[GLLUG] Web Hosting Options

Patrick Collora collorap at msu.edu
Wed Nov 2 21:40:54 EDT 2011


Hey Everyone,

Do any of you have any recommendations regarding reasonably priced 
Linux/Apache web hosting without too may restrictions?  I was previously 
using A2 Hosting <http://www.a2hosting.com/>.  They were a good host 
until recently when they began limiting our CPU usage and number of 
connections.  Routinely our site would simply be inaccessible during 
peak hours, especially if a search engine was indexing the site.  We 
never exceeded the 50GB transfer limit of the account.  Now I'm using 
LiquidWeb <http://www.liquidweb.com/>.  Performance is excellent, but 
immediately we started having trouble with 403 errors and IP addresses 
being blacklisted.  I discovered that the culprit is ModSecurity 
<http://www.modsecurity.org/>.  ModSecurity looks for patterns in form 
input and blocks the HTTP request if it appears malicious.  For example, 
one site member had text like "system (blah blah blah...)" in a photo 
description.  It was blocked because it looked like an attempt to call 
system().  I found I can't even type the text "/bin/bash" into a form 
input on their server because it looks like a command.  If a user makes 
several attempts to submit a blocked request, they permanently blacklist 
the IP unless someone requests to have it removed.  They were unwilling 
to provide me with a report of the IP addresses blocked, so I have no 
way of knowing how severe the problem is.  Anyway, it looks like we may 
be leaving LiquidWeb soon.  I was surprised because I've seen them get 
good reviews from people, even some on their list, but to have them 
start blocking legitimate users and requests because some text vaguely 
matches an attack signature is simply unacceptable.

My website is http://www.lighting-gallery.net

Thanks.

-- 
Patrick Collora

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