Start-up Help

J

jdshells

New member
Hello all, I was in need of some info, if you all could help. I am thinking of starting a shell services company. But i'm not sure of what programs I need to run on my server for bandwidth usage per ip addy, and same for webspace, etc. Also, any suggestions on what kind of billing system I should try? Any help will be great. :)
 
Hey jdshells.
I cant really help with the shell hosting but I can help with webhosting if you are doing that.

I know Gordy does shell hosting and knows quite a bit about it so he can help when he gets online :)

For the billing system, it depends on your needs.
I think phpcoin is very good but I dont need my billing system to do very much, although phpcoin can still do most things, if not everything, that any other could, and its free which could help if your just starting off :)

Good luck!
John
 
Well first you are going to need a dedicated server, you can get ones with unmetered bandwidth, such as FDCServers.net, but I would not recommend this at all. I've had personal problems with them, not just stories I've heard. The IRC servers never stay connected for 24 hours without splitting. Reason being, is they use cogent bandwidth, a very cheap provider.. and you get what you pay for.

I recommend you buying a server with xGB of bandwidth, not the unmetered ones. Usually have better speeds and quality in connectivity. Servers I know of start at $79 per month, but I would go with the $99 ones.

If you are going to host IRCd's primarily, you should get firewalled IPs. Reason for this, it can help cut down on the DDoS attacks and other related problems.

You should not get anything less than an AMD XP 1600+ or if you are going with Pentium, I would not go with anything less than a 1.4ghz, and these of course are the 'bottom of the barrel', however will do the work just fine.

You won't need a big harddrive since IRCd's take under 10mb each usually.

The ram you have in your machine can sometimes make a difference if you are hosting quite a few IRCd's, but 512mb is often enough.

The operating system that is most commonly used is FreeBSD, although RedHat will work just fine as well.

I have a few systems availible for IRC use. The prices start at $79 and range right up to $199 (which are currently in stock with instant activation). They all come with 300gb bandwidth, and we are expected to upgrade the bandwidth to 400gb or 500gb for no extra fee in the near future.

If you would like to know the specifications of any server, or would like a quote, let me know and I will be more than happy to help you out.
 
Ok, now about some server software. What programs or scripts should I run for bandwidth usage per ip addy, and billing system. Any Help would be great. :)
 
Get BGM + Tripwire

BGM = background monitor. This utility you edit a config script to set the amount of processes a user can have running at a time. Then y ou setup a cronjob for BGM to check every 15 minutes or so. This helps make sure that if someone is only paing for 2 processes... that they are actually only using 2 :)

Tripwire = Root secutiry. I have this on my box whenever users have access to shell. Giving users shell access is a huge security risk. It allows them to run exploits to attempt to gain access to restricted areas/usernames. Tripwire bascially monitors peoples activity... like if they type "su - root" you could have tripwire email you, page you, text message you... Kind of a neat tool.

I dont kno wof any tools that monitor bw/disk space... I would just install all users in /home/username then use the -list -size options on a dir listing to see how much disk space they are using. A little more overhead... but I dont know of any reliable scripts.
 
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