Comments on: Low End Providers – Please Keep Your DNS Up!

By: drmike

drmike — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:36:42 +0000

Heck, even if they have to use OpenDNS. :)

By: Nemo

Nemo — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:13:50 +0000

Thanks for exposing the absolute incompetence of so many of these fly-by-night “hosts” – nameserver redundancy (or lack thereof) is IMO a very, very good way to judge just how much a host knows or cares about the unglamorous end of networking. All eggs in one basket = incredibly bad idea, and I really wish more people would realize that.

If only someone would tell these people where to go to find inexpensive places to host a slave nameserver or two, eh? :D

By: Hasanul

Hasanul — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:25:56 +0000

Just seeing cubichost.net rather than cubichost.org in WHT VPS offer :D

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:02:33 +0000

Yes, you are completely right. Now I see it too.
All 4 of their nameservers are on the same IP number and server.

By: LowEndAdmin

LowEndAdmin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:57:30 +0000

@Robert — US or AU domains, it doesn’t matter. Both domains have NS on the same server, so the NS is not redundant, and whenever NS is offline (dead server or connectivity issue), your whole domain is offline. That includes your main web site, your billing site/client area, your email, etc.

And I did not say that it’s not up right now. In fact when I wrote the blog post their websites, both AU and US, are up. Still, having both NS on the same box just shows how unprofessional the hosting provider is.

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:04:41 +0000

I see that. But I had the impression that you wanted to check if their sales site is up (like with the others companies).
What I meant was, that their sales site .com US is up and running, but the .com.au Aussie site not as you confirmed.
Also, clcking the order buttons (with links to the .com.au Aussie site), sometimes just gives you a “waiting for …” status message at the bottom of the browser window.
Probably when their Aussie site is down.

Anyway, it’s a good call.

By: LowEndAdmin

LowEndAdmin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:08:18 +0000

@Robert

$ host -t ns amhnetwork.com.au
amhnetwork.com.au name server ns1.nszone3.com.
amhnetwork.com.au name server ns2.nszone3.com.
$ host ns1.nszone3.com
ns1.nszone3.com has address 118.127.11.50
$ host ns2.nszone3.com
ns2.nszone3.com has address 118.127.11.51

Note the adjacent IP address of ns(1|2).nszone3.com -- showing that they are likely on the same physical server. So when that server is offline, your entire domain disappears. The same applies to ns(1|2).nszone1.com as well -- both IP addresses have the same PTR record.

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:35:22 +0000

Florida – Tampa – Hivelocity Ventures Corp:
Nameservers of amhnetwork.com : NS1.DNSZONE1.COM NS2.DNSZONE1.COM

Queensland – Brisbane – Dedicated Servers:
Nameservers of amhnetwork.com.au : ns1.nszone3.com ns2.nszone3.com

VPS servers are sold from their US (.com) domain. You mentioned their Aussie (.com.au) domain.
Both have a different set of name servers.

By: LowEndAdmin

LowEndAdmin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:53:15 +0000

@Dick — I think “GOOD” is subjective, although we all understand what “CRAP” is in this case, i.e. the providers that have completely dropped dead, sold the business or respawn under a different name. I am trying to go back and mark the ones that are dead. Might do a survey later on so you guys can vote which low end provider is the best.

@Gregg — Sure, but that would take a bit of time to implement (where I already have a full time job, an online business, wife, kids and this bloody blog). I found doing continuous latency test against their website is not that useful as well. Got a few plans on sampling the hosts but I won’t reveal them here, yet.

@Robert — yes I know AMHNetwork is up. Just that their DNS does not resolve when my cron job tried to query them at that specific time of the day.

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:32:35 +0000

AMHNetwork is still up and running.
http://www.amhnetwork.com is their sales site, with order/shoppig cart URLs going to amhnetwork.com.au
http://www.amhnetwork.com.au redirects straight to their client’s login : https://amhnetwork.com.au/my/clientarea.php

All plans are still avaialable from their .com domain, except the VDSDX (sold out for more than a month).
AMHNetwork’s last WHT VPS offer was early September for their VPSSQUAD brand.

By: Gregg Berkholtz

Gregg Berkholtz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:06:21 +0000

There’s already a matrix of longer-term service providers on the wiki at http://www.lowendbox.com/wiki/list-of-low-end-virtual-server-providers … maybe this site’s admin could integrate an RRDB-sourced graph showing DNS uptime, NS latency and jitter for each listed provider?

By: Vamsi

Vamsi — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:43:19 +0000

Very Good Move :D

By: Dick Coats

Dick Coats — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:10:59 +0000

I have another suggestion. That you go back through your posts and find the companies that are STILL in business and STILL offering great lowendbox deals PLUS have built a good reputation and bring them back to the front page.

there are some really great companies that you have to go far back through your postings to find that deserve to be more visible.

Although I LOVE seeing the fresh deals on the frontpage too ;0 so its hard to have both maybe.