Good VPS or Dedicated Server?

[Acejam]

So I actually just tried Linode today.

Their staff was knowledgeable and quick to respond to my problems.

That said, their service seemed unable to handle the web-traffic for Search Bitcoin. My website was down for many hours today.

I do not know if the issue is because of either (a) a software limit that I can change or (b) a hardware limit.

In either case, I switched off of them after a few hours.

So it looks like I may have to try another company.

I can guarantee you with 99.9% accuracy that your server is simply not configured properly. What are you running for a web server - Apache? nginx?

Like I said to you in PM - I run a few sites which total ~30,000 hits a day. My properly-optimized 512 Linode doesn't even break a sweat.

When you run an unmanaged solution such as a VPS - you need to take on the task of configuring it properly too.

[1715023021]

1715023021

[1715023021]

1715023021

[1715023021]

1715023021

[jostmey]

I can guarantee you with 99.9% accuracy that your server is simply not configured properly. What are you running for a web server - Apache? nginx?

Like I said to you in PM - I run a few sites which total ~30,000 hits a day. My properly-optimized 512 Linode doesn't even break a sweat.

When you run an unmanaged solution such as a VPS - you need to take on the task of configuring it properly too.

I am using Apache with MySQL. I used the default configurations setup by the LAMP StackScript. It may very well be that I needed to properly configure Apache/MySQL for high traffic low memory usage.

That said, the traffic for your website may be quite different from mine.

You see 30,000 hits/day = 0.35 hits/second. I sometimes see 100 file requests/second.

Most of the requests are for small images that appear in the live feed feature on WeUseCoins, BitcoinMe, and SearchBitcoin.

I suspect Linode is not structured for handling lots of little file requests. Their systems seemed to be skewed toward high CPU, high RAM, low bandwidth websites.

[jostmey]

I will probably just host the website on either a VPS or dedicated server at Dreamhost.

Dreamhost is attractive because they offer unlimited bandwidth. But their tech-support is awful.

[Acejam]

I can guarantee you with 99.9% accuracy that your server is simply not configured properly. What are you running for a web server - Apache? nginx?

Like I said to you in PM - I run a few sites which total ~30,000 hits a day. My properly-optimized 512 Linode doesn't even break a sweat.

When you run an unmanaged solution such as a VPS - you need to take on the task of configuring it properly too.

I am using Apache with MySQL. I used the default configurations setup by the LAMP StackScript. It may very well be that I needed to properly configure Apache/MySQL for high traffic low memory usage.

That said, the traffic for your website may be quite different from mine.

You see 30,000 hits/day = 0.35 hits/second. I sometimes see 100 file requests/second.

Most of the requests are for small images that appear in the live feed feature on WeUseCoins, BitcoinMe, and SearchBitcoin.

I suspect Linode is not structured for handling lots of little file requests. Their systems seemed to be skewed toward high CPU, high RAM, low bandwidth websites.

I host a lot of pictures on some of these sites. Sometimes I can see well north of 100 file requests a second.

Using the default, out of the box configuration is your issue. Apache's default config is pure junk, plain and simple. MySQL can also be trimmed up pretty nicely. For example, disabling InnoDB will save you ~10MB, easy.

Also, I never asked - what exactly "crashed"? Did you get an out of memory error of some sort?

[jostmey]

I host a lot of pictures on some of these sites. Sometimes I can see well north of 100 file requests a second.

Using the default, out of the box configuration is your issue. Apache's default config is pure junk, plain and simple. MySQL can also be trimmed up pretty nicely. For example, disabling InnoDB will save you ~10MB, easy.

Also, I never asked - what exactly "crashed"? Did you get an out of memory error of some sort?

It is hard to say because I could not login. SSH would timeout, and pings would fail to go through.

I suspect the errors were because either (a) SWAP had to be used because of high memory usage or (b) their were simply more clients trying to connect than my Linode could handle.

I am encouraged by hearing that you have your website working. Would you mind sharing your configuration files for MySQL, Apache, and PHP? Do you even use Apache or PHP? My email is jostmey at gmail dot com.

[kirax]

I am totally biased, of course, but I think http://www.electronstorm.ca is great. Canadian and willing to accept bitcoins via special request! Including different possible server locations.