Moving from DigitalOcean to Vultr after price change (July 2022)

Recent price change in DigitalOcean make me reconsider old friend that I rarely visit. After my workload seem to slow down I decide to make little comparison. This table is for my friend vps that use DigitalOcean before move to Vultr.

So, he will pay $4 more than usual.

Related screnshot (regular)

Related DO (premium)

Interestingly DO have new $4 package for regular (10 GB storage)

In Vultr side

Shared vCPU is enough with regular performance (for no.1 and 2 server)

For server 3, vultr also support it

reguler 1 and 2

My friend told me if vultr have $2.5 and $3.5 server but I can’t see it.

At the end, I have same price as in DigitalOcean before price change but in Vultr.

After I give this table to my friend he refuse it and modify my table into this one.

He told me to help migration process with this table within 2 weeks.

Now the process is finished. Nothing change much except server 2 that use lower memory . I suggest him to use $5 from vultr . As he’ll get double memory and storage.

I give my referral link from vultr that give him $100 to get start.

How to setup your own Invoice Ninja server with $2.5/mo budget

My friend ask me to test Invoice Ninja on my server. This software is very popular since you can do many things with invoice. This software made with Laravel 5.2 and I’ve test it ‘hard way’ in my vps .I think I can share simpler way to get this software run in affordable vps.

This documentation using Vultr vps smallest server and serverpilot free account. In nutshell, you have great invoice software with free control panel 🙂

Lets get start!

Setup VPS Server

VPS provider is Vultr. They provide the plan with pricing $2.5/month.

I use Ubuntu (14.04 64 bit) with following specs : 512MB and 20GB SSD storage.

After hit deploy button write down these information :

Ip address
username (root)
password for vps server

Setting URL for access Invoice Ninja

I use Simple Zone Editor from my cpanel hosting to set A record for subdomain http://ninja.hostingformula.net

update :

I change my dns manager to cloudflare.

$ dig ns hostingformula.net

; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-3ubuntu0.13-Ubuntu <<>> ns hostingformula.net
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 47657
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;hostingformula.net. IN NS

;; ANSWER SECTION:
hostingformula.net. 84500 IN NS naomi.ns.cloudflare.com.
hostingformula.net. 84500 IN NS dom.ns.cloudflare.com.

;; Query time: 4528 msec
;; SERVER: 108.61.10.10#53(108.61.10.10)
;; WHEN: Tue Apr 04 05:52:45 UTC 2017
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 102

For cloud flare user just assign A record to vps ip address.

This url is not working yet but we’ll working on it 🙂 More →

Fix Crawl 404 Error on Google Search Console

I just find out that one of my blog got hacked. The intruder put a file in wp-content directory and cause 404 error .

Wow, huge one (77,630) error.

What I’ve done to fix this error :

Delete the page ; xx-data.php
Select all error from google search console and click ‘Mark as Fixed’
Request xx-data.php removal from Google index

Let see if I see another error. Will update this post soon.

Cpanel tip : Speed up your wordpress with proper PHP version

I don’t have much money for using expensive web hosting or vps or dedicated server for my wordpress blog. Is there any way to speed it up without touch plugin or something else?

Well, using cache is the best way to achieve blazing fast wordpress but one trick I found is using proper PHP version.

Yes, using latest PHP version is dead simple way to make wordpress faster.

By default cpanel user don’t get latest version, for example in my cpanel I see this :

For latest PHP version you can refer to php.net site :

As you can see there are 3 version :

PHP 5.6.11
PHP 5.5.27
PHP 5.4.43

Since I use cpanel I can not compile nor install latest PHP version as I used to using VPS but I can use closest version to 5.6.11.

Click “select php version” under software and services menu.

By default native php (the ones that come with server operating system) will be shown.

Choose 5.6 from drop down and click save as current.

Of course you can choose extensions. Only use the one that you use. For example if you only use mysql then you need to disable pgsql (postgresql) from extension.

How do I know if I already use PHP 5.6?

Create new file using file manager facility and save it as coba.php with these lines :

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

save and open from web browser. If you see like this one then your previous configuration is working well.

