I'm almost to the point where I'll have a working MUD type environment, so I'll need to start looking for hosts soon. At this point it's just going to be a basic program accessed by a handful of people. The problem is I have no idea how to go about finding a host. I see dozens of possibilities, but how do I pick one?

What are the features to look for? What are the things that can go wrong to watch out for? Are any of the hosting services known scams? I'm willing to pay if there are significant advantages to using a paid service-are there? What distinguishes a good host from a bad one?

I can barely tell these various services apart, so any help is appreciated.

Speaking as both a MUD admin and a host, you'd probably want to look for the following:

What version of the compiler they offer?
How much CPU and memory are you allowed to use?
How much disk space is given?
Do they offer additional services like websites, databases, and scripting languages?
What kind of support is available if you run into problems?

Distinguishing good hosts from bad can be difficult but you can ask around about any specific ones you have in mind and people will usually comment on them. If the comments are generally good, the host is probably a safe bet. If the comments are bad, it's best to stay away.

Also, depending on the kind of internet connection and linux knowledge you have, you may also consider self-hosting if your ISP allows it. Self hosting with Windows is usually a bad idea. There's also VPS providers to consider. Some of them offer packages cheap enough to make them viable for running MUDs from.

Generally, I repeat generally, you are better off with a paid host. Does this mean all free hosts are garbage? Nope. Unfortunately of the three free hosts I would suggest anyone use only one is easy to get an account with. (zeno.biyg.org)

The cpu on the server is important, so is the type of internet connection that the server has. Also depending on the type of mud things like access to non-standard languages like Ruby can be deciding factor. Probably more important than the server itself though is the server admin, at least in some cases. I never see slayn on slayn.net and I'm fine with that, the server is configured well, has a 200+ day uptime and I have no need to contact him. On the other hand I have seen servers in the past that were configured so badly that I could view other users files (something I suggest you always attempt to do before putting anything you'd consider to be sensitive material on a host (I'm NOT condoning stealing code, I'm simply suggesting that if you can see their files they can see yours and that it's therefore a poor place to host anything you care about).

I would always get a VPS.

But you know what you're doing Kiasyn. A VPS is NOT intended for someone relatively new to linux.

Not necessarily… it could be as simple a fix as making your home directory group/world-unreadable. It would be very surprising if you had your own home directory and had no way whatsoever of making it private.

Frankly, I would also recommend the VPS also for somebody relatively new to Linux. It's as good a way to learn as any, and is better than normal shared hosting for many reasons (e.g. security reasons, since you mentioned those). To actually break the system you have to do a fair bit of stuff beyond installing and compiling your MUD, so – assuming the provider sets it up with standard libraries, compilers etc. – it's basically the same as a normal shared host.

Thanks for the responses everyone.

Self hosting isn't really practical for me at the moment, for a variety of reasons.

As far as a VPS goes, what sort of Linux knowledge do I need? I use a flavor of it on my home computer, but that's about it. I'd also have to ask the same question: How do I find a good one?

I'm actually interested in some VPS recommendations too. I've been working on a php+SQL project and don't want to rely on my own personal server in case it becomes popular when I open it.

We've had good results from vpsland.com for the hosting for MudBytes. We put the site there for more or less the same reasons you're looking at a VPS for Zeno. I didn't want the site to overwhelm the bandwidth I have available through Arthmoor if it became popular enough, and judging by the traffic stats that was a wise choice.

Other than vpsland.com I haven't looked into VPS hosting that much myself. Maybe Kiasyn has some other recommendations?

That's probably sufficient. You need to know how to connect to the box remotely and navigate the shell environment. And then, at least at the beginning, you might need to know how to install development library packages (e.g. zlib) using the distribution's package manager.

Maybe I'll stay away from VPSLand…
http://www.webhostingstuff.com/review/VP...

I wouldn't judge the service by those reviews. Those have all the indicators of people who violated the ToS or failed to pay their bills and are just lashing out. I remember one time when we had some problems and I couldn't get ahold of Davion so I played a long shot and contacted them myself. Keep in mind, I don't pay for the account and they have no idea who I am, but they helped anyway and got things fixed. They certainly didn't have to do that. So that leaves me with a very good impression of them. Whenever Davion has had to contact them they've been quick to help.

I use quantact.com and have for a few years. I've never had any problems with them and the response time has always been very fast. Any downtime or anything is usually explained in their support forums right after any problems might occur (and I've seen maybe a total of 3 hours combined down time in two years).

Ya, I've read some of those reviews and it's hard to believe them. The uptime on our server prior to upgrading it was like 5 days off a year. We rarely go down except by our own fault *inno*. The connection speed is pretty nice too and the accounts they offer give you tons of room to grow as far as bandwidth goes. Even why -I- brake the server, and I submit a ticket, they're more than willing to help fix it. Also control panels like webmin help cut down on the stuff you need to know. If you're new to linux, c/p+google is the best tool you can use!

I've also heard good things about http://www.linode.com

I've never had an account with linode but I do use one of their servers and never had any problems. Here's the output of uptime at the moment:

16:33:54 up 32 days, 5:43, 2 users, load average: 0.16, 0.13, 0.09

Then there's also my favorite free mud host….

13:35:59 up 240 days, 9:31, 4 users, load average: 0.73, 0.88, 0.97 (slayn.net)

It is the most stable CentOS server I have ever seen. And a good group of users on it as well.

;)

I'm using AmeriHosting as a VPS provider. I've got 128MB RAM (256 burstable), 10GB disk space, dedicated IP, 1GB bandwidth per month and access to a 2GHz quadcore CPU. For this I pay $8.50 USD.

You'll find that the biggest limiting factor for the typical VPS package is memory. Running webserver, DNS server, sql server and the mud may very well leave you without enough memory to even compile. But there are always ways to tune these services, and look into alternatives to the "industry standard" servers.

The price I pay is very low, and you'll not typically find so cheap offers on the providers' websites. But they tend to give special offers that they post of various VPS related forums. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly where I found mine.

For the VPS's, do you get some sort of visual monitor on your process usage/etc? Or are you simply thrown a shell?

That would depend on what is provided. There is always "top" in the shell, and other variants.

If they provide a decent version of C-Panel (or other graphical web hosting control panel) there should be a "System Health" type area where you can view CPU, memory, disk usage and processes.

Yes, I have a panel that can be viewed in a browser. It shows statistics like memory usage, free disk space, bandwidth usage, etc. This isn't a service that runs on your VPS, so it takes no additional resources.