How To Set Up Your Linode For Maximum Awesomeness

shaunpud

Interesting article I found on HackerNews for setting up a new VPS; http://feross.org/how-to-setup-your-linode/

Some more comments on HN; http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4618808

PhoenixVPS

Linode also has a library with awesome documentation: http://library.linode.com/

KuJoe

Here's a much easier method:

1) Cancel Linode VPS. 2) Order 6-10 LEBs for the same price. 3) Lighttpd/nginx + Varnish = Geographically redundant + High Availability

:P

klikli

@KuJoe said: 3) Lighttpd/nginx + Varnish = Geographically redundant + High Availability

You still need a front-end anyway...

Maounique

@klikli said: You still need a front-end anyway...

Might go without. Not perfect, but still... M

serverbear

This article is meh, copied most of it from the Linode KB. "How to set up your Linode up for Maximum Performance" is much more interesting than basic security tweaks.

averell

Gosh, I wish I had a Linode VPS. Regular brand VPS just doesn't feel as secure.

Zen

Oh my word...they sure drank the kool-aid, I feel sorry for all of these people paying premium rates for mediocrity :(

Ishaq

@averell

It's all the same in the end.

Jack

@shaunpud what's your avatar?

joodle

@Jack said: @shaunpud what's your avatar?

Probably his hairy ass...

Zen

@joodle said: Probably his hairy ass...

Hairy ass is allowed on LET, otherwise you'de be banned!

dragonballz2k

Hairy ass is allowed on LET, otherwise you'de be banned!

He might be special. That picture will help kids graduate high school.

gnel

@kikli Would you like to explain what do you mean by a front-end? I currently have one vps but I'm thinking getting another one in other continent and doing what Kujoe said..

klikli

@gnel said: Would you like to explain what do you mean by a front-end? I currently have one vps but I'm thinking getting another one in other continent and doing what Kujoe said..

You'll need a HA frontend to serve connections if you expect 100% redundancy.

KuJoe

I've been playing around with varnish and round robin DNS. So far I've got 2 varnish servers with 4 webservers. I haven't made the setup live yet but all testing looks stable and I'll be throwing some DDOS protected VPSs into the mix for good measure. Total cost is $15.99/month (this includes if I paid for the VPSs on our servers and the DDOS protected IPs from BuyVM).

I've been throwing blitz.io runs at it and it's been performing a lot better than against any of the 4 webservers individually. The best part is, even if all 4 webservers go offline it still serves our websites just fine. :) I originally had 3 varnish servers but I found out that without vSwap, you need more than 256MB of RAM to run varnish (with vSwap it only uses 19MB instead of 260MB, I think it has to do with how the 2.6.32 kernel handles memory).

Zetta

@averell said: Gosh, I wish I had a Linode VPS. Regular brand VPS just doesn't feel as secure.

Yep.

kampung

@KuJoe said: Lighttpd/nginx + Varnish = Geographically redundant + High Availability

It is not easy at all, for me. It will be great if you can give some tutorial about it.

KuJoe

@kampung said: It will be great if you can give some tutorial about it.

There are plenty out there. If I have some time in the future I might type one up but it would mostly be a copy and paste from the ones I've used (I wish I bookmarked them now).

rchurch

Guys, we need to be honest!! Linode is superior because as the saying goes, nobody over got fired for buying Linode. Their system is very flexible, you can do whatever you want, and you know that they will be around in a while.

How do you go about explaining to an irate customer that their website is a having problem because you hosted their critical service on an unknown hosting providers service, whose yearly hosting charges cost less than your hourly maintenance, or call out fee? You really fucked them over because you relied on a $100 dollar a year host?

Never mind, it could be that it wasn't a fault with the hosting provider, or that it as a huge DDOS on their network, or that it was due to a configuration error of some kind. Do you think they would accept that excuse?

On more occasions than I wanted I have had to ask KVM and even VMWare providers to add my preferred recovery disks to their ISOs, then they would ask me, what disk is that, what does it do, and I would be thinking that these guys are supposed to know more about server recovery disks than I do, do I need to explain? What really bothers me about LEB providers is the low technical ability a lot of them display.

No, Linode is better and it doesn't matter whether they are using the latest E5 or E12XX nodes or not. Unless you are doing something highly demanding must of the time you don't need the latest hardware.

