Servers

[bennyboy]

“Server GUI” should be an oxymoron.

Yeah.  Punchcards were a lot better.  Let's go back to that.


To each his own, I guess. But seeing as I'm in Korea, and internet is basically a giant LAN, I'm very happy to treat my Server as a second desktop, with all the ease that entails. I'm actually a busy solo programmer, so every second I can save is another second I can apply toward new features for my site.

[Tiberius]

Nothing wrong with a shell. If you have to have a GUI, it should be web based. No reason a server should be wasting resources on a fully fledged desktop manager.

[KevinM1]

Yeah, Azure is nifty but expensive. My Linode works just fine for what I need. A full, 100% customizable linux server I can simply SSH into. None of the projects I've worked on (or likely will work on) require more than that.

On a slightly different note, I just learned about NGINX Unit. Very nifty. Really seems to be made for containers.

[ignoramus]

Tibs... you mean like webadmin for apache dummies? Nah, never used it!

[Tiberius]

Tibs... you mean like webadmin for apache dummies? Nah, never used it!

If you like, or something like phpMyAdmin (which I use) for database management. I don't use a GUI for server management, I'm perfectly happy on the command line for configuring nginx, installing packages, etc. However if you're new and need help, there's nothing wrong with a web based GUI. All the complex rendering happens off the server, on the user's machine.

[Tiberius]

It's about $100 / month, but any dedicated physical server will cost you about 2x or 3x that, and will almost for sure have hardware that's worse that Microsoft's virtual servers, and shitty service as well.

Just wondering, what are the stats of that $100 / month server?

For reference, the forum server has 8GB RAM, 4 CPU cores, 160GB disk space for $40 a month.

[bennyboy]

It's about $100 / month, but any dedicated physical server will cost you about 2x or 3x that, and will almost for sure have hardware that's worse that Microsoft's virtual servers, and shitty service as well.

Just wondering, what are the stats of that $100 / month server?

For reference, the forum server has 8GB RAM, 4 CPU cores, 160GB disk space for $40 a month.

About the same.  On that basis, I'm paying a lot more than you are.  I believe Azure also allows Linux installations, and the price is probably lower than my Windows one, which includes the licensing fee.  I don't know exactly, but I suspect the latter is probably about half the total price.

---

Nothing wrong with a shell. If you have to have a GUI, it should be web based. No reason a server should be wasting resources on a fully fledged desktop manager.

Yeah, most Windows users use Plesk I believe.  I like the .rdp admin better, because it's so much easier for me to do stuff.  Here's what I can do now that matters to me:
1) Compile programs on my development computer and drag them directly onto an .rdp window to transfer the file.  Double-click to run and. . . done.  Next task, please.
2) Azure is mega-scalable with no contract.  Not even a monthly one.  I can add or remove disk space, cores, or any of hundreds of additional features whenever I want.
3) Edit config files directly, go through error logs, start and stop features at the click of a button.
4) Microsoft sometimes calls me on the phone to ask how it's going (a cute-sounding Australian girl last time), and to remind me that engineers are waiting for the chance to make my life easier if I ever have any problems. Microsoft support is freaking fantastic, no joke!
5) I can access the Windows installation by .rdp through my cell phone. Windows on my Android device makes me a little horny!
6) All console and no Windows GUI makes benny a dull boy.

But in short, here's me trying to admin a Linux site:



and here's me running a Windows server on Azure:


I've had my own site for about 10 years now. This is the first time I've ever enjoyed it.

[Tiberius]

I would recommend locking down that RDP connection. RDP is notoriously insecure. What other services do you have exposed? Have you ever run an Nmap scan of your server?

Even I have SSH locked down to my home IP.

[bennyboy]

I would recommend locking down that RDP connection. RDP is notoriously insecure. What other services do you have exposed? Have you ever run an Nmap scan of your server?

Even I have SSH locked down to my home IP.

I'm not currently too worried about security, as there is not much personal information on the site.  That being said, I can see from my SQL logs that a couple times a day I'm getting a string of requests from addresses in China that don't authenticate.  So. . . that's a bit curious. Admin access to stuff is always a bit scary-- when I'm accessing stuff through cell systems, wifi, on work computers, and so on. But my biggest protection is that I'm a relatively small little company, and not much of my data is going to be worth anything except to other educational sites.

I'm about to add a bus system which includes geolocation info for actual human beings. I'd think that those people would probably want me to protect that info as strongly as possible, so I'm definitely going to have to update my knowledge of security. My first step should probably be not having a link to the .rdp on the Home screen of my phone, which is often unlocked.

The way Azure is set up has additional protections for boneheads like me. I recently had a hard time setting up my SSL certificate: the damned site just wouldn't load in https. The problem turned out that not only did I have to open the port on the Windows server, but there's also a virtual network object in the asset group that needs to be configured as well, server settings be damned. That was frustrating as hell, and very hard for me to figure out. But in the end, it provides some reassurance.

Azure is ALL ABOUT scaling security, right up to a full enterprise level. There are analysis tools and extra protections up the yin-yang that I'm pretty sure I'll never be big enough to use.

--edit--
And btw I doubt you're interested, but if you are, Azure is free for one month for developers (which includes anybody), and they give $200 credit for testing, which is enough to install whatever OS you want on a VM of sufficient power.

[WinterHold]

Can you host a physical site using a virtual server if you bought a domain name?

That question doesn't make sense.

But let me say that I run an Azure site, which is a Microsoft-hosted virtual computer.  You can choose any flavor you want, and you can change the details.  Need 100Gb and a Windows Server 2017 running on two virtual CPU cores?  No problem.  Need 10Tb and 16 cores?  Go to your billing portal, and thirty minutes later, everything's backed up and online with the new stats.  And it's a fully functional version of Windows that you can access remotely; you can set up the IIS exactly how you want it, set up any number of FTP or SQL servers you like.

It's about $100 / month, but any dedicated physical server will cost you about 2x or 3x that, and will almost for sure have hardware that's worse that Microsoft's virtual servers, and shitty service as well.

I didn't use Azure before; but Visual Studio is always reminding me of the cloud. I want to try it TBH; the concept of virtual computing is just so tempting.