What do you use your Linode for?

2D curve fitting and 3D surface fitting is the only use I make of http://zunzun.com

James

I use mine for a hosted Kerio MailServer I run for clients. Pretty slick.

An expensive shell account really.

I used a free service called metawire previously, and they deleted my account when I forgot to close screen.

Never found a shell provider I thought I could trust to provide a service with integrity and good customer service.

Uses:

• personal webhosting

• circumventing nazi university firewall

• rendering university recording of all sites accessed worthless :) (uni policy is along the lines of "you have no privacy, thus there can't be any violations of privacy")

• accessing a non-windows environment windows shops (eg: uni…)

• saves me running any servers on my weak ADSL home connection

Mine does mostly quite boring LAMP hosting: leedsrocksoc.co.uk and leeds.scifi.me.uk are both smallish (maybe 20 regular users) community sites for societies belonging to my university – the Students Union provides web hosting through the university but can't work out why a society would need or want sql database access, and the university will only provide oracle as a database, complete with a massive price tag.

Then there's a few blogs, a bug tracker for the dev work I do, and a couple of my friends have an shell account and some webspace for tinkering with things.

@rm:

Never found a shell provider I thought I could trust to provide a service with integrity and good customer service.

http://www.panix.com/shell.html Panix Internet have been providing shell accounts since 1989 and are pretty good. $10/month (or $100/year pre-paid). NetBSD setup.

I prefer a virtual host (like linode or Panix v-colo) because it gives me more flexibility (my own SMTP server, UUCP-over-SSL, DNS etc etc etc).

I originally got my linode to run my own mail server: I wanted my own domain (so that changing ISPs wouldn't require an address change), and I've never had an ISP that didn't eventually screwup mail (well, Neosoft, before they sold out, was pretty good). So mail comes into the linode, and my home server UUCPs it periodically.

Of course, that means the occasional mail screwups are now my fault, but somehow that's better…

Also, a wordpress blog that only gets updated when I do something interesting (it's been more than a year, now). Gallery for my pictures and for my parents' pictures. A few Django apps for personal convenience.

-Expensive shell account for IRC access. Yay screen/irssi!

-Hosting four domains and varying subdomains

-E-mail for all of the above (+ webmail over SSL)

-MySQL database… but who doesn't? The difference with mine is that the root user is allowed access from anywhere, without a password… but it requires an X509 cert. Good times.

-My linode actually contains the raw files for my Certificate Authority… backed up, of course.

-OpenVPN access (on :53/udp, yay for walking around firewalls)

-IPSEC access

-DNS master for my domains, with key authentication allowing me to update my DNS from anywhere, securely

-File hosting

-Kerberos realm

-LDAP (coming soon!)

-PGP/GPG key backup

I like my crypto :)

@kbrantley:

-Expensive shell account for IRC access. Yay screen/irssi!

-Hosting four domains and varying subdomains

-E-mail for all of the above (+ webmail over SSL)

-MySQL database… but who doesn't? The difference with mine is that the root user is allowed access from anywhere, without a password… but it requires an X509 cert. Good times.

-My linode actually contains the raw files for my Certificate Authority… backed up, of course.

-OpenVPN access (on :53/udp, yay for walking around firewalls)

-IPSEC access

-DNS master for my domains, with key authentication allowing me to update my DNS from anywhere, securely

-File hosting

-Kerberos realm

-LDAP (coming soon!)

-PGP/GPG key backup

I like my crypto :)

kbrantley:

Do you know of any good guides for setting up OpenVPN and IPSEC? I tried a while back and wasn't able to get things properly working - one of the issues was my firewall configuration, though I know there were others.

Thanks.

–Xel

For OpenVPN, I used the HOWTO. http://openvpn.net/howto.html

For IPSEC, the lartc is amazing: http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.ipsec.html http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.ipsec.tunnel.html and http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.ipsec.tunnel.html

Note that lartc uses the KAME software for IPSEC, not the OpenSWAN software.

