Curious

sneeze · Post by **sneeze** » Mon Jun 24, 2002 4:04 pm

Correct me if im wrong.
If i decide to buy a new car, I get to choose wether i want flashy wheels, big stereo, GPS nav system, metallic paint etc etc etc.. All depending on the standards i want and on my financial status, right?
If i want my new car at a lower cost, i just skip the extra flashy stuff and all of a sudden its affordable.

If i decide to buy a 'eggdrop' shell account, I get all that 'flashy' stuff included without the ability to choose. To clear out the confusion some might feel:
I want to run EGGDROPS! Not having 5 email addys, 20mb web storage, php, mySQL, CGI or anything else BUT eggdrops. If i want a mail account, i go for a mail-provider. If i want web-stuff, i go for a webby-provider. I dont know if im alone feeling like this, or if there is shell providers out there giving you the ability to choose to make the price slightly more attractive, but this is how i feel about it. Some providers charges 10$ month for 1 (one!?!?!) BG process. Ofcourse you get them mail addys and webby thingies BUT THATS NOT WHAT IM AFTER!!. All of you who reads this and runs some kind of shell service: Make a shell choice with all the web crap excluded!!. Give us the ability to choose for ourselves. Add processes to them 10$/month instead of all the web stuff. Some people has multiple shell accounts.. imagine how many mail addys that is, or how many CGI-BIN dirs they've got.
I am aware of that chances are that there actually IS providers offering what im after, but im writing this as i have found none.

Tips about decent providers with 3+ BGs at >10$/month are welcome

Excuse me for my lame attempt to use proper English

Petersen · Post by **Petersen** » Mon Jun 24, 2002 7:44 pm

the email, and cgi-bin, and all those extras add virtually 0 to the cost of your account. They're services that are installed on a lot of unix style os's by default, and take a maximum of like 10 mins work to setup for the whole box.

ppslim · Post by **ppslim** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 6:58 am

Those added features come, because they simple to setup, and you can just ignore them.

As stated, they are simple to setup for the admin, but they probably do up the price, due to the fact, the make the account look better then it is.

sneeze · Post by **sneeze** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 1:53 pm

Petersen:
Approx. 30mb of HD-space/account extra for features the user wont use is 0 cost?
Doesnt sound right, does it?
Anyway, as ppslim stated, they probably do it
to make people feel they get ****loads of stuff at low cost.
Finally: I still think that EGG ONLY shells is to prefer. If I was a provider, i'd go for them aswell.. maby having all the web stuff as a choice instead of a default thing.

I vote for more background processes

Post by **slennox** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 7:17 pm

I don't think there is anything sinister about this in particular. Yes, the accounts may be given a "fuller" appearance with features unnecessary to many Eggdrop users. But the Eggdrop portion of a shell account is easily the most taxing and costly to the provider due to the resources used, the fact that each bot increases the server's risk as a target for both DoS attacks and hacking attempts, and the eating up of valuable I-lines on major IRC networks. Things like disk space and an e-mail account are dirt cheap.

So removing the extra features wouldn't even come close to buying you an extra background process. In fact, it may be even more labour-intensive for the provider to offer cut down accounts since they may follow a standard procedure for setting up both web hosting and shell accounts, and additional effort could be required to create and maintain more varied account features.

Petersen · Post by **Petersen** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 8:20 pm

well, lets examine this at a lower level. A lot of shellboxes have apache installed as the box happens to be hosting the website advertising the shell services. It takes 1 line in the conf to enable websites for every user on the box - since the box is already running apache, it ain't gonna increase any prices.
email - most standalone shellboxes are running a mail daemon, simply because the admin needs it to run his business. By default this means every user has access to it. Pop3 is like 1 minute of extra work to install as a oneoff. All these extras have virtually 0 administrative or physical cost - if I were to run a shellbox, I'd charge exactly the same wether you had webspace, email etc or not - background processes (and the risk of them being on irc) is the dominating factor in pricing.

ppslim · Post by **ppslim** » Wed Jun 26, 2002 9:25 am

If I were to run a provider, I probably would offer scaled down accounts, yet, there woudl probably only be £1 per month (or even $1, for you US peeps) less.

They are simple to setup an maintain, and are usualy installed anyway, for the actual provider to use, to premote, and maintain his business.

The fact that eggdrop consumes memory and CPU time for every second it is up, and as slennox sugested, the fact they attract DOS(S) and hackers, is why it costs the admin so much, in both time to keep ontop of the issues (you try reading, and understanding all the security bulitins sent each day, and you will understand), and in money, to pay for software and hardware, to help in the fight against it.

Note, even though it's included in the account, as sugested, many people do not use the services, and as such, they go to waste on nothing, taking up no bandwidth. Which brings up another issue, if the web-server isn't taking up bandwidth, what is? Eggdrop's are eating bandwidth. The botnet, IRC. This needs to be paid for.

There are meny people out there, that will look for a provider with all these features, even though they will never use them, or intend to use them. Not coz they get more value for there money (coz they aint, there own fault for not using the features), but because the provider is on par with all others.

Who is gonna go for a provider, just offering shell accounts, for no other use than BNC's and eggdrop? Because it looks like the admin has spent no time at all to setup the system and maintain it.

sneeze · Post by **sneeze** » Thu Jun 27, 2002 5:58 pm

Hmm... well.. I still think that what most providers are 'selling' is just another webhosting thing with the ability to host an eggdrop.I started this topic since 'another webhosting thing' is NOT what i want when i look for a 'Eggdrop Shell'. Nomatter how dumb or n00b that sounds, thats the way i feel about it. After I read your replies (in general) i know that the web/mail issue is a small part of it. I also know that DDoS is a problem but adding a process instead of all the web (with CGI, MySQL) and the mail stuff wont make the server LESS DDoS'sed. CGI and other web script types is also a security issue. Im not complaining, just ventilating my brain a little bit (assuming i have one).

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sneeze on 2002-06-27 16:46 ]</font>