WebFaction joins GoDaddy

Destry · 2018-09-26 12:08:55

Ugh. Time to find a new host. Looks like I’ll give Vikings a call.

Or hang this shit up entirely and run my own solar-powered solution.

mistersugar · 2018-09-26 14:28:23

Ugh, indeed. Thanks for flagging this. I didn’t know that GoDaddy has been parent company of WebFaction for more than a year. Time to move …

Destry · 2018-09-26 16:22:42

I didn’t know that either. Just saw their email to me today (yesterday?) about the merger, or whatever the fack it is.

bici · 2018-09-27 05:05:54

damm!! I just renewed for another year! I too will look for another host. I DETEST GoDaddy.

bici · 2018-09-27 05:21:24

PS
how to replace godaddy web site with webfaction site

philwareham · 2018-09-27 08:36:23

Just curious, why do you dislike GoDaddy?

jakob · 2018-09-27 08:57:58

I won’t rock the boat for my client for the moment unless things really go downhill. As it turns out, the news is old news as they already owned the holding company for a while. The team there have always been helpful if a little slow adding new needed features. The latter might be a capacity problem that a larger holding company might be able to improve (ever the optimist, I know).

Destry wrote #314176:

Ugh. Time to find a new host. Looks like I’ll give Vikings a call.

Did you find out any more about that? There’s their intro offer but I couldn’t find any details on the service itself or even on costs.

Or hang this shit up entirely and run my own solar-powered solution.

That’s a fairly extreme case and there are a fair amount of options in-between (e.g. like using PV/solar thermal power to offset your energy requirements in the house) plus generally looking at your energy balance and seeing where you can best make savings – your website might not be the biggest energy culprit (just saying ;-). But the idea is fun, I agree.

Running your own server is not such a hard thing, I believe. I think you could already do that with MAMP (or the in-built macOS server or just a NAS-box running linux) if you have a fixed home IP from your provider that you can point your domain name to, or with a service like dyndns if your IP changes daily. If you use a CDN in-between to cache your site, that would cover system outages too. I’m sure Pete could advise on that sort of thing.

bici · 2018-09-28 02:37:28

philwareham wrote #314186:

Just curious, why do you dislike GoDaddy?

a butt ugly interface and one that requires way too many steps to accomplish what should be much easier to do.

gaekwad · 2018-10-01 19:16:40

I had a similar reaction when GoDaddy acquired MediaTemple, that was enough for me to start looking around and ultimately ended up going down the roll-your-own route with Linode, Atlantic.net and DigitalOcean. It’s an involved process, sure, but immensely rewarding.

gaekwad · 2018-10-01 19:23:44

philwareham wrote #314186:

Just curious, why do you dislike GoDaddy?

See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoDaddy#Controversies for some background.

Destry · 2018-10-02 08:24:13

philwareham wrote #314186:

Just curious, why do you dislike GoDaddy?

What Pete said (link).

But my hate for the company came when the a-hole killed the elephant. African hunting is inexcusable. I’ve got my reasons for saying so and I’m not going to get into pointless debates about it (not that you, Phil, would want to but somebody might feel inclined). Basically, killing a big, noble creature with a powerful boomstick because your bwana balls are small is sufficient for a life-long ban of your company in my book.

I’m just upset that I wasn’t aware of the connection with WF, and especially after SSL headaches I had to endure. That’s no slam on the staff, who have always been helpful, and especially this last time around, Marie went above the call of duty.

But I can’t be staying with them. When my paid time is up, so am I.

jakob wrote #314187:

Did you find out any more about [Vikings]?

Not yet, but I will send them an email at some point with some questions.

[Solar-powered website] is a fairly extreme case and there are a fair amount of options in-between (e.g. like using PV/solar thermal power to offset your energy requirements in the house) plus generally looking at your energy balance and seeing where you can best make savings – your website might not be the biggest energy culprit (just saying ;-).

Yes, well, first of all, I was being a little tongue-in-cheek with that comment. I certainly plan to try that project sometime, but that’s not going to be my immediate next step. Easier would just be quit the web, which is more appealing by the day. No energy, tech, time, money, stress, or anything to do that.

But, of course, being truly conscientious means being conservative in every aspect of one’s life; what we buy, what we do, and so on. At the same time, there are compromises with family (individual habits), and varying costs (some quite expensive) of initial installation. And you have to have your own ‘home’ (or plot of dirt) to really get anywhere to begin with. That’s a huge luxury for many. And most homes are probably too big and luxurious for the good of humanity anyway.

Running your own server is not such a hard thing, I believe.

When the time comes, if ever, to play with the solar-project, I would look into this. I won’t be using Apple, however.

gaekwad · 2018-10-02 15:04:33

jakob wrote #314187:

Running your own server is not such a hard thing, I believe.
[…]
I’m sure Pete could advise on that sort of thing.

If you know what you’re doing, it’s actually kinda fun. There’re endless ways to tweak, rebuild, improve things, and it can get very obsessive if you let it. There are ready-made solutions if you want to install ‘n go, including ISPConfig and Mail-in-a-Box (if I think of any additional ones, I’ll reply).

