How to check up on a host ?
 

Just signed up for some hosting, now i'm suposed to get a machine pretty much like this P4 2.6Ghtz, with 1GB ram and 120GB hard drive, but i was wondering, how do i check if that is really what i get ?

It's not that i doubt that they are giving me just that, i was just wondering if this was something that was easy to check up on.. ?
Do you guys(and girls) check up on such things ?

:)

There's no single answer for that. The server we use is win2k so I can use the Remote desktop app and check whatever I want about the server. If you have a linux box there are various other ways to do the same thing. If you have a web-based control panel there is probably an area where it gives the system info so that you can have a looksee and see how much diskspace, etc you have. If you access your server via ssh there are ways to do it also but I don't recall the particular commands cuz I haven't needed that in a long time. If your host doesn't provide you with any of those 3 means of connecting to your server you can STILL use a variety of server info apps to check that info from the web.

Checkout http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsysinfo if you run linux and http://sourceforge.net/projects/winsysinfo if you have a windows server. Both are php scripts that you can install via your ftp program and they report disk usage, processor, etc, etc, etc...

There ARE unscrupulous hosts floating around out there. One guy I know was paying for a 2 gig p4 and he was actually on a 300mhz p2. That's pretty extreme but it really is smart to check that you recieve what you pay for.

Hey Mister X :)

Damn.. that sucked with your friend.. and that's pretty much what i wanted to avoid.
I know trust is a good thing, but still, checking up if you have the posibility to do so would never hurt, right :D

Thanks for the info and the links, I'll defenetly try some of that stuff :xthumbs:

Just wondering.. how many of you have actualy checked that you've gotten what your paying for ?

Might not be a bad idea to check up on :boatswain

I know that one scam that has been done a few times is to charge for dedicated server and then stick the sucker into a virtual server with 10 other suckers. As a rule of thumb... If your host doesn't provide an easy way for you to check the hardware on your server there is probably a reason. Being able to get detailed info on processes and cpu load is very important if you are streaming video or running php or asp or database programs. One reason I like having win2k servers is because the Remote Desktop lets you do anything you want just like you wer actually sitting at the keyboard of that server. Of course there are disadvantages too, hehehe. But it really is nice to be able to open the task manager and see which programs are using what resources. I would recomend using Apache and not IIS though. It makes configuration issues a LOT easier.

Did you get a control panel with the server? If so which one? What OS is on the server? I can not tell you how many customers we have rescued from unscruplous hosts who charged clients for dedicated servers that were in fact virtual and/or old P3's . . .

We are always upgrading our network/servers. By the way what is the server costing you? Who is the host? If they offer a Control Panel you should reconsider getting it. If they do not offer a control panel you should consider another host.

If you have shell access on a *nix box:
top will give you the memory,
cat /proc/cpuinfo will give you the cpu
df will give you the harddrive

Note: cpu command is for linux