Forum Moderators: bakedjake
THANKS
Get x% of the money with none of the hassle.
You need to look at what features your customers are going to need. For example, will they need GD support, IMAP support? Those are the sort of thing you might need to build into PHP, so that they're usable by 99% of your customers, on the other hand, you don't want to load up PHP so that it's absolutely huge with modules that you're not going to use.
Other things you might want to consider:
* Apache modules -- ie, mod_rewrite
* SSL Certificate (make your own, if it's not serious, or look at thawte.com, or you can try freessl.com), and setup your Virtualhosting in such a way that all your customers can use the one certificate.
* WebMail? (SquirrelMail/OpenWebMail)
* Email accounts and storage? How much? Give them POP or IMAP access directly to the server, or webmail only?
* How much storage space will they have?
* How many databases are they allowed to have?
* Control Panel (Custom or CPanel?)
* Perl? CGIs?
* Shell access -- SSH/Telnet?
* FTP or SCP/SFTP?
* System permissions for the users (chrooted shells, etc)?
* Backups? Procedures/Recovery
* Redundancy? Backup Servers/Load Balancing
* Some kind of Virtualization (FreeBSD Jails, for example) to protect the "core" system
* Patch Management/System Updates
* DNS Service (DNS Hosting and Maintenance)
* Password Policies (Helps to protect you and your customers!)
There's about a zillion more things that I could think of, but I think that might help. :)
If you're actually going to be making a business out of it, or even if you're going to do it just for friends (much like I do), then there have to be systems in place, and it never hurts to plan it all through. That way, if the requirement to do it "for real" is ever there, you can say that you've had some experience in planning and implementation of this kind of setup. :)
Cheers,
-MM
I didn't know what GD support and IMAP support were. I searched online, found out that they are for graphic and mailing, rite? But i'm not sure how would that load up PHP? correct me if i'm wrong. I guess i have have to do something to the config file, so that everytime when i run php script, i can use GD and IMAP?
And you also mention Apache modules--ie, mod_rewrite
what is it?
Why do i want to make my own SSL Certificate.
Control Panel(custom or Cpanel)<--- i don't understand what you were trying to tell me.
Actually, it would be VERY nice of you if you can go through the list "Other things you might want to consider:" could you explain them? THANKS A LOT
CHEERS,
Kev.
I LUV your questions... =)I didn't know what GD support and IMAP support were. I searched online, found out that they are for graphic and mailing, rite?
But i'm not sure how would that load up PHP? correct me if i'm wrong. I guess i have have to do something to the config file, so that everytime when i run php script, i can use GD and IMAP?
That may impact what your users want to do with your systems, and limit the applications that are functional on your system. For example, I believe that squirrelmail (a webmail system) requires you to have IMAP support built into your installation of PHP< otherwise it Just Won't Work. Same thing applies with GD, and many other "plugins" or "modules" (I'm not sure what're they're technically called).
And you also mention Apache modules--ie, mod_rewrite
what is it?
Some of them are completely unecessary, or aren't needed right now. The difference between the way that PHP and Apache does it is that Apache, in its config file (httpd.conf), has a list of modules that you want it to load. You'll have lines like this:
LoadModule rewrite_module libexec/apache/mod_rewrite.so
AddModule mod_rewrite.c
That tells apache to load the appropriate modules when it starts up. So, you can add and remove Modules as you see fit. If you don't need URL rewriting, then remove or comment out the lines that have to do with mod_rewrite.
Why do i want to make my own SSL Certificate.
Typically, a webhost with many clients will setup their Certificate in such a way that there's only actually ONE certificate for everyone. Due to the inherent nature of SSL [httpd.apache.org ], it really can't be done.
The way they do is that they purchase a certificat for "www.hostingdomain.com", and what the clients will do, is point the secure areas of their site to "www.hostingdomain.com/~client/". See more Apache docs: [httpd.apache.org ]
Control Panel(custom or Cpanel)<--- i don't understand what you were trying to tell me.
Actually, it would be VERY nice of you if you can go through the list "Other things you might want to consider:" could you explain them? THANKS A LOT
Other things to consder might be:
* ISP Connections
* Maximum web traffic/per package offered
* RAID systems
* Metrics (IE: How much load is your server handling, and expected maximum number of concurrent users connected)
* IP Address Allocations (from ISP)
* Co-Location -- Where are you storing the servers in question? Is it air conditioned? Does it have Fail-over power generators?
* Dsitribution of load -- Web traffic on one server, and MySQL on another, and email on another?
* PHPMYAdmin -- Web-based MySQL administration for users.
* Log files -- where will they go? (IIRC, typically in ~/home/logs)
My hands are getting a little tired, so I think I'll leave it at that. :)
HTH,
-MM
TONIGHT DINNER ON ME! Weeeee...
When i come to England again, i will treat you a big and nice dinner... =)