Firewall configuration? OpenVPN needs a single port (of your selection), tcp or udp. IPSEC needs 500/udp (but this can be changed if you really want to).

I am running:

1. game server growing in popularity

2. a dozen or so websites

3. email/webmail/filtering for half a dozen domains

4. DNS for all domains

5. asterisk for nearly free voip for my office

6. database for all data

In no particular order:

1. a shell account

2. a site to run some blogging software I'm writing in Python

3. a site to host a family photo album

4. a place to experiment with internet services without having to punch holes in my home firewall

So far I've been happy with the Linode experience.

document processing (cant say what) for fed gov agencies.

@yhs:

document processing (cant say what) for fed gov agencies.

What's a 'fed gov'?

@zunzun:

@yhs:

document processing (cant say what) for fed gov agencies.

What's a 'fed gov'?

A Carnivore, of course ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_%28software%29 )

- web apps

• jabber server ( ejabberd )

I use my Linodes for data analysis subscription software, selling to SMBs. http://www.carpdata.com

Frank

Atm, I use it mainly for irssi proxy+ screen, but once I get the mail stuff set up, I will be moving my site over from another hosting company, and host a few other sites for a friend. I've got apache, php, mysql running, once mail is up, it'll be ready. :D

Hi,

I run Slackware 12.0 on my Linode 360 and I use it for:

• DNS (master and slave zones)

• Mail server (anti-spam/anti-virus also running)

• Mailing list server

• Private web server (a couple of sites)

• Proxy (to punch through some draconian firewalls)

• Testing site for international connectivity from South Africa

• NTP server in emergencies or to cross-check local ones

• General testing (ping, traceroute, telnet, etc)

I also compile the odd kernel on my Linode, but only if it's a fairly static kernel with few modules.

–deckert

hosting http://ryanpartington.com where the user comes first, second and third

mostly for killer sites that I design!

Slack 12.0 for mail, authoritative DNS, web hosting for a dozen or so domains, and a wiki.

LAMP hosting solution for web applications and sites I build for my clients.

Also runs as a backup MX for when my ADSL is down. (I am resting my foot against my primary MX ;-))

Sometimes fire up Squid so that I can proxy out from the USA when a) I think I'm having routing problems and b) to see how things look different when GeoURL is in use. Also allows me to bypass my ISPs wretched transparent proxy which has a habit of doing some really weird caching sometimes.

Second Linode is redundant LAMP server for when the Big One hits Fremont ;-)

As this server is pretty well in sync with the primary, I use it for pre-deployment testing of new code for client apps. (On the grounds that the client can play with it here - they can't if it's just running on my laptop.)

Tertiary MX.

Also runs a couple of Mailman lists for a client.

Both Linodes run Gentoo, but with LAMP components all hand-crafted rather than standard ebuilds.

Uhh. . . Linode.com runs on a Linode 1440 ;)

-IMAP/POP + SMTP hosting

-SFTP access for small web hosting via apache (just personal file hosting or whatever…no ACTUAL sites)

-shell account/access and occasional socks proxy for school firewall

-IRCd

-other small things maybe…

So…I love linode the service and control is amazing support is good as well. I couldn't be happier. Except…maybe if I had an active use for it. It seems I am using my linode 360 for a decent amount of useful tools but I am not even hosting something as little as a blog or SMALL website. My primary email address is hosted on google apps anyway so this this only serves my secondary emails that I don't use as often at all.

It kinda sucks because I love my VPS and everything but I just wish I had a much more active use for it that I could feel good about. Do any of you have any easy suggestions? Please keep in mind that I suck at web design and basically all types of coding and programming :)

-Caleb

Mostly failover for my other VPS. Unison and MySQL replication on Arch Linux.

Secondary e-mail server, Ventrilo server, dev box.

Proxy server mostly, to get around my nazi workplace firewall (heh). personal use LAMP w/ postfix and a home for a domain name i've ignored for a year or so.