Testing PHP 7 on Centos 7

PHP 7 already kick the door with its beta2 while HHVM shadow it 🙂

I want to test it with CentOS 7 minimal installation and $5 quick vps installation let me in.

# yum update

# yum -y install nano

# nano /etc/yum.repos.d/php7-nightly.repo

put these lines (from zend).

[zend-php7]
name = PHP7 nightly by Zend Technologies
baseurl = http://repos.zend.com/zend-server/early-access/php7/repos/centos/
gpgcheck=0

# yum -y install lynx httpd php7-nightly

# cp /usr/local/php7/libphp7.so /etc/httpd/modules/

# systemctl enable httpd.service

# systemctl restart firewalld.service

# echo '<?php phpinfo();?>' > /var/www/html/info.php

# systemctl start httpd.service

Test

How to enable phalcon php in cpanel shared hosting

Long time not see you guys 🙂 . Being busy with new toys called Phalcon PHP . Yes, this tool is very awesome in my opinion and I use it with my vps. Since this blog also run in vps so I just surprise when I see PhalconPHP also supported in cpanel hosting that I also use.

Yes, namecheap also enable PhalconPHP in their shared hosting package.

How do I know if PhalconPHP work in my cpanel?

Create simple file :

Enter these lines :

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

save the file and access it online.

By default you will not see PhalConPHP extension enabled.

Change PHP version and enable PhalCon PHP extension for Cpanel

Click “Select PHP version”

Select PHP 5.5 and set this version as current.

Then choose ‘phalcon’ from extension supported list.

Click save.

Then you have working Phalcon PHP support.

Current usage in my namecheap account.

Time to fly with phalcon 🙂

For vps, you refer to this post. (install multiple php on ubuntu 16.04 vps).

What I got inside my VPS

# cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep processor
processor   : 0
processor   : 1
processor   : 2
processor   : 3

I got 4 processor.

# free -m
total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          2048        347       1700          0          0         99
-/+ buffers/cache:        247       1800
Swap:         2048          0       2048

I got memory 2GB and also 2GB for swap.

# cat /proc/user_beancounters
Version: 2.5
uid resource                     held              maxheld              barrier                limit              failcnt
112: kmemsize                 28933925             30662656            975175680           1073741824                    0
lockedpages                     0                 1008               262144               262144                    0
privvmpages                197953               295114 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
shmpages                    16658                57806 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
dummy                           0                    0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
numproc                        59                  132 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
physpages                   88832               241468                    0               524288                    0
vmguarpages                     0                    0                    0 9223372036854775807                    0
oomguarpages                56353                57070                    0 9223372036854775807                    0
numtcpsock                      7                   14 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
numflock                       24                   32 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
numpty                          1                   10 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
numsiginfo                      0                   30 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
tcpsndbuf                  150880               683328 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
tcprcvbuf                  114688              4167240 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
othersockbuf               168776               395968 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
dgramrcvbuf                     0                 4624 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
numothersock                  134                  171 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
dcachesize               19465689             22209127            487587840            536870912                    0
numfile                       543                 1105 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
dummy                           0                    0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
dummy                           0                    0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
dummy                           0                    0 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0
numiptent                      20                   20 9223372036854775807 9223372036854775807                    0

It means I got OpenVZ

# df -H
Filesystem      Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/simfs       11G 1.5G 9.3G 14% /
none            1.1G 4.1k 1.1G   1% /dev
none            215M 1.1M 214M   1% /run
none            5.3M     0 5.3M   0% /run/lock
none            859M     0 859M   0% /run/shm
none            105M     0 105M   0% /run/user

Means I have 11GB space.

# dd if=/dev/zero of=sb-io-test bs=1M count=1k conv=fdatasync
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 15.2927 s, 70.2 MB/s

versus SSD vps hosting

# dd if=/dev/zero of=sb-io-test bs=1M count=1k conv=fdatasync
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB) copied, 6.14146 s, 175 MB/s

Bigger result with short time mean better HD.

# swapon -s
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/null partition 2097152 0 -1

Mean swap enable on my vps.

