22 Sep, 2013, dracmas wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I'm considering using linode vps but new to using a vps so was curious about people who have used their services as to what I want to do.

I don't know how the linux installation is done or how, but wanting to start off with a fresh install of debian stable. From there add in build-essential to be able to compile the mud. I've done compiling on my home computer so this much I'm familiar with. Websites I don't know as much but willing to murk through.

So basically I'm wondering with what your experiences are with this host? Is it like a remote shell of debian once you're done?

I'm shooting to have:
Mud
Website
Subversion of some sort to keep my group together with each other's changes
Forum

Would this as well be ok with using the 1GB plan? Used to doing things locally so a VPS is completely new to me. Any and all suggestions/tips/ect would be helpful.
22 Sep, 2013, Runter wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
It's an installation of just about whatever you want, including debian, and how you'd use it is generally the same way if you've got experience with remoting into linux boxes. You'd have more administration ability than, say, a shared mud host because you control the entire operating system. You have root access, can create users, can set permissions, etc.

I used it for a few years and I highly recommend it if you're looking for this type of hosting.

The space should be enough, but it really depends on what you're doing. If you're hosting a 1.1GB video on your website then clearly 1GB isn't enough.
22 Sep, 2013, Tijer wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
been using that very same plan for a few months (prior to that i used the old 512 plan for 2 1/2 yrs) and it will be more than enough to do what you want to do
22 Sep, 2013, Famine wrote in the 4th comment:
Votes: 0
It's a good service, but has limitations if you grow or need more memory. In my example, Apache is always crapping out when I get some good website traffic. I'm about to switch to a cloud.
22 Sep, 2013, dracmas wrote in the 5th comment:
Votes: 0
I just want to make sure I make the right choice when I start development with a group. My internet just can't stay connected all the time for other people to code and build on it when I'm not available. It's an inconvenience when I'm not around all the time. So far this looks like the best route for me since I'm already familiar with setting everything up from the command line myself.

I would like to know what you mean by switching to a cloud Famine. I thought any remote hosting was having your mud "in the clouds".
22 Sep, 2013, Famine wrote in the 6th comment:
Votes: 0
To put it simple, I'll quote another site.

VPS hosting provides a web-based hosted virtual machine emulating a private web server. Virtual Private Server hosting allows full configuration, customization & administration as if you had a dedicated server and similarly, available resources are configured within those virtualized hardware limits (i.e.: Linode has hardware limitations). To picture this, just think of a server with a number of virtual slices. Each slice is a VPS with a set amount of CPU, Memory and Hard Drive Space. Sure, you can scale each slice up in their resources, but within the limitations of that specific server.

Cloud hosting provides similar functionality to VPS but the resources are on-demand. This model provides shared resources and services billed based on usage. This differs from shared hosting and VPS in that many cloud servers are integrated to share all resources providing high resource availability. To picture this one, think of a number of servers that are in a cloud. They are all sharing resources to a number of virtual slices. You can scale up or down as needed, then release them when not needed (and without a reboot to BOOT!). You can even scale to the minute and be charged by the minute in some solutions.

Linode has limitations. Adding more memory for example is very expensive with Linode. But, not so expensive with most cloud services when you need it. To boot, cloud offers flexibility to release those resources when not needed anymore and thus allow you to scale up or down with your business, game and etc.

So, both are good, both have pros and cons, and both have their purpose. For me, I have a few websites and MUD's on my VPS. One website in particular is my personal blog. It's not uncommon for me to write something and have a lot of traffic once a month. When that happens, my VPS blows up and so do my MUD's.

I could easily put my website on another host. But the point is, I'm only getting a light amount of traffic to my blog. When I open my MUD and it grows. The same may impact my MUD website as I do plan to have a robust site with my game. I would hate to be limited down the road.
22 Sep, 2013, Idealiad wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
Linode is a decent choice and has a good reputation (though they did have a messed up security breach a little while back, you can Google for details). Regarding VPS vs. cloud, you probably want to estimate your average use with whatever cloud service you're looking at, when I've done that (looking at AWS) cloud services on average were more expensive than a similarly spec'd VPS, which are getting ridiculously cheap these days.

