No problem, that info is helpful. I would obviously grow itno at least one complete dedicated machine if the thing actually works out how to pay for itself, so starting with a virtual machine sounds good. I believe someone around here offers such things for bitcoins I just didn't realise you weren't one of those offering that.
-MarkM-
Topic: WebHosting Available in UK for BitCoins (Read 1891 times)
I have hosted my share of freeciv I am only offering CPanel webhosting for BitCoins at the moment.
What you need is a VPS, or something. I reckon you could get one for a few dollars that would suit your needs - UK VPS's seem to be more expensive - My VPS's are in the states but I have no spare VPS capacity and I am trying to start out with just this simple service to add value to the BitCoin economy with what spare capacity I have available.
I would branch out into VPS's if I had more time to set up the VM's - Maybe if I become a BitCoin Billionaire.....
But seriously for what you are saying a cheap Debian VPS sounds like the thing.
Sorry I could not be of more help at this time. Maybe in the future.
dM
At some point I will need hosting for Freeciv ( http://www.freeciv.org/ ) servers.
The best configuration would probably involve decent amount of swap space since most planets (servers) would probably spend most of their time swapped out, idle (not idle loop; select statement waiting for connection on assigned port).
I need to determine how much per world such hosting would cost, in order to put together a business plan whereby they will be able to pay their hosting. (A how to get the bitcoins from the players plan.)
Normally public Freeciv servers tend to have about twelve servers running, allowing random players to specify a size of world and number of players; and when players leave for certain period of time the server dies and a replacement is spawned.
What I want to do though is have much fewer such "random, player-specified worlds" and a potentially much larger population of permanent worlds each of which only certain players can play on using username+password login built into the server code. (This involves a tiny mySQL database that has the username+password pairs and maybe a few fields optionally useable for player ranking/scoring system.)
The few "random" worlds would be the free loss-leader, since a normal Freeciv game ends when you wipe out all other players on the planet or get a spaceship to a nearby world (classically known as Alpha Centauri). The lure would be that now you have won a world, would you like to join the Galactic Milieu...
Best would probably be to try out running two servers, one with a "size 4" world (4000 tiles map) and one with a "size 29" world (29000 tiles map) so you can check what resources the smallest and biggest world each use, and maybe a middle-size (10 to 13 or so) world as an idea of a maybe-average world, in order to figure out what kind of pricing would be appropriate...
What O/S do you use? Freeciv is in many Linux distributions and probably in BSD variants too, although in production use I would probably have to use a custom server because standard one shows all players the IP addresses of all players, which could have legal complications in addition to just basically being a bit of an invasion of privacy.
I would also need some method of remotely running the shell scripts that do the movement of starships from one savegame to another to move them and the units aboard them from planet to planet. It must be a method that allows feedback of what the script says like no such planet no such nation no such starship insufficient warp jump range and so on. This would be needed to work-around the lack of ability to run an IRC bot, as currently I use IRC to tell those scripts what ships to move from where to where. (Basically they just use sed grep awk etc to remove units from one savegame and insert them into another.)
Eventually in order to support large numbers of worlds it will probably be necessary to make a front end were pkayers identify themselves and specify which one of ther possibly many worlds to actually fire up a server for to play on at a given time, thus limiting max number of servers actually running to the numbe of players playing at that moment. (And usually probably less as hopefully a lot of time at least two players will be working on the same world at the same time.)
-MarkM-
The best configuration would probably involve decent amount of swap space since most planets (servers) would probably spend most of their time swapped out, idle (not idle loop; select statement waiting for connection on assigned port).
I need to determine how much per world such hosting would cost, in order to put together a business plan whereby they will be able to pay their hosting. (A how to get the bitcoins from the players plan.)
Normally public Freeciv servers tend to have about twelve servers running, allowing random players to specify a size of world and number of players; and when players leave for certain period of time the server dies and a replacement is spawned.
What I want to do though is have much fewer such "random, player-specified worlds" and a potentially much larger population of permanent worlds each of which only certain players can play on using username+password login built into the server code. (This involves a tiny mySQL database that has the username+password pairs and maybe a few fields optionally useable for player ranking/scoring system.)
The few "random" worlds would be the free loss-leader, since a normal Freeciv game ends when you wipe out all other players on the planet or get a spaceship to a nearby world (classically known as Alpha Centauri). The lure would be that now you have won a world, would you like to join the Galactic Milieu...
Best would probably be to try out running two servers, one with a "size 4" world (4000 tiles map) and one with a "size 29" world (29000 tiles map) so you can check what resources the smallest and biggest world each use, and maybe a middle-size (10 to 13 or so) world as an idea of a maybe-average world, in order to figure out what kind of pricing would be appropriate...
What O/S do you use? Freeciv is in many Linux distributions and probably in BSD variants too, although in production use I would probably have to use a custom server because standard one shows all players the IP addresses of all players, which could have legal complications in addition to just basically being a bit of an invasion of privacy.
