Ask YC: Server Administration? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#11

Post by hooande » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 6:20 PM UTC

Slicehost is great. My advice is to start off learning how to use the package manager for whatever OS you choose. apt-get, yum, rpmfind, etc. They usually make things easier and if you start off learning to compile from source (like I did) it can be hard to unlearn old habits.

Something to think about when using slicehost...when they give you a fresh OS install, there is very litte on it. There is only the bare minimum to bring the server up. The 'man' command isn't even installed! It might be a bit tougher for people without much commandline admin experience.

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#12

Post by j2d2 » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 6:26 PM UTC

mstefff wrote: post #3

First, I'd recommend using a debian-based distro like Ubuntu. From my experience, it is much easier to use and configure, and the amount of tutorials, etc, available for it is overwhelming.

I just setup a vps with linode.com two days ago and chose ubuntu. It's been fairly trivial to administer remotely, without x. I haven't had to take on the role of an SA anytime recently, but it couldn't be much easier than to work with ubuntu so far.

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#13

Post by gtani » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 6:48 PM UTC

in the olden days, people would buy Frisch's oreilly book, or the nemeth /snyder/hein linux admin books. Still good picks, but a lot to work through.

You probably want tutorials/recipes based on your deploy platform: PHP, rails, django each have a bunch. Ezra Z's rails deployment book is outstanding.

And a bunch of threads have gone over the Freebsd/OpenBSD, non-BSD choices, look in

searchyc.com http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=197878

http://searchyc.com/ubuntu+fedora

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#14

Post by rickd » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 6:48 PM UTC

kashif wrote: post #7

mh77 wrote: post #2

Slicehost has a few good articles: http://articles.slicehost.com/ I have used them for setting up my own slice and it worked out really well.

Yup slicehost articles are really good.

I'm also going to echo this- I've done only a bit of playing around with Ubuntu, but with mediatemple downtime issues I was having (grid service is not quite what they advertise) I decided to jump in and get a slice about 2 months ago.

I couldn't be happier. The tutorials (especially the ones for Ubuntu) are fantastic, and setting up your server and security with shorewall/etc couldn't be more painless. I probably took only an hour and had apache/php/mysql and rails up and running securely.

Major points to slicehost for the high quality walkthroughs- and for 20 bucks a month, it's more than worth it to just get a slice and jump in. That's something I'd highly recommend (No, i don't work for them, I'm just very happy!)

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#15

Post by gexla » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 6:50 PM UTC

alaskamiller wrote: post #6

Why Slicehost sucks and you should use Linode: 1. Slicehost makes you prepay 3 months to get started. Linode charges month to month with discounts if you prepay. 2. Slicehost does not prorate if you decide you don't like the service. Ie. Try it for 1 week and the rest of those three weeks are lost. Linode prorates on a daily basis, whatever you don't use they give you the money back. 3. Slicehost customer service is…

Points 1 and 2 are outdated. Point 3 is not a fact. Where does Slicehost policy say that they will only respond to email after 10 hours? Just because it happened to you does not say it happens every time. Just simply say their customer service is not as good. Point 4 is not helpful because there are many more variables to take into consideration when pricing a VPS. And anyways, Slicehost has an option for 4 GB of RAM. Linode only has an option for 2880 GB of RAM. Doesn't that mean that Slicehost gives you much more RAM? I realize you probably mean something different, but you did not explain yourself. Point 5 is opinion.

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#16

Post by gexla » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 6:55 PM UTC

Linux admin is one of those things which is easy to jump into but takes a long time to get to a point where your skills can be trusted enough to manage an important production site. You might go with a managed VPS. For example, Servint is a managed service. I am not recommending them, just using them as an example. To learn, practice using a local Linux box.

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#17

Post by alaskamiller » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 7:06 PM UTC

gexla wrote: post #15

alaskamiller wrote: post #6

Why Slicehost sucks and you should use Linode: 1. Slicehost makes you prepay 3 months to get started. Linode charges month to month with discounts if you prepay. 2. Slicehost does not prorate if you decide you don't like the service. Ie. Try it for 1 week and the rest of those three weeks are lost. Linode prorates on a daily basis, whatever you don't use they give you the money back. 3. Slicehost customer service is…

Points 1 and 2 are outdated. Point 3 is not a fact. Where does Slicehost policy say that they will only respond to email after 10 hours? Just because it happened to you does not say it happens every time. Just simply say their customer service is not as good. Point 4 is not helpful because there are many more variables to take into consideration when pricing a VPS. And anyways, Slicehost has an option for 4 GB of RAM…

Point 1 and 2 were valid as of May 5th of this year. In my multiple correspondences it took over a week before they finally relented on reinstating my account just so that I can see it run out instead of getting my money back. But now that you point it out they've updated the ToS, Slicehost sucks a bit less than I had thought.

Point 3 was a comparison of response rates in customer service. Linode has been consistently faster in response time for both tech and billing response. My billing inquiries to Slicehost and my tech inquiries had longer turnaround.

Point 4 was a comparison of product offerings. Linode doesn't list a 4Gb memory option but I'm sure you can ask them for it but this wasn't in contention.

Point 5: I can flesh this out into paragraphs. Would that make you feel better?

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#18

Post by alaskamiller » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 7:07 PM UTC

kashif wrote: post #8

alaskamiller wrote: post #6

Why Slicehost sucks and you should use Linode: 1. Slicehost makes you prepay 3 months to get started. Linode charges month to month with discounts if you prepay. 2. Slicehost does not prorate if you decide you don't like the service. Ie. Try it for 1 week and the rest of those three weeks are lost. Linode prorates on a daily basis, whatever you don't use they give you the money back. 3. Slicehost customer service is…

Down mod because this thread is about something else.

Thanks. What's your email? I want to make sure to double check with you what I want to write next time on a public website.

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#19

Post by jncraton » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 7:14 PM UTC

I bought a VPS from VPSlink to learn how to set up a server about a year ago. They're plans start at $6 per month for a server with 128MB of RAM. That is a pretty wimpy box, but if you are just trying to see how things work, it gets the job done.

For me, the best way to learn is to just go at it. I recommend Ubuntu for ease of use, and the Ubuntu community can be quite helpful in getting a server set up. I just started with basic LAMP and then used google to find tutorials on adding and configuring other things such as virtual hosts, SSL, etc. I found it to be a pretty good way to learn.

Re: Ask YC: Server Administration?

#20

Post by mk » Mon, Jun 02, 2008, 7:52 PM UTC

mstefff wrote: post #3

First, I'd recommend using a debian-based distro like Ubuntu. From my experience, it is much easier to use and configure, and the amount of tutorials, etc, available for it is overwhelming.

I agree that it is easier to use and configure a debian-based distro, but I would add that if you really want to learn Linux intimately you should check out Gentoo. The Gentoo docs are really good and will take you through the setup step by step. By the end of it you will have configured and compiled your own kernel and have familiarity with a lot of the /etc config files. Of course things may not work out the first couple of times and you may just get so frustrated you want to give up.