Linode.com Forum

[Sajata]

I've had my Linode since the end part of 2003. I'm using it as a mud development machine to try out some experimental techniques that are just way too processor / memory intensive for an ordinary mud host, and I'm just now beginning to build it into a production game. This service is awesome. I have only ever seen my linux box get unexpectedly restarted ONCE in the whole time I've been with Linode.com. The website is so clean and functional and easy to gauge how you're doing on filling up your plan. When I first took out my Linode it was partly for me to learn about administering Linux, because I wanted to be able to -really- play with stuff and if necessary, break it and reinstall. I tried various different distributions before finally settling with Slackware 9 and building upon the basic distribution of that. Partly because I'm not working on a production system here, I've never had to ask for support apart from right at the beginning where I wasn't exactly sure where to start, what I could do or not do. When I did ask for support Chris was fast, friendly and polite. I can't say enough good things about it.

[Xan]

I'll be at three years come June, and I also can't say enough about Linode. One of the best investments I've ever made. $20 for a Linux box at a datacenter, plus the Linode Web app and service? Can't beat it.

[sol]

Sajata wrote: I have only ever seen my linux box get unexpectedly restarted ONCE in the whole time I've been with Linode.com.

My Linode 320's host has unexpectedly restarted 7 times already in 2006. 3 of those restarts caused enough mysql db corruption to require manual repairs. Downtime ranges between less than 1 to more than 2 hours. The most recent outage happened earlier today and lasted almost 1 hour. 13 days is our best uptime so far in 2006, 1 day is the worst, with about a 7 day average.

Linode support says this problem is due to "flakey hardware". A few months ago we were moved off another Linode host that suffered similar outages, due to some kind of hardware failure. I've only been here since June 2005 but do understand how complex this business is and how unfortunately things can unexpectedly go wrong.

I am completely satisfied with everything else about Linode. Kernel panic is obviously not affecting too many Linode customers or else they wouldn't have many left. Hopefully my request to move to a more stable host will be fulfilled soon.

Meanwhile this situation has provided a newbie admin with many opportunities to learn how to ensure that the server autonomously recovers after such an event...

[cmantito]

Hmm...I haven't been a customer long, but I also have to admit I'm very impressed. The biggest issue I've had is the occasional (apparant) DoS of linode causing network connectivity issues, but the linode staff seem to be able to recover from these in impressive time, so it's not too big an issue to me. I want to say, Thank You Linode!

What I also want to say is that it's nice that someone like sol, who's had issues, is looking at the bright side of things, instead of ranting and raving that it's not working and he wants his money back *now*.

[NecroBones]

I've been here nearly 2 years, and it's been pretty stable for me. I've had a few outages of a network nature (usually pretty short-lived). I think my node has been restarted unexpectedly once, and one other time it was restarted unnecessarily by me (not realizing it was a network issue, and thought my node was hung).

[griffinn]

Resurrecting this thread to mark my third anniversary at Linode. The past three years have been rather uneventful for my machine at Linode, which is a good thing!

If anything big happens in future, I hope it's the mass migration to Xen. :)