I use my linode to provide an online word and number puzzle generator application to other webmasters. See http://www.blogpuzzles.net if you'd like to try it out.

I use my linode to provide an online status indicator for a whole bunch of different IM protocols.

You can check it out here : http://www.imstatuscheck.com

Linode 1 hosts a couple of small websites and is a primary mail server for a few domains

Linode 2 is where I backup the data from Linode 1

Mine runs Gallery2 to share our (far too many) family photos: http://pictures.donsbox.com/

I also use it to:

stash files I need to share with friends/colleagues

run a mail server

host a (possibly soon to be public) Gentoo portage mirror

use it to keep my ffox bookmarks in sync (using webdav + bookmark sync and sort plugin)

distcc for my many Gentoo boxes

shell account

2 forums, a couple IRC bots, my friend's stuff (with free hosting), a wiki, a jabber server, and that's pretty much it.

Mainly personal stuff

• Hosting blog and projects (and some friends)

• Subversion repos

• screen/weechat

I use my Linode to host:

• oldos.org (phpbb3, pwwiki) & about 10 other website

• a node of the irc.r-type.ca IRC network

• neoportage (formerly fluidportage) … which is the SVN/CVS ebuild project for Gentoo

• no-sources kernel patchset (obsoleted and mostly dead)

Other than that, I use it for a general shell server, proxy server, and other misc things I might need at the time :).

@chrisnolan:

Linode 2 is where I backup the data from Linode 1

Does your recursion make you have a Linode 3 to back up Linode 2? :P

I use mine for personal use mostly. xmpp (ejabberd-svn), website for various blogging ideas that I generally don't have time for, file serving, and a bunch of other random things.

Am I the only one that finds it odd no one has yet to mention "torrent leecher". :-)

Linode #1: BIND/Apache/PHP Forty gaming websites.

Linode #2: MySQL

Linode #3: nginx Static Client websites/OpenFire

2 Linodes 720's

Linode 1:

Primary webhost for my Eve-Online Alliance

Seconday nodes for Teamspeak/Jabber and node Eve-Online NC killboard

Linode 2:

Primary Jabber/Teamspeak host

Primary host for Eve-Online NC killboard (runs on 5 nodes)

Nagios

I use my linode as a remote linux desktop, general server/programming stuff and am current running a left4dead server.

~19 Websites (5 active, 14 parked/proxied)(collectively well over 170k hits a month)

-Drupal, osCommerce & Gallery

CentOS

MySQL, Apache, PHP, Perl, Postfix, ProFTPd, Virtualmin, etc.

Running on a Linode 360. :D

Impressive considering it took a dedicated server with 1GB of RAM to run all this previously. (and it was still underpowered)

Linode 360 running a web site for a cross gaming guild. (http://oi-guild.com). We have 900+ subscribers but realistically 400-500 active users.

Using: SuSE 11 with MySQL, Apache, PHP, Perl, Exim, VSFTP, Dovecot, Firehol, etc.

We got sick of web hosting and went VPS so we could run whatever we wanted. Linode broke the price point barier of $20 a month and with the long buy discount we couldn't refuse. The whole thing is payed for by donations from members.

Performance is through the roof in comparison to the old host and we havn't seen any SQL errors like we used to get - lots of web hosts use mySQL servers that you share with who knows how many people and the damn things time out frequently. I used to get 40-50 emails a day from this. I have gotten 1 error email since and that's because I had a typo in a script I wrote.

Also: these forums have been a great soure of information.

@Bedevere:

Performance is through the roof…

Also: these forums have been a great soure of information.
Two of the three things that should convince anyone to sign up. Great performance, awesome support, and the best community. 8)

I use linode 360 for openvpn proxy when I am using open wireless.

Our Linux user group has a Linode 360 to run our web site (MediaWiki, Apache, MySQL), mailing lists (Mailman, Postfix), and IRC bot (infobot). The only unexpected downtime was a reboot when we were migrated from UML to Xen, and it went completely unnoticed by anyone until I was checking logs several days later.

