Re: [cobalt-users] Problem sending mail

["alan@" <alan@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Adam Knowles"

> > Adam, Dedicated Servers are not the issue.
>
> They fell short of their promised level of support by a country mile. A
> rebuild they said would take 1.5hrs took 4 hours, and they didn't
> resolve a single one of my further issues..all of which were easily
> sorted. Plus their helpdesk tracking system is buggy, and on the phone
> they come across as unhelpful.
>
> > If you want to pay lots of money to 3rd parties to maintain
> > your server then fine, otherwise, get it together yourself.
>
> That's a fair comment. I'd already sussed ipchains & portsentry on the
> server. My main job is php/mysql development, not server maintenance..
> so it was great having Solarspeed to take care of a couple of things I
> didn't have time for. Always good to have a backup expert for when the
> boss says "get it working now, sod the cost" :)
>
> > BTW, _any_ offering from a UK company will be beaten by 1000
> > miles by a rackshack deal.
> > Recent quote : Rackshack 1.3 ghz celeron, 512 RAM, 60Gb drive,
> > Ensim, 400Gb monthly allowance : Price £70/month
>
> Flippin eck, you're not kiddin! I'm always wary of deals offering silly
> amounts of bandwidth though? Plus after having a Raq for 2 years I'm not
> sure how easy it'll be to start using a whitebox Linux server..?  The
> main problem would be with keeping every piece of software working
> myself, rather than just doing the occasional .pkg through the GUI.
>
> I mean if say PHP needed upgrading, but the ./configure wouldn't go
> through for some bizarre reason.. I'm not sure I'd want to spend hours
> figuring out why?
>
> On the other hand..a completely standard Redhat server should be easy to
> maintain.. but you lose the great Raq resources like the Raqfaq, this
> mailing list and countless websites. I'd need to be sure there was a
> good network of free help plus decent support from Rackshack when I need
> it.
>
> Adam
>

Adam,

I have used Rackshack for a year now, and any critical security problems are
brought to your attention almost immediately (advisories). Also, Ensim is
free with most 'whiteboxes' which although it takes somegetting used to,
does offer more functionality than the raq gui.
The upgrade of software/apps is an issue at first sight,  but once you do it
once, there really is no going back ( rpm -Uvh whatever_file_it_is.rpm )

Ensims only issues are that it sits on top of Redhat, and so there are some
issues with upgrades, but the Rackshack forum has howtos written and
monitored by some clever and helpful people, so for most issues so far there
haven't been any problems. (Php 4 upgrade, Bastille firewall, ipchains , to
name a few).

The huge bandwidth is / maybe an issue when you get near the limit, but a)
do your machines need 400 Gb a month ?
and b) I would rather have that than a 10 Gb limit with steep overage
charges.

Plus some of their offerings have 10Mbps unmetered bwidth for a not
unreasonable price.

Sorry to bleat about Rackshack, but after Dedicated Servers pathetic 5
Gb/month (which I exceed) this is a breath of fresh air.

I also like the fact that you can order a server and have it running for 2
months then quit if you don't like it.
No 12 month contracts !
I think thats worth risking 140 UKP for.

Alan