[wplug-board] Re: [wplug-plan] Virtual Hosting

[Michael H. Semcheski]

> > If we decide to use another provider (e.g. pair), it doesn't have to alter
> > our plans too much.  The plan of attack for eliminating hosting
> > dependencies is loosely coupled to the actual service we choose!
>
> Not entirely, we clearly want something that gives us root over our own virtual machine.  Pair networks does not do that, you're on a shared server with significant restrictions in place on what you can actually do.

I think its very important to point something out here.

The thing that pair doesn't provide that linode (presumably, we'll
have to double check) allows us to do is IRC.

I found out about wplug by chance via IRC.  I was looking for help
with Fedora, and someone said "oh, you're in Pittsburgh, check out
wplug."  Coincidentally, that was the last time I used IRC.  IRC never
came up for discussion at our meeting.  Oversight on our part.  But it
underlines the fact that web and email lists are the main things to
worry about, and IRC is at some lower level.  (Though we did discuss
the monkeybot, and we all want to keep it.)

The point I want to make is that we're not looking for root access to
a box.  We're looking for specific services (mainly web and mailing
lists) to be met.  Root is nice, but...

I'd rather not maintain my own box.  I'd rather let someone dedicate
all of their time to maintenance.  I've got root access to my
computer, and there are times I wish I didn't have to be the one to
deal with the headaches.  And on the flipside, once you've got 100
computers locked down, its trivial to lock down the 101st.

Again, my point is, we're not out to find somewhere that will give us
the root password.  We want mail, wiki, and probably IRC.  And we
probably want IRC, and that probably means we need root access, but
lets keep the priorities straight.

And one more thing, although pair's servers are shared resources, so
are linodes.  If I had to put money on it, I'll bet we get a bigger
"slice of the pie" at pair, just because there's less virtualization
overhead.