23 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I run a very old MUD with a small dedicated player base on MUDMAGIC. I've used MUDMAGIC since the beginning. Now that I'm running a full blown MUD again, I need more memory, CPU and well, disk space. Thus, I've expanded a great deal on my package with MUDMAGIC.

However, we have recently experienced a small amount of MUD crashes. In addition to that, the server itself disconnects users from the MUD shell when this happens. It's unclear which of these happens first (disconnect or crash) as they seem to happen at the same time.

We run our MUD with a script, normally when you run a script without conditions and you disconnect, then the script will end. We are running our script with condition '&' and disconnect while our scripts are running on a regular basis. So we are completely confused on what's going on because it's unlikely our MUD is crashing the server to where only our users are disconnected from the shell.

Now we are searching for alternatives because the admins have no answers for us at all. After looking around, I have noticed MUDMAGIC is actually pretty expensive compared to some other hosting solutions. If anyone has any info about the above crashes/disconnects or have any good hosting solution recommendations then I am all ears!

MUDMAGIC
1 shell, 400M space, 15m RAM, 1 port, email, mysql support, php support (8.00)

MUDHOSTING.NET

The Novice MUD Hosting Package includes 1 GB Disk Space, 30 MB of System Memory, 3 Email Accounts, 1 MySQL Database and our standard web hosting services with cPanel and included. ($7.49)

The Warrior MUD Hosting Package includes 2 GB Disk Space, 50 MB of System Memory, 10 Email Accounts, 2 MySQL Databases and our standard web hosting services with cPanel include (10.95)


To even get the same package on MUDMAGIC that MUDHOSTING offers, I would have to pay 3 USD for 30M memory, 1 USD for a database, 4 USD for 800M more space (8 + 8 = 16 USD).
23 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
Small update to a recent hosting I found:

https://www.moocowpenguin.net/hostingpla...

Seems hellah better but also confusing:

15GB Disk Space
1500GB Bandwidth
Unlimited E-Mails
Unlimited FTP Accounts
Unlimited Mailing Lists
Unlimited Subdomains
5 Parked Domain Names
100 MySQL Databases
Two months free with an annual subscription!

(9.99)

2gb Disk Space
10gb Bandwidth
5 MUD Ports
Unlimited E-Mails
Unlimited Mailing Lists
7 Shell Accounts
Unlimited Subdomains
1 Parked Domain Name
1 FREE Domain Name
50 MySQL Databases
2 Months Free With Annual Subscription!

(9.99)
23 Dec, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
We run our MUD with a script, normally when you run a script without conditions and you disconnect, then the script will end. We are running our script with condition '&' and disconnect while our scripts are running on a regular basis. So we are completely confused on what's going on because it's unlikely our MUD is crashing the server to where only our users are disconnected from the shell.


If your MUD "crashes" whenever you logout of your shell, you might want to look into disown.

Something like…
./startup &
disown $!

… might work for you.
23 Dec, 2010, Zeno wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
Or nohup :)
23 Dec, 2010, Lyanic wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
There are myriad better hosting options for the same or lower cost, compared to what you are paying now. There are even a number of free hosting options that are better. I think someone who posted in this thread runs one of those… :wink:
23 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
Asylumius said:
Quote
We run our MUD with a script, normally when you run a script without conditions and you disconnect, then the script will end. We are running our script with condition '&' and disconnect while our scripts are running on a regular basis. So we are completely confused on what's going on because it's unlikely our MUD is crashing the server to where only our users are disconnected from the shell.


If your MUD "crashes" whenever you logout of your shell, you might want to look into disown.

Something like…
./startup &
disown $!

… might work for you.


It's not crashing while logging out of the shell. The server is disconnecting me all together and crashing the mud while doing it. Or, maybe the other way around. It happens at the same time. It just happened 30 minutes ago while I was idle in the shell. I get most of them while idle, so the admin is looking into what's going on when a user idles in the shell.
23 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Zeno said:
Or nohup :)


This seems like it may work.

