web servers

[a1z]

What is the different for Sun Solaris 8 for Intel Server and UNIX Sun Cobalt RAQ 3 & 4 web servers. :confused:

Thanks you
a1z

[Chicken]

Sun's OS is Solaris 8, Cobalt RAQ 3 & 4 run a modified RedHat Linux

[Michael-MS]

Originally posted by Chicken
Cobalt RAQ 3 & 4 run a modified RedHat Linux

Modified and outdated :D

[Chicken]

Well there's nothing I haven't been able to do that I wanted to do, though I'm a bit outdated so... :D

If you are used to a regular linux box, you won't like running a RaQ all that much.

[Michael-MS]

Originally posted by Chicken
Well there's nothing I haven't been able to do that I wanted to do, though I'm a bit outdated so... :D


Same here... I've been able to install all the software that I needed and make customizations without a problem. (even when installing from telnet instead of a package file)

I just hear people complaining all the time about how there's a newer version of Apache and that the Raq is always using last years version or whatever. All the same to me.. :D

[Ted S]

Solaris is a commercial os, it's very stable, very powerful and a bit more complex than your average server os.

Cobalt makes a very, very, very bad product called the raq2/3/4. Every new produc tis a bit beter than the previous but none are very good. They took a version of linux (a free os) and stripped everything out of it to make a very simple, very power-less os with a control panel that pretyt much helps you pee.

[Michael-MS]

I don't think any product deserves that kind of disrespect. :(

As far as a powerless operating system, please list what you can do with another linux server that you can't do with a Raq... Thanks! :D

[Ted S]

Michael - with all due respect, I was being NICE when talking about the raq.

I've used both a raq 2 and a raq 3 for many of my sites. Now mind you I am a perl programmer, an sql & oracle developer so what I do is not always the most basic.

For a short list of problems -
I lost two hard drives while asleep, ocne everything was gone, the other time just the web folders

Cobalt basically refused the help me citing that because i had modified HTTPD.CONF (which has got to be on of the most commonly edited files on any servers) I had violated the server warranty. That’s like saying if you put oil in your car your dealer doesn’t have to fix it if the engine suddenly stops two months into ownership.

As for cobalt problems -
Assuming you ignore their warenty but leave the control panel enabled -
- Wildcards do not function properly
- You are limited to a mere 255 virtualhosts
- Mod_gzip, mod_quota, mod-rewrite, and a thousand others are either not configured or use versions several releases old
- Mysql has sever problems both in the release. update and setup method
- The speed of raqs when using perl diminishing rapidly
- When updating anything on the control panel, cpu usage spikes to 70-80%
- A site that generates about a 1.25 load using a database backend instead of straight html will nearly crash a raq
- Raqs thread poorly
- Raqs lack many basic linux kernel security updates simply because the company doesn’t have the time to adapt them for their very customized version
- Cobalt servers are over priced.... they mostly all use IDE hard drives and the few models that use SCSI are even more over priced

The list goes on and on...

Cobalt had a great idea with the raq... a simple serer to allow for effortless hosting. So long as you don't want anything more than basic html/php/cgi a raq will do everything you need. But if you want to add new features, update your software or do anything to help a large site work cobalt's got you stuck between a rock (their warranty limit) and a hard place (their server inability to perform).

End of story.

Note: This is my PERSONAL experience. I do of course know people who have had very few problems with their servers but every person who I have talked to that has tried to use a cobalt server for a mid-high volume site has had many problems. Raq4's are in theory better although I am not about to spend the effort to find out how much better

[Michael-MS]

The site limit for the raq can be changed. I manage a server (not for Master Sites) that has about 275 sites on it now.

I have wildcards enabled for a domain and it catches anything going to http://*.domain.com/. What else is a wildcard supposed to do?

Those mod scripts that you listed can be, and have been, sucessfully installed on many raq servers. It might be a little more difficult, but the raq is so widely used now that there are threads on almost any large list that have detailed directions on how to add these.

Cobalt releases security updates every week for the raqs. Not the same thing?

If you're going to buy a server and colocate it (meaning you're an experienced developer with lots of cash), then why get a Raq? I think a Raq is geared towards leasing, not purchasing. They're one of the cheapest servers that you can find to lease.

The rest of your post was mostly based on opinion... I tend to disagree, but I'm only familiar with Raq3's and 4's so maybe that's where we differ. Yes, the Raq3 is a little slower with CGI, as would any linux server with that kind of CPU speed.

