Maybe its because i'm tired or maybe i'm just not that bright, but I can't seem to find on the FAQ or forum searching the equation for how much bandwidth is used - and I know i've read the information before somewhere.
When I move house I want to setup a 24/7 server in the garage, and I need to figure out what broadband connection I should get to make it run 20 cars.
I figured working out how much data per second multiplied by 4 should (to allow for other local machines using the net and decreased latency) be what I need from my upload speed.
I looked into server rental and they all charge a fortune for Windows Server 2003 machines, I only need XP Home & VNC for what I need ! I figure paying the rental as a bigger broadband bill will have better side effects .
Is 1mbit going to do it for 20 cars? I think 1mbit falls short about 50%, but I'm still slurping on my first coffee of the day so I could be EVEN more wrong than usual. 160KB is needed for 20 cars, but 1mbit is ~100KB up.
[EDIT] ::slurp:: plus once your 100KB is used, downloads begin to suffer. I don't think 1mbit up is gonna do it
Hi,
You can find that information in LFS how many KB/sec is needed for hosting(depend on the allowed number of joiners).
You need always to add like 20percent plus as the upload usually osscilate especially with ADSL/CABLE/WIFI providers to avoid laggy server.
As an aside, you may wish to try renting a VDS / VPS. They tend to be cheaper. Even more so, are linux VPS / VDS; which it is possible to run the dedicated server on, under WINE.
In my experience the cost of a pipe to your house, thats got a decent upload will be equivilent to a rented virtual or real server. Check out poundhost.co.uk if you're feeling really cheap. They're a little iffy, and do have random downtimes in the middle of the day for a few minutes every few months, but they are very cheap and dont monitor their bandwidth usage at the moment (at least for colocated boxes).
I'm SOOOOOOOOO not going to say what I have to say about the MD of Poundhost. I've never before actually gone ahead with filing a complaint with trading standards, but Mr Munson drove me to it.
There are lots of other options out there. For about £100/month you can lease a pretty good Win2003 server in a datacentre that isn't Redbus (also important IMO), with unlimited or as good as unlimited bandwidth(600+Gb/month without exceeding theoretically imposed and effectively unimplemented limits.) on a month-by-month basis.
I must admit, those who I know with rented servers, they arent happy and all but one guy has moved away.
On the other hand, the colocation isnt dealt with as badly in my experience. Either this is because they're not managing / maintaining the boxes, or they see it as a better income and dont want to piss you off.
PH do have their moments, and tbh I'm rather happy to put up with the crap and the lack of monitoring due to the traffic that goes through my boxes, and that they dont bill properly for remote hands. Of course, my personal experience is only with their colocation.
At the end of the day, PH are cheap, and this is just about all that they're good at. If you want something decent then pick gigeservers or just about any other company in existance. You get what you pay for in the hosting and colocation world; just make sure its not some geek's second job. The last thing you want is to pick up off a reseller and then find you get no support until after the 9-5 job he/she holds.
I didn't even consider using a box in my garage until I saw what LFS was using. 256kbit/sec for 20 players is hardly a problem. I live in the UK where sensible broadband speeds are becoming more readily available. One provider is offering 8mbit downstream free of charge provided you take their more expensive telephone package. Sure that's not upstream speed, but 256mbit isn't an issue.
I'd rather pay for a faster connection at home and have tertiarry benefits then pay a datacentre who will then charge me to reboot the computer.
Maintaining the box myself is a huge advantage. I'm a multi-platform engineer, programmer and tech support guru. (Actually I try to avoid engineering because it cuts my hands up) There's just no way i'm going to pay a ton of cash for someone to press the reset button on the front.
Linux worries me though, it's not a platform i've personally worked on and I only have the vaguest knowledge of it from the little bit of Unix I sometimes have to scratch the surface of. If I had a Linux box installed at a datacentre i'd almost certainly end up paying extra for support.
I definately want a Windows based box - I dont really care about security i'm not holding credit cards. I just dont want to pay £50 or so a month because of the Windows 2003 license cost, as that is what a rented server seems to cost from the budget providers, that's more than the cost of a high speed home internet connection - and only comes with a 256kbit connection !
I'd much rather build the box myself and install the software I want (LFS dedi host, my own server side-app, VNC, and possibly a <low bandwidth> dedi server for a game I wrote that no-one ever plays ( http://www.bansheestudios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=270 ).
Besides, I guess it comes with the usual Microsoft quality bugs and hole, and I don't think you can change the port for added security.
When I forget to start the server, It's much easier to tell to a computer illiterate over phone to start that program than to go there and there and there to enable RD.
You can access a VNC server from any computer with only a web browser and java installed on it. I don't think you can use RD with tightly locked corporate/public access computers.
Also I don't use any MS software if there is alternative that doesn't totally suck.