FreeBSD VPS using KVM only $5/month

My first option when install vps server is always FreeBSD but due to budget I was ‘forced’ to choose Linux. Maybe openvz can’t handle FreeBSD and demand is low then you must go with provider that cost around $20 per box. Compare $5 vs $20 to the box I choose $5 🙂

Lucky I got new provider that give KVM based solution called VULTR. The name is bit strange for me but I knew about choopa. Parent company that deliver vultr.

The website layout is looks like DigitalOcean and use the same virtualization (KVM). Signup process and utilization also close to DO and this approach is good for me as I don’t have to learn how to use it.

I’m so exciting with this opportunity and would recommend it to my friends who looking for cheap freebsd box.

I got one box and will update it with tutorial around FreeBSD.

See you soon 🙂

Ps : VULTR surprised me with promotion. I deposit $10 and they match it $10. So I got $20 for at least 4 month experiment using FreeBSD 10. Yippie!

Security Tips for Liberty Reserve

Liberty reserve (LR) is one of famous service supported by forex broker. Unlike paypal where you can claim or dispute when you have something wrong with your payment like hacked account or not finished business LR will not take care your claim.

Phishing is the most dangerous threat to LR until I see same page that looks like LR stole my friend money (yes, exact same url) . After investigate and doing a few check I have conclusion about new problem.

DNS Hijack

To prevent yourself from DNS hijack you just need to observe these factors :

1. Always use HTTPS

LR use Amazon aws for load balancing their www page but when you click “login” link you must see https. If you don’t see it then do not proceed to log in.

2. Always use secure DNS

I prefer opendns or google public dns to make sure I get the latest and up to date entry of dns.

Open DNS use : 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

Google use : 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

This lesson cost more than $1000 for my friend. He use dns provided by isp and redirect to fake LR page and stole his money from legitimate address but fake content.

Beware.

Trying AppFog

Its common task for me when I see hosting platform that use ftp, cpanel or winscp through ssh access.

A few hosting already seen too, thanks to all client specially those fiverr consumer. They give me access to godaddy, rackspace, hostgator, fatcow, 123 and a few with vps from linode and slicehost.

Today I have chance for trying appfog (platform as service provider). Totally different from what I used to see. No cpanel, no ftp and no file manager. I guess (I think I’m right) no ssh too.

Advantages to Completing the HP ASE – Wireless Networks Implementer V1 Certification

Candidates who have expert level skill in designing, implementing, and troubleshooting small enterprise level wireless networks may wish to earn the HP ASE – Wireless Networks Implementer V1 certification. Candidates should be able to integrate networks into the existing wired infrastructure. Additionally, each candidate should have earned the HP AIS – Network Infrastructure [2011] certification previously, and HP recommends that each candidate have at least one year of experience working in wired technologies. HP recommends that each candidate have the ability to use Campus LAN core and edge environments and the desire to specialize in wireless implementations.

This HP certification is considered beneficial to candidates due to the growing need for wireless networks being deployed in the workplace. A variety of settings, such as hospitals, retail, schools, and universities, have a need for wireless networking experts. A candidate who has this certification is able to prove that they have the skill and understanding required of an expert level HP professional. This certification validates a candidate’s ability to understand HP Networking wireless products and solutions.

HP offers instructor-led training courses to help any interested professional review the material that they need in order to pass the required proctored exam to earn this certification. Additionally, candidates can use the exam preparation services of TestsLive in order to prepare. After earning the certification, professionals may choose to take fast track upgrade certification paths if they hold certain HP certifications. Fastrack paths are also available for candidates who hold any of the following Cisco certifications: Cisco CCNP Wireless, Cisco CCNP Routing and Switching, or Cisco CCDP.

My Fresh Store Builder Earnings

Its a rare post 🙂 . I don’t like to show off. First reason is because the earning is not big as big player outside and second reason is I prefer to post about hosting related field as this domain refer to.

I decide to post it to encourage my friend who got drop in adsense earning due to panda effect and think adsense is the only one.

I’m now prefer to get involved in affiliate marketing and get start with amazon ( frankly I create amazon account since 2005 but I do nothing and I let all that years with nothing too).

I have a few account now and these screenshot is from one of my account and dedicated to Fresh Store Builder based site.

September 2011 earning

Nothing fancy here, start learn how to use FSB.

