EE on 256MB VPS

[photocroatia]

Has anybody run EE on a VPS?

I am about to signup for a 256MB RAM VPS, it can burst to 1GB but I am guarnteed at least 256MB. Offcourse CPU will be the other consideration on I aunsure about.

[Pekka]

I host one site with 600 photos in 128MB VPS (smallest http://www.ev1servers.net/ VPS) . It runs well, but I would suggest something else for your site. Reason:

VPS has forced resource limiter system which just stops the server when exceeded. This does not mean any friendly error pages but abrupt halt and possibly nasty error messages for visitor. The recource limiter has dozens of sniff points which are not related to CPU or traditional system resource usage. Problematic ones are:

Disk Inodes Number of total disk inodes.
Your disk can be half full but inodes spent means server goes down. With photo gallery you have thumbs and images and each takes one inode. When you get spam mail each mail is one or more inode. In 256MB VPS this is 200,000 and half of it is spent for system.

numfile Number of open files
The most problematic limit. This counts files that are accessed at one time. The max value is low (1,378) which means even a small usage peak can bring your server down.

TCP sockets are limited, too: again, more traffic means server goes down.

Email spam killed the server periodically. I ended up stopping mail server, spam filtering, and all services except web and mysql. That was the only way to get the server run reliably.

In short - cheapest "own" server is better than small VPS. Important factors are disk speed and amount of RAM. Larger VPS with larger resource limits might work well, too.

[bobbeela]

I run the site on a VPS with 96 MB guaranteed*, (http://www.flexservers.com/vps-virtual-private-server-linux.php). I don't seemto have any problems.
Enno

[photocroatia]

Thank you for your replies.

Pekka,
You are familiar with my site and load, would a Celeron 1.3 - 2.0 Ghz with 512MB or memory be sufficeint?

Disk and transfers are way more than I need.

[Alexis427]

Mine (http://www.tabah.org ) has been running perfectly, for 2 years on a linode 128 (http://www.linode.com )

[photocroatia]

Just to clarify why my requirements are a little high.

I have almost 12,000 photos online with anywhere between 40,000 and 80,000 visitors a month.

[photocroatia]

Pekka,
You are familiar with my site and load, would a Celeron 1.3 - 2.0 Ghz with 512MB of memory be sufficeint?

[Pekka]

Pekka,
You are familiar with my site and load, would a Celeron 1.3 - 2.0 Ghz with 512MB of memory be sufficeint?

If we talk about very high load server requirements (continuous fast response, handles backing up and peaks without hiccups) then the only answer is the one you do not like: only way to be sure is to get one and try it out. Sorry! The question you ask is not so straightforward.

There are too many variables in setting a server up to say anything definitive. I have spent lot of time and servers to get more power: the basic rule is to simplify. Just the OS, no extras (no cpanel or ensim, use webmin/usermin instead). Kill all processes you do not need and compile the apps by hand. Make backups happen on slow time and learn to use rsync, http://www.hmug.org/man/1/nice.php and mysqlhotcopy. Second disk just for MySQL data makes a world of difference. Some run http://www.lighttpd.net to server images in parallel to Apache, some install http://www.zeus.com/products/zws/ (expensive, very fast). In server use the order of most influencal hardware components is:

1. RAM -> more RAM
2. Faster disk -> more disks -> SCSI
3. Faster CPU -> hyperthreading -> multiple CPUs

It is very important is to match Apache and MySQL memory usage to the server RAM amount. This is done simply with correct settings in httpd.conf and my.cnf - with good settings 512MB is plenty, with more RAM you have speed things up by increasing e.g. caches.

Not all are ready to put hours and hours on tweaking, which means you have to get faster/bigger hardware, or managed hosting, or hire someone to tweak for you.

So, the answer is: it could be, try it! Try get a deal with low setup fee or 30 days money back.

[Pekka]

Also, based on what I know of your previous hosting experiences, ANY dedicated server is great for you so you can maintain it yourself and you have no limits set by someone else.