found that it is difficult to make connections across the country depending on what backbone your internet service provider is using.  It seems that Level3 and RoadRunner are having some trouble with the amount of traffic being transferred across their backbones where as I am seeing beautiful performance out of the Comcast backbone myself.

Upon asking for further detail from our datacenter, SoftLayer, this is what the representative had to say:

We are getting reports of sluggish response from all locations. There is no point of origin. It is internet wide.

If you are browsing the internet right now and everything is running smoothly then you can consider yourself lucky.  If you do run your own web site and you are having trouble connecting to it or you are receiving reports from your clients that your site is down there isn’t much you can do but tell them that the internet is extraordinarily congested due to the Michael Jackson funeral today and that we will all just have to wait this out.

There is also a thread that has been started by a user having issues with the internet over at the good old WebHostingTalk.com discussing that they are having issues connecting to WebHostingTalk.com where as other users are reporting no issues at all.  There is no definite way to tell if you will or will not have problems and you may have problems visiting one site while not having problems connecting to another.

Are you having trouble connecting to your own site or a site that you frequent?  Post a comment and let us know!

A great example as to when business social networking helps is when an exploit is discovered and affects one company. Information about the exploit can spread across the social network and cause other providers to proactively protect themselves from the issue.  If you want a specific example of an issue you can Google for “HyperVM fsckVPS” and I am sure you will turn up loads of good results about the issue.

If you really want to run a successful business – talk to people who are already in the industry and listen closely to what they have to say.  Do your best to make business related social networking ties with other individuals and businesses in your industry as you may not need them now but I am sure at some point in time you will.