I also helped a friend set up two forums (PunBB, Apache, MySQL) on another Linode 360. These were previously on Dreamhost - someone else's badly-behaved script on the same machine was causing it to freeze up and reboot once every 24-48 hours. All they could offer was maybe to migrate his site to another server at some unspecified time in the future.

Both sites only consume a small fraction of the resources available.

Me, I run Drupal on a Linode 720, currently one active community Site http://www.rejecttheherd.net primarily for a social, political and what not. It's starting to grow with more users and hits.

I also have another site strictly for personal use only. I then have a few other domains parked for when I get some time to develop I'll get them going.

Great speed for a multi site Drupal install, I'm extremely pleased with the performance.

I have a linode 540 running on CentOS. I host 3 websites (Lighttpd PHP MySQL), hl2 source game server, team speak, VPN and proxy for when I use a shady internet connection and need to check my email.

Been using it for three month and LOVE IT! Not a single crash.

I use my linode to run a fansite for actress Yvonne Strahovski (from NBC's Chuck – http://www.strahotski.com).

It gets around ~1500 hits/day; up to 5000 on Chuck day. One time Sport Illustrated linked to the site, and we got 35k in one day. That was good times.

I'm running Lighttpd & MySQL, with PHP for Wordpress, Vanilla Forums, and Piwigo image gallery.

I just use Google for Domains for my mail needs, so nothing to run there. I regret that I set up the site on a 64bit system and some day plan on migrating to 32bit.

I'm currently considering buying a separate linode just to play with; I've had so much fun setting up the site that I want to play – but I don't wanna bring down the site now!

So not really that exciting; just the normal stuff I guess.

.

Right now I'm posting to a blog, and I'm building some C++ server software, including a FastCGI framework that can be used to build C++ web-apps which strike a good balance between efficiency and development productivity. After that, I'll try out some more development projects I've been meaning to do for years, and have a place to show them off.

@WayneCollins:

I'm building some C++ server software, including a FastCGI framework that can be used to build C++ web-apps which strike a good balance between efficiency and development productivity.

A friend of mine did this: http://docs.fredemmott.co.uk/FastCgiQt/ (Not Linode related in the slightest, but cool none the less :) )

@mwalling:

@WayneCollins:

I'm building some C++ server software, including a FastCGI framework that can be used to build C++ web-apps which strike a good balance between efficiency and development productivity.

A friend of mine did this: http://docs.fredemmott.co.uk/FastCgiQt/ (Not Linode related in the slightest, but cool none the less :) )

For an idea of what this looks like in action, check out http://builds.slamd64.com. We use a git backend for the files, with tarballs generated from folders using FastCgiQt. It's nifty. Again, not on a Linode… though I'm seriously considering using it on mine for something or other.

I use my Linode for 3 domains, with about 20 vhosts, a mySQL server, a 16 slot HL2:DM server with 64 slot SourceTV, mail with imap access and Spam/Virus filtering, a BitTorrent tracker, 3D rendering for scenes my computer can't take :D and numerous other random things as and when I need them. All on a Linode 540, was a 360 until the Game server.

@Lykaon:

I just use Google for Domains for my mail needs, so nothing to run there. I regret that I set up the site on a 64bit system and some day plan on migrating to 32bit.

.

Just out of curiosity, why do you regret setting up your site on a 64 bit system?

Not sure what exactly Lykaons reasons are but these two threads give a pretty good idea about 32bit vs. 64bit (issue mentioned the most: 64bit uses way more memory).

http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3777

http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3938 (some posts towards the end of pg1 and the beginning of pg2)

@oliver:

Not sure what exactly Lykaons reasons are but these two threads give a pretty good idea about 32bit vs. 64bit (issue mentioned the most: 64bit uses way more memory).

http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3777

http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3938 (some posts towards the end of pg1 and the beginning of pg2)

Thank-you, this will really help, I am about to make such a decision - 64 or 32.

