Kirk Haines wrote:

> On Mon, 31 May 2004 01:10:27 +0900, Shannon Fang wrote
> 
> 
>>2) The application may be hosted on a shared server provided by a 
>>hosting company, in this case, I think the most appropriate option 
>>might be PHP, because there aren't any hosting company offering 
>>mod_ruby etc, as far as I know. However,
> 
> 
> If there seemed to be a demand for it, I would consider it.  However, 
> mod_ruby presents a can of worms for a hosting company, so it is no suprise 
> that it is a hard feature to find on shared servers.
> 

There's a new trend with shared hosting that you might find appropriate 
for your situation.

Instead of sharing apache with others and simply having your own 
password-protected directory (traditional shared hosting), look into 
VPS/VDS (virtual private server or virtual dedicated server).

After trying a few VPS/VDS shops, I've come to these opinions regarding 
the 4 most used "virtual server" hosting technologies (kinda like vmware 
for web hosting providers):

1. Sphera's "virtual" root access I tried seemed WAY too limited and I 
hated it.  Didn't even feel like I had root access.

2. Virtuozzo's "virtual" root access was decent--limitations include not 
being able to set system time within VPS that is different from the 
host, and some features of iptables not being available (like logging 
and state tracking).  Other than that and inability to compile your own 
kernel, it "feels" like you have your own Linux box with your own file 
system and root user.  VPS overhead is 3% since only one kernel is used 
and shared.

3. User Mode Linux (UML) lets you have your own distro that is even 
different from other distros on the same box and even different from the 
host OS.  Most flexible by far but everyone running their own kernel 
means everyone requires more memory from the shared box and the overhead 
is greater than Virtuozzo.

4. FreeBSD Jail is one I haven't tried yet but looks interesting.  It is 
obviously only for FreeBSD and I believe the 2 limitations are no ICMP 
traffic and each VPS can only have 1 static ip address.

I chose Virtuozzo for now and am very happy.  The iptables limitation is 
annoying but I'm able to use many effective rules.  The system time 
issue was resolved by asking my provider to setup cron on the host OS to 
sync with an atomic time server (which they did quickly to the benefit 
of all VPS customers on that box).  Other than these 2 issues and 
inability to compile/install my own kernel, it feels like I have my own 
dedicated box at shared hosting prices ($<20/month).

If you choose UML, then Linodes.com and jvds.com seem to be the most 
popular choices mentioned at webhostingtalk.com.

I'm not mentioning my Virtuozzo provider yet because I've only used them 
for a few weeks so far--I'll probably post about them in a few months if 
I'm still this happy.  Installing ruby, mod_ruby, eruby, mod_dosevasive, 
mod_security, etc. have been a snap within the VPS.  I'm even hosting 
multiple domains within one VPS account using apache.