# FreeBSD Hosting?



## awyeah (Dec 21, 2008)

Has anyone had any experience with FreeBSD hosting providers?  

Specifically, I'm looking for a virtual system using Jail, Xen, or whatever, and something pretty inexpensive.  No mission-critical apps or anything - it's mostly going to be for personal e-mail serving - but obviously reliability is a plus.  

So far I've found John Companies and RootBSD.  Has anyone had any experiences with either of these, or with any others?  RootBSD seems to have the best pricing, they start out at $20/month, which seems pretty great to me.

Thanks!


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## skepsi (Dec 21, 2008)

I've been with RootBSD for about 4 or 5 months and I have been very happy with the service.


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## Pushrod (Dec 21, 2008)

Not much in the RAM department.


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## komeylian (Dec 21, 2008)

hi, 

jail is good solution for virtual hosting otherwise i suggest to check virtual machine on freebsd,

check it in /usr/ports/emulators/vmware3

have fun


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## awyeah (Dec 21, 2008)

Pushrod said:
			
		

> Not much in the RAM department.



I'm hoping that even the lower-end package will be enough RAM for me to run a mail server and bind... just for my personal stuff, so it's only really going to be me accessing it anyway.  Of course, if I need an upgrade, I can always upgrade my package.


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## liamjfoy (Dec 21, 2008)

awyeah said:
			
		

> I'm hoping that even the lower-end package will be enough RAM for me to run a mail server and bind... just for my personal stuff, so it's only really going to be me accessing it anyway.  Of course, if I need an upgrade, I can always upgrade my package.



You'll need very little RAM.


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## skepsi (Dec 21, 2008)

awyeah said:
			
		

> I'm hoping that even the lower-end package will be enough RAM for me to run a mail server and bind... just for my personal stuff, so it's only really going to be me accessing it anyway.  Of course, if I need an upgrade, I can always upgrade my package.



I run a personal mail server (qmail), webserver (Apache + MySQL), and DNS (tinydns) from RootBSD's "Iota VPS" service and have had no trouble, they even promptly provided reverse DNS lookups for my email server. The speed is just fine, the increased bandwidth over my home connection makes up the difference in system speeds. You really don't need much in the way of hardware resources to run personal sites.


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## gordon@ (Dec 23, 2008)

skepsi said:
			
		

> I've been with RootBSD for about 4 or 5 months and I have been very happy with the service.



I have to second this. I have a virtual at RootBSD and have been happy with it. Additionally, they support the FreeBSD project with resources for developers, so, please support them if it makes sense for you.


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## dpezely (Jan 9, 2009)

*ServerBeach now supports FreeBSD*

This may be overkill regarding the original post of this thread, but ServerBeach has full dedicated hosting and now offers FreeBSD.

Here's the preliminary announcement:
http://forums.serverbeach.com/showthread.php?p=40612#post40612

Their network peering is wonderful.  I think they have 200+ (300?) peers, if I recall correctly.

I've used Debian with them in lieu of BSD just to be on their network and have been a very happy customer for a year.  

FreeBSD is new for them, though: started 12/2008.  However, it's low risk: It's pay-as-you-go, billed every 30 days and may cancel before 14 days of next billing cycle.



Here's why I recommend that you consider dedicated over shared:

For the same price as some mediocre shared servers, you can get a basic dedicated host.

Regarding other providers with "virtual private servers," I've used Verio's FreeBSD hosts in the past and recommend avoiding their VPS products.  While their Tech Support is phenomenal (at least in my experience, and I've been a sys-admin in high-stress production environments), their shared servers have capped resources to such a degree that it's crippling.  For instance, maximum number of processes is something like 70-75 for their basic service.  Number of open file descriptors also hit a rather low ceiling.  So if you use software that forks much or doing a fair amount of background processing, you're doomed.  For the same price as Verio's VPS, I could have migrated to an entry level ServerBeach host.  (Instead, I upgraded to a beefier box at SB for a little more.)


One final thought: DIY for US$220

If you have a broadband connection at home and unmetered bandwidth (or low traffic requirements), the new Intel Atom 330 CPUs are dual-core and hyperthreaded.  Some benchmarks put them on par with a P4 but with amd64 instruction happiness and greatly reduced power consumption (think: light bulb).  I've run FreeBSD 7.1-RELEASE on one built for US$220 (complete, mini-ITX) from NewEgg.  (Just be sure to get the updated Realtek re0 driver: http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=123123 )  

Be sure to get the dual-core CPU released September 2008 (or newer) rather than the single core found in 2008 netbooks/nettops.  

Then consider EveryDNS.net for free DNS.  They seem to also have dynamic dns support, should your ISP not offer static IP addresses.  By donating funds (US$15+), you get TXT/SPF records and other goodies, but basic DNS is free.


[no affiliations with any of the named companies other than being a past or current customer]


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## susanth (Jan 11, 2009)

*FreeBSD based Hosting*

Hi,

Have a look @
http://www.hub.org/


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## X-Istence (Jan 11, 2009)

As for FreeBSD hosting, ThePlanet.com offers Dedicated servers with FreeBSD on them.


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## Pushrod (Jan 11, 2009)

X-Istence said:
			
		

> As for FreeBSD hosting, ThePlanet.com offers Dedicated servers with FreeBSD on them.



I have a Linux machine at The Planet. Check this out:

14:25:38 up 610 days, 15:07,  1 user,  load average: 0.04, 0.03, 0.00


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## Maxamoto (Jan 11, 2009)

*Fluidhosting*

Been with them for about a year. No issues so far


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## Maurovale (Jan 11, 2009)

Hi, if you are from Europe you can try - http://www.dominios.pt

They offer FreeBSD dedicated Servers and shared hosting also.


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