NEW Ultimate Sandbox in the Cloud

MGD4me

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Wow... you did such a great write-up, I just had to sign up for one!!

Sweet... only took about 15-20 minutes to get the server installed.

Another new play thing!
 
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tycho

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Nice write-up. One thought for total Linux noobs (like me!)

I have generally avoided the whole LAMP thing for several projects. I stop with "L". :) Most recently I created an ultra-simple web site for my flying club. Totally didn't need Apache, or MySQL or PHP or anything like that for the ability to hit a site that they've long known, look at pretty pictures, find notices of the next meeting or a Christmas party, etc. I installed Ubuntu, and then...

I installed "nweb" an incredibly tiny webserver (200 lines of C source code) created by Nigel Griffiths, a guy at IBM. I've been using it for quite a while for very, very simple websites.

See: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/systems/library/es-nweb/

Because it has an extremely limited set of handled extensions (that can be added to/modified if you recompile), you don't have 99% of the vulnerabilities of Apache+MySQL+PHP. Works like a charm. I love looking at the logs to see probers trying to access invalid filetypes, or files that simply don't exist because of the structure.

Nweb + Fail2Ban + IPTables is rock solid and rock secure.
 

mbellot

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I finally caved and bought a DEV2 system for $21 with the 70% discount last night.

It wasn't fun at first, I think they were massively overloaded (ssh didn't work, shutdown/reboot took 10+ minutes, etc). Later today things seem to have lightened up and getting in to the system was pretty painless.

First real test run on Monday, assuming I can get to it from behind the "iron curtain" (our psycho IT department's firewall).
 

tycho

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C-a-C seems to ALWAYS be slammed, and overloaded, during one of these sales. When not running a sale things are more normal, and fine for tinkering, but even then never DigitalOcean speed...
 

w1ve

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Best Production/Lowest cost I've found for pbx is Wable. DO is fine as well. Best Price, Dedicated Server with some real horsepower: Dual Xeon 2.3GHz/24GB Ram/2TB Disk, unmetered, for $23/month from Dedispec. Just bought a CAC server for $10.50 for s&&ts and giggles... One hour and still no reply to my payment.
 
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tycho

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So, yer sayin' today would not be a good day to reimage one of my servers?

:)
 

wardmundy

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It's not ever going to be the best, fastest, most reliable solution but for $10.50 FOR LIFE, there is no competition.

We've built several VMs every day for the past week (during the sale), and it wasn't painless. But every server came up and our demo VoIP server is still going strong. Give it a try:
CZ5gEisWEAAcBbO.jpg


Code:
Retrieving speedtest.net configuration...
Retrieving speedtest.net server list...
Testing from KW Datacenter...
Selecting best server based on latency...
Hosted by Quadro Communications Co-operative Inc (Kirkton, ON) [66.36 km]: 35.47 ms
Testing download speed........................................
Download: 35.21 Mbit/s
Testing upload speed..................................................
Upload: 54.02 Mbit/s
 

w1ve

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Bought the 10-buck server and not even a single email from Cloud at Cost in the last 24 hours. Hopefully my money does not end up in the bit bucket in the sky. emailed customer service, but not holding out hope.
 

wardmundy

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@w1ve You don't get an email any longer. Click on the i icon to decipher your password.
 

mbellot

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Here's hoping the bulk of the pain is over...

I ditched CentOS 6.7 and loaded an Ubuntu 14 image, things have been running flawlessly for over 24 hours.

If it continues to work, it will be the best $21 I've spent in a long time.

Thanks Ward!
 

tycho

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Right now I have 3 separate C-a-C instances up: 2 with 1CPU/512/10GB each running my PBX and my flying club website, respectively, and 1 comprising 2CPU/1024/20GB running a more general-purpose Ubuntu server and sandbox.

