Jude 2

All,

The move to the new server is complete! It ended up not happening Sunday night (due to a variety of factors, none of which were related to the moving of the board.) Anyway, I just pulled it off a few minutes ago. (If you noticed the message about the board being offline, that's why.)

One small note: Over the next day (or two, tops) you may notice your URL bar changing to http://jude2.dreamhosters.com/ instead of our normal domain name. If this happens, DO NOT PANIC! Basically, it can take domain name changes 24-48 hours to propagate, and I've set up the old server so that any requests to jude2.com on the old server will redirect to the jude2.dreamhosters.com domain instead. (In other words, if your computer hasn't "found" the new server yet, you'll be directed to jude2.dreamhosters.com which EVERYONE can "find" immediately.) There's a long technical explanation for why/how this works but I won't go into it.

Please continue to use the jude2.com URL and bookmarks that you already have. Within a few days tops, the jude2.dreamhosters.com URL will disappear completely, and eventually cease to exist.

Many thanks to Lady4jc for helping me test this redirect functionality.

If anyone finds anything broken, feel free to reply and let me know. I usually manage to break *something* when moving stuff!

Welcome Jeremy was glad I could help.

Hey.. what was the problem with Bluehost?

MacUser wrote:Hey.. what was the problem with Bluehost?

Well, a couple of things.

The main kicker: While they DO offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, and unlimited domains, they NO LONGER offer unlimited files. There is a limit of 50,000 files per account. This is supposedly because large accounts were causing issues with their backup system (if they lost a server, it would be 4-5 DAYS before the restore completed and the affected sites were back up.) Their answer to this problem: Make a policy of 50,000 files per account and terminate anyone who goes over that. (Now, I understand they don't want you using it as a personal hard drive/file backup service, it clearly states that your stuff has to be website related, but they even terminated a digital photographer who had 700,000 files because he had "too many" pictures on his site.)

Now, you'd think 50,000 files seems far-fetched, right? Keep in mind that EVERY AVATAR on Jude 2 (unless you are linking to an external image) counts as one file. Every attachment you upload counts as a file. All of the images, smilies, etc. you see on the board each count as a file. All of the PHP code files that execute in the background (to make J2 work) count as a file. Keep in mind I also host a couple of other domains, and they are the same way. A friend of mine has her E-Mail there, too, so EVERY MESSAGE she has counts as a file.

Not hard to hit 50,000.

When I heard about this news circulating the Internet, and found out it was true, I was around 100,000 files.

Plus, those other few sites I have are rather small, I haven't really fully launched them yet. I plan on adding a photo gallery site (so I don't have to use Flickr etc.) so there's several thousand more files...

In other words, it would be a matter of time before I was terminated.

On top of that, their servers seem to be a lot slower lately (that, or they are throttling me), it took FOUR minutes to dump Jude 2's post database out of Bluehost. Dreamhost imported it in under 30 seconds. Lag.

Ended up with Dreamhost because they had a good deal going, I signed up to play with it and found I like it better. It's not cPanel-based, which is good. It's possible to run different sites under different physical accounts. What's this mean? If my blog gets hacked, on Bluehost, they could also mess with Jude 2. On Dreamhost, my blog is under a separate shell account, so if it gets hacked, they aren't messing with Jude 2.

It's just a lot more secure.

Plus, the databases run on separate servers than the web sites. So, Jude 2 now runs on two physical servers (one for the website, and another for the database.) Better performance.

There you have it. I wasn't utterly *dissatisfied* with Bluehost, it worked fairly well, other than the lag lately and the fact that they are now going to start terminating people over 50,000 files... I knew that would definitely become an issue over the next few months.

I have noticed today that I keep getting logged out, and at times the read status of posts is inaccurate. anyone else experiencing this?

Is that 50,000 file limit PER ACCOUNT or PER SITE?

Pastor Gary wrote:Is that 50,000 file limit PER ACCOUNT or PER SITE?

Everything I have seen says PER ACCOUNT. So, all of the site files (including code, avatars, etc.) you have, for ALL your sites, plus any E-Mails stored on the server (each E-Mail = 1 file, if people are using webmail then their stuff is being stored on the server), ALL of that must stay under 50,000 files.

