Just an idea, maybe S2 Liscensed people could get a subdomain to host an LFS website. It would be like username.liveforspeed.net. But, you wouldn't get any web hosting, just the subdomain and a redirection w/ url masking. So, someone would go to "wheel4hummer.liveforspeed.net", and then it would redirect them to "geocities.com/wheel4hummer" (geocities is just an example), but the adress bar would still read "wheel4hummer.liveforspeed.net".

That's a good idea

Curious idea. And that could amount to lots of subdomains for no real use. I'd rather have it the other way around: liveforspeed.thefloatingwidget.net for example - something I'll hopefully get around to later.

great idea.. although username.liveforspeed.com wouldnt stay in ur titlebar,
except if they had to make a page with frames, and the top frame is at lfs server, and the bottom one displays ur page

bad idea :P

Quote from Schooner :

Could make it a $$$ option.

Edit yer post Schooner, or I'll send the dogs

Eh, liveforspeed.net was already veeery slow the days around the patch came out. So; no. :P

The DNS management (I'm assuming it'd include dynamic IP directing, since the idea is for the community at large) for this would require a server or two with pretty fat pipes, considering the number of LFSers out there. The other downside is the security risk with apparently authoritative subdomains.. like ww.liveforspeed.net or login.liveforspeed.net, or a multitude of other potentially dangerous subdomains. Manual management of the beast would be both essential, and terribly time-consuming.

Bob's liveforspeed.yourdomain.com is really the way to go. I'd create an x.lfsdriver.net dynIP system if we weren't already frantically trying to find yet ANOTHER UK host for our server. We've worked our way through all the poundhost-alikes now, and are beginning to realise that the maximum IQ permitted for running a network switch in a 10U rack is 30.

Is there ANYONE out there that knows of a place where we can stick a box on a rack, with burstable bandwidth and absolutely no idiots nearby who think that randomly pulling out CAT5 cables from servers, or rebooting network switches occasionally, always without warning, and never with a good reason, is an okay pastime? We're getting desperate.

If we ipotize that it could be possible, devs could try to create a specific domain for that use.
Something like:

liveforspeednetwork.net

So they can assign here subdomains if people want, and its a separate domain from the main one.


But it's very complicated and will cost lot of moneys to them, so i dont think its a usable way if it will be free.

Quote from SpaceMarineITA :

If we ipotize that it could be possible, devs could try to create a specific domain for that use.
Something like:

liveforspeednetwork.net

So they can assign here subdomains if people want, and its a separate domain from the main one.


But it's very complicated and will cost lot of moneys to them, so i dont think its a usable way if it will be free.

Yep! Or any of us could do that, in fact. The Devs are, I think, committed to developing the sim rather than branching out into dynamic DNS hosting and management, so it probably wouldn't be something that would come from the Dev side. More likely, one or more of us in the community would set about creating the system and hosting the server, renting subdomains out and reaping the benefits.

It's still a sizeable investment of time though, and would need to go through several stages of development from co-hosting potentially up to colocating from its growing stages thru roll-out, if huge initial financial losses were to be avoided.

Big project.. but I do agree, it WOULD be nice!

@SamH - try http://www.internetf.co.uk/ (random google link) - it's at Manchester Uni so it should be reliable.

Thanks for that! I've sent them a request for info. I knew there was a place at Manchester Uni, but for the life of me I couldn't find it. Now I feel dumb! :-x

Thanks again!

On topic:
With a wildcard DNS record plus mod_vhost / mod_vhost_mysql, [insert your favourite mass vhost apache module], etc. this is fairly simple to implement. I can't see it happening some how unless it either becomes pay2play (for the service), or something like yourname.lfsworld.net to get your stats up. Although the second option is something better done with mod_rewrite

Off topic:

Quote from SamH :

We've worked our way through all the poundhost-alikes now, and are beginning to realise that the maximum IQ permitted for running a network switch in a 10U rack is 30.

Sorry, this is totally off-topic, but I thought I'd add this for prosperity. One of our (company) boxes was at the poundhost maidenhead "data centre" (colocated). We had a hardware fault, as usual IBM shipped the replacement hdd and picked up the old one, from the "datacentre" handing it over to the PH technician. Now the server was RAIDed for this eventuality. For some unknown reason they decided to pull out both hard drives by the look of it instead of the one in Slot 0. This thursday evening I tore down the motorway (2 hour drive) to their "datacentre" to fix this issue. After seeing the place, and after trying to explain why I was there (ffs my boss phone to say I was coming, they dont get that many people visit at 9pm surely?!), I walked away with our server. Its basically a very large garage behind someones house; bits of it look fairly professional, other bits are clearly cobbled together.

