7 replies to this topic

[shinyblue]

Hi,
This is a pre-sales thread about the VDC offerings.

I'm not that familiar with H-sphere, so my questions will reflect that. I am wondering how much the VDC is flexible and you can set up things differently than the standard Cartika reseller accounts.

For instance, could I install SVN, the client and/or repository?
Could I upgrade to a more recent version of PHP, like 5.2.9?
Could I install certain modules and whatnot for customers who need them, like Image Magick? Do things like Ioncube loader work fine?
Could I increase the memory limit for PHP?
How well does Ruby on Rails work with H-sphere? Do people need shell access, or can it be managed through the control panel?
Is SFTP supported, and can you enable it without enabling SSH access?
Would I, as the owner of the account, have root shell access to the VDC servers?
When an upgrade to Apache comes out, does Cartika automatically upgrade the VDC servers, or would I need to keep up with those? What about things like CentOS updates?
How slow is EasyApps at getting the newest version of Wordpress, etc?
Can you use suPHP? If not, do you run into the problem with EasyApps (that happens with Fantastico) where the plugin auto-installer doesn't work out of the box and the user has to go change the permissions on the plugins folder to 0777 (insecure)?

Are things like adding a PHP module or installing SVN be things that the admins would do upon request, or would it be up to me?

So I'm not sure if my questions are more about H-sphere or about Cartika, but hopefully I can get some answers.

[CH-Andrew]

Hello Shinyblue.. typically speaking, we offer a fully managed service.. having said this, as with any control panel, there are supported versions of software we need to deal with...

shinyblue said:

For instance, could I install SVN, the client and/or repository?

on your own servers, you can install these if you like..

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Could I upgrade to a more recent version of PHP, like 5.2.9?

we could only upgrade you to the highest supported version of software that hsphere supports...

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Could I install certain modules and whatnot for customers who need them, like Image Magick? Do things like Ioncube loader work fine?
Could I increase the memory limit for PHP?

yes to all of these

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How well does Ruby on Rails work with H-sphere? Do people need shell access, or can it be managed through the control panel?

it is up to you on what you want to offer. ROR does work with hsphere. as for Shell access, end users rarely do not require shell access (though often times they insist on it) - so, it is up to you on whether to allow it or not..

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Is SFTP supported, and can you enable it without enabling SSH access?

SFTP requires shell access, though you can enable SSL over FTP without shell access...

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Would I, as the owner of the account, have root shell access to the VDC servers?

if you wanted it.. however, you obviously need to be careful with root access.. most managed providers do not give root access as they do not want customers breaking things.. however, we allow you to go in and as long as you do not break things, we will not mind you having root access..

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When an upgrade to Apache comes out, does Cartika automatically upgrade the VDC servers, or would I need to keep up with those? What about things like CentOS updates?

we schedule and upgrade various things as newer versions come out and after upgrdes are planned, tested, etc..

Quote

How slow is EasyApps at getting the newest version of Wordpress, etc?
Can you use suPHP? If not, do you run into the problem with EasyApps (that happens with Fantastico) where the plugin auto-installer doesn't work out of the box and the user has to go change the permissions on the plugins folder to 0777 (insecure)?

you can run php in fastcgi mode which bipasses this issue. However, it is worth noting that mod_php and fastcgi each have their respective advantages. 777 can certainly be insecure, but, running in 755 in fastcgi also has its issues. Anyway, with the newest version of hsphere, users can choose which mode of php they want to run in (ie mod_php or fastcgi for each DNS zone)

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Are things like adding a PHP module or installing SVN be things that the admins would do upon request, or would it be up to me?

you would request it and if it could be accommodated, we will accommodate you..

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So I'm not sure if my questions are more about H-sphere or about Cartika, but hopefully I can get some answers.

A bit of both :) - hopefully my answers are useful to you

Edited by andrew-admin, 27 April 2009 - 03:39 PM.

[shinyblue]

Hi,

Follow up questions:
1. SO...what version of PHP does H-sphere support and how often do the update it?

2. Same question for CentOS - what version and how often is it updated?

3. CPanel has a shell they call "noshell" which lets people use SFTP, but not log in via SSH. That's what I meant, does H-sphere have something like that?

4. So - SuPHP runs PHP programs as the user - does FastCGI do this?

[Steven]

shinyblue said:

1. SO...what version of PHP does H-sphere support and how often do the update it?

Currently it supports 5.2.9. It's updated as soon as a new version comes out plus testing time and package building. Couple weeks to a month sometimes lag but they have done packages faster when a major security exploit is in the wild.

shinyblue said:

2. Same question for CentOS - what version and how often is it updated?

Latest version of CenrtOS 5 is used. Updates are done usually as needed and typically in a all servers at once. Updates can be done upon request.

shinyblue said:

3. CPanel has a shell they call "noshell" which lets people use SFTP, but not log in via SSH. That's what I meant, does H-sphere have something like that?

No, sorry not at this time. FTP over SSL will do the same thing, however, and still stay with the usual FTP settings except selecting FTP over SSL in the ftp client.

shinyblue said:

4. So - SuPHP runs PHP programs as the user - does FastCGI do this?

Yes, it does run as the user.

[michael123]

Hi steven,
thanks for sharing this knowledge,
what are the specifications of SuPHP runs PHP programs ?
and also does FastCGI?

[Steven]

Hello,

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by "specifications of suphp runs php programs"? Could you please elaborate further?

michael123 said:

Hi steven,
thanks for sharing this knowledge,
what are the specifications of SuPHP runs PHP programs ?
and also does FastCGI?

[lehua768]

How well does Ruby on Rails work with H-sphere? Do people need shell access, or can it be managed through the control panel?

Edited by CH-Steven, 23 May 2010 - 10:35 PM.
links in post to other sites not dealing with post and hosted else where.

[Steven]

lehua768 said:

How well does Ruby on Rails work with H-sphere? Do people need shell access, or can it be managed through the control panel?

It is supposed to be controlled through the control panel, however, the last time we tested this, it wasn't suitable and thus we haven't included it. With that said, though, it may become available at sometime in the future or if you are on a vps/vdc/cloud can be done there sooner.