web hosting ideas?

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Karen wrote with some complaints about dreamhost, and
looking for an alternative.  

Karen, sorry to hear you're having difficulties with your
hosting. Of course, spotty service is a good reason to
leave, however, if problems can be solved...

Regarding mail service, I received a notice from dreamhost
that they are changing over parts of their mail system, and
there will be some occasional outages during the summer
months as they migrate users over (details below).

Regarding ssh access, I've noticed that the ssh keys on
shared hosts occasionally change, triggering a security
warning next time you use ssh. When that happens you may
have to delete the old key to accept the new one. (And btw
you should verify the fingerprint of the new key.)

Regarding support, I found that dreamhost has decent
references in their wiki, and have always gotten timely
responses to my occasional technical questions. 

Quote from dreamhost:

  During migration, you may see duplicated messages or delayed messages in
  your inbox. Some emails that arrive mid-migration *may temporarily* appear
  to go missing as the new servers' DNS records propagate. Don't panic if
  this happens - they will return!
  
  To minimize these side-effects, please avoid moving or deleting messages,
  or creating/deleting users during the migration period.

FWIW, dreamhost also posts the status of their systems at
https://www.dreamhoststatus.com/

with greetings,

-joel

> Hi folks,
> I realize many of you do your own servers and the like, so I am going to ask
> this question with great care.  My needs are rather specific, and even if
> they seem old fashioned, they are rooted in  part in how my specific
> disability experiences manifest just now.
> I work with a nonprofit organization with several program areas in more than
> one country.
> presently our  web needs are housed with dreamhost.
> www.dreamhost.com
> Their hosting accounts include a fairly solid shell structure, in Ubuntu,
> including programs like alpine.  I use ssh  telnet to reach these services
> and must have comparative access where ever i go.
> Dreamhost made security changes about a week ago which now block my ssh
> access.  while I may discover a work around, their mail server behavior has
> been loopy for a while so...a blessing lies in all this mayhem.
> I am going to contact one shell service of which I am already aware,
> preferring not to bring all of my Internet life here to shellworld.
> So, yes there is a question laughs.
> Can you suggest a comparative hosting service that
> a, provides a functional shell as apart of their account.
> b allows for more than one domain to be hosted with them, including sftp
> access and a great deal of account space.
> c. has good customer service
> and
> d, is reasonably priced?
> dreamhost donates hosting accounts to 501c3 organizations, so it has been a
> free ride.
> I do not expect that to continue, but I do  hope to find  something
> reasonable.
> 
> Thanks for your ideas if any.
> Oh, I have no interest whatsoever in hosting my needs on my own.  I lack
> both the resources and talent for such a venture here in Toronto.
> Thanks,
> Karen
> 
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-- 
Joel Roth