Our server will NOT be going back there for several reasons. We were fairly happy, considering cost vs service, until this point. I know I've probably recommended them in the past, but I will never again. For the record I do know they are moving their maidenhead place to "bluesquare", but I cannot see it going smoothly, although it might be better managed in the "long run". Even so, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

:jawdrop:
I knew they were 2-bit, managerially.. but.. :jawdrop:

Glad you were able to walk away wiser AND with data! We were unable to do the latter, coming away from there.

I'm guessing you're now doing the same as me, and scouring the country looking for an economical place to lay your box. If you find somewhere, let me know. Our biggest problem is that rackspace seems to be mostly sold by the proper bandwidth definition. We have about 15 MB/sec burstable at the moment, but we're only consuming about 600Gb/month. A 2MB/sec pipe won't fit our model, even if data transfer is unlimited. When we need to move files, we need to do it quickly.

Quote from SamH :

:jawdrop:
I knew they were 2-bit, managerially.. but.. :jawdrop:

Glad you were able to walk away wiser AND with data! We were unable to do the latter, coming away from there.

I'm guessing you're now doing the same as me, and scouring the country looking for an economical place to lay your box. If you find somewhere, let me know. Our biggest problem is that rackspace seems to be mostly sold by the proper bandwidth definition. We have about 15 MB/sec burstable at the moment, but we're only consuming about 600Gb/month. A 2MB/sec pipe won't fit our model, even if data transfer is unlimited. When we need to move files, we need to do it quickly.

I never said I walked away with data. They ****ed the RAID array totally somehow. I'm sure I could restore it from the hard drive, if we needed it (well, until I did a rebuild and a clear on the "new" RAID array), but we replicated the data to yet another box so although we had it, we didnt actually have it on that machine at the time.

Unfortuntely we originally only decided to go with PH as an experiment. It just went over a bit (in terms of the length of time it was there). We've got a couple of places already lined up as places to try, I'll let you know how we fare. The first place is due to be visited on Thursday at the moment. TBH, I'm glad this happened now, as I was about to colocate one of my own personal machines at PH.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

I never said I walked away with data.

My bad

Quote from the_angry_angel :

I was about to colocate one of my own personal machines at PH.

Close call! Phew etc.

Back on topic, one of the SSR.[EDIT]Eddy reminded me he's CTR, not SSR![/EDIT] guys wrote a dynamic DNS system for an Apache server very quickly. As far as I know, now we're running a Windows box and IIS he's only ever laughed when it's been proposed for this machine. I remember the guy from freedns.afraid.org being faced with huge bandwidth bills, at one time, but bandwidth costs have fallen significantly since those days. I can't remember figures, but I'm sure it's quite feasible.

I get the impression that the Devs have been more than a bit disappointed by lack of take-up on the SMS Alert, so I dare say they'd be hesitant in committing to another "prospective" diversion from straight sim-development. If anyone were to go for it, I think it would need some sanctioning by, and exposure courtesy of, the devs too.

would be pretty simple to implement, Use a Wilcard DNS *.domain.com , then setup the *.domain.com Vhost in Apache, Plonk a PHP script in the root which would check the database for the corresponding redirect url, maybe i should suggest username.lfswebsites.net ?

Oh and i'm sure if Sam Is willing to work on an interface, we could plonk a simple little demo on the ukct server. providing you secure the PHP enough there shouldn't really be any security issues ( Here's hoping that our Poundhost style provider doesnt screw up again eh sam? <G> )

Quote from mkserve :

Oh and i'm sure if Sam Is willing to work on an interface, we could plonk a simple little demo on the ukct server. providing you secure the PHP enough there shouldn't really be any security issues ( Here's hoping that our Poundhost style provider doesnt screw up again eh sam? <G> )

GNERRRF!! 2x again last night!!

Morning sleepyhead, btw

You write the script, I'll write the interface and we'll get Dave to buy the domain (sucker!) [hope he doesn't read this!]

PS: Your g/f is broadcasting rude songs on ukctRadio again!

ok LOL Deal

the script wont take long at all to get running, Bare in mind this is going to be a trial system, You guys have any preference on the domain? (i am guessing this will end up a sorta LFS webring, lol)