[Herts] Linux web hosting

[Dominic Hargreaves]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 12:57:52PM +0000, Thorstein Thorsteinsson wrote:
> I would like to set up a reasonably-looking home page with my own domain 
> name, etc. etc. So I've been researching into web-hosting providers, but 
> unfortunately haven't been able to find any on-oline comparisons or the 
> like. So its a bit of a stab in the dark. Do any of you clever people have 
> any experience/recommendations in this regard?

I've can highly recommend http://www.blackcatnetworks.co.uk/ in general,
although see below.

> Some requirements:
> Linux(!)/Apache
> cgi (perl or ideally python)
> mysql
> ssh and apop access are reasonable requirments, I guess?
> Disk space and bandwidth! (or reasonable upgrade terms, if it proves 
> necessary)
> 
> Hostway (www.hostway-uk.com) seem to provide all of these, but at ?8.95/mth 
> for their most basic package, they're not cheap.

Black Cat advertises all of this except mysql, which I don't know if
they provide - you'd have to ask them. Depending on the range of
services you actually need, you might find safeperl a suitable
replacement, which is on their cheaper package (but no shell access).

Their "web shell" account is 120UKP+VAT / year.

see http://www.blackcatnetworks.co.uk/prices-hosting.shtml and
http://www.blackcatnetworks.co.uk/prices-shell.shtml.

> Or is the most cost-effective solution to run a server at home with a good 
> quality internet connection?

That depends entirely on your own requirements. Do you need a guaranteed
uptime? Low latency? How much traffic do you expect to attract? I
personally would not want to run a public web site on a cable modem/ADSL
connection for these reasons, but if you want complete access to your
system it may work out cheaper to host your machine at home rather than
in commercial colo (I assume this is above your budget).

Cheers,

Dom.