That said, serving some things like static media content from cloud services and also off-loading some things to free hosting can make sense. For example you could set up your own domain with a free hosted blog (like Tumblr or Wordpress.com), and when you run out of media space on the free site host the media in fairly cheap AWS cloud storage (just as an example). Then get a VPS for your mud/forum/wiki, which are unlikely to see huge bursts of traffic.
23 Sep, 2013, Kelvin wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
Linode is top notch. A little more expensive than some of the popular budget providers (Ramnode, Digital Ocean), but their VMs are very fast and roomy. The support has been very good as well. A lot less network/service issues than I ran into with Digital Ocean. I'm OK with paying slightly more for the better service/performance/reliability.

However, MUDs generally don't need much beef. I saw some replies talking about expandability and resources, but these are unlikely to matter. You will be doing incredibly well (compared to worldwide averages) if you can break 20 concurrent players. More important considerations are connection speed, stability, and consistency. Linode is fine on all of these. At least the Atlanta data center has been.

They did have a breach, and while none of my personal information was compromised, they did handle it badly as far as being forthcoming. This would bother me a lot more if I was running my business on there. Given that I only have my tinker stuff on Linode, I don't really care.
23 Sep, 2013, Runter wrote in the 9th comment:
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My understanding is that the linode hack was a zero-day attack. If true, not much could have been done to prevent that. They reported what happened the next day. How was it mishandled? Did they not report everything? (i'm genuinely unaware of the situation.)
23 Sep, 2013, Famine wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
I got a report on the compromise and etc. Seemed like they handled it pretty well on my end.

I do think they are pretty top notch. I just wish I had more flexibility for CPU and Memory. Other than that, they should be more than enough for any MUD even above 10 players. Just maybe not that amount of players playing and viewing your website at the same time if you're running Apache/MySQL/Wordpress. Seems like anytime that I have 20 people on my website, worlds explode. The Linode team has been amazing at optimizing my Apache and SQL configuration the best they can, which is awesome that I didn't pay extra for it.
23 Sep, 2013, Kelvin wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
The fact that you don't know kind of illustrates the point. They didn't release the details they needed to until they were forced to, and they didn't release much when they did. Read the bottom part of this for a peek: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread...

Only reason I ended up knowing this is that a community I am involved in is heavy with Linode users with some technical competence. This is a very prominent black mark on Linode for business purposes, although as a sole proprietor this made me pretty mad as well.
Runter said:
My understanding is that the linode hack was a zero-day attack. If true, not much could have been done to prevent that. They reported what happened the next day. How was it mishandled? Did they not report everything? (i'm genuinely unaware of the situation.)
24 Sep, 2013, dracmas wrote in the 12th comment:
Votes: 0
I wasn't asking about them getting hacked. We would all be idiots to assume that commercial hosting companies wouldn't get hacked from time to time.I wouldn't call that a black mark, just bad luck.
24 Sep, 2013, Idealiad wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
It's not about whether they were hacked, it's how they communicated that hack to their customers. Look, no one is saying Linode's service is bad. It's quite good. I think you want to look at the whole picture though when choosing a service provider.
25 Sep, 2013, Kelvin wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
Read my post again. Providers get compromised, it's inevitable. However, Linode handled it very badly.
dracmas said:
I wasn't asking about them getting hacked. We would all be idiots to assume that commercial hosting companies wouldn't get hacked from time to time.I wouldn't call that a black mark, just bad luck.
25 Sep, 2013, rudeboyrave wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
Bosstone form CyberASSAULT here.
We use Linode and we love it. Just recently they gave us a free upgrade for nothing.

Our website was attacked but its most likely because its a bit outdated. All fixed now as we backup our sql!
25 Sep, 2013, Tijer wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
yeah… got double diskspace a while ago… and more recently double memory.. for no extra cost!! Never had any issues with my linode.. do have a firewall installed though. so any ports that arent specifically opened, arent able to be used!! Has permanently banned 1000's of IPS :)
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