Virtual Hosting and Other Fine Endeavours
August 20th, 2007 by Jake Scaltreto
Again, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything here. Just to get the personal bit out of the way, I'm still at Red Hat and enjoying it very much. As I stay here longer, I'm gaining a greater appreciation for the amazing amount of hard work and dedication that goes into producing OSS. It's not just a mom's basement operation my any means - as some have suggested upon telling them I work for an OSS company. The people who make the software are experienced knowledgeable professionals. And one thing that serves to potentially set these folks off from the closed source pack: they believe in their product. Sounds corny, I know. However, I think that a lot of developers in the closed source world are vested in their projects more as a means to a paycheck than something they truly are attached to. I realize that's a sweeping generalization, and I'm certain that there are plenty of closed source developers who do it for the love of it. The difference is the guys at RH would be working on these projects anyways even if they weren't here getting paid to do it.
What I actually wanted to talk about here is my new hosting situation. Since this website started back in 2002 it had been running on desktop hardware stored in my closet. First, an old Compaq Pentium 2 266MHz that I picked up on a junk table at a computer show for $50, then a more robust P4 2.6GHz that also doubled as my MythTV backend. The Compaq sits in my closet still being resurrected every year to take part in the SkillsUSA state competition where it has gained notoriety as being unpredictable (Yes, I've had competitors - who probably were too young to have even worked on a computer this old - remark that every year they dread whatever curve ball I'll throw at them with this computer). A MythTV box really is no place for a functioning web server. MythTV is inherently unstable and needs occasional rebooting when it's feeling ill (In all fairness to MythTV - which is a great project - most of the problems I find are with the ITV drivers). Additionally, since day one I've had to do some funky DNS/forwarding fu to even allow people to get to the web site. This is because back in 02 my ISP decided they were going to block port 80 going into people's houses. The excuse at the time was to stop the spread of worms such as Code Red, but it was pretty clear from the start that this was a permanent policy designed specifically to stop people from hosting web servers. I, of course, feel this is crap when you consider the price paid for supposedly unlimited Internet. My ISP will, for an extra $20 a month, pop open port 80 - as if changing a firewall rule is a recurring charge.
Well, recently I've begun hosting more sites and availability is becoming a bigger concern. In addition the the MythTV problem, It seems that some people have great trouble getting to my sites. I think it has something to do with being on the same subnet as me and having trouble getting DNS to work properly in that setting - again, my ISP being stupid. In any case, I decided the best route to go would be virtualized hosting. This is a great thing. For a mere $20/month (same as it costs to open port 80 with my current ISP and a third the cost of my gym membership collecting dust.) I get an off-site hosted virtual server from which to host my stuff. Brilliant. I went through rosehosting.com on the recommendation of my friend and fellow sys admin Greg. My only complaint has been the fact that I requested an Ubuntu LTS box, but they installed CentOS. No biggie as I am well versed in both - and seeing as I work for Red Hat, it can't hurt that I'm using a de facto RH product. So that's the new set up. still some tweaking to be done for sure, but it seems to be pretty functional.
Beyond my computer related things going on, I also wanted to put a plug in for a play that I'm involved in this coming weekend. The show is "All in the Timing" by David Ives. It's very funny collection of short plays. I'm acting in one of the shorts and directing two others. It's this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown (http://arsenalarts.net) at 8 PM each night. Find out more over at http://flatearththeatre.com (site designed and hosted by yours truly, I might add)
Be seeing you.