5 ms·

Slicehost: Boot your slices with your own custom kernel

19 points by notmyname 16y ago

points 16y ago
wow you have been able to do this on linode for years :/
- ahi 16y ago
  But with slicehost you get to pay twice as much. I honestly thought slicehost had been killed off when they were bought by rackspace.
  - davidw 16y ago
    It's amazing how much you can coast on momentum.
- ambirex 16y ago
  I was originally going to say that, being a linode customer for many years. But, I think it is great that other popular VPS solutions are stepping up. Very nice addition slicehost.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
joeyh 16y ago
well, lack of that is why I left slicehost, but even EC2 allows custom kernels now. So a bit late, but glad people are seeing this as the important feature it is -- for quick security response if nothing else.
StavrosK 16y ago
Unfortunately, Slicehost is growing more and more irrelevant. I'll just have to bite the bullet and migrate the rest of my servers to linode...
- askedrelic 16y ago
  I do agree. I migrated my personal server after the RAM increase at Linode and all of my company's servers as well. I can't think of any other new features SliceHost has rolled out in the last 6 months.
  - StavrosK 16y ago
    Hmm, how did you migrate? I have so many sites and old cruft that anything short of a clone of the VM will fail horribly...
    - tasaro 16y ago
      This is a good starting point: http://bit.ly/WdezH http://bit.ly/WdezH
      - StavrosK 16y ago
        Thanks, I read that but it sounds like a hassle, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet. Thanks!
    - askedrelic 16y ago
      Short answer: Build scripts + standard layout. (I'm a Debian guy) I used 'dpkg -l' to check what all I had currently installed and narrowed down what packages I was still using. Check /etc/init.d for start up scripts. Hard files on disk are easy to migrate, live migrating MySQL data is more tricky, but my personal sites don't really have that much going on. I always keep a .tar.gz of the entire server for future reference. Move over as much as possible and try to get things running. Save your .bash_history and get a build script going. Pull any /etc/ config files you are missing. Reinstall your required packages. Test your new site via editing /etc/hosts, then move the DNS. Watch your logs and look for 404 erors for files you didn't copy over correctly. It takes time, but if you use an organized and repeatable process, it can take less time in the future.
      - 16y ago
dualboot 16y ago
Maybe I'm nuts but Slicehost for me still has the best stability of the various VM providers I use.
sammcd 16y ago
I am very surprised that Slicehost is still being updated. I thought that after the acquisition RackSpace was purposefully not updating Slicehost to get more customers to use their RackSpace branded version This update make me wonder if Rackspace is seeing that there was more to slicehost then just the platform, and maybe considering focusing on the slicehost brand. I still love the Slicehost docs and use them even though I'm on linode. If it looked liek Slicehost wasn't being ignored I would gladly move back.

19 points by notmyname 16y ago

points 16y ago

wow you have been able to do this on linode for years :/

ahi 16y ago
But with slicehost you get to pay twice as much. I honestly thought slicehost had been killed off when they were bought by rackspace.
- davidw 16y ago
  It's amazing how much you can coast on momentum.
ambirex 16y ago
I was originally going to say that, being a linode customer for many years. But, I think it is great that other popular VPS solutions are stepping up. Very nice addition slicehost.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

joeyh 16y ago

well, lack of that is why I left slicehost, but even EC2 allows custom kernels now. So a bit late, but glad people are seeing this as the important feature it is -- for quick security response if nothing else.

StavrosK 16y ago

Unfortunately, Slicehost is growing more and more irrelevant. I'll just have to bite the bullet and migrate the rest of my servers to linode...

askedrelic 16y ago
I do agree. I migrated my personal server after the RAM increase at Linode and all of my company's servers as well. I can't think of any other new features SliceHost has rolled out in the last 6 months.
- StavrosK 16y ago
  Hmm, how did you migrate? I have so many sites and old cruft that anything short of a clone of the VM will fail horribly...
  - tasaro 16y ago
    This is a good starting point: http://bit.ly/WdezH http://bit.ly/WdezH
    - StavrosK 16y ago
      Thanks, I read that but it sounds like a hassle, I guess I'll have to bite the bullet. Thanks!
  - askedrelic 16y ago
    Short answer: Build scripts + standard layout. (I'm a Debian guy) I used 'dpkg -l' to check what all I had currently installed and narrowed down what packages I was still using. Check /etc/init.d for start up scripts. Hard files on disk are easy to migrate, live migrating MySQL data is more tricky, but my personal sites don't really have that much going on. I always keep a .tar.gz of the entire server for future reference. Move over as much as possible and try to get things running. Save your .bash_history and get a build script going. Pull any /etc/ config files you are missing. Reinstall your required packages. Test your new site via editing /etc/hosts, then move the DNS. Watch your logs and look for 404 erors for files you didn't copy over correctly. It takes time, but if you use an organized and repeatable process, it can take less time in the future.
    - 16y ago

dualboot 16y ago

Maybe I'm nuts but Slicehost for me still has the best stability of the various VM providers I use.

sammcd 16y ago

I am very surprised that Slicehost is still being updated. I thought that after the acquisition RackSpace was purposefully not updating Slicehost to get more customers to use their RackSpace branded version This update make me wonder if Rackspace is seeing that there was more to slicehost then just the platform, and maybe considering focusing on the slicehost brand. I still love the Slicehost docs and use them even though I'm on linode. If it looked liek Slicehost wasn't being ignored I would gladly move back.