Pastor Bill wrote:I have noticed today that I keep getting logged out, and at times the read status of posts is inaccurate. anyone else experiencing this?

Not me. However, are you seeing the jude2.dreamhosters.com at the top? If so, that may explain it.

I'm going to check the cookie domain settings now, since Dreamhost is *forcing* you to www.jude2.com (if you type in jude2.com, it redirects.) I left the default this way as it seems to be easier (cookie-wise) to deal with one hostname.

Jeremy Gault wrote:

MacUser wrote:Hey.. what was the problem with Bluehost?

Well, a couple of things.

The main kicker: While they DO offer unlimited bandwidth, unlimited disk space, and unlimited domains, they NO LONGER offer unlimited files. There is a limit of 50,000 files per account.

I have tons of BH accounts... so I asked.

Susan [2:36:28 PM]: Welcome to our real-time support chat. I work with Multiple Customers at the same time and apologize for any delays you might encounter with my responses. How can I help you today?
MacUser [2:36:28 PM]: I'm getting alerts that Bluehost.com has a 50,000 file limit PER ACCOUNT. Is this true, if not, it sure is spreading around the internet and FAST. Several are dropping your accounts on just the fear of it.

Let me know the truth, ok?
Susan [2:37:37 PM]: May I have the main domain on your account?
MacUser [2:37:45 PM]: [removed]
[2:39:12 PM]: I refer tons of clients your way... example [ 20+ removed].. etc etc.
[2:39:24 PM]: Thus my question.
Susan [2:41:21 PM]: there is not a number limit. However if you have so many files that it starts to cause problems on the server then we may ask you to lower your file count.
MacUser [2:41:47 PM]: So you do not have a physical file limit of 50,000 per account?
Susan [2:41:53 PM]: no
MacUser [2:42:16 PM]: What is deemed "so many"?
Susan [2:43:09 PM]: there isn't a number it depends on if your account is causing issues for everyone else on the server.
MacUser [2:43:36 PM]: So it has to do with each unique server size?
[2:43:59 PM]: If one deemed "trouble".. then could it not be moved?
Susan [2:44:05 PM]: no.
[2:44:34 PM]: if a site causes server issues then we will ask you to make changes if needed.
MacUser [2:45:12 PM]: Sure, understandable. Would you ever just delete an account for causing trouble without warning?
Susan [2:46:08 PM]: we never delete accounts without warning. A possible suspension but we will enable ftp and cpanel to get all issues resolved and then restore the account.
MacUser [2:47:40 PM]: Ok. You might want to clarify this on your website somehow. I have some related professionals hearing what I just asked. You have a file limit and you delete without warning. Again, I know a few that have moved away from BH because of this.
Susan [2:48:27 PM]: yeah I've heard rumors of that. but they are just that .. rumors.
MacUser [2:48:32 PM]: My personal experience with BH has been nothing but extraordinary. Every time I have had an issue.. it has been resolved. Any clients issues I have had have been worked on and resolved.
[2:49:01 PM]: Rumors can hurt, if not clarified. Some don't ask questions like I do.
Susan [2:49:14 PM]: true. well I hope I was able to shed some light for you.
MacUser [2:49:20 PM]: Thanks for the clarification..
Susan [2:49:39 PM]: You are very welcome! - Thank you for chatting with me today - bye for now!

This was my BH chat reply. These guys have been nothing but extremely helpful in every know sense of the word. I've recommended them for years.

Jeremy Gault wrote:

Pastor Bill wrote:I have noticed today that I keep getting logged out, and at times the read status of posts is inaccurate. anyone else experiencing this?

Not me. However, are you seeing the jude2.dreamhosters.com at the top? If so, that may explain it.

I'm going to check the cookie domain settings now, since Dreamhost is *forcing* you to www.jude2.com (if you type in jude2.com, it redirects.) I left the default this way as it seems to be easier (cookie-wise) to deal with one hostname.

I don't believe so, but yesterday morning I could not access Jude 2 at all, all other sites worked fine. I didn't get back to it to check later in the day, but today everything seems to be working OK.

Not meaning to be a pest, just knew you'd want to know if there were issues in case it was an unseen glitch with the move. All seems to be fine this morning.