Would you give up cPanel for better uptime?

[zen-r]

I think the problem with the 100 post requirement idea is that it is probably new members & beginners to web-hosting who need cPanel the most, & they are the ones who would be immediately excluded from having cPanel.

Perhaps a refinement to that idea would be to charge a small/ fair amount to use cPanel. One could pay either in x10 credits (earnt the usual way by posting in the x10 forums or doing services here for others) or in real money (using Paypal etc) - thus giving most people the opportunity to get cPanel if they really need it.

Personally, at this stage I would still want cPanel included.

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[garrettroyce]

What if cpanel was a one time fee service? Have some of the free servers non-cpanel and some cpanel. This would eliminate the "bad" users from choking up cpanel. Then, you could also control when apache recompiles, like only recompiling during non-peak hours and only compiling once per day instead of a few times a day.

 

[adamparkzer]

What if cpanel was a one time fee service? Have some of the free servers non-cpanel and some cpanel.

I support this idea; I prefer one-time fee services of payments as opposed to monthly fees. Having to pay only once takes off the necessity of having to worry about periodic payments, and it'll attract more customers without credit cards with automatic payment (like me).

 

[garrettroyce]

And X10 does allow mail-in payments (at least I think I do) so all you people without credit cards can still mail in your payments. I could see this being an X10 reward as well

 

[lemon-tree]

I honestly could not go without cPanel; it is what makes x10hosting really stand out from the rest of the free hosting sites. Obviously, being free hosting we have no real right to complain and decide, it is down to whoever pays the bills. I agree that an alternative setup must be found and I also agree with the previously stated idea. Many new users do not need the power and functionality that cPanel supplies as they are just hosting a small website. However, some users, like me, rely heavily upon the advanced features that are supplied with cPanel. So, I think that users should by default be placed upon a server with a low-functionality, reliable control panel; however, those users that need it can be transfered, or upgraded, to a cPanel server. That upgrade could ideally come at a cost in forum credits, as they generally show a contribution to the x10 community.

 

[garrettroyce]

Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair compromise. But, since it takes some time to get credits, I think having a paying option is good to have as well.

 

[zen-r]

Isn't all this what I already suggested in my last post here?

 

[adamparkzer]

Yeah, I think that's a pretty fair compromise. But, since it takes some time to get credits, I think having a paying option is good to have as well.

I actually think the forum credits is a better idea. People who only register to abuse the system could simply make a payment to x10Hosting to get their accounts upgraded, and continue to abuse the servers. However, by forcing them to upgrade with forum credits only, they're forced to prove that they're real people, and they really want the upgrade to cPanel, and they're dedicated to spending time and effort to help others to get this feature.

 

[garrettroyce]

I think credits only is going to mean a lot of worthless spam, creation of multiple accounts only for donating credits, and people selling x10 credits for cash instead of people paying cash to x10 for upgrades to the servers. I agree with your principal, but I think too many people aren't going to put in any honest effort.

If you set the credit price too low, everyone will have cpanel and we'll be back in the same place. Too high, and people will try to abuse the system to get in. I see credits as a reward to the people who care and give back to the community, not as a punishment to people who don't. Not everyone has time to post either, it isn't fair to punish them.

 

[zen-r]

I actually think the forum credits is a better idea. People who only register to abuse the system could simply make a payment to x10Hosting to get their accounts upgraded, and continue to abuse the servers. However, by forcing them to upgrade with forum credits only, they're forced to prove that they're real people, and they really want the upgrade to cPanel, and they're dedicated to spending time and effort to help others to get this feature.

True, but I think Corey might also like some cold, hard cash! All these services & hardware don't come cheap, so any extra revenue such as that which might be raised by the option of paying to get cPanel, can only be a good thing.

Anyway, Corey may be working on some better, completely different ideas which have nothing to do with payments (cash or x10 credits) so I guess we'll have to wait & see.

 

[Linkz0rs]

Hi Corey,

Seeing as cPanel is causing problems, due to the fact that there are many users on the server, we could limit the users a little. Something which no other post in this thread has thought off.

If a person wants cPanel on this host, they just sign up by registering their forum account with their hosting account which instantly is registered with cPanel. I would love the uptime to be higher, though I haven't noticed any problems with it but I would also like to have cPanel at the same time.

All free hosts on x10hosting should have LayeredPanel pre-installed, which is a good alternative. Nothing fancy, just basic really. The user has an option to upgrade to cPanel, but to upgrade you must meet two simple requirements:

* You need a minimum of 100 posts on the forum.
* You must then login to the forums every 2 weeks.

If those requirements are met, then they may have cPanel offered to them from x10hosting. You may choose how many posts are required but 100 is pretty basic.

As adamparkzer has stated, his reason to join to x10hosting was because of the cPanel and in a way, mine was too. Loosing cPanel may also loose a lot more users but will benefit those with 100 posts or higher. This would mean faster servers for those 100+ post users and higher uptime as well.

