[thelist] OT - PHP and MySQL server

[Mark Groen]

On Sunday 10 June 2007 08:06, Ken Moore wrote:
> ...........
> We are working with a client who is going to start with 20 to 30 domains
> and eventually have well over 500 that they are managing. .....
> ......20 pages, low to moderate bandwidth needs, and 2 or 3 PHP pages to
> collect visitor information. 

That is more than enough to have a dedicated server and hiring someone to set 
it up for you.

> Each site will take a minimal amount of upkeep 
> but taken together, it will a big job.

Are you talking about updates to the site itself?

> .............
> ..........they have Fedora Core, PHP, and MySQL,

Just about any Linux distro runs PHP and MySQL very well. I would stay away 
from Fedora for a commercial server, it is a cutting edge distro and the 
release cycle is much higher than other versions of Linux and it's not 
uncommon to have things break/change between releases. More than once I've 
had upgrades (even kernel updates) to Fedora break and have had to do a clean 
install. A better option would be CentOS or RHEL.

> important. They also allow you to tailor your own account based on level of
> help, disk space and bandwidth. They also register new domains, have Plesk,
> and have a very good track record.

Plesk is fine, personally I prefer the Cpanel/WHM combo myself...

> Are there any other hosts that might be good for such a large number of
> sites?

What side of the continent are you on? Latency may or may not be an issue for 
you, from your description of the sites probably not but something to 
consider anyways. For the west, ThePlanet.com has massive connectivity and my 
personal favourite is RackSpace.com - probably because they are very close to 
me and in Canada. Support *should* not really that much of an issue for the 
experienced as long as the server is up and running.

> Also, any suggestions on how to manage them are welcome, such as "How do
> you organize that many sites?"

Your dedicated server should come with the software for that already 
installed, (Cpanel/WHM is expensive otherwise) and it probably won't have 
much else other than perhaps ClamAV, PHP (installing MySQL is easy) though, 
so being comfortable with SSH, the CLI and Linux is very helpful.
-- 
cheers,

        Mark