"The nohup utility invokes the named command with the arguments supplied. When the command is invoked, nohup arranges for the SIGHUP signal to be ignored by the process. "

I will try that, thanks!
23 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
If anyone has any feedback on moocowpenguin.net then please let me know. They have some powerful solutions but no details on server specs, locations and speeds.
23 Dec, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
If you really want to switch hosting providers (which is fine, but it doesn't sound like MM is causing your problem, FWIW) I'd buy a cheap VPS and learn how to install, configure, and maintain it yourself. It's a good learning opportunity and a basic VPS package is very inexpensive. With a VPS, you have root, the ability to reboot the (virtual) machine, and the ability to completely start over with a fresh OS within minutes. Combined with Google, you should be able to take care of just about any problem that could possibly arise all by yourself without having to rely on anyone else.

If you absolutely hate the idea of a VPS, any of the MUD hosting providers still in business are probably going to be a horse a piece. Pick one that provides decent features and stats for a fair price and appears to see have a heartbeat coming from it's customer service department.
23 Dec, 2010, plamzi wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Asylumius said:
If you really want to switch hosting providers (which is fine, but it doesn't sound like MM is causing your problem, FWIW) I'd buy a cheap VPS and learn how to install, configure, and maintain it yourself. It's a good learning opportunity and a basic VPS package is very inexpensive. With a VPS, you have root, the ability to reboot the (virtual) machine, and the ability to completely start over with a fresh OS within minutes. Combined with Google, you should be able to take care of just about any problem that could possibly arise all by yourself without having to rely on anyone else.

If you absolutely hate the idea of a VPS, any of the MUD hosting providers still in business are probably going to be a horse a piece. Pick one that provides decent features and stats for a fair price and appears to see have a heartbeat coming from it's customer service department.


I second the virtual server recommendation:
http://www.hosting-review.com/hosting-di...

I actually run my own server now but a virtual server is the next best thing. I tried a few MUD hosting operations and it seemed they were all either unreliable or unresponsive or both. DIY is really the best way.
23 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
Thanks, i didn't realize they were so cheap now. Can you guys recommend a good one then?

Some success here, I ran the startup script with nohup (nohup ./startup &) and when the server booted me out/crashed the mud, it kept the startup running.
23 Dec, 2010, tphegley wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
I run my server through linode.com and LOVE It. I cannot express how easy it is to get your mud up and running on your own server. The lowest package is $19.99 a month, but it's definitely worth it. I run my mud, and 3 other muds on it for other people. Barely use any of my quota.
24 Dec, 2010, Runter wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
I've used many and linode I've found to be a fantastic service at a reasonable price.
24 Dec, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
I'll offer a "Ditto!" on Linode.

It's been great for MudBytes as well as my own personal use.
24 Dec, 2010, Davion wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Littlehorn said:
Thanks, i didn't realize they were so cheap now. Can you guys recommend a good one then?

Some success here, I ran the startup script with nohup (nohup ./startup &) and when the server booted me out/crashed the mud, it kept the startup running.



We use Linode here! (If you end up going with them, wanna grab our reference code [ http://www.linode.com/?r=353eaf9532c508e... ], and give MB 60% off one month! /shamelessplug). If you end up looking else where, make sure the server you're going to, uses Xen and not something like Virtuozzo. Xen actually separates the servers on the server and doesn't allow one to affect the other. Virtuozzo does some sort of funky allocating where servers burning more CPU/Mem take away from others, so the stats you are quoted are simply upper-end of the range. Whereas Xen, you get what you pay for.
24 Dec, 2010, jurdendurden wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Again going to bump one for Linode as I'm one of the three that tphegley mentioned hosting. Also you can contact Zeno who does free hosting, or frostmud who has free or pay to play hosting. Haven't used Zeno but from what I hear he is reliable. And I can vouch for frostmud being pretty fairly reliable.
24 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
Reliable has to be key. This MUD has been up and down since the 90's. It's very old and very big (why I can't stay on MUDMAGIC in general) in resource usage compared to most MUD hosts. I use around 40MB of memory, which isn't much, but for most MUD hosts, they limit to around 15 to 30. If you go bigger, you might as well go with a VPN like you all are suggesting! :p

But on my crashing problem, it seems the server is kicking and killing the mud when I'm idle in the same session I booted the startup script with. Using 'nohup' with the startup script just kept the mud from being terminated this time around thankfully.

