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Recommended Hosts

Submitted by support on Tue, 2006-04-04 20:01 in

Hi everyone;

For the benefit of other users, can anyone recommend their hosting provider as being ideally setup to host a website running the Price Tapestry script? The requirements as I see it would be:

Minimum

* PHP 4 & MySQL 3.23.23 or better

* Unlimited FTP upload filesize and upload time (some hosts implement FTP restrictions)

* Unlimited PHP script execution time, or at the very least the ability to have it enabled upon request

+ Recommended

* Telnet or SSH access for running automation scripts

* Ability to create cron jobs for automation of feed retrieval

* Access to wget, unzip and gzip programs for automation of feed retrieval

I run this site and WebPriceCheck.co.uk off a dedicated server so I can't speak for 1&1's basic hosting package, but i'll look into that a little more and see if it could be recommended. I'm very happy with 1&1 as a dedicated server host.

Please indicate the country in which your recommended provider is based as there are obvious search engine benefits from choosing a host local to your target community.

Any recommendations?

Submitted by thelegacy on Tue, 2006-04-04 22:34

I've hosted with this company going on six years now, and the owner is easily accessible on a daily basis if you utilise the msn messenger feature.

If there's something you need in your panel that isn't already there he'll put it in at no charge.

I run a private search engine, 3 email marketing sites and shopping domains, using wget, curl, source guardian, and almost any script type you can think of.

www.totalwebdesigns.com

This is US based hosting, and top notch service at a very competitive rate of pricing.

Submitted by moggiex on Tue, 2006-04-04 23:06

Hi,

I would 100% reccomend http://www.heartinternet.co.uk/reseller-h.shtml for £29.99 a month which are also UK based.

If thats too much per month. let me know and as for a small contribution per domain I can add as many web hosting accounts as you want

PS. SSH access is vis putty as telnet passes login data unencrypted and no porn/free email/excessive download sites :-)

MoggieX

Submitted by madstock on Wed, 2006-04-05 09:13

I too would recommend the Heart Internet reseller account - their customer service is top notch, and having gone through gawd knows how many hosts in the past few years (aruba, scanhost, hostroute, etc.) they are right up there.

Incidentally, I believe that the chaps behind Heart Internet are the same ones who set up WebFusion, so they know their stuff.

The other host that we use for some of our older sites is http://www.amenworld.com/static/index_1026.html , although as yet we have not yet used a price tapestry site on their servers (which are in France).

Cheers,
Duncan

madstock.com

Submitted by crounauer on Wed, 2006-04-05 10:51

I have a dedicated box with www.rackspace.com. Absolutely the best hosting company I have ever dealt with!

Computer Hardware

Submitted by philstone on Wed, 2006-04-05 11:04

I have been using Siteground now for 2 months and am extremely with their service and Customer Support, I upgraded to the VPS Package and I have to give them 10/10 for their prices & Support

If your looking a reliable host, with mod rewrite, ssh/telnet, mega bandwith and very good prices look no further Buy24-7.net Hosted by SiteGround

Submitted by trendmedia on Fri, 2006-05-05 22:01

Hi there

I have purchesd magic parser with price tapestry.

I have been reading the forums and I'm impressed with your support David.

Submitted by ROYW1000 on Sat, 2006-05-06 00:22

Hi

I am also having trouble with Plesk as well with Host Europe who say you can modify the php.ini file but I belive you have to modify the vhost.conf file or create a .htacess to get around it.

I have spent days playing and have yet to get it to work and have several requests for help on the varios BB'S.

Host Europe told me they will not offer technical advive on how to resolve this.

Roy

Submitted by lowndsy on Sat, 2006-05-06 00:43

I have a reseller account with Meirhosting.net - great service and response times of about 2 minutes for support calls. David (their main man) even went as far as optimising my server for price tapestry to keep it reliable when importing data files that can be around 120 megabytes.

Submitted by support on Sat, 2006-05-06 05:49

Hi Andrew / Roy,

Provided that you have root / shell access to your hosting account, there shouldn't be an issue with Plesk, as it's control is limited to what PHP can do when being run as a script executed by Apache.

If you implement automation as per the following thread it should be OK:
http://www.pricetapestry.com/node/198

I had thought that one possible cause of the Plesk issue is the following part of the conf/httpd.include created for each virtual host:

<IfModule sapi_apache2.c>
  php_admin_flag engine on
  php_admin_value open_basedir "/home/httpd/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs:/tmp"
</IfModule>

This has the effect of limiting PHP's access to the server to the directories specified in open_basedir, but I just tried the following code on a Plesk server with this configuration present, and it worked ok:

<?php
  passthru
("/usr/bin/wget --version");
?>

Roy - This implies that the techniques required for automation via a PHP script are not inhibited by Plesk, so I think this issue may be down to the server virtualisation that you described in another thread as this happens at a far lower level than Plesk. I'm sorry that you have not found an answer on this or any other forum.

