[ILUG] box hosting

[Paul Jakma]

> it would be much better if you could get enough people so 
> that it only costs
> 10/month (the amount of users does not really matter - the 
> more the merrier)

the more, the cheaper, the better - definitely,

>  - about the same you'd pay an ISP for a dial-up.
> (chancer - would it be possible to install 3 modems and use 
> it as a dial-up
> machine? i thought not)

if it's installed at your place why not? :) (costs covered of course)

> 
> also - everyone would have to have root - if your paying for 
> something like that,
> you want to be able to restart the webserver after tweaking 
> something, adding
> a virtual domain, or HUP the dns server after adding another 
> subdomain to
> justin.org (whatever), or simply add an alias to sendmail......
> 

that's a recipe for disaster i think. you'd have different people with
different ways of doing things tripping all over each other. imo you'd need
to set out the rules from the beginning. perhaps something like:

designate 2 (3 max) people as the uber-admins. 
find out who has expertise in what areas, delegate stuff as appropriate.
eg:
	dns handled by the 2-4 most competant
	web admin   (ditto)
		(web /page/ admin could again be sub-delegated).
	mail, hardware, etc (ditto)

people can have multiple responsibilities of course. also, you need to set
out ground rules about changing things, eg like discuss first before making
a change, not allow someone with one responsibility to make a 'little tweak'
to something in another area of responsibility... whatever. maybe use RCS
for config files.

seems strict. but i think it's better to have a firm set of agreed rules and
then relax them as neccessary, rather than try an impose rules on an anarchy
later on. esp if there's going to be 10 or more people involved.

> so who wants to vet these users? and how?
> 
be restrictive first, and relax as fit is the most viable for the long term.
anything else and you might one day end up with fisticuffs at a POTD.

> one solution is to have say, 2 users with root, who 
> constantly do the bidding
> of all the other users, or just tell them how silly thier 
> request is ;o)
> 

in the beginning the above is probably the easiest.

> I'll look into hosting a box here (cyber cafe) - it would be 
> much cheaper - 
> say 1/2 price of the others, no head etc...on a 256k line 
> (that would max
> out at approx 30.4Kb/s under ideal circumstances)
> not super fast but you can't spit at it ;o
> we would have to take into account traffic considerations 
> etc.. i'll get
> back to u (oh - and i wouldn't charge to hit the 'reset' button ;o)
> just a thought....
> 

so roughly what would you say it'd work out if the box was at your place? 
Also, the box could do some serving tasks for your caf' in reciprocation.
Depending on your requirements/acceptability of course.

bandwidth: that's something else that'd have to be firmly laid out. What
will the limits be, both in terms of the box as a whole, and per user? Also
do we allow per user commercial stuff or don't we?

(what per user bandwidth accounting tools are available?)

Anyone feel like a POTD to waffle about the viability of this?

regards,

paul.