What hosting services are you using?

Targets Web
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[quote=257587:@Phillip Zedalis]DigitalOcean already provides many tutorials on how to get a web server started. Getting your Xojo app running is fairly easy. However that is only the beginning.

Much like when you hit ‘Build’ and your Mac and Windows binaries are produced the work has just started. Now you have to think about auto-updates, code signing, installers, marketing, sales channel, website, support, etc.

A server once its running your app is now going to be hit by thousands of random SSH login attempts, drive by security threats, etc. Your libraries need to stay up to date. You have to decide how you want to configure SSH, FTP, etc. There’s a lot involved and theres a reason ‘DevOps’ is a career in itself these days.

So I think it would be irresponsible to dismiss a managed solution like Xojo Cloud or others when you factor in the work that is necessary to keep secure and safe online. Providers have worked hard at providing a base template but also a repeatable, and more importantly, a manageable system that is optimized for different use cases.

Messing around with a Linux server is fun but as soon as you start bringing in any kind of revenue your time is better spent marketing then tinkering IMO.[/quote]

Good point.
What I was referring to was a “playground” or a testing server.
It is indeed better to run an app in production stage on a managed server. Either a Xojo-Cloud based one, or somewhere else. Just to stay focused on programming rather than securing.

44

Sharing knowledge is always good and Linux is great to learn.

45

I’ve set up a couple of Ubuntu 14.04 servers with ISPConfig to run Xojo apps as well as email, web, and a few other things.

I did the install with one of the guides google turned up, but I remember seeing somewhere there was a prebuilt VM image available. ( Found it. Howtoforge.com. Small fee for downloads there. )

I’ve been pretty happy with it. Once you click through the menus and figure out where everything is it’s pretty easy to administer and if you’re comfortable with scp or set up ftp in the ISPConfig interface it’s quite straightforward to upload a Xojo cgi style app.

I’m actually running it in a VM under the free version ESXi on my own hardware, but I think most vm hosting services support ubuntu so it should work fine. I’m pretty sure you can run it under other distros, but I have found debian based stuff tends to make more sense to me for some reason or other.

Also, to Philips point about security, etc. Just the other day I happened to be looking into a junkmail issue, about the only thing that makes me actually pay any attention to my home OS X server besides watching tv on it, and I noticed a lot of login attempts in the console. Turned out some china bot or other was trying to brute force ssh.

After tracking down some, new to me, RBLs that hit on my most recent junkmail, I added in a few new rules on my home router/firewall. That was only about 2 1/2 days ago and I currently have 72 IPs in the penalty box. If I didn’t have the auto block rules in place, I’m sure that would have been thousands and thousands if not millions of attempts at cracking the password.

So don’t take this stuff lightly and at the very least choose good passwords. I use the suggest password feature in Safari or Keychain on OS X to get a long random password. I’m sure you can get similar function from a password manager on other platforms.

BTW, junkmail count today 1! Take that spammers! :slight_smile:

Don’t forget backups either. Very important. Sorry for rambling, it’s late and I have a bad cold.

46

[quote=257539:@Edwin van den Akker]Well… if there were only one distro good enough to start a step-by-step guide. I mean, I do have a VPS laying around at some other host. I can easily install a fresh distro on it. And what if other Xojo users are stepping into the magical world of VPSes… a good tutorial will be more than welcome :smiley:

Again, just as they are starting from scratch… (like I will)[/quote]

How good it is, I don’t know, but for what it’s worth …
https://forum.xojo.com/31513-step-by-step-guide-to-setup-a-ubuntu-vps-and-run-xojo-webapps/p1#p257926

47

Do not use 1701 Hosting. You have been warned. I have not had a worse time with a webhost in 20 years of web development. Apparently its a 1 man shop, and he has disabled everything on the server, including cpanel. You have to go through him for everything, and he promises to do it, but then never does it, says it slipped his mind. He prides himself in being the best Xojo host, but after 6 months, I still cant even SSH in to start the Xojo service. This REALLY should have been setup and configured as soon as I clicked the buy button. Still no Xojo, which we as a company spent just under 6-figures to buy from a small business.

48

Aren’t we being a bit too severe ?

I have been SSHing on 1701 for the longest time, and did it yesterday night as well to create symlinks. Maybe you need to use the proper tool. I have no difficulty whatsoever using Terminal on Mac and Putty on Windows.

That said, it is true that is a small company (aren’t we many of us here), but Phillip has always made big efforts to satisfy as fat as he could.

To be perfectly honest, it maybe time for him to drop his elusive in home control panel which has been in alpha since 2013 and never makes it to release. CPanel can be installed in minutes and that would indeed be a HUGE improvement.

I was also surprised to learn not long ago that NO logs whatsoever were available. I find that rather annoying ; I would like to have at least some stats.

Maybe 1701 is feeling the growing pains. Maybe it needs some amount of feedback to realize its failings.

49

i simply use hostnet.nl (dutch) with a Ubuntu VPS and a PLESK web license.
Put cgi web applications on there, it’s easy to manage.

Make sure after upload you clear caches of your browser.

Ooh and i use 64-bit.

50

Nick,

I am sorry to hear you are so unhappy. I can’t get into the details of your account here on a public forum. I will say that I have asked our customers to email us support@serverwarp.com which has a full ticketing system. It alerts us to tickets and emergencies 24 hours a day so we can respond. We do have other technicians who review tickets and prioritize them for us and/or respond when necessary. If you email me privately and I do not respond within 24 hours I do not take offense if you email me again. Like any provider it is challenging to service all customers when they email me personally.