Can you identify a specific line of PHP (or shell script) that does not work on your server and post it here so that I can try it out on my Plesk box. That should at least narrow doen the problem to the server virtualisation...

Cheers,
David.

Submitted by ROYW1000 on Sat, 2006-05-06 09:24

David

Thanks for that. What are you actually suggesting that I change on the plesk system to make it work then or to the code?

I am trying to run the fetch.php file to obtain and unzip the files for CJ and Trade Doubler.

I am running on plesk 7.54 and the directory structure appears differently to that above. This is how is looks to me /var/www/vhosts/domainname.com/httpdocs.

The fetch file in in httpdocs/feeds

If it helps I can set you up with a VPS account and give you root access if you wanted to have a look and play yourself. I would need to email this to you if you wanted.


<?php
  
// destination directory for downloaded files - must be writable by PHP
  
$targetDir "../feeds/";
  
// path to wget program for retrieval
  
$wgetProgram "/usr/bin/wget";
  
// path to various unzip programs
  
$unzipPrograms["zip"] = "/usr/bin/unzip";
  
$unzipPrograms["rar"] = "/usr/bin/unrar";
  
$unzipPrograms["gzip"] = "/usr/bin/gzip";
  
// check that target directory is writable, bail otherwise
  
if (!is_writable($targetDir))
  {
    print 
"<p>target directory ($targetDir) not writable - exiting</p>";
    exit();
  }
  
// check that wget binary exists, bail otherwise
  
if (!file_exists($wgetProgram))
  {
    print 
"<p>wget program ($wgetProgram) not found - using PHP method</p>";
    
$usePHP true;
  }
  
// check for and disable any unzip methods that do not exist
  
foreach($unzipPrograms as $name => $program)
  {
    if (!
file_exists($program))
    {
      print 
'<p>unzip program for '.$name.' ('.$program.') not found - disabled</p>';
      unset(
$unzipPrograms[$name]);
    }
  }
  function 
fetch_url($url,$filename)
  {
    
$source fopen($url,"r");
    
$destination fopen($filename,"w");
    if (!
$source || !$destination) return;
    while(!
feof($source))
    {
      
fwrite($destination,fread($source,2048));
    }
    
fclose($source);
    
fclose($destination);
  }
  function 
unzip_zip($header,$filename)
  {
    global 
$unzipPrograms;
    
// check if zip format
    
if ($header <> "PK".chr(0x03).chr(0x04)) return false;
    
$command $unzipPrograms["zip"]." -p ".$filename." > ".$filename.".unzipped";
    
exec($command);
    
unlink($filename);
    
rename($filename.".unzipped",$filename);
    return 
true;
  }
  function 
unzip_rar($header,$filename)
  {
    global 
$unzipPrograms;
    
// check if rar format
    
if ($header <> "Rar!") return false;
    
$command $unzipPrograms["rar"]." p -inul ".$filename." > ".$filename.".unrarred";
    
exec($command);
    
unlink($filename);
    
rename($filename.".unrarred",$filename);
    return 
true;
  }
  function 
unzip_gzip($header,$filename)
  {
    global 
$unzipPrograms;
    
// gzip only way to tell is to try
    
$command $unzipPrograms["gzip"]." -c -d -S \"\" ".$filename." > ".$filename.".ungzipped";
    
exec($command);
    if (
filesize($filename.".ungzipped"))
    {
      
unlink($filename);
      
rename($filename.".ungzipped",$filename);
      return 
true;
    }
    else
    {
      
unlink($filename.".ungzipped");
      return 
false;
    }
  }
  function 
fetch($url,$filename)
  {
    global 
$usePHP;
    global 
$targetDir;
    global 
$wgetProgram;
    global 
$unzipPrograms;
    
$temporaryFilename $targetDir.uniqid("");
    
// fetch the file
    
if ($usePHP)
    {
      
fetch_url($url,$temporaryFilename);
    }
    else
    {
      
$command $wgetProgram." --ignore-length -O ".$temporaryFilename." \"".$url."\"";
      
exec($command);
    }
    
// bail if download has failed
    
if (!file_exists($temporaryFilename))
    {
      print 
"<p>download failed - exiting</p>";
      exit();
    }
    
// read the first 4 bytes to pass to unzip functions
    
$filePointer fopen($temporaryFilename,"r");
    
$fileHeader fread($filePointer,4);
    
fclose($filePointer);
    
// try and unzip the file by calling each unzip function
    
foreach($unzipPrograms as $name => $program)
    {
      
$unzip_function "unzip_".$name;
      if (
$unzip_function($fileHeader,$temporaryFilename)) break;
    }
    
// finally rename to required target (delete existing if necessary)
    
$targetFilename $targetDir.$filename;
    if (
file_exists($targetFilename))
    {
      
unlink($targetFilename);
    }
    
rename($temporaryFilename,$targetFilename);
    
// all done!
  