@tonyce:

Just out of curiosity, why do you regret setting up your site on a 64 bit system?
My primary reason is because I'm OCD and I like everything to be perfect. I chose 64 bit originally because higher is better right?

But then when I researched it I realized that higher isn't necessarily better and I don't have any real reason to have a 64bit OS running – especially with so little RAM.

There have been no issues with running on 64bit. I just wish I had used 32bit because I would just feel at peace with things more than I do.

I use my 360 linode mainly for OpenVPN tunneling.

currently in dev of a real-time multiplayer flash game using socket servers :D

i use linode for my personal mail and webserver (yea, pretty boring). i left a shared hosting place for linode because the shared hosting place sucked.

my blog: http://ultramookie.com

i also have a front-end for yahoo! search at: http://s.ultramookie.com it's something small and light that i like to use with my mobile phone.

Wow, I feel like the only loner here.

My Linode acts as a shell, mud server if I ever get it going.

I haven't found anything else to run on it as of yet, but possibly sometime in the future.

I like to pretend I have more than one, but I'm beyond to cheap to own more, or I would.

I love the support, and usability.

Hosting my Company's website and various apps used by said business.

www.helwigtech.com

Use it for two websites:

http://mikeshoup.com

http://xikkpsi.org

Its also an NTP server.

Apart from that, its my mail server.

@sweh:

@zunzun:

@yhs:

document processing (cant say what) for fed gov agencies.

What's a 'fed gov'?

A Carnivore, of course ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_%28software%29 )

LOL I remember the big controversy over that thing. The media make it sound like it could hack into ANYTHING. In reality it was just a packet sniffer like the wireshark program i have installed on my computer for free. Shame we all paid billions for that thing through taxes and interest.

Our Linode runs the site of Deep Ogontm. We call it Blogging with Numbers! It's kind of like a Wikipedia for statistics, wrapped in a blog.

http://www.DeepOgon.com

Linode 360:

One domain that runs:

• LAMP server for JavaME/Web/WAP client

• SMTP/POP

it is interesting to know

what do you use your Linode for and what distro do you use.

I add that I use CentOS 5.3.

I have two Linode 360s, both running Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. One is dedicated to a wiki about Rochester, New York: http://rocwiki.org/. The other is my "personal" Linode, and has a bunch of stuff on it:

Asterisk (with FreePBX front-end) for our home telephones

ntpd (a part of the pool.ntp.org time server pool), now averaging 35 queries/sec

b2evolution (for a couple blogs, my own included)

lighttpd (general web server; two php-cgi instances under it, one for "normal stuff" and one for FreePBX)

Postfix (gets mail for various domains, forwards them to external mail accounts)

OpenVPN (VPN server for two VPNs, for tunneling IPv6 traffic)

irssi and bitlbee (for my communication addiction)

MySQL (database support for b2evolution and FreePBX)

This Linode has about 125MB of memory free, after accounting for buffers/cache/swap usage.

Curiously, it's the single-purpose 360 for rocwiki that ends up OOMing, because of some memory issues here and there with the wiki software. :-)

I run a 70,000 page, 100% SSL legal research website, https://www.oregonlaws.org

It's running in Rails, in production mode, with mod_rails & enterprise ruby. It has a seamlessly integrated blog which is actually wordpress: https://www.oregonlaws.org/blog

I use a 720 Linode so that the entire database and index can be cached in RAM and give < 200ms response times.

It's the standard Linode Ubuntu install. I've then created identical Ubuntu VMs that I use on my personal computers for development work. I do a one-command deploy to the Linode using Capistrano. I never have out-of-memory errors, or any problems, really: I regularly check for Ubuntu and gem (ruby/rails) updates.

