Web hosting on shared servers

Using our Web hosting service

Our standard web hosting services use shared computers. We must, therefore, insist that users abide by standard rules for shared resources. (If your needs can't be met that way, please talk to us about setting up a custom web environment that will do the job.)

In general, predictable and steady high use is easier to handle than great usage spikes of any kind. Serious problems can arise with unpredictable high demands. This is especially true when resources are shared, since it's possible for a number of different accounts to make sudden. large demands on the system at the same time. To protect all of our users, we require that everyone let us know when any unusual demands are likely to be made. Please inform us via email to corp-web, and do not consider the matter resolved until we've said it's okay. In general we would like 2 weeks notice, but will try to accommodate you with less warning if we can.

The main areas of concern are

access demands
disk space
CPU time for scripts

Access demands

If you are planning a publicity campaign, special event, or other action that you expect will result in a substantial increase of activity on your web page you must let us know about it in advance. (We need to know if you'll be getting hits much faster than 1 per second. In practice, that doesn't tend to happen unless you've set up a major advertising campaign inviting people to your page.)

If you expect a surge of hits, you must let us know in advance so that we can make sure the resources are available to deal with them. Obviously, the more time we have to prepare, the better off we are. "Cool Site of the Day" gives a week's notice, and a week is sufficient time for us. If you have less than a week's notice yourself, we'll do the best we can for you in the circumstances.

Disk Space

Your account comes with a fixed amount of disk space; while you're permitted to exceed that amount by a bit in the short term, if you go over your allocation you risk being unable to edit files or create new ones, and mail could start bouncing among other things. Extra blocks of disk space are available at additional cost, and we can raise your disk allocation on request. If you're planning a big site update, make sure you've got enough space on the server first.

Script resources

You're responsible for the scripts you run. If we find that one of your scripts uses a disproportionate amount of resources we will surely ask you to disable it. If it consumes enough resources that it cripples the server, we will disable it and let you know immediately that we have done so. We will insist that you amend it so that it stays within bounds.

We do monitor usage on our servers, and it is our practice to let users know if their scripts appear to be reaching a troublesome point, but we cannot promise that we will notice this in advance.

We're reasonable people...

If you foresee any problems with these or any other restrictions, or if you have any special needs that our rules don't address, please consult us about them. We will accommodate you whenever we think we can, and we'll try to find a means of working things out if we don't feel we can give you exactly what you're asking for. It's much better to ask us and find out in advance whether there is likely to be a problem than to go ahead without advising us and run into trouble later on.

Further questions

If you have more questions, please send email to staff@panix.com.