My continuing apologies for ongoing traffic problems with this site and others on this server, perhaps most notably cvillenews.com. Both this site and cvillenews.com have been experience geometric growth in traffic in the past few months, and it’s just gotten to be too much for my little server sitting in a closet, connected to the internet by a DSL. The load average spikes up to 10-15 regularly, and I’ve had to establish a cron job that runs once a minute to check the load average and, if it’s too high, shut down Apache and check back once a minute until the load average is under 1 again, at which time it’s started up again. The good news is that this keeps my server from going into a death spiral. The bad news is that it means that my sites are regularly inaccessible for a few minutes at a time.
I’m going to get some more RAM for this system, as a stopgap measure. What I really need to do is just pay for some server space on a host, but I’m not really looking for a new financial commitment just now, particularly with an expensive wedding coming up in just five weeks, so that’s going to have to wait.
I’m doing what I can.
Dude, you can get hosting service with 1and1.com for $10 a month that comes with 50 GB of transfer and 2 GB of storage. I’d check it out. That’s what I use and I am very happy with them. $10 a month isn’t very much… Also they only charge $6.99 a year per domain and three domains are included in the $10 a month.
If you do use them, be sure to sign up using the above link as I get credit.
The problem, actually, is that I host a couple of dozen websites on this server. I’d really like to move all of them someplace, but that necessitates getting a hosting setup that runs at least $100/month.
I may eventually surrender, and just pay a company like 1and1 $10 a shot to host my most popular websites, and keep my less-popular websites hosted in-house. That’s not a sustainable solution (I’d like to rid myself of dealing with a server entirely), but it would surely help with the immediate problem at hand.
How many GB of transfer do you use each month?
I have around 4 sites hosted on my MS Business Package.
There was a Fark ad running awhile ago for 30 GB transfer/ 5 GB space for $1/month. I signed up and have been happy so far. It probably has everything you’d need to at least dump some of the traffic off onto another place, and it’s hard to beat ~3 cents a day.
If it’s not still up, email me and I’ll send you the details. It’s hosted out of Virginia, too, so it’s close to you.
Aren’t cron jobs felonies under the Crimes Against Nature statute?
(I miss HP-UX 11.0i so much it hurts sometimes.)
How many GB of transfer do you use each month?
Happily, I don’t have to compute transfer, since I host myself. :) I don’t even have a guess, but you make a good point — I’ll certainly need to figure out my current transfer to help select a hosting package.
Jeez, Ryan, that’s amazingly cheap. I’ve seen that ad on Fark, too — I’ll follow up on it next time that I see it.
I’d best go install MRTG.
2 points to JD. :)
Erm. I just discovered that I already have MRTG installed.
Worst. Sysadmin. Ever.
“Erm. I just discovered that I already have MRTG installed.”
Lol.. I love when that happens. You spend a while finding, downloading, and installing that great little proggy that you liked so much just to find it installed already…
Been there, done that; you aren’t alone.
Actually, I think the ad’s expired, but details are up at http://www.blacksburgpower.com.