Glad I have a few sales 🙂

October 2011 earning

I realize that bluehost put my FSB site in ‘danger’. Their CPU throttle kick my FSB site. Slow to access and got bad score from YSlow. Switch to Hostgator (click here for 25% off coupon) in late October.

November 2011 earning

Setup other FSB site (total 2 FSB sites) and host it with Hawkhost (I want to to try out LiteSpeed. Thankfully that FSB compatible with Hawkhost because I bought it first before conduct a few test). Update : use this cupon “whts50v2” for 50% discount.

December 2011 earning

Shopping time is come. A few keyword get it rank too. Thanks to Build My Rank ( get 10 links for free trial) network that show its power.

January 2012 earning

Got busy with malware attack. A few attack is working silently and affecting my traffic that came from search engine. I decide to use Sucuri and they work well. Thanks GOD I still get earning 🙂

So far I like affiliate marketing challenge and decide to give it more time.

I hope my friend out there can see my journey and wake up from hiatus. Go for new journey and enjoy the process.

Checking for Valid Amazon Link

My friend who start to learn Amazon affiliate ask me whether I can check which version of these link that work :

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430231149/tag=xxxx-20

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1430231149?tag=xxxx-20

I don’t know the answer since there are many variation of of Amazon link but I do want to know too. After checking affiliate panel I know that I miss one important link that Amazon provide from long time ago.

Link Checker

Just enter those 2 links and hit “Check Link” button.

For 1st link I got this message :

Fail: The link above was not tagged or was not a valid Amazon link.

For 2nd link I got this message :

Success: The link tags to a valid tag or sub-tag for your Associate ID.

p.s : I change xxxx to valid associate tag.

Very useful link as many will lost their referral fees when use it incorrectly 🙂

Dreamhost MySQL

Being cpanel user make me a bit lazy when I have to do mysql export job as part of wordpress transfer process but I enjoy it 🙂

Dreamhost is provide access to their service via toolbox, as you see from the picture there are 6 shortcut :

manage account
manage domains
manage email
manage users
mysql databases
one click installs

one click installs work like simple script or fantastico if your are using cpanel, easy to use but if you don’t know those component glued (mysql database, domain pointing and file manager) you’ll bit confuse for a while 🙂

In the case where I want to backup mysql database I open ftp client and download wp-config.php to see username and password plus database name for backup purpose.

After I have all information I click “MySQL Databases” from Toolbox section.

6 month with fiverr

Wow, I can’t believe it. I never think that I still provide service on fiverr for almost 6 month (I create my first gig at April) but here I’m 🙂

My first gig is about remove malware for wordpress and this one is the most requested gig followed by transfer wordpress to new host.

Am I rich?

Yes, I make a lot of friend beside get some cash here.

So far I’ve withdrawn $244

I have $4 that ready for withdrawn

$16 that waiting for cleared

$16 upcoming payments

That upcoming payment is bit strange, 4 people order and pay but never give me instruction to work 🙂

I got 96% for overall rating, deduct 4% for 2 funny case :

1. I see no malware on client website (only outdate wordpress version that need to upgrade), I ask for mutual cancel agreement but he refuse and let the order expire.

2. A client order my wordpress transfer service but give me an asp based website. I’m offer mutual cancel too with explanation but he refuse. This time I click force cancel button 🙂

In this 6 month I also able to encourage my student to apply for some freelance sites like odesk and freelance.com . So far they have no order but I believe they will 🙂

Always use absolute path for cron job

Always use Absolute Path for your cron job. Yes, that lesson is another thing I learn from latest Godaddy case.

Temporary solution I use for bad malware that attack my client website is create shell script that overwrite bad .htaccess file with good .htaccess file. By implement this temporary solution downtime for client websites drastically suppressed by.

Until I check my email where I set the report send to. I miss 31 job because system can find shell file.

Yes, I use relative path for cron job. I only set absolute path for program location like /bin/bash for bash location etc. I never see this fail before, mayble because I implement it on virtual private server or dedicated server that use special resource.

Quick solution for this situation is using $HOME. Just add that variable in front of file name and you’ll get perfect cron job.

Simple as 123 🙂

Is GoDaddy shared servers compromised?