As for Bitcoin hacks I gather it was down to some social engineering or a dishonest employee. On LEB given the technical knowledge displayed here, you would only need to be lucky enough to get an account on a node, or probably exploit some flaw in SolusVM.

The setup guide referred to pretty mediocre. I must have missed the referral code - Oh I just noticed it.

KuJoe

@rchuch You're on LET, we're not interested in an expensive VPS that does the same at a $2/month VPS. I'm not saying Linode is not good, I'm just saying for the majority of people on this website it's not needed.

It's like going on a forum of Chevy owners and explaining the pros of a Ford... it's not needed and a waste of time.

sleddog

@KuJoe said: It's like going on a forum of Chevy owners and explaining the pros of a Ford

Bad analogy, a Ford doesn't have any 'pros'. :o)

Zen

@rchurch said: What really bothers me about LEB providers is the low technical ability a lot of them display.

Tis true this, but there are your high quality LEB providers out there and some not so much known that strive to learn and know a lot more than most of the LEB providers.

And in all fairness, you're trading something when you pay the low price, and most providers here aren't looking to host companies and corporations, a lot of LEB buyers are buying for the usages of hobbies and interests, part time testing, etc.

rchurch

@Kujoe The problem on LEB is not even the price, it is the technical competence of the providers. Some $5 VPSs here offer superior performance, with memory, IO and bandwidth than Linodes. But even if you can rely on them not to go bankrupt or ran off with your money, can you rely on their technically ability?

For me the biggest expense if the time it takes me to set things up, not the hosting fees. Guys like you, Francisco and Prometeus are truly a minority here. Right now I am sorely tempted to demand a refund from a provider here not because I wasted money, but time, just out of sheer annoyance, or get 2 or 3 months free hosting just to see if they will improve. I have left some VPSs running idly for months, because I knew it would be too much hassle to set them up again if I switch providers.

A lot of LEB providers should realize that they would be able to charge a lot more if they were more competent and would do well to raise their skills. Many of them need to realize that if lot of people feel happy to pay other providers 4 times the price they offer for lower resources, they must be doing some things wrong.

craigb

@rchurch so why not buy multiple LEBs and bake in redundancy/resiliency yourself? There are plenty of orchestration tools to help with that...

Also, please keep to LEB rules...you mentioned 100USD per year host...tut tut ;p

rchurch

Most of my LEBs are idle anyway. I have them on standby so I can get to try out something quickly when I need to, rather than wait for a new order to be provisioned, and yet inspite of that some providers conspire to make them unavailable just when I need them :(

craigb

@rchurch this is why you should always buy way more LEBs than you need ;-) /me whistles...

Jack

@rchurch said: Right now I am sorely tempted to demand a refund from a provider here not because I wasted money, but time, just out of sheer annoyance, or get 2 or 3 months free hosting just to see if they will improve.

@rchurch who

rchurch

@Jack Your best guess for a $1m!!

Jack

@rchurch said: Your best guess for a $1m!!

I'll accept payment via cheque.

Thanks.

sleddog

@rchurch said: How do you go about explaining to an irate customer that their website is a having problem because you hosted their critical service on an unknown hosting providers service, whose yearly hosting charges cost less than your hourly maintenance, or call out fee?

I agree, but lots of people here won't.

I use Linode for client services. Why? Because they provide a combination of (a) performance, (b) reliability (hardware + network), (c) support, and (d) price.

Yes, some LEB providers might match or exceed Linode on performance. Yes, some LEB providers might match or exceed Linode on reliability. Etc., etc.

But no LEB provider matches Linode on the combination of all four factors.

And it stands to reason. If you're gonna offer the same thing at 1/3rd the price, something has to give. What's it gonna be: Performance? Reliability? Support?

For me, the price difference is irrelevant. Yes I could shop around and get the equivalent of an $18/month Linode 512 for $10/month cheaper. Big whoopee. $120/year is very small potatoes if you're servicing commercial clients. If that LEB causes me 20 minutes extra work per month then I'm in the hole in terms of billable time. I've been there, done it and regretted it.

I love the LEB market for personal projects, and it's very useful for redundant services like DNS, secondary mailservers, etc. That's it, for me.