[SWLUG] Linux hosting in South Wales

[Gareth Bowker]

Peter Prior wrote:
> Hello darling.
> 
> pbhj wrote:
> 
>> So basically Gareth has a reseller account with some hosting company 
>> based in Hfwest? More probably in this instance has a Debian (or 
>> freeBSD, based on Diogel logo?) coloco server there. There are a few 
>> places using writemedia (eg nuqe.net which has a similar dearth of 
>> info about hosting). Note that writemedia doesn't include SSH access 
>> in it's list of hosting features. This is usually a high cost extra 
>> with commercial hosts so a personal connection might be your best bet 
>> on this price wise. Of course if you go hacking around and get there 
>> IPs banned you might get a punch on the nose!

To clarify things a little here, we have a colo server hosted with 
Writemedia, over in H'west. Nat (who works for Writemedia) can also be 
occasionally spotted on this list :)

Writemedia offer colo and Windows hosting, we offer Linux hosting as 
well as virtual servers (using the vserver patches, not UML, in case 
anyone's interested).

Yes, all our hosting comes with ssh access as standard.

The logo has nothing to do with FreeBSD btw.

> I said writemedia provide the CONNECTIVITY.  BT provide connectivity.  
> Pipex provide connectivity - Diogel owns the servers, which are then 
> colocated at writemedia.

Pipex don't provide any connectivity to Writemedia. The rest is correct 
though :)

>> Not that that's a problem, but that would explain why diogel doesn't 
>> mention hosting as one of it's [his] services. After a search of the 
>> site it appears that it's £20 per month (£240 pa!!!) but I don't know 
>> if that includes SSH and all. How important is it that the site is 
>> physically located in Wales?

Basically, hosting is something that we happen to do, but it's not core 
to what we do, which is why we took it off the website (it was getting 
rather cluttered on there otherwise). We tend to get most of our work 
through recommendations anyway, so if someone needs hosting we'll offer 
it, but it does tend to be part of something larger.

> Naturally, as already stated, with root on a vserver you get full access 
> to the server.  You can install whatever you want.  Mysql, plone, PHP, etc.

The vserver code we use is (to most intents and purposes) just like a 
standard server - you can install what you want, do what you want, the 
only two things you can't do are change the kernel or mess with the 
firewall. If you want to do either of these, you're better off going for 
a UML-based vserver.

>> How much does diogel charge, I might be interested myself.

I don't really want to turn this into an ad, so please contact me 
off-list and we can discuss it.

Cheers,

Gareth (who's only subscribed to the list from his personal e-mail address)