Happy customer upgraded
I'd just like to say thank you very much to Linode.com and a very Happy New Year to everyone there.
To say something regarding the thread about extra disk space, I was very pleased to receive a free upgrade from Linode this past year.
I actually bought a separate account at another provider just for disk space and guess what, never used it yet. Instead when my linode (the very smallest size) started needing more memory and disk space as it is serving files now, I have upgraded to the next larger size which is very useful.
My take on the other providers is that they say you have incredible resources but that you would be rolling the dice to actually depend on them to guarantee your data will all be there, that your bandwidth really is there, etc. whereas with Linode.com, I have gotten excellent feedback over IRC and feel quite comfortable. I would certainly be willing to pay additional to upgrade again in the future too.
That said, I would indeed be happy if it was possible to add more storage cheaply, might even accept higher latency for it, but would not accept overselling of resources.
Also, I think it would be useful to have more information for people setting up their servers regarding the following areas:
administration control panels
common issues / signals suggesting you need more resources and should add more disk / memory. And helpful diagnostics.
tell people it is cheaper to upgrade whole system than just add memory
tell people their IP does not change when you migrate, which is required when you upgrade sometimes. (How to tell if your new machine is faster/less users?)
explain backup options
info about securing system and monitoring it intelligently, safely, with minimum resources. For example I installed ntop briefly to see if I was eating resources from external connections but was worried about log file size, and not sure why hosts I didn't know were connected. (Try it you'll see what I mean. Some are maybe due to linode network and some are maybe attackers?) Also is snort useful, does linode network have any protections in place, etc.
info about what are most useful tools / procedures for common tasks Linode owners might want to do. For example:
Apache. Seemed to be eating memory so minimized it…
WebDav. Quite finicky to set up manually, it was working and now have to redo it again.
Multiple domains on a linode, including what to do about dns, is BIND necessary, is there a simple multidomain admin tool like HSPComplete/Virtuosso, etc.
-- Where I'm coming from: I had one domain (using Linode.com's name servers) and then had to add another parked at GoDaddy. (They seem to allow using their NS but can't tell. So far it works) I just upgraded moving to a new machine but IP is the same? Hmm.)
I set up name-based apache websites and will set up postfix for more domains in the future. Anyway I still don't know if I should use zoneedit.com etc. in future and what else I will have to do in the future.
It seems these sort of things would be useful in helping people grow into bigger linode users and make it more fun.
Happy New Year,
Matt