==Time to move on from OpenVZ==
OpenVZ is the technology I have been using to host my websites starting in 2011. It allowed me to be root in my own virtual container running a full version of CentOS Linux for only $15 a year. At that price, I got three of them.
While the technology has worked fairly well over the years, for me to update to a new technology requires my hosting provider to have a “template” for the OS in question. My hosting provider did not have a template for CentOS 8, even though one appears to exist.
When I asked them for CentOS 8 support, they said there might be issues with the template. They never added CentOS 8 support.
For me to continue using OpenVZ, I need to use an OS which will continue to be updated with security updates for the foreseeable future. Since my OpenVZ providers are not adding CentOS 8 support, that meant I needed to look elsewhere for hosting.
I decided to get Dreamhost, simply because a family member chose Dreamhost for their hosting and it looked to be compatible with my workflow (UNIX-compatible shell, rsync for file transfer). That in mind, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered Dreamhost yesterday, and spent a couple of hours moving everything over to my new hosting provider.
While Dreamhost is perceived as a “Wordpress” site, they work fine for hosting (mostly) static files which are copied from a local Linux “master” server via rsync.
The transition was very smooth, with very few issues. I started off moving over a small domain, then moved over the rest of my domains.
Dreamhost has been around since the dot-com boom of the 1990s and are still around today; it looks like I will be able to use them for hosting for the foreseeable future.
I have discovered that Docker is not a real viable solution for telling Windows uses “just run Docker” when they ask they I expand the Windows port:
- Docker requires a high end version of Windows 10 to run, since it uses Hyper-V for the virtualization.
- Docker and VMware do not play together very well on Windows 10, unless one has both the latest version of Windows 10 and the latest version of VMware player.
This in mind, I plan to add “star record” support for Deadwood’s bogus IPs.
Note that the Windows port of the MaraDNS authoritative server is being deprecated (it was never a real Windows port: it does not run as a standalone service and has Y2038 issues); I will no longer update the Windows 32-bit binary of the authoritative half of MaraDNS for Windows (unless a security issue with a CVE number is discovered). The recursive server (Deadwood) is still fully supported as a Windows service and I have not plans to change that at this time.
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