-2

I have got 3 servers and I'm not using them.

Server details:

Intel Xeon 3470 (Quad Core)(8M Cache, 2.93 GHz) -
8 GB DDR3 Memory -
2 X 500 GB Hard Drives -
10 TB Bandwidth.

I would like to give free hosting services (bannerless+no limitations) to 6000 people. I am planing to host 2000 websites in one server. I'm going to give 500 MB disk space + 5 GB bandwidth + unlimited cpanel.

I am planing to use Linux + whm + whmcs + cpanel to manage the server. Users will able to add unlimited domain, MySQL users, subdomain, email etc.. so I may host much more websites than 2000.

Can I host 2000 cpanel accounts in my server? Is it possible? (if yes, do you have any suggestions? what should I do?)

I'd like to help people and give free host for few years, I will never use any banners, so I don't want to have problems with people. That's why I need your suggestions before giving freebies.

LazyOne
  • 3,064
  • 1
  • 18
  • 16
paraiba
  • 1
  • 2

2 Answers2

3

Some potential problems that I see are...

  1. What happens when people need dedicated IPs for SSL? That's a lot of IPs for one machine to deal with.
  2. Even if every website uses just 1% of your CPU load you are way over subscribed. If just one or two of the sites become even slightly popular your server will be overloaded.
  3. 2000 sites all running off of a single server is a lot of disk access, you'll need some pretty fast disks.
  4. 2000 sites all sitting in memory will require a lot of RAM to cache just the basic sites much less everything so that you can have good performance.
mrdenny
  • 27,174
  • 4
  • 41
  • 69
  • i see. i am newbie for dedicated servers. i paid their dues. i dont wanna sell hosts. i wanna give them for free. how many website should i host in 1 server? you know my server details.. thanks – paraiba Aug 26 '11 at 18:09
  • Based on those numbers, if you assume each site needs 100-200 Megs of RAM and they will all be hit all day, you'll want to max out at 40-50 per server. You might be able to go to a couple of hundred per server, but that would probably be the max you'll want to do. – mrdenny Aug 26 '11 at 18:11
  • thanks for help and your answers.. A+ help once again.. thank you very much. you gave me very good ideas.. – paraiba Aug 26 '11 at 18:14
1

Having 1 or 2000 virtual hosts on the same server working fine depends only on the total number of requests, the type of the request and the application that will serve the request. If you have static files and low bandwidth you will certainly have not problems hosting those servers. If you either have a lot of requests or complex applications then those servers will not be enough to handle the requests.

For a clear answer, you have to tell us what type and size of traffic you expect and what kind of applications you will run on those servers.

Mircea Vutcovici
  • 17,619
  • 4
  • 56
  • 83
  • users will able to use every kind of php scripts. there will not be any limits. so, joomla,wordpress,forums etc.. their monthly bandwith limit will be 5 gb. – paraiba Aug 26 '11 at 18:19
  • 1
    If there are no limits then you're going to be luck to get anywhere near 2000 sites. – tkrabec Aug 26 '11 at 18:35