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DravidDavid

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#199014 1-Aug-2016 06:17
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Hey guys,

 

I'm certainly no web expert (feel free to move this thread if in the wrong location, but I couldn't find a better one) but this has me pretty annoyed.

 

I woke up this morning to continue work on my website which was working perfectly fine the night before.  I contact live support for Domains for Less which are always very responsive and easy to deal with.

 

I ask why I'm getting "503 Service Temporarily Unavailable" and he says "Oh you're using to much resources, stop doing that".  He gives me a large list of pretty obvious things to do, like optimize databases, remove high resolution images and a bunch of other things.  I told him there is nothing on there except a factory Wordpress installation and basic theme I was uploading the night before.

 

He says, "Just wait a few hours, it will go back to normal".  I get a screenshot that shows my CPU and memory usage briefly spiked up to 92% (according to him).

I'm assuming this was me uploading stuff via FTP.  But that does not seem to me like it's anything out of step with what normal people use their service for, is it?  How am I supposed to know this service is going to be reliable when I'm exceeding resource limits on a basic Wordpress install?  They have an option to install wordpress, so it's not like I'm using the service outside of what is advertised so far.

 

What's more, the graph seems to indicate that resource usage returned to normal fairly quickly, unless I'm reading it wrong.

 

 

I hate instructions to "wait and see what happens".  Because it often does not fix anything and I get told the same thing 24 hours later. undecided


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richms
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  #1601996 1-Aug-2016 06:29
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And you're certain that it is a secure wordpress install? Because from what people I know who self host it, its always getting hacked.





Richard rich.ms



DravidDavid

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  #1601999 1-Aug-2016 06:38
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richms:

 

And you're certain that it is a secure wordpress install? Because from what people I know who self host it, its always getting hacked.

 

 

Literally just installed it last night.

 

I used a randomly generated password for the database, user login as well as generated unique authentication keys and salts.  I have another self hosted D4L website that gets a lot more traffic and has never been compromised.  Wordpress isn't perfect, but it seems pretty secure if you follow the instructions on the tin.

 

 

 

EDIT:  Just removed database and install just as a precaution.  I don't think it was compromised, but I figured I might as well remove it all.  That way in a few hours when my service still hasn't be restored, they won't be able to tell me it's my fault.


richms
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  #1602042 1-Aug-2016 08:53
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 Possibly the "4 less" part showing its ugly side in that case, but did you configure it locally and then upload it or have it exposed while you were configuring it?





Richard rich.ms



DravidDavid

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  #1602044 1-Aug-2016 09:03
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richms:

 

 Possibly the "4 less" part showing its ugly side in that case, but did you configure it locally and then upload it or have it exposed while you were configuring it?

 

 

I configured the database and wp-config files first, then uploaded the configuration and immediately set up the user.
I went back to live chat after and they're now saying it needs to go to their senior admin.  I'm guessing it's because there is an actual problem.

 

Is there a local hosting company you'd recommend?  I don't mind spending money, D4L came highly recommended to me and have been pretty good ever since.


timmmay
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  #1602046 1-Aug-2016 09:06
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Wordpress is relatively secure, if set up properly. I've been running four Wordpress instances for something like 6-7 years, I've never had an issue.

 

What's the time scale on that graph? 95% CPU for a few minutes shouldn't matter. 95% CPU for 2 hours, that's a problem on shared hosting. However their service sounds pretty awful, and I'd probably move. I gave up on shared hosting, I run a VPS in AWS. This takes more knowledge and more time, but performance, security, etc is much better.


DravidDavid

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  #1602059 1-Aug-2016 09:55
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timmmay:

 

Wordpress is relatively secure, if set up properly. I've been running four Wordpress instances for something like 6-7 years, I've never had an issue.

 

What's the time scale on that graph? 95% CPU for a few minutes shouldn't matter. 95% CPU for 2 hours, that's a problem on shared hosting. However their service sounds pretty awful, and I'd probably move. I gave up on shared hosting, I run a VPS in AWS. This takes more knowledge and more time, but performance, security, etc is much better.

 

 

Thanks Tim!

 

The time period is 24 hours.  I'm interested in learning more about VPS hosting and increasing performance and security is always high on my priorities list.
Any resources or other information/providers you can point me towards would be awesome.  Based on a quick search, VPS hosting is significantly more expensive!  But it looks as if there are a lot more perks.

 

 


timmmay
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  #1602065 1-Aug-2016 10:11
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That graph isn't really providing much information, it's too ambiguous.

 

There are HEAPS of VPS providers. Have a read of this thread. Digital Ocean (Singapore, USA, etc), Vultr (Sydney), AWS (Sydney, all over the world), Azure. With a VPS you have to install and maintain the operating system, but on AWS you can get prebuilt systems. For example Bitname will have a prebuilt AMI (Amazon Machine Image) that has Wordpress and MySQL on it. Other providers will have similar I guess. Alternately get a prebuilt Ubuntu 16.04 image and use EasyEngine to set it up.

 

I'm running four decent size websites (1million + hits per month) on AWS for about $2/month. I have a t2.micro for Wordpress (1GB RAM, 10% of one core, but burstable), plus a similar server for the database. It's $2 because in the first year you get this setup under the free tier. After the year I'll move MySQL back onto the server (it has 500MB RAM free so no problem) and my hosting cost will be around US$5 per month. I use the free CDN CloudFlare to accelerate the static content delivery. Works great, very fast, very stable. You need some technical knowledge though.


 
 
 

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).
DravidDavid

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  #1610315 11-Aug-2016 21:01
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Sorry about the late update, but it's all sorted.
Techs intervened after my ticket was escalated and all is working well.  I have a WordPress install with theme working perfectly, so it's all good. :)

 

Thanks for the response guys! :)


jarledb
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  #1610341 11-Aug-2016 21:39
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Would highly recommend Cloudways (where you can host with Vultr in Sydney) for hosting that is targeting NZ. Their stack, with Varnish as cache among other things, is really good. And for a single site you can start with a USD 9/month account that gives you 768 MB RAM, 1 CPU, 15 GB storage and 1 TB bandwidth. And if needed you can scale up to 64 GB RAM, 24 core CPU, 700 GB storage, 15 TB bandwidth. So should be able to host most anything on it.

 

Its recommended to host 1 site (they call it "application") per server, that way you have full control of which site uses resources and can easily deal with it if you should get into problems.

 

 

 

BTW: Thanks for confirming what I suspected, that Domains4Less probably is not a good place to host sites. Taking sites offline and not really providing any details about what is wrong is unhelpful in so many ways.





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timmmay
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  #1610433 12-Aug-2016 08:31
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jarledb:

 

Its recommended to host 1 site (they call it "application") per server, that way you have full control of which site uses resources and can easily deal with it if you should get into problems.

 

 

Most servers are underutilized. Something like Docker lets you put multiple logically isolated applications onto a VM and easily move them to multiple VMs/servers later if required.


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