Today I got new case for clean up wordpress malware, I love this job since I have a chance to see new hosting company system and how they work. Web hosting my client use is Godaddy.

I prefer to use ssh and Godaddy provide it with easy to activate interface, I use ssh since their file manager not fit for my 10 inch netbook and their ftp java also not help me a lot for doing my job.

As usual, scan for base64 hidden code and checking .htaccess give me clue where the bad code reside. Cross check it using sucuri scanner and dump lynx result with my vps server . Everything is ok.

After a few minutes I recheck with semrush on how it goes on search engine and try to open it straight from google result. Ooops, the malware seem to go back and redirect traffic to their website (a russia domain).

Which web hosting company used by professionals?

Starting in April 2011 I started doing small-scale research to look at some of the providers that are used by professionals (professionals who I mean here are people who use the internet to find the field income).

The media I use is the data used by Hostingformula clients who contact me via contact me section or via my Fiverr service.

The number of respondents as many as 150 clients with various web hosting

So far there are several types of web hosting that I see:

1. Shared accounts; this type dominates nearly 95% of the sample data.
The company is widely used is hostgator (baby plan), dreamhost and Bluehost. Most owners of personal websites and small businesses choose this type due to the support of unlimited domain and unlimited space to offer.

2. Reselller account; this type is used by 4% of the total sample data.
The seller’s website at Flippa, web designers and SEO firms use this type of account. With a relatively affordable price hostgator back into their choice.

3. VPS or dedicated server; this type used by the sellers and website design company that wants more control of their assets. HostGator VPS back again become a champion in this type, using cpanel control panel that is optimized for vps or dedicated server.

So far I see that almost of all users of web hosting services web hosting service begins with the type of shared hosting, along with the development of their business then the choice to the reseller and vps accounts become a necessity to help accelerate the need for:
– Continue profit, reseller accounts to ensure the relationship between a web designer with a client is maintained through customer satisfaction.
– Bandwidth and space, on the reseller account is the amount of process that allowed more players to make it easier for their businesses leverage their business
– Branding, can provide all-in-one solution makes the client more confidence in doing their business because it saw the ability that tercitra via the services provided.
– Support, information is something that expensive. Support services which could either make the client better prepared to anticipate the risks in case of downtime, hacker intrusions, and so forth.

In essence, online businesses are always using the paid hosting to support their activities. Support real time and reliable making them comfortable in running a business and a focus for raising the company.

How to change MySQL password on fatcow web hosting

Thanks to fiverr, I can see many new web hosting and I can learn many new thing for free and I even get paid for this 🙂

Today I have chance to get new friend who introduce me to fatcow webhosting that use their own control panel (not standard cpanel as I often see).

Fatcow not support SSH access at the moment (one feature that I love from hostgator or bluehost) but they do support one fat account and unlimited size.

I just want to show little information about how to change MySQL password on fatcow :

1. Click MySQL Database

2. Click ‘key’ icon under Change Password column.

3. Enter your new password twice.

Click Change password button when you’re done.

If you have multi domain I suggest you to add one user per database as you’ll get extra security.

See you in other post.

My experience with Fiverr

Its been long time since I left this blog alone. I’m quite busy with offline work that include teaching activity. One day my student ask me about how to get extra money even they don’t graduate yet.

I have previous experience with Fiverr where I order linkwheel package just for learn how it looks like by read the report.

With so many service provided in Fiverr make me think to give my student an example how I work by create a gig for myself. After waiting for a month I have first order and I can do it under 10 minutes. Next day no order and a week later I got another order and so on. So far I have 11 order and good rating.

I have shown my fiverr page to my student and I’m glad they like it and feel need to explore their skill within a month. Of course lot of obstacle they said but mainly due to their language (English is not main language in Indonesia).

In my side, a few notes around two month providing fiverr services :

Some buyer don’t know how to order properly
Buyer ask for direct contact (email, messenger etc)
Buyer don’t respond for ‘order requirements’ because they told if they already say it via message.

At least I have something to show for my student; why they need to learn English more seriously (I myself don’t fluent in English but I try), how their ‘simple’ skill could lead to extra money etc.

Keep fight!

Hosting Formula

Tutorial, Tips and Guide around server and blog management

Category Archives: Info