Whole lot of questions about websites, servers, domains, DOOM hosting etc

[Doomkid]

I have a load of questions about websites, domains, servers & hosting companies, and am looking to start a small cluster of online dedicated Doom servers. Any help anyone can offer on any of this would be greatly appreciated.

Firstly, I want to buy a domain. The registrar I seem to keep coming to is godaddy, and they offer good prices, which is all well and good, but I'm wondering if they host the actual website and contents? I'll be needing to rent a server - Preferably one around the San Jose, California region - to use for my Doom servers, and I was thinking I could use that for the site as well, but at the same time I don't want traffic to interfere with the connection on the Doom end of things.

I'm incredibly new to all of this, my budget is small but would certainly be enough to get all this done if I cute a few corners elsewhere. Any advice anyone experienced with this stuff, even just partially, would be fantastic.

My post might be kinda confusing so here's a summarized list of information I'm looking for:

-Decent price, decent speed rented server in California to use for a cluster of no more than 10-15 Doom servers

-How the heck do you use a rented server to host Doom shit anyway?!

-When I buy my domain, where do I need to put my actual website/contents? Is that inclusive of buying a domain, or what? Any info is very helpful.

Thanks!

[capodecima]

I can help you host server on odamex. I use vultr.com or digitalocean.com for VPS. Its easy set up server, only think is you need is linux for it. (i still dont figured out how make first setup and .sh files without linux heh). About the websites and domains.
Its a bit more complicated. If you buy website and domain. It cost more but you dont need nothing to know. They usually also put up some wordpress on website or anything you want and you have their support. If you decide buy only domain and set up everything on your VPS its more complicated. You have to know what you are doing. But there is a lot tutorials so well. :) GL

[Vorpal]

It's been a looong time since I've used a hosting service but yeah, the equipment *should* be directly owned and operated by them, so that they can quickly support the customer in the event of a problem. And typically the webserver host service doubles as a domain name registrar, I'd be surprised if there were any companies still around that are only registrars.

After you fork over the year's subscription or whatever, you get ftp login access to a webserver. You'll have some storage space limit and bandwidth limit, but otherwise go to town uploading whatever files you want.

Renting a game server is different. I've never done it but I imagine it'd be more along the lines of them granting you access to a remote virtual machine that you'd access via rdp, vnc, ssh, or something like that. If all you have access to is the game console (e.g. "rcon access" in the quake games) then I don't think there is any point in paying for the service, since any time there is a problem you will be stuck waiting for a technician to assist you.

If you want to turn this into a learning project, you can do most things yourself on a spare machine for free. Could set up a webserver with https://www.lighttpd.net, and most of the multiplayer ports have builds that run on linux. The downside is of course the potentially unreliable connection available to a household (further compounded by the distance to aussieville). But the full control and knowledge gain will be valuable, and would transfer into you being a better "admin" even if you used a paid service since you might be able to support yourself in the event of a server problem with the knowledge gained.

[fraggle]

First of all, let go of the idea that you need a physical server. Nowadays you almost certainly don't. They're expensive and a pain to run, and you can rent a virtual machine for a tiny fraction of the price.

Next, if you aren't renting a physical server you don't need to care about its location so much. As you're talking about running game servers, you need to be aware of latency, so the location does matter - for your own benefit it's probably worth running it somewhere on the US west coast. But it probably doesn't need to be in your exact same city.

Running a server on the west coast means it's probably going to be good ping time for you, acceptable ping time for people on the east coast, and unplayable for people in Europe. If you're thinking of running multiple servers (and virtual machines are cheap enough that you can do this) then you might want to think about making them geographically diverse.

Finally, buying a domain name is completely separate from renting a server. You're literally just buying a name (doomworld.com, soulsphere.org, etc.). Most registrars usually advertise website hosting features as well just to make the whole process more simple, but you don't want that in your case. You "link" your domain name to your server using DNS, which is a complicated subject. But to keep things simple, it should usually be a case of registering your domain name (eg. example.com), setting up eg. example.com to point to the IP address of your server (most registrars will run a basic DNS server for you), and then installing a web server on your server to serve webpages.

[Linguica]

Doomworld runs on the cheapest possible Linode VPS with plenty of room to spare.

[capodecima]

Same with odamex/zan servers you really dont some high end machines with a lot rams. For about 20 servers on odamex is enough 1 gb RAM which is like 10 dollars /month. If you want host a lot of coop servers you prob have to host less servers.
If i wanted go with both hosting zan/oda i should prob buy 2 GB ram.

[Decay]

Doomkid you should talk to Mifu about hosting, since he is an Aussie hosting stuff all over the world and has looked into a lot of different server pricings. I wouldn't listen to anything Capo has to say since his servers are complete and total garbage, and that means you'd be setting yourself up for garbage too.

[capodecima]

Man i hosted on linode, vultr, digitalocean, ovh, hetzner, czech clouds etc. You have no idea what you are talking about lmao. BaseQ is ovh, L@p is hetzner, FUNCRUSHER is linode and vultr. I host on vultr now. And stop being so mad at everything. I know you had probably very bad times during college but this is really not reason ventilate your frustration on DW. Go rather make some less vertical maps which are actually playble and fun. Also ye doomkid go talk with mifu. :D

[Obsidian]

Don't take the bait Decay, you don't know where it's been.

[Doomkid]

I really appreciate the detailed and helpful comments/input from you all. Off to a long ass work day, but will be looking forward to dig into this more once hope. Thanks a ton!

[Decay]

Obsidian said:

Don't take the bait Decay, you don't know where it's been.

Of course I won't, that bait was in the local dump, just like all of capo's servers.

[Obsidian]

And yet you still took a little nibble just in case, heh. :P