}
  
fetch("http://www.example.com/feed.xml","feed1.xml");
  
fetch("ftp://username:password@www.example.org/merchant/123.txt","123.txt");
  
exec("php /path/to/scripts/import.php @MODIFIED");
?>

Submitted by crounauer on Sun, 2006-05-07 21:29

Hi trendmedia,

I am having the same problems as Roy and as yet have still not found a solution.

I'm sure that it will be resloved in due course.

As for rackspace, they are amazing and come highly reccomended!

Computer Hardware

Submitted by ldh987 on Tue, 2007-05-15 16:04

Hi -
Can anyone add to this thread with other recommended hosts in the US? I have 1 & 1 Business Plan, but they will not increase the execution time, so we're getting internal server errors every time we try to use the import command. SiteGround (recommened by another user) does not support Telnet or SSH in their shared hosting plans. So I'm still looking for a good host. Recommendations, anyone?

Submitted by tbbd2007 on Mon, 2007-08-27 09:38

I am with 1&1 on a shared hosting package, but keep hitting the 100Mb limit on databases. 1&1 aren't prepared to be flexable on the database size for shared hosting, but as their website doesn't specify any limits for MySQL on dedicated hosting I wondered whether you could tell me what the limit is if there is one.

Kind regards

Stephen

Submitted by support on Mon, 2007-08-27 18:52

Hi Stephen,

If you have a dedicated server there will be no limit on MySQL as you are in complete control of the configuration. It is setup like this by default when you get a dedicated server with them - or at least it was when I last ordered one with them.

Cheers,
David.

Submitted by patrick24601 on Wed, 2007-12-05 20:40

Another US recommended host:

http://httpme.com

I have used them for years and they are great when it comes to support and prices. They are not trying to be the cheapest on the block. They are based out of L.A. and you can actually go see them if you want in downtown L.A. I have also spoken to the owner Steven on the phone before and he is a great one to work with.

Patrick

Submitted by lectronics on Sun, 2008-05-11 17:14

I am looking for a reliable host. Siteground doesnt have ssh apparently, heartinternet reseller is a bit expensive for me. Can anyone with heart reseller account add my hosting account please? Alternatively if anyone wants to share costs then I will buy hearinternet reseller and they can make a contribution towards cost.

Kev

Submitted by MikeyC on Sun, 2008-09-28 16:37

Anybody any experience hosting at hostgator with automated scripts like PT ?
I am thinking "Swamp" package.

Submitted by support on Mon, 2008-09-29 03:31

Hello Mikey,

I know that there are several users with hostgator; but what levels of automation they are using i'm not sure. Looking at the "Swamp" package it looks ideal on the surface - perhaps it might be worth dropping an email to sales / technical support to ask if you are able to run commands such as "wget" and "unzip" from a CRON jobs to obtain files remotely...

(this is in relation to the automation guide found here)

Cheers,
David.

Submitted by terickson on Mon, 2010-02-22 23:57

Hostgator's shared plans do not meet this requirement:
* Unlimited PHP script execution time, or at the very least the ability to have it enabled upon request

While executing the script via SSH using Putty, any datafeeds that are over about 30MB will not only fail, but your connection will be killed. Their servers have crons on them set to kill any command not executed as root after a certain amount of time. And to execute it as root, you have to have a VPS or dedicated plan.

This is not a problem for Price Tapestry installations that are only going to use smaller datafeeds - SSH is available for the main domain on any shared hosting plan and I was able to install everything perfectly until I got to the larger feeds. I'd recommend hostgator as a good company to use but thought I'd share this experience to save others some time if you're planning on using large datafeeds.

Submitted by support on Tue, 2010-02-23 09:58

Hi,

Thanks for that info;

Also to mention that the Slow Import Tool can also be used now to overcome any timeout problems when importing large CSV feeds, although unfortunately not an option for large XML feeds at this time...

Cheers,
David.

Submitted by jim on Tue, 2011-02-08 01:19

I've been using Clook for around a year and I'd definitely recommend them. Very helpful and prompt to respond to support tickets. Perhaps not the cheapest option out there but you get what you pay for.

http://www.clook.net/

Submitted by chrisjpopp on Fri, 2011-04-01 16:10

You mentioned Clook - what package type?