We're moving hosting companies. There; I said it.
Now, before y'all
decide to look up my address and pummel me in the dead of night; or worse, force me to reassemble a carbide lamp while blindfolded, hear me out.caves.org and its subdomains are currently running off of 4 different hosting accounts. You probably never noticed, or cared, unless you were one of the many grottos for which we host webspace. Disclaimer: I inherited this configuration when I took on the job of IT Committee Chair, and in all fairness to my predecessor, he inherited a server crash when he took the job. The main problem we have with the current configuration is commonly known as the cursed "10 minute rsync." Many of the grottos are uploading their web content to server 2 or server 3, then waiting up to 10 minutes for that content to be sync'ed to server 1. Now you ask... "why don't they just upload their content directly to the main server?" And the answser... because the hosting company limited the access to 50 ftp accounts on the main server, and we don't have any access to the web server configuration that would allow me to enable DAV support. Next, you may ask... "what's the big deal." Some of our grottos have applications that allow users to upload images, etc. to the filesystem. Every 10 minutes, their content is getting wiped out. Sure, I know how to configure rsync to avoid that problem on a case by case basis, but one-off configurations are hard to maintain over time.
Yes, I've heard the stories about how painful it was the last time "we" moved servers. Seems to me that the one-time pain of moving has only been exacerbated by the current configuration.
Specifically, to those that have hosted webspace with us...
Before you freak out. FTP user credentials will not change. In fact, you'll just keep doing what you've always done. It may be necessary for you to specify a different hostname in your FTP client; although, I'm working hard to avoid that. Otherwise, things will just keeping humming along with only one major difference, no "10 minute rsync." Your uploads will go live instantly. For those that are using databases: yes, the database connection string will change. That can't be helped. However, I will edit the connection string information for your applications, and notify you personally (by email) when that is done. If you're using PHP or Perl applications that access a database, you'll want to download the file that contains the changed connection stings so you don't accidentally overwrite the correct connection with the deprecated connection
Side bar...
In truth, I want us to move away from FTP. FTP usernames and passwords are transmitted in plain text across the network! Security demands that we eventually move towards something like DAV access which is built into Windows XP, Windows Vista (with a tweak), and Mac OS X. But I won't force DAV down anyone's throat, yet.
Lastly...
So now you're saying, "oh jeez, who is this guy, and look at the mess he's making." I work in web hosting at Virginia Tech (http://www.hosting.vt.edu), where we host about 1200 websites including http://www.vt.edu. I work with Apache, PHP, JBoss, Tomcat, and DAV everyday. I'm geek-enough to pull this off.
So wade on in with your opinion...
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