With VNC, I mean UltraVNC - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
I haven't never actually used windows' RD... But for my needs, UltraVNC is perfect. Only nitpick is that the server comp is occupied when using VNC, but I think you'd need Win Server 2003 to over come that...
What about a shared Windows server? Some place here in Germany is offering these accounts including 5gb space and 600gb bandwidth for like 10 € a month.
Granted, its not supported in XP Home. That said, if you're using XP Home in a way that requires VNC, perhaps you should be rethinking things?
Yes you can change the port. Its a registry hack though. With regards to the security of it, I'd say its more secure than VNC because of how VNC works - if someone leaves the console logged on, you're screwed with VNC as soon as someone cracks the VNC password. Not the case with terminal services / RDP (I guess this could potentially be a flaw, its a matter of opinion). Personally I'd like to see the opportunity to have a keys system in both VNC and RDP (a la SSH), rather than having to exchange passwords.
We lock down all our machines we administrate, because we arent on any of our customers sites (we're remote) they are RDP'able both from and to. I'm yet to come across the GPO option to lock down the RDP client tbh; so I'm guessing its a manual thing. If you're running a windows server with sharepoint, then similarly you can access your work PC via a web interface. Granted the give downer is that it requires ActiveX, and thus IE (which I am not a fan of)
Usually I'd agree, but since RDP runs at kernel level its about 20 times faster. Plus you get domain / computer authentication. I suppose you could say this is a flaw, but at least I can enforce password length etc. with gpo's. With VNC anyone could change the password once they're in, if some tit leaves the console logged on... Of course on the other end of the scale, if its not left in, it is a dual security of "crack this VNC password...oh shit, now its the windows auth as well!". But in normal circumstances, its hard to find this happen in my experience.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a total windows monkey, but I believe that we should support Microsoft in what they do well. Its my opinion that RDP is one of those things (with exception of the Remote Web Workplace requiring ActiveX). Its similar to X forwarding over SSH, or FreeNX perhaps, rather than VNC.
You can't just hate Microsoft because they're Microsoft (its a crap reason). Sure they have a virtual monopoly on the market, and a lot of software they write is buggy, flawed, etc. I've voiced my opinion and preference over Open and Free architecture many times both here and other places on the 'net and in "real life". Usually only to be called a raving communist, so I find it a little strange that people still get the opinion I love "teh Windows" and that "Windows is the way".
To be precise you'd need something capable of terminal services. This includes almost all recent versions of windows server (2000+).
As a little aside, these days I can even use my linux machines (with X installed) to RDP to customers sites, using the rdesktop package.
I havn't looked at RDP because I work on Mac's, I had to work with Apple's software but found a few key drawbacks in that it used the server/password method which is just a plain security hole - that's assuming you get the customer to setup the port forwarding for it to work, something i'd rather do via remote control to be honest.
So instead I wrote my own little VNC applet that instead of working as a password protected server (which it can actually do, but I never use) it simply invites the listening application sitting on my machine in the office. So the user initiates the invite.
The concept isn't new and I cannot claim credit, it's secure so can be used on a customers site, it bypasses router configuration at the customers end - and best of all because VNC is an open standard, and in the case of my own applet I wrote it myself so that it wouldn't have any options the customer could mess up, it's free ... Plus it interfaces with VNC on the PC flawlessly .
What because I coded a VNC applet? That was work related, and i've so much coding experience I produce programs extremely quickly. I do browse the forums during the day but only between calls as most of my work time is response based - meaning I need a customer to be in dire straits before I need to do anything, and sometimes everything is ticking over nicely.
I maintain somewhere around 3,000 machines at the moment, mostly Macs with some PC's and around 350 or so servers. So I do get busy sometimes, like this morning when I had two servers go down and had to pick up a server job from another tech who couldn't solve it, all had to be back up and running "immediately".
So yes sometimes I have a bit of time, and days like today I am just finishing work now at midnight having been working since 8am. I'm still on call for emergency though - I will have the phone by my bed.
Envy me if you like... But your life would have to be pretty dire ! lol
It wasnt just because of the VNC applet, but also because of the other projects you seem to beable to make time for, as well as visiting the forums and managing time for LFS and your other racing experiences, plus who-knows-what.
Similarly I work nuts hours although almost purely with Windows servers and desktops, but I rarely get any time to get any coding done these days I can't say that I envy your Mac situation tbh. Probably only because of my irrational fear of them :o Although I would like to get more time to dedicate to open projects, just like the Good Old Days(TM)
I'm seriously impressed by whatever it is that keeps you going; be it very good time management or dedication Initially I had you down as a "bit of a madam" tbh, although I've quickly come to respect you a lot
This really rocks and I wouldn't use anything else to connect our macs to a 2003 server for running windoze software.
I recon you could get LFS running on a mac using this, just not keen on being sprung loading it on the server & the lack of a decent graphics card on said server stop me.
It also allows you to connect to xp pro boxes but there is an issue with the number of connections.
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hope this helps.