Anyway, after everything that I've said... kind of rambling at this point... But, I do see what you mean from a developer's point of view.

I do have to wonder why you, as a developer, would choose to purchase a server on a system that quite frankly... is developed already. I think that's the problem right there... and it's not really fair to call the Raq a bad product. It is a product, has been developed, and was meant to run the way it was built.

And after saying all that, I think the Raq is the best low-cost server that needs no prior software installations. :)

(The following is not an advertisement or meant to promote my company in anyway. It is simply to show how a Raq4 can be managed. If a mod feels that this is off-topic, please edit it for me, thanks!)

At Master Sites we have customized (not developed) our Raq's a lot... installed MySQL, phpMyAdmin, PHP, and Webalizer all from the command line (no package files). We've also installed OpenSSH and Java Servlets (from package files). We have a PHP/MySQL message forum running and a very popular CGI message forum running on our main server right now. Our servers have never crashed and feel free to test the speed of mastersites.com... :D

I really don't know what more a web host could ask from a server that you can lease for 100 - 400 / month. (Yes, Cpanel would be nice, but oh well. Not everything's perfect.:p )

[Ted S]

The site limit for the raq can be changed. I manage a server (not for Master Sites) that has about 275 sites on it now.

I have wildcards enabled for a domain and it catches anything going to http://*.domain.com/. What else is a wildcard supposed to do? WEll, you got me there, cobalt has apparently changed a few major things


Those mod scripts that you listed can be, and have been, sucessfully installed on many raq servers. It might be a little more difficult, but the raq is so widely used now that there are threads on almost any large list that have detailed directions on how to add these. If you modify your apache installation with anything other han cobalt certified rpms you void your warrenty. its good that you can now tweak some parts of apache but I imagine that teh control panel still ovrrides msot anything you do.

As for the scripts, I'm not talking about out of the box 3rd party applications, I'm talking about custom programs built to run large sites with a good deal of traffic.


Cobalt releases security updates every week for the raqs. Not the same thing? Yes and no -- cobalt (last I checked) does update certain linux security bugs but mostly just updates bugs caused by itsown changes. Now after your first two points they may have changed this as well but my experience was that they did not.


If you're going to buy a server and colocate it (meaning you're an experienced developer with lots of cash), then why get a Raq? I think a Raq is geared towards leasing, not purchasing. They're one of the cheapest servers that you can find to lease.

While cobalts may be rent for less than other servers it is not because they are cheaper servers. I just went to cobalts site and found a raq4 with a 450Mhz processor, 256 ram, dual 20 gig (ide) hard drives, a single pci slot and dual ethernet cards for a little over $3000. For that price I could easily build a 2u DUAL 1Ghz system with a gig of ram, 3 18gig 10k SCSI hard drives, two ethernet cards (or more), a real video card and still have enough left over to hsot it for a few months. Hosts charge less ebcause you get less and if I'm not mistaken because cobalt has a very good leasing program to hosting sites as well.


The rest of your post was mostly based on opinion... I tend to disagree, but I'm only familiar with Raq3's and 4's so maybe that's where we differ. Yes, the Raq3 is a little slower with CGI, as would any linux server with that kind of CPU speed. Like I stated in my previous post, it is opinion, its my experience. Obviously we have a different opinion and that is impart due to the fact that I used raq2s and early raq3s wher eyou seem to use the newer models. I have heard a few storie abotu the raq3 and even one about the raq4 but my knowladge ends there.

As for your point about server load, I ran an ad server on a machine with a 500Mhz processor, 256ram and a single hard dtive which served about 2.5 million banners a day. The raq3's don't even claim to support that much load (of course the raq 4 might be better??)


Anyway, after everything that I've said... kind of rambling at this point... But, I do see what you mean from a developer's point of view.

I do have to wonder why you, as a developer, would choose to purchase a server on a system that quite frankly... is developed already. I think that's the problem right there... and it's not really fair to call the Raq a bad product. It is a product, has been developed, and was meant to run the way it was built. When I LEASED my raq I was far less of a developer and far mroe of a designer. None the less, cobalt offered what claimed to be a state of the art server with a lot built in. Before my raq2, I had a normal linux box (which I also had when I rented the raq3). My linux box came with a lot installed but I removed what I didn't like, when I went to ease a raq2, I didn;t see a sign saying that it wasn't really linux or that you couldn't remove things.

