Hosting Advice

tomasr

Hi, I am looking to build my experience managing a LAMP webserver and doing web development on Linux. To do this, I want to setup a webserver online and build a role playing website for some friends.

What hosting service should I use?

I want to host the full linux server, not just my web app. I'm also a worried about security - if I setup a server and it gets hacked, I don't want to end up paying thousands of dollars for the resources stolen by the hackers. I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to ask, but if you have any advice, I'm all ears!

jabirali

tomasr wrote:

What hosting service should I use?

What do you mean? As far as I know, "hosting service" usually refers to companies that maintain a web server for you, while you seem to wish to maintain your own server. Do you mean what software packages you should install on your server? Or perhaps where to get a domain name?

tomasr wrote:

I'm also a worried about security - if I setup a server and it gets hacked, I don't want to end up paying thousands of dollars for the resources stolen by the hackers.

What kind of resources are we talking about here? Passwords should always be stored in an encrypted format. If you mean personal information, you could always put up a disclaimer encouraging that people don't disclose anything they intend to keep private. Mail addresses may be prone to spamming if the wrong people get to them, but I've never heard of anyone being sued for something like that.

Good luck on the project by the way, it sounds like fun

marc

I suggest you to contract a server a provider of your liking ( i do not want to give names, just search for them).

It could be on cloud or hardware...

For a security guide:

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/_files/os/redhat/rhel5-guide-i731.pdf

Regards

tomasr

Thanks, Jabir. I think I'm looking for something like a cloud hosting service, but maybe I don't need to go that far?

On resources, I mean I'm worried about incurring overage charges for disk space and bandwidth if my server gets hacked. Any comment on that?

tomasr

Thanks for the info, Marc.

marc

tomasr wrote:

On resources, I mean I'm worried about incurring overage charges for disk space and bandwidth if my server gets hacked. Any comment on that?

You can always ask the provider to limit the amount of money they can charge you without warning

Regards

tomasr

great, thanks again!