Ye Olde Rad Blog II

You might recall when we were booted off our server .. for using excessive resources (CPU/memory). Banished .. to the bad-boy "stabilization" server. Unfortunately, we're still there. (Lunarpages is my web host.)

Since then, I've been working to lower our resource usage. Upgrading the forum to YaBB v2.2 was part of that effort.

Every once in a while, the support crew at Lunarpages will notify me that our usage has dipped below the allowable levels (each account is allocated a max of 1% CPU/memory), but they always wait to "monitor" the account to see if it stays that way.

So far, it never has. And I'm almost out of tricks.

They keep telling me I need to move to a VPS account, which costs a lot more (~$500/yr vs ~$100/yr for a Shared account), and which allocates more server resources to each account (2.5% vs 1%).

But unlike Shared hosting, you have to administrate your own VPS account .. which involves the Linux operating system, Apache web server, MySQL database, PHP & Perl scripting languages, etc .. which can be daunting for the uninitiated (like me).

So I've been talking to Magoo (whose guides are hosted here, such as his Intro to Linux) .. to see if .. we have to go that route .. he was still available to administer a VPS account for me. (That's what he does as part of his day job. He said, "I ain't scared of no VPS.")

Even tho having your own VPS is very cool, I'd rather stay Shared, primarily for the co$t. But if we have to go that route, I want to understand what's involved. You can eavesdrop on the dialogue here » Magoo: VPS Admin.