How to setup for web hosting?

Portal Home > Knowledgebase > Articles Database > How to setup for web hosting?

Posted by okato, 03-20-2011, 03:36 PM
Hi everyone, I am new to this forum so please bear with me. I have a few old servers lying in my house and would like to seek some use for it. I am thinking of putting them into a cluster environment for me to play around with. I want setup an environment that mimics a web reseller. Is there anyone whom have some direction on which software to use or which software is better for that? I am thinking of running those on a Linux distro, Ubuntu, Fedora? What else is needed? Appreciate all help. Thank you!
Posted by bluemer, 03-20-2011, 03:47 PM
I tell ya its a great idea until you think about it further. If your only going to mess with them internally thats fine, but if your going to host a website or anything you'll either need a static ip, or someone to provide you dns services with dynamic dns ability. Also, if your on a mediocre(sp?) cable, or dsl modem it slow SLOOOOOOW your connection down!
Posted by okato, 03-20-2011, 05:31 PM
Thanks for your gentle reminder. I am not planning to host any production website on it. Mainly to test out the software available out there, so that I can plan for a future production environment.
Posted by bluemer, 03-20-2011, 05:45 PM
That would be grea then to learn, and test out software etc.. good luck!
Posted by Text12489, 03-20-2011, 10:00 PM
So, your trying to create a cloud environment or just cluster them together? Cheers, Tipsta
Posted by okato, 03-20-2011, 10:04 PM
Hi Tipsta, would you care to explain what is the difference between a cloud environment and clustering them together? I would want to find out what is the most common software that web host do?
Posted by Text12489, 03-20-2011, 10:56 PM
Well, Everyone has their own definitions of what cloud means, but what I'm looking at using to offer hosting is basically Cloud VM's using OnApp (Amazing software). But what do you want do to, just host peoples websites?, if so, just setup a server with CentOs and purchase a license to use cPanel. Should work for some basic hosting of SITES. Cheers, Tipsta
Posted by okato, 03-21-2011, 01:32 AM
I have no experience with onApp, but I do have experience with more low level software - Xen + OpenNebula. From the website, onApp seems like a pretty user friendly software. I am interested in how to make use of the cluster. I know I can easily host sites on a single machine. But what if it is a huge site, would I be able to span it across a few machine? How could load balancing be done? Is there any software that done that already?
Posted by Text12489, 03-21-2011, 01:50 AM
Thats not my area of expertise, but load balancing could just be a script on your main server that sends the user across to a different server, one server could be s1.mydomain.com and others s2 s3 and so forth. Cheers, Nic
Posted by tchen, 03-21-2011, 12:43 PM
AFAIK, there's no cloud solution that spans a single site across multiple machines without resorting to a load-balancer and dedicated database setup. They tend to be called appliances, but its still the same type of thing as HAProxy with heartbeat/pacemaker and a master-slave mysql failover. Here's a reference design for a scalable LAMP cluster from AppLogic http://doc.3tera.com/AppLogic29/RefAppLampCluster.html They have a lot of reference designs for different applications, and its pretty well documented on what type of opensource programs are installed per appliance. Be careful what you're comparing though. There's the (1) hypervisor level, then there's the (2) HA cloud stack. On top of that is the (3) application cluster. And on top of that is the billing/provisioning client (4). Vmware/Xen (1)XenCP (1)-(2)Xen+OpenNebula (1)-(2)OpenStack (1)-(2)CloudStack community edition (1)-(2)CloudStack (1)-(2)-(4) IaaSOnApp (1)-(2)-(4) IaaSOnApp+JumpBox (1)-(2)-(3)-(4) PaaSAppLogic (1)-(2)-(3)-(4) PaaSEC2+RightScale (1)-(2)-(3)EC2+RightScale+DevPay/FPS (1)-(2)-(3)-(4) PaaS Some cloud providers are just offering IaaS, while others provide an entire PaaS suite.
Posted by eming, 03-21-2011, 12:44 PM
Good overview
Posted by Techy, 03-21-2011, 12:47 PM
@tchen Thanks for the detailed information and link to Applogic's Lamp Cluster. Pretty neat setup.
Posted by okato, 03-21-2011, 01:32 PM
wow! thank you very much for your post. This is really informative. Let me do some research on them.

Add to Favourites Print this Article