Website hosting – what you need to know
At some point in our lives we all hope our websites get popular enough to generate some traffic and get us some exposure. No matter if you have built a small family website, or a large corporate site you will hope to have a lot of people view your site.
If you are new to website building you might be a bit confused about what type of hosting is best for you. You now have to worry about your sites security, running backups and keeping things running smooth.
For example if your site gets hacked or goes offline and you don’t know about it, or know how to fix it, all your hard work is wasted. Here are some tips anybody who works on websites for a living needs to know.
Stay away from cheap/free/shared hosting
It may sound like a good deal, but sometimes these cheap or free hosts are way more hassle then they are worth.
It’s really annoying when you upload your entire Joomla site to a host and then realize you are only allowed one MySql database, or the host doesn’t support .htaccess. Worse yet, a host that doesn’t allow gzip or any advanced server features.
Ideally if you plan on administrating more then one url/website you should go straight for a VPS or a dedicated server with a reputable host and keep all your sites there. It will be easier to admin and you will have less stress. Realistically you only need 5 clients or so to be able to fully fund your server fees.
Not mapping out a website backup plan
For the most part, hosts do NOT do daily backups of your precious family photos or your clients sites.
If they do, generally in the fine print you will see they do not guarantee reliable daily backups. Do it yourself and make it automated. When doing backups, don’t forget about your databases. They are probably 50% of your most valuable content, don’t forget to back them up.
Get to know how to handle permissions in Linux
When you got into building websites you most likely had no idea you were going to have to deal with server security.
I know I didn’t. One of the first things you need to familiarize yourself with is making sure your file permissions are set properly. There are hundreds of thousands of articles on the web going into details. Read up, play, and get comfortable.
I use YummyFTP to set file permissions and upload things to servers. You can also use SSH. Find the way you are comfortable with and figure it out. Hackers will take advantage of your site if you are dumb enough to set everything to 777. Better yet, use su_php as I detail in the next section.
Lock your server down
Do you have a VPS or dedicated server? Have you taken any steps to secure it?
The first thing you need to do is install ConfigServer. This will guide you though getting your server hardened as well as give you daily/weekly reports, a great firewall, and a heckta-buttload of tips and tricks for server security. It also has a “secureity level” percentage, so you can actually see holes getting plugged and security getting better as you work though it.
This should be installed before your server ever sees public traffic. Why are you still sitting there? Go install this.
After you install that, recompile your php to use su_php. This will set your upload permissions to your user account, and not the global Apache user. You will never have to set permissions to 777, or be fearful you set your permissions wrong again.
These two things are the most important thing you can do when it comes to server security.
Crappy passwords
I hate having to even say it because it should be a obvious decision, but use good quality passwords and logins.
Your first name and 123456 is NOT secure and brute force attacks will find you and turn your Saturday night into a marathon of site repair.
Managed hosting vs. unmanaged
Managed hosting means if you have some sort of server configuration question, you can call or email your hosting company and they will do it for you, or help you with it.
A unmanaged server will be totally your responsibility and your webhost is only responsible for the power and internet connection to it. While it costs more, if you are not comfortable with using Linux a managed host will save you a lot of stress until you really start to understand things. Choose wisely young Jedi.
Not reading or Googling
Your webhost will most likely have a user forum. Use it, and read it.
I Google or search for a question virtually every day. The ability to be able to figure things out and find answers yourself will save you hundreds of times over. No matter the issue, you are NOT the only person to ever have it.
The chances of being able to figure out your problem yourself are extremely high if you Google it right. If you just sit back and wait for support tickets or other people to answer you, your clients will be pissed and you will not learn anything. Take responsibility, and take action.
Server or website monitoring.
Do you even know if your site is up and running right now?
If you have to look at it in a browser you are missing the point. While your webhost might do website monitoring, if their datacenter goes offline you will never get a notice. Use a service like Pingdom.com to let you know if your site goes down.
If you get a phone call from one of your clients saying their website is offline, you deserve the verbal lashing they are going to give you. You should know your server/website status well in advance of anybody else.
As a side benefit you can find out if your website host sucks. I monitored a old shared host I moved off off years ago and was appalled that the uptime was only 79%, and I had no idea it was that bad. Never assume anything.
With some of these tips and a lot of common sense you should be able to manage a server yourself. It’s not easy, and it’s got a learning curve to it, but everybody has to start somewhere right? :)
Tags: hosting, Hosting and Security, Joomla, technology, useful tips
Be sure to find out the detailed features your host may or may not provide like certain commands within the .htaccess file and even ask if they support php (some hosts are known not to, madness I know).
very true. Good tip.
How long have you been blogging…your good at it.
I’m not much of a blogger. What you read is how I talk in real life. Thanks :)
Very useful tips you got here. I am not really a fan of cheap webhosting as I know it will only leave to me to unreliable and real hassle. Better settle to decently priced ones as they sure provide quality service. Thanks for the information here. can you give me one good webhosting service? just a recommendation.
I have used VPSlink.com for a few years now for some of my personal accounts and find it rather good. Very reasonably priced as well.
http://tinyurl.com/vpslink
Stumbled across your blog while searching through yahoo. I read the first paragraph and its great! I do not have time to read it all now, but I have bookmarked your site and will read the rest tonight. : )
great i never knew this, how you can be sure about this.
It’s what I have been doing for 5 years now.
HmI’ve never thought the ultimately simple ways Google operates. The truth of the affair is that while Google looks at your page countless times, it takes a ton of due effort on your part to get your page to become “relevent” to Google. This just adds to my understanding of search engine optimization.
Not really. Just write good, relevant content on your site. Google will do the rest.
matt´s last blog ..Homepage blurbs
Hello just thought i would tell you something.. This is twice now i’ve landed on your blog in the last 2 weeks searching for completely unrelated things. Spooky or what?
Oddly enough, I tend to land here a lot too looking for things. It’s weird landing on your own blog, looking for a solution you wrote and forgot about. :)