I would also need some method of remotely running the shell scripts that do the movement of starships from one savegame to another to move them and the units aboard them from planet to planet. It must be a method that allows feedback of what the script says like no such planet no such nation no such starship insufficient warp jump range and so on. This would be needed to work-around the lack of ability to run an IRC bot, as currently I use IRC to tell those scripts what ships to move from where to where. (Basically they just use sed grep awk etc to remove units from one savegame and insert them into another.)
Eventually in order to support large numbers of worlds it will probably be necessary to make a front end were pkayers identify themselves and specify which one of ther possibly many worlds to actually fire up a server for to play on at a given time, thus limiting max number of servers actually running to the numbe of players playing at that moment. (And usually probably less as hopefully a lot of time at least two players will be working on the same world at the same time.)
-MarkM-
I am open to offer more functionality. Custom cgi and SSH access would be a possibility. I am open to suggestions and will try to provide what people want.
At the moment I want to stick with what I know well and build on that. Partly because I want to support people and provide value yet I have only so much time to give to support issues. I know that the Cpanel hosting I can provide at the moment is solid.
Also I am inexperienced providing a service for Bitcoins - I want to take things step by step..
If this proves popular I will set up an automated purchase service with, possibly coinpal as well as providing bespoke service. But for now I really want to keep it simple get some trust and be reliable.
dM
At the moment I want to stick with what I know well and build on that. Partly because I want to support people and provide value yet I have only so much time to give to support issues. I know that the Cpanel hosting I can provide at the moment is solid.
Also I am inexperienced providing a service for Bitcoins - I want to take things step by step..
If this proves popular I will set up an automated purchase service with, possibly coinpal as well as providing bespoke service. But for now I really want to keep it simple get some trust and be reliable.
dM
I assume if you offer cPanel there is no ssh access?
Any chance you could install bitcoind on that machine to make creating bitcoin related websites easier?
Any chance you could install bitcoind on that machine to make creating bitcoin related websites easier?
Hi.
I am in the UK.
I can supply webhosting with Cpanel and softaculous (including SMF, PHPBB, Wordpress, Drupal, Etc...), to your spec with regards to bandwidth and disk space, for BitCoins. Hosted in a UK datacentre that I rent for other hosting purposes.
PM me with a proposition and we can begin further discussion. Although the datacentre is in the UK, obviously the offer is open to people everywhere.
I am not fixing prices in advance because I want to provide a custom service spec'd to the buyers needs and what they want to pay.
I supply this as-is. I want to add value to the BitCoins economy and I have spare capacity on my servers.
This would be great for small websites or forums or blogs. Not high bandwidth/heavy processing or mission critical deployments until I have built up some trust in the community. My providers also have a policy against IRC, but apart from that any normal website deployment would be acceptable.
I would offer domains, but a best practice is to always have your domains separate from your hosting, so you should register a domain yourself with someone like godaddy.com or whatever to be able to use this service. (I am not recommending godaddy.com - just an example)
I will set up the site to use your domain and give you your own Cpanel login.
I will tell you the nameservers to use for your domain.
You pay monthly either in advance or after a month of service depending on what we agree.
You will need to do everything else to design your site - I assume clients will know how to use Cpanel.
I will provide e-mail or pm support for hosting issues but unless this really takes off I cannot provide detailed tutoring on how to set up sites.
As always - the community will judge this service on it's merits.
dM
I am now also offering a 1btc/month hosting package - details in this thread. which is probably a good introduction.
I am in the UK.
I can supply webhosting with Cpanel and softaculous (including SMF, PHPBB, Wordpress, Drupal, Etc...), to your spec with regards to bandwidth and disk space, for BitCoins. Hosted in a UK datacentre that I rent for other hosting purposes.
PM me with a proposition and we can begin further discussion. Although the datacentre is in the UK, obviously the offer is open to people everywhere.
I am not fixing prices in advance because I want to provide a custom service spec'd to the buyers needs and what they want to pay.
I supply this as-is. I want to add value to the BitCoins economy and I have spare capacity on my servers.
This would be great for small websites or forums or blogs. Not high bandwidth/heavy processing or mission critical deployments until I have built up some trust in the community. My providers also have a policy against IRC, but apart from that any normal website deployment would be acceptable.
I would offer domains, but a best practice is to always have your domains separate from your hosting, so you should register a domain yourself with someone like godaddy.com or whatever to be able to use this service. (I am not recommending godaddy.com - just an example)
I will set up the site to use your domain and give you your own Cpanel login.
I will tell you the nameservers to use for your domain.
You pay monthly either in advance or after a month of service depending on what we agree.
You will need to do everything else to design your site - I assume clients will know how to use Cpanel.
I will provide e-mail or pm support for hosting issues but unless this really takes off I cannot provide detailed tutoring on how to set up sites.
As always - the community will judge this service on it's merits.
dM
I am now also offering a 1btc/month hosting package - details in this thread. which is probably a good introduction.
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