So my only problem now is packing up my databases and moving to a new location. Transferring the code is the easy part, but I'm not DBA!
24 Dec, 2010, Davion wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
Littlehorn said:
But on my crashing problem, it seems the server is kicking and killing the mud when I'm idle in the same session I booted the startup script with. Using 'nohup' with the startup script just kept the mud from being terminated this time around thankfully.


SSHD has this little option for idle connections and tends to drop them after a set amount of time. If the server admin doesn't switch it off, then you'll always disconnect on idle. You can always setup a tick so you don't idle (much like people do in a MUD), like, executing ps every so often when you're going to idle.

Littlehorn said:
So my only problem now is packing up my databases and moving to a new location. Transferring the code is the easy part, but I'm not DBA!


This part isn't actually all that difficult. There's a bunch of things you can use. My personal favourite is webmin. All you have to do is click to the mysql server, and back it up. What it does is dump the db schema along with it's data in querys. So the data is just a bunch of 'insert blah into blah" statements. You then just pipe that file to your other mysqldb and you're set! If you don't have access to webmin, you can always use mysqldump. MudMagic should have this installed, if not, I don't think the sysadmin will have a problem installing it. If you still can't get it with these tools, just shoot me a PM and I'd be more then willing to help, or even do the move for ya.
24 Dec, 2010, Asylumius wrote in the 19th comment:
Votes: 0
Littlehorn said:
Reliable has to be key. This MUD has been up and down since the 90's. It's very old and very big (why I can't stay on MUDMAGIC in general) in resource usage compared to most MUD hosts. I use around 40MB of memory, which isn't much, but for most MUD hosts, they limit to around 15 to 30. If you go bigger, you might as well go with a VPN like you all are suggesting! :p

But on my crashing problem, it seems the server is kicking and killing the mud when I'm idle in the same session I booted the startup script with. Using 'nohup' with the startup script just kept the mud from being terminated this time around thankfully.

So my only problem now is packing up my databases and moving to a new location. Transferring the code is the easy part, but I'm not DBA!


Linode is pretty stable. In the 2-3 years I've been using them, I haven't noticed any serious downtime. You can Google for reviews and whatnot, but they're really pretty solid.

You may want to Google mysqldump. According to Google, "mysqldump migrate database" is a popular search query. You basically want to create a full database dump (schema + data), copy it over to your new system, and import it into a new database (which you'll have to setup on a VPS).

If you have any questions, feel free to start a thread (in the appropriate forum) on any of that stuff.
24 Dec, 2010, Littlehorn wrote in the 20th comment:
Votes: 0
Davion said:
Littlehorn said:
But on my crashing problem, it seems the server is kicking and killing the mud when I'm idle in the same session I booted the startup script with. Using 'nohup' with the startup script just kept the mud from being terminated this time around thankfully.


SSHD has this little option for idle connections and tends to drop them after a set amount of time. If the server admin doesn't switch it off, then you'll always disconnect on idle. You can always setup a tick so you don't idle (much like people do in a MUD), like, executing ps every so often when you're going to idle.

Littlehorn said:
So my only problem now is packing up my databases and moving to a new location. Transferring the code is the easy part, but I'm not DBA!


This part isn't actually all that difficult. There's a bunch of things you can use. My personal favourite is webmin. All you have to do is click to the mysql server, and back it up. What it does is dump the db schema along with it's data in querys. So the data is just a bunch of 'insert blah into blah" statements. You then just pipe that file to your other mysqldb and you're set! If you don't have access to webmin, you can always use mysqldump. MudMagic should have this installed, if not, I don't think the sysadmin will have a problem installing it. If you still can't get it with these tools, just shoot me a PM and I'd be more then willing to help, or even do the move for ya.


Mudmagic doesn't offer any support or access other than from the shell. They are very limited on their web hosting with mud hosting.
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