Johnvh.com - home of Dallas, Texas based Flash Developer and web enthusiast John Van Horn

Online home of John Van Horn

Note to self: Minimum requirements for hosting

While it would be nice have my own fancy server, a private server, or a private vm, I really don’t need it. I’ve always opted for shared hosting, because anything else seems like overkill. I currently have a shared plan with Dreamhost and they have served me quite well and meet all my needs. Recently though, while working with another hosting company, I realized there were some things missing that have become absolutely critical to my workflow. So here is my list of bare-minimum requirements for hosting:

  • LAMP

    Linux, Apache, MySql and Php. No Windows please. Not because Windows sucks, but because Windows has no shell access. Cli’s for mysql and php are a plus.

  • Shell access

    For me, there is no better way to work than through ssh and scp. Working through ftp is balls. Also required is easy-to-set-up shell access. Let me check a box on a control panel somewhere and wait at the most 10 minutes. Please do not make me enter my phone number, wait for a call, get a confirmation code from the call, enter the code somewhere in the control panel, and then wait 72 hours for my shell access to be “activated”.

  • Source control

    Binaries. At least Subversion. Git would be ok too. Repo hosting is a plus.

  • Vim

    The ultimate editor.

  • Other binaries

    Curl and/or wget. Ant would be nice too. Xmllint and tidy.

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