I went from MediaTemple (who were bought by GoDaddy) to various off brand hosting and started rolling my own DIY hosting from about 2013. I moved to DigitalOcean in 2014, mostly because of the documentation and tutorials they had available. I started a from-scratch Scrivener document with the various components of what I wanted and/or needed, updating as I went.

I outgrew the Scrivener thing (and it was almost impregnable for anyone who wasn’t me), and then switched to a heap of Markdown docs edited in Atom, using GitLab as a hosted git repository. I went for GitLab over GitHub since a lot of my documents have details on inner workings and configuration, and that could be considered a low security risk. So, private repo on GitLab was the way forward.

…and then here’s the key thing: you have a playbook that works for you. Extend it, tweak it, commit changes, see what you’ve done over time. If you’re learning something, spin up a $5/month server, build it from your playbook (lots of copy paste, or learn Ansible), and get to the point that you’re either happy with it, or you break it. Here’s an overview of mine, minus the security risk:

If you break your server, destroy your server and start again. Update your notes as you go. If you’re happy with it, work on the next thing. Want to add something like Jitsi, Discourse or Magento? Spin up a new server, build it, break it, rebuild it, start over, rinse and repeat.

This is an affiliate link for DigitalOcean: >> m.do.co/c/47db4abfcf83 <<

Right now, there’s a thing called Hacktoberfest going on, and you can get $100 free credit for 60 days. If you get on with DigitalOcean, and you put some money in their meter after 60 days, when you spend $25 for server credit, I get $25 in credit and that goes towards running the Textpattern demo sites. What goes around, comes around.

If you put money in the tank, you can spin up one or more servers. When you don’t want them, you power them off or destroy them. $25 gets you 5 months of the base-level server, assuming it’s turned on for the whole month. If you take the route of write -> build -> test -> mess it up -> rewrite -> build -> test -> success then you can destroy your server each time without it costing money.

DIY servers are different to hosted servers, and while you can get a lot for your money, there’s value in the ready-made packages if you don’t want to tool around with settings for hours and hours. That said, if you’re a hacker/bodger like me, then it’s a goldmine of learning and curiosity. And also incredibly frustrating when you can’t figure stuff out…until you do, and then it’s the best feeling in the world.

DigitalOcean have also kindly sponsored Textpattern web hosting (see the forum footer) and we’re nearly done with auditing/migrating/updating from Joyent to DigitalOcean. More on that when we’re all clear.

Last edited by gaekwad (2018-10-02 15:07:05)

jakob · 2018-10-02 16:19:38

Thanks Pete for the informative reply. I find it enticing but just know I’ll disappear down a rabbit hole if I get started when I should be doing something else.

What I was actually suggesting in my poorly-worded comment was that you (Destry) could run your own website from your home computer or NAS box. If you have a cable connection with a static IP, it should be fairly simple. If you have dynamic IP, the dyndns etc. can help track the changing local IP to a fixed point on the net…

Returing to your comments, Pete, an aside: Do you have any experience of or views on things like GoPanel? Looks similar-ish to ISPConfig except installed locally.

gaekwad · 2018-10-02 16:37:46

jakob wrote #314329:

If you have a cable connection with a static IP, it should be fairly simple. If you have dynamic IP, the dyndns etc. can help track the changing local IP to a fixed point on the net…

Yes. However, practically speaking many ISPs lock down certain ports (especially SMTP), and as soon as you hit an email blacklist it’s hard to regain a good reputation. There may also be restrictions in an AUP or EULA that prevent home-hosted sites.

Returing to your comments, Pete, an aside: Do you have any experience of or views on things like GoPanel? Looks similar-ish to ISPConfig except installed locally.

Honestly, the idea of having a publicly-visible website running from my macOS computer scares me. Some versions of some containers (Docker, LXD etc) and virtual machines have known vulnerabilities for the guest environment leaking into its host/parent, and that’s not something I’m comfortable with…I’m not implying GoPanel is the same, but it’s vague enough that I’m not convinced.

Likewise, if I install any IoT stuff (shady or otherwise) in my home/office, it gets its own vLAN so it can’t snoop around. Plus, my computer is turned off after work/play is done, I don’t really want to leave a computer on all the time. Scaleway is absurdly cheap these days, much cheaper than my power bill for a computer for the month.

I picked ISPConfig as an example, there are others that I’ve tried and found pros & cons with each: Webmin and Froxlor are very usable, libre software and have different strengths. I started out with a control panel and moved to DIY instead because I saw this level of complexity and abstraction in the middle layer that I knew could be worked around with a bit of trial and error.

It sounds smug saying it, but going from managed hosting to DIY with a control panel to DIY with command line (Ansible optional, but it’s great) saves you money and keeps your brain working. Sure, definitely not for everyone, but worth a look if you’re curious. I keep saying how good the docs and tutorials are at DigitalOcean, but it’s true. Read ‘em, crib ‘em for your own use, and build up your arsenal.

bici · 2018-10-06 23:27:15

david12 wrote #314455:

I see that no one here has a good opinion about GoDaddy. I want to ask about the same as gaekwad. Why do you don’t like GoDaddy?

Why do you like GoDaddy?

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2018-09-26 12:08:55