Cobalts claim versitility which means they should work for me, for you, for anybody. I never expected a perfect box but I didn't expect to loose 3 gigs of data either.


And after saying all that, I think the Raq is the best low-cost server that needs no prior software installations. :) I think I've already disproved the price factor... the rest is of course your opinion which is no less improtant or valid than mine.



At Master Sites we have customized (not developed) our Raq's a lot... installed MySQL, phpMyAdmin, PHP, and Webalizer all from the command line (no package files). We've also installed OpenSSH and Java Servlets (from package files). We have a PHP/MySQL message forum running and a very popular CGI message forum running on our main server right now. Our servers have never crashed and feel free to test the speed of mastersites.com... :D Very, very nice... just a few questiosn for you on this point

1) Have you asked cobalt about your warrenty after making those changes? (i'd liek to knwo fi they changed their policy)
2) Does the control panel still work with alter virtualhsot settings?
3) Can I runa laod test on one of your servers? :P


I really don't know what more a web host could ask from a server that you can lease for 100 - 400 / month. (Yes, Cpanel would be nice, but oh well. Not everything's perfect.:p ) I can ask for a lot... :)

On a fianl note, be aware that despite my feelings about the raq 2,3,4 I have always respected SUN as maming the most bad --- products out there. I feel that the next generations of raqs will be awesome... sun knows what they're doing....

[Michael-MS]

I think we've both made some good points so I'm not going to quote everything and argue about little things. For the most part I agree with you...

You're probably right about the Raq being misleadingly represented by the manufacturer so I can sympathize with you in that regard. You certainly didn't get what you were looking for. :mad:

Regarding the "price factor". I was still referring to leasing the servers, in which case I think they are cheaper. If you can grab 500 customers and put them on a server hosted at Alabanza, you might make more profit than getting 200 customers on a Raq4. But who can afford the $1000 / month to get a server at Alabanza when you might only have 50 customers to start off with and no idea how well your service will sell. :eek:

Regarding your questions:

1) Have you asked cobalt about your warrenty after making those changes?

- There's no doubt in my mind that the warranty on our server is void. :( If worse comes to worse and a problem occurs that is beyond repair, we would have to backup all data and do a system restore.

Also, keep in mind that Cobalt is a little leniant on this policy. We had a problem where the "Network Monitor" was misreporting some data. It was obvious that the problem was not related to any software installations that we had done. Cobalt was very professional about this and fixed the problem without even asking if we had done anything to void the warranty.

2) Does the control panel still work with alter virtualhsot settings?

- Yes, no problems there. We really didn't alter anything that would affect the Site or Admin Management programs. The only problem that we've ever seen in this area is when we manually edit the document root for a site within httpd.conf. The site mysteriously dissapears off of the Virtual Site List. :( But the Site Management still works for the domain even though we can't view it in the /admin program.

3) Can I runa laod test on one of your servers? :P

- It's 2:30 AM here... I really doubt anyone would notice. :D I've never done a load test before on a server, so if there are any side effects that I don't know about, please fill me in first. ;)

And it's been a good discussion so far. I hope someone can learn something from this. :p

[Ted S]

Thanks for all the info, I now have a BIT more respect for cobalt...

I still beieve that you can find a cheaper server with more power but cobalt certainly does low end virtualhosting

As for the load test, that was a joke... i test servers with about 2000 requests a second or 40,000,000 page views and normally to a database ddriven, dynamic site... thats not soemthin you do on live sites. :)

[Michael-MS]

After reading your post again a little bit later, I figured you were joking there... hehe. :p

[Chicken]

On the cost factor, yes you can physically build a server for less. You can do that with almost any commerically sold server (at least the big names). So yes but...

One of the things people tend to forget about when comparing price is that Admin system (that I presume you don't like much). Whether or not you like it (or not) doesn't change that it is part of the appeal of the RaQ and part of its cost.

Although there are free system admin control panels, even taking that server you built and adding the 250 site Plesk license (around $600 retail), or a CPanel license (around $100/mo per server) would add to the actual cost to build a similar server.

I'm just pointing out some pricing factors you should take into consideration. I'm not touting the merits of anything, or the drawbacks. One could (and should) decide if it is worth the extra money (when purchasing it) or not for themselves.