The first two I mention cost $14 each (60% off, although the second was free to me because the Club picked up the tab). The last, "double-wide" server cost $14 for that allotment of 2CPU/1024/20GB (80% off). So, a total of $42 ($28 out of my own pocket) for 4CPU/2048/40GB-worth of (allegedly perpetual) CloudPro resources. I averaged the "$10.50 pricepoint" of this thread overall, with a personal cost of $9.34 per minimum server configuration. :)

I had problems getting 6.7 servers built and accessible, so I've stuck with the Ubuntu 14 images. They work well for everything. The PBX is running Incredible PBX 13-12. It is 100% IAX2 from endpoint to VSOP. No SIP. For my personal use I couldn't be happier. And as I'd mentioned earlier, the Club website is Ubuntu 14.4 LTS + IPTables + Fail2Ban + Nweb. LAMP minus A minus M minus P. Quite bullet-proof.
 

mbellot

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I had problems getting 6.7 servers built and accessible, so I've stuck with the Ubuntu 14 images. They work well for everything. The PBX is running Incredible PBX 13-12. It is 100% IAX2 from endpoint to VSOP. No SIP. For my personal use I couldn't be happier. And as I'd mentioned earlier, the Club website is Ubuntu 14.4 LTS + IPTables + Fail2Ban + Nweb. LAMP minus A minus M minus P. Quite bullet-proof.

Interesting, I had connectivity issues too with 6.7. It would start OK, but eventually I couldn't get in via external SSH only with the (java?) console in the control panel and the "network test" would fail on every city.

I tried building a 1CPU/512MB/10GB Ubuntu 14 server but it failed. It actually took several hours to finally show up as failed, before it appeared to be boot looping. I assumed not enough RAM, but maybe CaC was just overloaded with build requests.

I'm not doing anything as complicated as a PBX or forum, just getting over the wall...
 

tycho

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Interesting, I had connectivity issues too with 6.7. It would start OK, but eventually I couldn't get in via external SSH only with the (java?) console in the control panel and the "network test" would fail on every city.

I tried building a 1CPU/512MB/10GB Ubuntu 14 server but it failed. It actually took several hours to finally show up as failed, before it appeared to be boot looping. I assumed not enough RAM, but maybe CaC was just overloaded with build requests.

I'm not doing anything as complicated as a PBX or forum, just getting over the wall...

I did some server building the other day, and that's when I experienced the most recent problems. 6.7 servers would either fail the build or, once built, end up totally inaccessible whether via internal console terminal or external SSH. I also had at least one Ubuntu 14 server fail on build. But, my experience has been that if you can get the dang thing built it is accessible and runs like a top thereafter.

Don't assume your attempt to create a 1CPU/512MB/10GB Ubuntu 14 server is failing because of too little RAM. Not true. They work just fine and I have deployed many of them in the past 1.5 years. In one case I ran I-PBX, a simple web server, -and- a torrent box on the same 1CPU/512MB/10GB machine. It didn't break a sweat! The culprit is almost certainly C-a-C's more than occasional fickleness.
 

mbellot

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Don't assume your attempt to create a 1CPU/512MB/10GB Ubuntu 14 server is failing because of too little RAM. Not true. They work just fine and I have deployed many of them in the past 1.5 years. In one case I ran I-PBX, a simple web server, -and- a torrent box on the same 1CPU/512MB/10GB machine. It didn't break a sweat! The culprit is almost certainly C-a-C's more than occasional fickleness.

Yeah, it was more of a "heat of the moment" assumption about needing more RAM.

If there was an easy way to backup/restore the contents I would switch down to the lower spec VPS, but since I probably have to rebuild it from scratch it's going to have to wait until I have the time and inclination.
 

tycho

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No way to do backups (at least the kind I want: imaging), despite many of us nagging C-a-C for that capability since the get-go.

Man, Digital Ocean is so complete, and easy, in that regard...
 

w1ve

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wardmundy

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Hmmm. It's been so long since I set up my account I can't remember. I thought you got access to the portal as part of the signup process, but I could be mistaken. The i icon refers to an icon that appears for every VM you set up. Inside there is the password for the particular virtual machine.
 

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