Category Archives: Systems Administration

How many simultaneous connections can a server handle?

Systems Administration, Web Development, Web Hosting

Well, it depends on quite a few things, but let’s start by looking at some server settings and example web applications.

Arguably the two most important settings that govern how much simultaneous traffic a Linux server running the LAMP stack can handle are the Apache MaxClients setting and the MySQL/Mariadb max_connections setting.  From here on I’ll refer to both of these settings as your max connection settings.  If set too high your web and database software can consume all of a server’s available memory and crash it, which can be very painful.  If set too low your web server will slow incoming traffic unnecessarily.

For example, if your application is streamlined and doesn’t use much RAM to render web pages then your max connections settings can be set very high, allowing hundreds of simultaneous users to your site on a small VPS with, say, 2GB RAM.  However, a WordPress site with tons of plugins – some poorly coded with non-optimized MySQL queries – can use so much RAM that the max connections settings should be set very low, in order to prevent RAM swapping and server crashes.

Continue reading How many simultaneous connections can a server handle? →

Your own private cloud!

Systems Administration
Ready to roll!

Do you know what’s even better than Brownrice’s SmartVPS hosting?  Hosting a bunch of SmartVPS instances on your own Private Cloud server in the super-green Brownrice data center, that’s what!  And we’ve got extremely fast and affordable servers in stock right now.

Why use Private Cloud server?  First, when your hosting accounts and VPS instances are on a shared server they can be bogged down by the other accounts on the same machine.  This simply can’t happen when you own the underlying hardware.  Secondly, the amount of RAM, CPU, and Disk that you assign to each of your instances is controlled by you with easy sliders in our dashboard. Heck, you can even oversell the host servers resources to your customers if you like.  So if a site is slow just drag the sliders to give it more RAM and CPU without incurring increased costs.

What can you put on a Private Cloud server?

  • SmartVPSs.  These instances are pre-configured with everything a hoster could want (dedicated IP, free Let’s Encrypt SSL’s, easy control panel) and is fully managed and optimized by our automatic tuning scripts.  These VPS are *always* fast and can host as many sites as you like. WordPress screams on a SmartVPS as does just about any CMS that you like.  See the full details here.
  • Un-managed Linux instances:  If you prefer to roll-your-own you can choose nearly any Linux distro and assign whatever resources you like to each instance. Think Node.js, or Nginx, or python scripts!  We’ll automatically back up the entire OS every night to multiple data centers and our auto-tuning scripts will alert you if anything is getting wonkey.
  • A world of software! Want a private Git repository?  Want to share files with OwnCloud in a secure and PCI and HIPAA compliant way?  Need a private Wiki for your companies internal documentation?  A Private Cloud server will host all of this and more.

We have 24 CPU (X5660) servers with 64 GB’s of RAM and 2TB’s of hardware RAID-10 disk space for $99 per month – in stock right now.  Connect one of these bad-boys to our Dashboard and you can easily spawn as many SmartVPSs and non-smart VPSs – any Linux OS – as you like and we’ll manage them and back it all up to two data centers for another $99.00 per month.  That’s $198 per month and includes so many features you’ll never go back to a clunky CPanel machine again.

If you are interested in signing up or have questions please ask!

Thank you!

~ Oban

What’s inside a Brownrice SmartVPS?

Datacenters, Systems Administration, Web Hosting

What goes into the Brownrice SmartVPS?  First off, we use OpenVZ as our virtualization software. OpenVZ container virtualization is by far the best solution for our customers because 1) Its wicked fast and 2) We can configure it so that our custom AutoTune, AutoScale, and Server Management scripts can enter your container seamlessly to monitor and ensure that things are always finely optimized without you having to do anything.

We love all Linux distros but we’ve been running and configuring CentOS since the early 2000’s so we know it really well.  So that’s what we use for our container OS’s. CentOS also has a huge user community and is a rock-solid server distribution.  It just works. Always.

Inside your container we use the Apache web server and MySQL database server.  Both are always monitored and automatically tuned.  Our scripts also custom-compile PHP to whichever version you want – which enables us to provide lots of extra goodies inside of PHP for you.  And we run both memcached and Redis for you so that your applications can connect to either if you want the caching speed boosts that both offer.

From the server management side we back up the entire container OS every night and keep copies in two data centers (ours and another that is 120 miles away) and keep those backups for 3 months.

And of course we automatically install free SSL certificates for every site that you have on a SmartVPS.

There’s about 1,000 other things we do for these SmartVPS’s to ensure that they are super-fast and easy for you and your developer to work with them, but I won’t bore you with those.

Questions?

Thank you!

~ Oban

 

Letsencrypt, Free, Automated SSL certificates for life!

Programming, Systems Administration, Web Hosting
Letsencrypt automated SSL
Letsencrypt automated SSL – No click SSL!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve fully automated our LetsEncrypt SSL installation process for all of our Managed VPS customers.

What does this mean?  This means that every Brownrice Managed VPS customer receives UNLIMITED FREE SSL certificates for every web site on any Managed Brownrice VPS.  Forever!

And the other great thing about this is that our SSL process is 100% seamless and 100% automated.  How seamless and automated you ask?

  1. Sign up for a Brownrice Managed SmartVPS ($9.95 w/ 1GB RAM & 40GB disk)
  2. Login to responsive, fantastic dashboard and set up new web site by clicking a few buttons.
  3. Point DNS to your new web site (i.e. make it live!) by clicking a couple more buttons.
  4. Wait 1 hour.
  5. Done. (SSL certificate issued and site secured without email verification.)

Repeat above steps 2 through 3 for as many sites and subdomains as you like.  Zero additional charges.

No hands SSL!

By the way this SSL certificate will be renewed every three months, automatically, without you touching a thing.

Want to start?  Sign up here and we’ll have your VPS up and running in minutes!

(More questions?  See our SSL FAQ.)

 

 

Announcing VPS Auto-Tune!

Datacenters, Programming, Systems Administration, Web Hosting
Brownrice Internet
Brownrice Internet VPSs

After a full year in development and testing Brownrice Internet has just released our revolutionary VPS Auto-Tune Service.

What is VPS Auto-Tune and why do you need it?

One of the secrets of hosting companies and systems administrators world-wide is that web and database servers that are left in their default configurations run horribly slow.

Continue reading Announcing VPS Auto-Tune! →

Big Meeting!

Systems Administration
WESTAF logo
Met with our best clients last week, WESTAF.

 

IMG_4507
Oban and the Brownrice Internet “Group.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IMG_4509
Oban’s boys, Jack and Liam, doing quality control to ensure that the conference room and cookies were up to par.