I am scared to jump into the dedicated server market but I am so tempted by the prices and speed of the actual accounts that I have seen on rackshack.net.

I would like some affirmation that it won't be that tough. I used to work for infohighway in Houston (internet provider) so I learned a bit of linux command line. I am a little rusty, but I think I could manage on that portion. I am more nervous about what I keep reading about security and how so many people keep destroying their boxes. I plan to only have a few sites on this server so it is no big deal if I blow it up while I am learning. I basically want the server because of the resources, the shared systems are killing my forum and it only has 600 members.

So is it that big of deal to run my own server? I am figuring that there seems to be enough information on this forum to find answers to anything that I may come up with, so I guess I am just being chicken poop.

Waiting for the new specials that headsurfer is going to announce.

I think you've answered your own concerns really. It looks like you are on the right track - you know what you are in for and willing to learn. I'm sure you'll have great fun with your new server.

the forum is a great place to find answers to anything that may come up. but you might want to hire some one to do the initial patches, security, etc. I recomend mouse

I am in a loop, lol

10 goto 10

or

do while loopy = 1
loopy = 1
wend

I answer all my questions and then I start over. I get excited about setting up a server and getting a redhat book for something over 6.2. Then I remember that I just went back to college and I shouldn't focus to much on having fun in the web anymore. IT NEVER STOPS

How much does someone like mouse or whomever to setup the intial security of the box cost, typically of course.

Find the Ensim 3.1.1 thread of what to do when you get a new box. Take a few hours and follow it.

I have read almost everything in that thread, very helpful.

Do people purchase cpanel for the redhat systems? I am a cpanel user now so that would be wonderful, but seems costly to purchase it for a few sites if I am correct ($995). Can you get it cheaper somewhere other then cpanel.net?

pm rastoma he will give it to you for $65/per month. I know some people will do it a little cheaper , but you get great support from him and he even installs it for you.

To answer your first question - you'll love having a server here - go for it. It's a lot of fun and people in these forums are unbelievably helpful when you run into something you're not sure about.

As far as cpanel, I didn't even realize you could buy it for a one time fee. All the offers I've seen for for a monthly which I always thought was high but which might be a better option if you don't want to pay all up front. Prices vary widely, so shop around a bit. I believe someone in these forums sells cpanel at a nice discount. But I'm very intrigued myself by the one-time fee - that looks pretty nice. If only I was rich

Oops - jtr beat me. I was just about to edit and put in rastoma's name when it finally came to me... have to be quicker next time

The $995 was from the cpanel site and 2 year worth of upgrades for a single license. I should probably just stick with ensim since it is free. If I was doing reselling or something, it would be a different story, but all my site are personal sites so it isn't that big of a deal I guess.

Ensim isn't bad. If it were paid hosting, cpanel is definitely better in my opinion because it offers so many more features and has a better interface. But for personal sites, Ensim will do everything you need. If most of them are your own sites, you probably won't even use the end user control panel more than a few times to setup the intial email accounts etc - after that you'll end up doing everthing from the shell - at least that's what happened with me and I started as a complete newbie.

Cool, lets see if Robert pulls a rabbit out of his hat tommorow that will force me to do it. The thing is, I am paying $50 total for 2 sites right now. I plan on adding another site or two here shortly and then it would go up to about $75 a month. I am so pleased with what I get for the amount of money I am spending but the 400 user shared server is becoming bothersome to me. See my justification system at work? hehe.

LOL - I did the same thing when I decided to get a dedicated server. But I'm really glad I made the decision to do it - it's also given me a lot more freedom as far as which I can do with my site in terms of not worrying about tight bandwidth or cpu limits, running the scripts I want and having plenty of power, etc.

Well I did it, and everything is running well. The only stumble I had was getting a database file in. For somereason I was doing the wrong command. Other then that, I have 2 named sites, bastiled, chkroot, changed hostname, and time. Wasn't so bad, spent about 8 hours on it today, lol.

Congrats!! BTW, The forum beats the &hit out of RS support. Bug here before bugging them j/k.

Look for a howto on snort+aris, it's really neato.


Also, look at the posts I have commented in, a lot of them are useful reading. The ones mouse has commented in are also probably pretty useful