Boxnet.org

Wow time goes by quick! - VPS Adventures

2010-12-15T16:45:19Z

Wow, its been over a year!

I switched jobs to a really good opportunity, went to work for an ITSP, working as a partner. I've spent soo much time building that business that I haven't had ANY for this project!

I ended up turning down the servers but still own the domains.

We may end up implementing this project internally since we rent our own datacenter racks now, and have plenty of space to stick machines.

Lack of time, but getting things done. - VPS Adventures

2009-10-08T15:12:59Z

Time has been very limited for outside projects, things haven't moved too much since my last posted. Working here and there on the backend and the database portion.

Setting up the small VPS servers this week as well, going to provision enough servers for 30 or so accounts right off the bat, since I have no idea how much growth i'll see in the first month.

Also have our first client asking for some custom work to be done, so busy writing up a proposal this weekend. Will likely set our launch date back to Dec 1st. Want to get everything up at least before Christmas. I guess the disadvantage of starting a business with zero investment, is that I can't stop my real job, have to keep income coming in!

Database Whiteboarding - VPS Adventures

2009-09-27T15:12:00Z

Doing some database whiteboarding and design work today.. Every time I dive into an aspect of creating this business, I realize it is SO much more work than I originally anticipated.

The amount of database needs on this are pretty large. Tons of tables, and a few core DBs. Lots of things must tie together, billing, customer profiles, management, pricing, addons, promo codes, server to datacenter mapping, guest to server mapping, customer to guest mapping. It's really large, but I'm having good fun brainstorming.

Building Images - VPS Adventures

2009-09-26T15:11:06Z

I'm in the process of building images for VPS accounts, plan to offer a broad range of images for your accounts to choose from. Getting some initial ones setup and then will add a ton more before we go live.

Kickin ass and takin names.

Website Design Day 1 - VPS Adventures

2009-09-12T15:10:14Z

Working today on the design and layout for the corporate backend. Got the base framework/layout up and ready to go. Basic design work is done. Now to start filling in the data and making forms, etc, for customer management, order management, server management, etc.

Decided to use HTML::Mason for the framework, since it makes management very easy and allows me to rapidly deploy new modules and reuse code across many sites. Hey Amazon was built on it, I'm pretty familiar with it, so makes it good enough for me!

Still sooo much to do. I'm shooting for starting to take in customers November 1st. So not a lot of time to build an entire corporate infrastructure with.

On another note, we got our State Tax ID, and our Federal EIN, as well as the LLC being registered, we're on the right track.

Making dinner for the kids right now. Hopefully I'll get some more time to get more done tonight.

Setting up the SSL - VPS Adventures

2009-09-08T15:08:40Z

Generating CSR request tonight for registering our SSL certs.

Getting the corporate site and other SSL sites configured (hosting management, shopping cart, etc.)

Been a hugely busy week with my day job last week, and spent the weekend/holiday out of town, so just getting things going this week.

Tomorrow will pick back up on development. That's where all the fun is :).

Setting up the Corporate Server - VPS Adventures

2009-09-01T22:04:29Z

Working on the corporate server today. Getting it all organized, setting up Apache, Postfix, Dovecot.

Going SSL only connections for POP3 and IMAP. I'm somewhat upset, only wanted to run CRAM-MD5 authentication for POP and IMAP, but looks like my blackberry server will only work with Plain auth. Maybe I can come up with a rule match to only allow Blackberry to use Plain, and force all other clients to use CRAM-MD5. We'll see how it goes, not going to spend too much time on it.

I've got to get the domains setup, with virtual boxes for future employees, mailing lists, auto-responders, etc.

Have to get Apache-SSL setup with PHP, mod_perl, HTML::Mason, mod_python, mod_dav for our subversion repo, all kinds of stuff in the web realm to do!

What fun!

Things to do:

Apache

Modules to setup:

mod_ssl
mod_perl
HTML::Mason
mod_php
mod_python
mod_dav
memcached
auth mods
userdir

Things to configure:

Subversion Repository
Corporate Backend
Customer Backend
Internet Facing Website
Secure Billing / Credit Card Auth
Ticketing System
Monitoring Service
Stats System
Performance Tuning
Install my SSL Certs

Mysql

Customer Database
Billing Database
Provisioning info
Stats
Ticketing database
Dynamic web content database
Security!
Performance tuning!

So much to do!

Time to do some project planning. Need to map out all this work.

An Idea.. - VPS Adventures

2009-09-01T15:01:29Z

I've been running Linux since 1996, I bought a Slackware 3.2 book from Barnes and Noble, and installed it on an AMD 75mhz machine.

Over the last 13 years, I've been through at least fifteen different distributions. I've spent two or more years running Slackware, ArchLinux, Gentoo, Ubuntu LTS, RHEL in both desktop and server environments full time. I've used Linux on small embedded devices, and large quad processor machines.

At my current day job, I manage about 25 Linux servers, running RHEL 4/5, Ubuntu LTS, Debian, Slackware, ArchLinux, and Gentoo. They all have their different purposes and vary distribution depending on what they function as. For Firewall/Proxy/VPN endpoints, I like to use Slackware. I like to custom build my kernel and really lock down the box. Enterprise application servers get RHEL for the tested updates, and stability. I've got development boxes running Gentoo and Ubuntu LTS, and lightweight servers running ArchLinux. It's a lot to manage, but I like knowing the ins and outs of all the different distributions. Ultimately, I guess you could say Linux is my home, it is where I am comfortable, and the place I love.

So enough about my background, on to my ideas...

I've been paying for Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting for almost a year and a half now, I like to have a personal box, off of the corporate network, and off of my home network. I need to have availability to code, test, deploy, research, have fun from a remote machine that's always available and static to the Internet.

Recently I invested in my own server. I've been doing a lot of Xen Virtualization at the office lately, and was doing some playing around with deployment and scripting. I've got a lot of extra resources on my current server, and I thought, maybe I'll setup a few small slices for my friends. The idea grew, and I've got four servers now. The cost is out of hand for me, I'm spending too much per month and not getting anything from it, just throwing money out the window.

So, I'm going to put my expertise to use. I'm building a VPS hosting provider from the ground up. It's going to be the kind of provider that geeks get all excited about, since I am a big Linux geek myself, I think I'll be able to provide some really awesome features.

I've registered the company, applied for a tax ID, and I'm working on building the management tools and websites needed to run the company. It will be a lot of work, but it will be rewarding in the end.