Icethunder – Your place for webhosting stuff!
Help! My web site is not working!!!
Aug 27th
Well, if you want to get attention you do have it 
But it would be very nice if you would be able to describe your problem in more detail while trying to find help on a forum. It’s because you do have the attention, but with no relevant data to start with no one will be able to help you.
Include as many information as you only can when trying to find help in web hosting. People are willing to help but they need info to get started.
When searching for help try to append these information:
- your domain name so others can check if they can see your web site or the Error message
- what have you done before this problem started to show up
- what did you install
- what did you uninstall
- what did you allow Read the rest of this entry »
Your website on a VPS is not working? Troubleshooting…
Jul 6th
Well, two days and two very different forum posts catched my attention. We know what I suggested yesterday and I will cover some of my suggestions on today’s case in this article. The whole thing is related to a pretty annoying problem. You upload your web site online, set-up your VPS correctly [DNS, web server etc.], but you are not able to reach it when you try it from home.
The catch here is, that as soon as you use a proxy service like hidemyass.com you are able to read your web site. It loads just perfectly and so you try it once again from home, but nothing there… Well, there are couple of possibilities here and a few more I don’t even know about Thus it is only logical I will cover some basic steps I would try if I would have this problem.
The basic steps in troubleshooting inaccesible website issues [VPS]
- The very first thing I would do is to SSH to my server and perform an iptables -L, as root user, to see if there is no odd firewall rule blocking my access. If there is no real firewall issue, than I would move to the next point, but these can be easily interchanged
Read the rest of this entry »
The art of shifting responsibility in Webhosting [I.]
Jul 2nd
I think I have been talking about this topic in a more general form in previous articles, but today I would like to summarize it as much as it only gets. I am talking about shifting your responsibilities and duties to some third party or service. The result is you will have less work to do, less things to worry about and more time for accomplishing your primary goals.
Why is this so important? Well, there is only a limited amount of time at your disposal and you need to divide it between numerous tasks in web hosting. You need to take back-ups, set-up and control DNS records, secure your server, check your mail against spam and much more. These all tasks can be done in two basic ways:
- You do it all by yourself
- This is the most costly option. Not because you have to pay huge sums of money, but because it costs the most time. You need to learn lots of things and trust me, if you are not an IT profesional than this is not the way to go. Shared hosting helps you with this, but even while on a shared hosting platform it is a big advantage to move some services to a third party like e.g. moving email services to Google Apps etc. Read the rest of this entry »
The reseller hosting catch…
Jun 26th
You may not even heard about it or know anything about it, but it really exists. It is called reseller hosting and it is the topic of today’s article. Reseller hosting is based on the fact that company A has some spare space on their server and thus they decide to sell this and create a new product called the “Reseller hosting plan”. They offer their customers a set amount of bandwidth and web storage.
The customer who buys this kind of hosting plan can use this and sell it to his own customers. It is a very simple scheme. I have lots of web space on my severs and as I really can not afford it to be empty I will sell it to someone and maybe this person will be bale to find his own customers and sell the space to them. I get the money from my customer and he [possibly] gets some money from his own customers, too. If he does not find enough customers – it does not matter. It is his business opportunity not mine. And here is where it starts to be interesting.
Reseller hosting customers…
But the catch here is at the customers side. You are searching for a quality hosting and on your way you have to know and understand the different terms and kinds of hosting providers there exist. It is not always about big or small companies with real data-centers with servers, but sometimes you even can buy from some kind of company which only re-sells the space and bandwidth of a bigger company. Read the rest of this entry »
My Basic VPS guide [2.]
Jun 15th
Last time here at Icethunder.net in this guide we talked about the very basic commands you should most definitely use 
as soon as you get your invitation email from your web host. Just to review it for a little we have already set up a root password we could use to login trough SSH, we added a new user and this user is now in the sudoers file as well. We know what Linux distribution we are running and we need to perform a little bit of updating
The Debian “core” way
I do not know why, but Debian tends to be the distro of choice for people who like stability and security at the same time. Debian is a very stable and mature Linux distro and you will not have much security problems, because the software in the repositories is pretty well tested before it is included. This is the biggest advantage of Debian, but at the same time it is its biggest disadvantage as well. Some software packages are older and they are not the most up-to-date and thus if your application or web site app needs something very new than you will most probably need to install it from source yourself or you will need to include some testing or non free repository into your repo list. Read the rest of this entry »
My basic VPS set up guide:)
Jun 14th
This is intened to be a longer series of article with some basic Linux commands to help those of you unfamiliar with Linux to set up your Linux VPS and secure it at the same time. I don’t state I am the biggest Linux guru in the town, but what I know I want to share with you and you can make the same in the comments area after each article, or you can provide your own guide and a link to it in the comments area
How to start your Linux VPS life?