Using a Linode 720 to host my Wordpress blog, which is about Computer Systems designs: http://www.hardware-revolution.com. Getting about 150-200k pageviews per month, with spikes of 30k per day, not a problem at all.

I've got a Linode 360 which I use to host TangoCMS, a small but quite successful open source PHP CMS, feel free to test it out on our demo :)

The Linode has been perfect so far, got 267 days uptime (would be over a year, but I decided to play around with the kernel and ended up breaking things!) Couldn't have asked for more, really great service.

My Linode hosts an Asterisk VoIP system for my home phone and the NWS Wakefield, VA SKYWARN Amateur Radio Support Team. It also hosts some smaller web sites, including my personal site, and continually runs a copy of Interwarn, pushing NWS weather products out to the SKYWARN leadership team. Other than that, it's a general-purpose Linux box used for various console and XWindows applications. Works great!

I'm running (on Linode 540):

A personal site to host my stuff and my programming projects

A couple SVN repositories for school and work

A tor relay to consume extra bandwidth

An opensource 3d shooter game server (openarena)

I hate databases as they take up resources, so I prefer SQLite or flat file configurations… so far so good!

Maybe people should tell us WHAT they're running:

svnserve

nginx+php-fpm+xcache

tor+privoxy

vnstatd

Not much eh?

Oh, and OS = Debian 5.0 as it has the smallest footprint of them all (memory and hard drive space).

My 360 is used mostly as a playground…

Web Stuff

Host my personal site (Wordpress) http://3dgo.net

Fireborn fan site (SMF) http://fireborn.org

A friends blog about babies (Wordpress) http://lkbaby.com

Photo Gallery (ZenPhoto)

Misc other web toys

Screen

irssi (irc + bitlbee + irssi_proxy)

rtorrent

and general shell playground

The web server I'm currently using is Cherokee, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet. I've only just switched to it from LigHTTPd and that was only because it looks shiny.

@vindimy:

A tor relay to consume extra bandwidth

I should do that. I've been wasting my linode for the most part. I was just tired of having random Comcast outages and it taking down my jabber server.

Aren't you then effectively on the hook for anything anybody does? It could certainly lead to your IP (or a larger bank of your neighbors') getting blacklisted.

If you're a Tor relay and not an exit, you don't show up in logs, so you don't get abuse complaints and blacklisting. Actually, it's better to allow exiting to your own server's public IP, so people can visit your sites over Tor with end-to-end encryption.

Linode 1440 with Debian 5 running:

• Normal LAMP setup (3 websites, wordpress/blog, gallery, music site etc)

• Shell stuff (whois, dig, code editing, general server customization)

• File backup (code, text documents, wordpress themes etc)

• DNS (linode as primary ,other box as secondary, hosting about 10 domains)

• Mail (Postfix/dovecot/squirrelmail, although using Google Apps as main email atm)

I'm using my other european box for IRC stuff and hosting all my friends websites bncs/eggdrops atm.

Currently im the only user on my box and I like to keep it that way, all the resources for me :D

On a normal day I will edit my websites on the shell, try out shell scripts/automating tasks, whois domains, blog about my findings, upload my music tracks to host etc.

I LOVE my linode, it's the best <3

It runs Ubuntu 9.04, with Apache, Memcached, PHP (Suhosin), MySQL, and Phusion Passenger.

I currently host two Wordpress sites and another two Rails applications.

Wordpress:
* Digital Anachronism - My brother's food and recipe site.

<url url="http://proliferationoflinux.org/">~~[](http://proliferationoflinux.org/)~~[The Proliferation of Linux](http://proliferationoflinux.org/)</url> - My old blog (not really active anymore)</list> 

Rails:
* Wakify - A web application for sending Wake-On-LAN MagicPackets

<url url="http://www.flightless-seabird.org/">~~[](http://www.flightless-seabird.org/)~~[Flightless Seabird](http://www.flightless-seabird.org/)</url> - Just a tiny Rails application I put together in about an hour for showcasing my VPS.</list></r>