That actually sounds like a good idea :tongue:
However, that could actually cause more load on the servers, as having both cPanel and what you said running at the same time could cause issues...

Unless your saying have users be on a separate server for LayeredPanel, and all the other servers have cPanel on them?? :dunno:
Should further clarify what your saying lol

 

[kcngkc]

I agreed with Hauzer that the problem caused by too many user's sign-up. But I don't think the problem will go away by setting credit, posting or paid for the cpanel.

As Corey described, the server was overloaded due to the sign-up and refresh of apache server. The suggestion above is only delay the problem but not solve it permanently. This same may apply to paid hosting when the new users sign up exceed the limit of cpanel.

Why don't we look at how can we reduce the load to apache by doing a batch update to config file and restart only 1 of twice daily. This will greatly reduce the downtime while still provide the cpanel to user.

In my opinion the cpanel can be replaced to something equivalent or better but not remove it.

 

[farscapeone]

I can live without it. I barely use it anyway but there are those who start using free hosting just to learn more about hosing in general. For them cPanle is essential.

I prefer better uptime

 

[Livewire]

As Corey described, the server was overloaded due to the sign-up and refresh of apache server. The suggestion above is only delay the problem but not solve it permanently. This same may apply to paid hosting when the new users sign up exceed the limit of cpanel.

I doubt I'm the only user of this opinion, but the day x10 removes cpanel from paid hosting, I'm gone.

Paid hosting doesn't have anywhere near the number of users, and once it starts to have any problems, x10 can buy a new server since the paid users are paying for the service (static has virtually no $ coming in, advanced/corporate only get what the ads make per month per account), and thus are actually making more money per server than it costs to keep the server running.

I should point out around 6-12 months ago Ciroc had some issues related a cpanel backup process having some troubles running. This was when x10 ended up buying Artic, moving half the Ciroc users to Artic, and continued on like normal. Both servers are still here today, still paid for by the users on them.


Paid simply doesn't have the problem with the restarts either - less accounts means the restart time is much lower, and paid is probably not getting bought NEARLY as often as the free accounts are, so it restarts less frequently (enough so that I haven't managed to find a time when Artic actually died long enough to blame it on x10 instead of a bum connection).

I say keep cPanel on Paid. Worst case scenario, it's a reason for people to go with paid over free (besides stability and knowing you can run a 1 minute cronjob without getting suspended for high resource usage on a free server ). Best case is what it is right now - fast, stable, and apparently quite quick to reboot because if people are getting added to Artic, it isn't showing

 

[Derek]

I would rather have cPanel. It's much better and easier to use than the rest of the menus.

 

[kaiweilim]

Corey said this will not affect the paid hosting. Besides, paid hosting should have no problem on cPanel. Because for paid hosting, the user using the same server will be a lot lesser than the free hosting server. Therefore, this is why free hosting server is not recommended to have cPanel on it. This is what i had seen/heard from other web hosting providers.

So i would give up cPanel and trade it for better uptime.

Regards.

 

[Livewire]

Corey said this will not affect the paid hosting.

Yeah I saw it, just pointing out mostly -why- it wouldn't affect paid, at least from what I can see here

 

[Corey]

There are some good suggestions in this thread so far and I'll definitely take them all into consideration.

This is a last resort option and we are not quite there yet. I wanted to make this post right when it started becoming something to think about for us, mostly to keep everyone informed and to see what people's thoughts were. If everyone voted they could do without cPanel there wouldn't be much to think about here because cPanel does cost us a lot more to run than say Layered Panel. Our goal has always been to provide the best service possible for free, and that means going with something that costs a little more (cPanel).

I read through the posts and wanted to answer two things...

This does not affect paid services at all. If we switch from cPanel it will be for free hosting only.

Someone mentioned about only restarting Apache twice per day. This was actually what we just heard back from cPanel on... we can't do it. The script that restarts Apache on creations\terminations is encoded so we're unable to edit it. This of course is only ONE problem we have with cPanel and free hosting, but it is the major one that we need to work through now.

If we do decide to switch away from cPanel we'll let everyone know way in advance, I would think the process would take a few months to fully complete. Again, this would be a last resort for us and I'm hoping we don't end up there. Please keep an eye on the server alerts section as you will start seeing some maintenance happening to the free servers (us trying out solutions).

Thanks!

-Corey

 

[supermix]

Not for anything else but the fact that this service is so great even if it is free. That is why I am willing to sacrifice a little just to alleviate some stress that corey will have to endure.

:naughty:

 

[Sharky]

It's quite surprising that cPanel aren't at least interested in using x10Hosting as a 'guinea pig', in order to sort this problem, and be able to say "Hey, cPanel is able to expand with your hosting business and support <x> users on one server!".
As an alternative, I have used Plesk in the past when fixing a friend's website, and it seems fairly straightforward. Plus, it has a migration tool to go from cPanel. But really, from an admin point of view, I have no idea. Good luck sorting this one out :dunno: