Hosting recommendations?

[David Lindquist]

Is there a list of recommended Satchmo hosting providers? Does anyone
offer Satchmo in a shared hosting environment?

[Bruce Kroeze]

I recommend a SliceHost or Rimuhosting VPS.  Both have been great for my clients.

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 7:26 AM, David Lindquist <david.l...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is there a list of recommended Satchmo hosting providers? Does anyone
offer Satchmo in a shared hosting environment?

--
Bruce Kroeze
http://solidsitesolutions.com
Dynamic Designs, Optimized

[jo...@fairviewcomputing.com]

Ditto. I think you'll have trouble complying with the PCI DSS in most shared setups. If you're only going to process payments with a hosted solution (like PayPal or Google Checkout) you might be OK, but you'd be saving all of $10/month over a base VPS at Slice or Rimu. The VPS will be faster, more secure, and more flexible.

John

[David Lindquist]

Ah, I didn't even think about the PCI compliance angle. This will be good info for my client. Thanks for the response.

[Ben Eliott]

My experience of slicehost has been very good. Support is fast and helpful. They have a killer feature ajax console and 'rescue mode' so even if things go badly wrong, or you lock yourself out with mistake on iptables or similar, you can always get back in. Backend is nice, simple and intuitive. You can up-gun the server in 10 minutes, clone, mirror back ups.  Bandwidth is pooled among all your slices.  Well priced. B-E-A-utiful. 

One thing to consider is RAM usage, apache can suck it up, but using lighttpd as per coderseye.com recommendation works very well.

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

On Friday 24 October 2008 09:13:38 pm Bruce Kroeze wrote:
> I recommend a SliceHost or Rimuhosting VPS.  Both have been great for my
> clients.

webfaction?

--
regards
KG
http://lawgon.livejournal.com

[Bruce Kroeze]

I don't like Webfaction for Satchmo.  They are too stingy with the memory, and some of the queries spike it a bit.  I've had to move at least one client off them.

Slicehost is competitive on price with Webfaction, IIRC.

[Kenneth Gonsalves]

On Saturday 25 October 2008 10:02:50 am Bruce Kroeze wrote:
> I don't like Webfaction for Satchmo.  They are too stingy with the memory,
> and some of the queries spike it a bit

I have had problems with them on this point also - and it was recommended to
stop/start apache every 20 minutes. This was a year back, dont know what it
is like now.

[GuyBrush]

Would a VPS be a lot more work to keep secure then a shared hosting
account? How would that work if you need to setup many different sites
for different businesses? Wouldn't that be too much admin work?
Webfaction provides shared hosting with 200MB ram for application, how
much more memory would Satchmo need?
Are there good and nicely priced alternatives to the unmanaged Slicehost
VPS and the shared Webfaction accounts?

I'm also looking for a Django host. I appreciate any comments on this.
Thanks.

[Chris Moffitt]

On Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 11:50 PM, GuyBrush <guybru...@gmail.com> wrote:

Would a VPS be a lot more work to keep secure then a shared hosting
account? How would that work if you need to setup many different sites
for different businesses? Wouldn't that be too much admin work?
Webfaction provides shared hosting with 200MB ram for application, how
much more memory would Satchmo need?
Are there good and nicely priced alternatives to the unmanaged Slicehost
VPS and the shared Webfaction accounts?

I'm also looking for a Django host. I appreciate any comments on this.
Thanks.

I don't think a VPS is that much more work to setup and secure. In fact, it's probably more secure because you do have full control over what is and is not running on the instance. In a shared environment you do not have full control. However, you do need to have some comfort with using the command line to get everything set up.

For future reference, the Satchmo demo store is running on the $20 plan here - http://www.vpsvillage.com/

In addition to the demo store, I run Trac, SVN and the Satchmo front  page on this instance. I get an average of 200 visitors per day and most of those bang on the demo store a bit. I don't think you'd have any issues running a real life store on this configuration. It's hard to tell how many sites you could host. I haven't played much with multi-host in production so can't tell you about resources.

My general philosophy is that trying to go too cheap on hosting causes more headaches than it's worth. Find something that will scale instead of trying to shoehorn your site into the super cheap host.

-Chris

[David Lindquist]

On Nov 2, 2008, at 7:55 AM, Chris Moffitt wrote:

I don't think a VPS is that much more work to setup and secure. In fact, it's probably more secure because you do have full control over what is and is not running on the instance. In a shared environment you do not have full control. However, you do need to have some comfort with using the command line to get everything set up.

For future reference, the Satchmo demo store is running on the $20 plan here - http://www.vpsvillage.com/

In addition to the demo store, I run Trac, SVN and the Satchmo front  page on this instance. I get an average of 200 visitors per day and most of those bang on the demo store a bit. I don't think you'd have any issues running a real life store on this configuration. It's hard to tell how many sites you could host. I haven't played much with multi-host in production so can't tell you about resources.

My general philosophy is that trying to go too cheap on hosting causes more headaches than it's worth. Find something that will scale instead of trying to shoehorn your site into the super cheap host.

-Chris

I am new to setting up a VPS, having mostly used shared hosted in the past. It is just dawning on me some of the things I will have to set up on a VPS that I took for granted on a shared host, e.g. a mail server, DNS, etc. I am comfortable on the command line, installing software and the like. But some of the other sys admin tasks are very new to me; I don't know an MX record from a hole in the ground.

It would be nice to see a list of things needing config on the server (other than Django/Satchmo) I would need in order to run an e-commerce website. I know some VPS offerings have Plesk or some other control panel that make these things easier to set up, but the lower cost plans (Like the recommended SliceHost) do not.

I am not adverse to learning how to set up all these things on the command line, I just need to learn them quickly. :) Any recommendations? Should I (or my client) pay extra for a control panel license, or should I suck it up and RTFM?

[Chris Moffitt]

I am new to setting up a VPS, having mostly used shared hosted in the past. It is just dawning on me some of the things I will have to set up on a VPS that I took for granted on a shared host, e.g. a mail server, DNS, etc. I am comfortable on the command line, installing software and the like. But some of the other sys admin tasks are very new to me; I don't know an MX record from a hole in the ground.

It would be nice to see a list of things needing config on the server (other than Django/Satchmo) I would need in order to run an e-commerce website. I know some VPS offerings have Plesk or some other control panel that make these things easier to set up, but the lower cost plans (Like the recommended SliceHost) do not.

I am not adverse to learning how to set up all these things on the command line, I just need to learn them quickly. :) Any recommendations? Should I (or my client) pay extra for a control panel license, or should I suck it up and RTFM?

Personally, this is how I setup things when using a VPS:
- Use a DNS service like http://editdns.net/ to manage my domains
- Use Google apps to host my email - http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

Then, on your server you don't need to worry about messing with DNS or mail. Django allows you to send email through gmail or you could use something like ssmtp to forward your mail through gmail. For most domains, this should be more than sufficient.

If you remove DNS and Mail maintenance from your list of things to worry about then you just have your web server (Lighttpd) and DB server (postgresql) to worry about.

Those are just my thoughts. I'm sure others have ideas too but if you use a system like Ubuntu, it is pretty simple to maintain and update.

-Chris

[GuyBrush]

Thanks for all the great information.
Whats your update plan? Do you keep a cron job with apt-get? How often?
Do you keep an eye on security mailing lists?
What when the apt-get updates needs extra configuration or work? Does
that happen?
I hope you don't mind the questions.

Thats a very good tip for the email and DNS. I was just thinking about
email since webfaction seems to have problems with email spam attacks
often, I feared I could be a victim too.
I'm a long time Linux enthusiast, I have done Linux from scratch and was
a big Gentoo fan at one point but I got tired of all the compiling,
customizing and setting things up :o)
I have experience with Linux at home but I never needed to keep a system
up and running so I'm not sure how much work it is. I will probably need
to read more about security and some more server setup guides.

At web faction they have $24.50/month for 160MB of ram do you think
thats enough for a low traffic Satchmo site?

I really appreciate all the answers.
Thank you.

[David Lindquist]

On Nov 2, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Chris Moffitt wrote:

Django allows you to send email through gmail

Thanks for the info Chris. Could you explain the above statement further? Does this mean that I don't need to set up a mail server and route emails directly through Google instead? Does this mean my client must have use a gmail account instead of user...@mydomain.com?

[Günter Walser]

Take a look at http://djangohosting.ch

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: satchm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:satchm...@googlegroups.com]
Im Auftrag von GuyBrush
Gesendet: Sonntag, 02. November 2008 21:36
An: satchm...@googlegroups.com
Betreff: Re: Hosting recommendations?

[jo...@fairviewcomputing.com]

On Nov 2, 2008, at 5:49 PM, David Lindquist wrote:

On Nov 2, 2008, at 12:27 PM, Chris Moffitt wrote:

Django allows you to send email through gmail

Thanks for the info Chris. Could you explain the above statement further? Does this mean that I don't need to set up a mail server and route emails directly through Google instead?

Yeah, instead of pointing the Django email settings at your own server, you just use Google's.

Does this mean my client must have use a gmail account instead of user...@mydomain.com?

You get both. Google hosts the mail service, and you can use the Gmail web interface or a regular mail client, *and* addresses can be user...@mydomain.com.

It's a pretty nice setup. I generally run my own mail service, but I have one client who uses it with no complaints. So as Chris points out, it's a big chunk of your sys admin that you can outsource for free. It is much simpler than configuring the whole mailer/IMAP or POP service/anti-spam/anti-virus stack.

John

[GuyBrush]

I saw that but did not consider it because they are not in US, but I'm
looking again and it looks like a great deal, its real cheap.
Do you have experience with them? Are they reliable?

I'm guessing the 1'000 MB at 4.00 € per month means 1000 MB of storage
space. Is that right?
they also do 1 € per additional 20mb of ram and it starts with 60mb of ram.

Thanks for the link :o)

[ramytharwat]

try www.hostingcore.net

www.hostingcore.net offers the best web hosting prices start from
$2.95 and the best technical support all plans include
unlimited domains
unlimited sub domains
unlimited ftp accounts
unlimited my sql acount
and mush more
all servers up time is 99.9
to get more info
www.hostingcore.net

On 24 أكتوبر, 16:26, David Lindquist <david.lindqu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[basslineshift]

I recommend using Media Temple and their Django Containers.. .they are
cheap and easy to work with. Plus, their containers make setting
satchmo up extremely easy. They also have excellent customer support.

[GuyBrush]

I think with media temple you have to pay $20 for the (gs) grid service
and then $20 for a Django GridContainer thats $40 per month total.
Maybe I'm not seeing it but I think $40 is too much for a low traffic shop.
Maybe media temple is better for higher traffic sites.
What do you think?

[basslineshift]

Yes, you're right. You do have to pay for both grid service and django
container. But for me, the quality of customer service and the great
interface they have for the controls is well worth $40 / month. So, if
your budget can handle 40/month and you need good, solid hosting with
a great, easy-to-use administrative interface, I recommend Media
Temple for sure.. I've been w/ them for over two years now, and using
their django container for ~ 3 months (since they've started offering
them) and I've been very happy.