Also I would like to add in all fairness that the request that you made regarding your servers was a very unique situation. We have not developed automated mechanisms to support this and thus I did lose track of it. I have apologized many times over and if thats not enough then I am sorry. We have hundreds of customers now (not just Xojo ones) and most are very pleased. While this is not directed at you Nick there are some customers who believe $25/month should earn them a ridiculous amount of support time. It’s a challenging industry for sure but we are continuing to grow (and hire).

51

[quote=290258:@Michel Bujardet]
To be perfectly honest, it maybe time for him to drop his elusive in home control panel which has been in alpha since 2013 and never makes it to release. CPanel can be installed in minutes and that would indeed be a HUGE improvement.[/quote]

I actually have to disagree with you here. CPanel is SO behind the times. We offer the latest PHP 7, the latest and fastest web servers (OpenLitespeed, ngnix, etc) and essentially any version of any database server. Many of our customers have very specific requirements for their applications and we can provide them. CPanel installs an entire DNS/Mailserver suite on top of a very old kernel with very old versions of MySQL. No PostgreSQL, no cubeSQL, no Valentina, etc. It’s simply a terrible option in my mind for hosting.

The elusive control panel is coming but as the company grows and we have spent 5 figures on hardware it’s taken a back seat to old fashioned service and learning what our customers need.

Log files consume lots of disk space and nobody uses them. They just grow and grow. Just read Kem T’s line from XDC yesterday: “Now talking about Xojo Cloud. Last year Geoff talked about how there had not been any breaches in over 360 million attempts. This year, they don’t know exactly because they had to stop tracking. Users’ logs were filling up!”

The reality is the only useful logging is the logging that you do at the application level. We have helped customers build a logger that provides them the information they need.

52

Phillip, I am sorry, but you got to get back to earth. Frankly customers should not have to wait and wait basic features because you invest in hardware. On the contrary. 3 years without control panel is not reasonable. CPanel may not be Jetson’s material, it is here, it does exist. I am afraid you do not realize that your wonderous control panel has to be released at one point sooner rather than later, just because you are WAY behind any average shared hosting right now.

As far as logging is concerned, you don’t have to keep logs forever. They could be deleted on a weekly basis for instance. As you perfectly know, people like me are not limited to running Xojo apps. It is your business after all, but if you discount every feedback from users, you are IMHO in danger of missing the boat on the long term.

You know I have been a fervent supporter since I signed up. It does not mean I have to like every single one of your decisions, if they impact my ability to run my own business. if I actually need a feature you refuse to provide, you will force me elsewhere. The only difference being, I tell. Others will probably silently move on.

53

Hey Michel. I don’t discount it at all. I just know CPanel is not the right solution. We are deeply invested in this and have a control panel coming within 30-60 days. What you don’t see is all the automation behind the scenes that powers the control panel that is already in place.

I appreciate all feedback. Some customers are a great fit and we have helped them be very successful. Others need different things and I don’t take offense to that. Just like Xojo and Xojo Cloud it is not for everyone. We have taken just as many customers from Xojo Cloud as I am sure they have taken from us. Fortunately there are plenty of customers and plenty of ways to do it.

My feedback to you was regarding the fact that CPanel cannot offer what we offer currently so it’s not a good fit. Do we need a panel? Absolutely. I just disagree that Cpanel is that panel. Stay tuned.

54

Hi Phillip, I have been hearing this for the last one year that the CPanel is coming this month next month and so on. Until now no news. Please do it as soon as you can. Other wise you will loose your customers.

55

Thank you Sunil for the kind feedback. We will not disappoint.

56

My favorite statement when somebody complains I should go faster.

I use 1701 server Amsterdam running PostgreSQL for a xojo desktop application and do some xojo test-cgi on it. No complains so far, unless I also should expect some control and stats provided by a nice (X)panel.

57

[quote=290280:@Phillip Zedalis]“Now talking about Xojo Cloud. Last year Geoff talked about how there had not been any breaches in over 360 million attempts. This year, they don’t know exactly because they had to stop tracking. Users’ logs were filling up!”

The reality is the only useful logging is the logging that you do at the application level. We have helped customers build a logger that provides them the information they need.[/quote]
Apparently this needs some clarification. We actually keep a rolling 4-5 weeks of raw system log data as well as a compressed “suspicious activity” log for about a year. Users don’t have direct access to System logs, but we’ve allowed access to the Apache access and error logs for those periods.

58

I have been using vpsdime.com for two years now.
6gb RAM, 30gb SSD, 2tb traffic for… $7 per month. I haven’t found a better offer (particularly RAM wise) yet.

59

[quote=290280:@Phillip Zedalis]Log files consume lots of disk space and nobody uses them. "

The reality is the only useful logging is the logging that you do at the application level. We have helped customers build a logger that provides them the information they need.[/quote]

That post was a while ago, and am sorry to say I have been accustomed to see the journal of hits on servers, since I started back in 1996.

I also used logs to see how many files had been downloaded. And frankly this has nothing to do with “the only useful logging is the logging that you do at the application level”. I may be an exception, maybe all your other clients do only Xojo Web apps and no downloads ever.

The issue of logs taking room is fairly easy to solve by deleting them regularly, weekly or even every two days, what can be carried out automatically.

I still don’t feel comfortable with that situation.

I don’t feel comfortable either with the absence of a real control panel.

Both things are really bothering me. As much as I like you, your service does not satisfy entirely my requirements.

You know, when a significant number of customers tell you things, don’t explain to them how wrong they are. Look closely at your policy instead.

There is another unwritten rule to commerce : for one customer who complains, how many others silently walk away ?