I think you know the situation. You host has sent you the login information to your new VPS box and you need to startto work with it, but you do not really know what to do. There are two things you need to know first. It is very possible, that at first you will be only able to access your VPS trough what’s called “console”.
You put in the login name and password and then you need to change the root password. Do not panic as this one will not change the default “console” password, but in fact it will set up your real SSH root password. Then I would suggest you to update your VPS and only then use your new SSH root password to log in to the VPS box trough SSH. There is one thing you could do at this stage to make your login even safer and easier, but will cover it at a later time. Read the rest of this entry »
One small tip for those eyeing for an unmanaged VPS ;) [I.]
Jun 7th
To have a VPS is really a great thing. It gives you so much freedom you can not experience while on a shared hosting platform. As soon as you start using it you are free to do anything you like. You can use all the resources you are given and you are not limited by anything except the resources This sounds really great, but with great freedom there comes great responsibility and decisions need to be made about a few things.
You need to care about things you were not used to care about while on a shared hosting platform and now they are a daily routine for you. It is more true when you are on an unmagaed VPS, because while using a managed VPS you can stop bothering about little configuration problems and leave them to your host
My advice: If you do not have the courage to learn something than always go with a managed VPS!!! Read the rest of this entry »
The start point for all my VPS configurations ;)
Jun 5th
I think all of you who own a VPS server know the great feeling after you have secured it. You updated the operating system, you installed anti-virus software, root-kit checker is installed as well and you are just on the start of your journey. You have the foundation laid and if you need to move on to make your web site dream a reality. And as we know the start is many times really very hard. It’s even harder if you do not know where to look or you do not know where to search for some great help… .
Many people went trough the same journey, but only a few shared their knowledge as many regard this knowledge as their personal “know-how” and are reluctant to share it with the masses. Today I would like to share with you something I have learned over the course of time and I am using it every time I am trying to set up a running web site on a server. If you are a newbie like me to VPS this will be of great importance to you and it will help you a lot. Read the rest of this entry »
Is there a “best web hosting company” thing out there?
Jun 3rd
I will need to cool you down right at the beginning of this article, because I will tell you there is no such a thing like “the 
best web hosting provider”. The reason behind this is the diversity in the field of web hosting and moreover the various needs and expectations of different customers. What is good for Mike form Miami does not need to be regarded as a good service by Alison from London and Jerry from San Jose can even regard it as absolutely bellow average!
What I tried to say is the pure fact that what is good and what is bad is influenced by the experience of single individuals and these individuals all have different criteria they use for evaluating. And this is what you should keep in mind. Also the experience is influenced by the users “luck factor” as you may go from one host to another host and do not get into any kind of trouble even if you sing up with the host with the worst image in the industry. On the other side other people might never really get a satisfactory level of service even if they only sign up with great web hosts. Sometimes it is about luck. Read the rest of this entry »
How to solve hosting problems?
Jun 2nd
This is a nice topic for the mid of the week The end of the week is still far away and thus problems and work needs to 
be cleared and done. And hosting problems are no different as web hosting is not problem and trouble free. There are just so many things which can go wrong:
- The network could brake down
- The datacenter could encounter problems
- A hard drive might get broken
- You site might get hacked
- Your host could stop operating
- etc.
And do you know the best way to react to such problems? Well, I know a few of them, but first of all I will mention have it should not be done
The bad way of responding to hosting problems
This first part talks about “How it should not be done” and thus do not perform anything mentioned in this part as it only makes the whole “problem” worse. I think, that encountering problems with your web site hosted by a company is a hge problem as you might start loosing money immediately, but never do any of the following: Read the rest of this entry »
