By newms on

Hi,

I am looking at hosting companies for a new project and came across Dreamhost. I've seen a mixed bag of reviews about Dreamhost on the forums. I've read that their database queries are slow and that some users experienced some noticeable down time last year. I also read that people when they sign up are being required to fax in a copy of their credit card info. If you have had any experience with Dreamhost, could you give me some feedback please?

Thanks

Comments

newms’s picture

newms commented

Also is their coupon system legit? That is one of the reasons I'm considering them since that would mean a significant reduction in cost.

newms

voipfc’s picture

voipfc commented

The coupon system is legit. I have one called MERIPOL, I am not quite sure how much you get off it but it is quite substantial. I think you only have to pay about $22 for a year's hosting.

vsrcorp’s picture

vsrcorp commented

hi

Can I still use MERIPOL coupon to get $22 for a year hosting? If not, can you give me any other coupon code that will work today?

Thanks
VSR

voipfc’s picture

voipfc commented

I think you still can. I have not disabled it in anyway. I haven't checked at Dreamhost but it should still be valid.

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

I've read that their database queries are slow Nope. I'm on DH, and everything seems to be fine. Regarding the ...some noticeable down time last year, can't say much, I've joined in November '06. ...people when they sign up are being required to fax in a copy of their credit card info. That's TOTAL bull. Huh?! What?!?! No. So far, DH has been great for me.

Chill35’s picture

Chill35 commented

I have been required to fax my credit card info.

newms’s picture

newms commented

Thanks for your replies. They have been helpful. Is the technical support responsive and helpful?

newms

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

What I do is go to http://discussion.dreamhost.com/ if I have any problems. It's most likely to be answered there. Usually.

sameer@drupal.org’s picture

sameer@drupal.org commented

Hi newms and others,

I signed up with DH about a month ago. It is true that they require you to fax a rubbing of your credit card and signature. I was shocked by this request, but I bit the bullet and sent the fax. Since then they have made good on their promises. So far, so good.

Like you though, I have been somewhat unnerved by the posts in this forum saying that Drupal runs slow because of bad mysql performance. It turns out that DH will host your account on one server and host mysql on another server. Whether this is the cause of the problem, I cannot tell yet. However, I'm just about to install Drupal on DH and test it out. I'll let you know how I get on.

As for the downtime, after reading the notices at http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/, I've been swayed into thinking that these problems are more or less over. However, I just ran the "uptime" command in SSH and the server from which my site is hosted has only been up for 4 days! Not great...

Anyway, I'll keep you posted about page times as and when I get my test site up.

newms’s picture

newms commented

I contacted Dreamhost by email and asked them if they required cutomers to fax in a rubbing of their credit card. Here is the response I got from their agent.

You will only need to fax if your card's fraud score is over the number
we have. Our fraud detector is very strict so you might have to end up
sending a fax if your fraud score is really high. If you fraud score is a
little over you will be asked to pay via google checkout. If you have any
further questions let us know and we will gladly help.

newms

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

Well, based on their response, I gotta tell ya: don't mess with your credit/fraud score :)

patrickharris’s picture

patrickharris commented

:)

joemoraca’s picture

joemoraca commented

I am pretty happy with dreamhost after most of a year. They have their issues but they keep you informed ... I am extra happy since after not trying at all because of being lazy ... I just "figured out" multisite single-code-base installs for drupal ... it is very simple

assuming you can do a single site install ...

* create a drupal (or whatever) directory using ftp... install drupal code there.

* go into the sites folder and create subfolders and settings.php as explained in the install.txt from your drupal install /sites/yourdomain.com/ I removed the default one

* In the dreamhost control panel - manage domains - the "web hosting" column and click "edit"
on the screen where you "currently fully host" a domain -- change this field " Web Directory: /home/username/" ---- to point each domain you want to the drupal folder ....

* then each domains install / update was as if it was a single install

... ymmv but it worked for me .. in the season up upgrades to 5.0 I thought I would share.

I have not setup cron.php but ...

Joe Moraca
http://www.moraca.org

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

You can also change your version of PHP if you get errors w/ PHP 5.1.2

Dubber Dan’s picture

Dubber Dan commented

This looks like just the answer I'm looking for to get my multisite install working with DreamHost. I was wondering if I needed to edit the location that the domains pointed to.

What's your concern about cron.php?

Chill35’s picture

Chill35 commented

There are no issues at all with running cron.php on DreamHost. There are clear 5 steps instructions in another forum thread (not in the book!)

Caroline

Street-1’s picture

Street-1 commented

I have been with Dh for about three months now and am develpoing several Drupal based sites. I have had absolutly no issues with them. Two things I have loved so far is that I have virtually complete access to everything I want/need and that they are completly transparent about any issues they may have. Thay run a system status blog located at http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/ . This blog appears to contain more than you could possible want to know.

All good things must come to an end, enjoy them before they do!

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

You may also try http://discussion.dreamhost.com.

AsTonysh’s picture

AsTonysh commented

I'm on Dreamhost,Generally It's good,but it had some down time last year,but in short it's ok.you can check my site on DH out:http://musicparking.com
Music Up Your Life

Willdex’s picture

Willdex commented

for the response. Have you tried promoting the website?

Walt Esquivel’s picture

Walt Esquivel commented

I've been with DH since March of 2006, and they've been doing very well lately as far as I can tell. There were some severe server issues that hit DH during the summer of 2006, and web sites were having major issues back then.

DH was very open in addressing the issues they experienced and, although I would rather simply not have had the issues to begin with, I was glad they addressed things openly and worked hard to correct the issues.

My various web sites with DH are all on shared servers which means there will be issues from time to time that folks on dedicated servers do not generally run into. Shared servers have pluses and minuses. On the plus side, my average monthly payment (I paid for a year's worth) is somewhere under $4. Yep, less than $4 per month. On the minus side, I acknowledge there will be occasional issues from my shared server "neighbors" doing things incorrectly from time to time.

One thing I like about DH is their affiliate program, which you can read about in my signature I've been able to fund various Drupal projects over the last year from the affiliate income I've made off of referring folks to DH.

I would recommend you create a simple spreadsheet in which you list your needs down the left hand side and then proceed to list a handful or so of hosting companies towards the right. Compare the companies and go with the one that best fits your needs. A touch of analysis will pay off in the long run.

In closing, give DH a shot. They have a generous 97-day money-back-guarantee, but be sure to read the fine print.

Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing

Chill35’s picture

Chill35 commented

They have a generous 97-day money-back-guarantee, but be sure to read the fine print.

Yes. The money-back-guarantee applies only for certain methods of payments. I think that it only works if you pay with a credit card. I am certain that it does not apply if you have paid using either Paypal or google checkout.

Caroline

HSGuru’s picture

HSGuru commented

I'm extremely happy with DH. Have been hosting my home security website with them for 6 months now.
Absolutely no issues! Everything works smoothly. I even didn't need to call customer support.

Dave Ganner

driftingusername’s picture

driftingusername commented

Dreamhost's plans looks too good to be true. But because lots of people were saying that they were satisfied with DH service, and a few others said they had experienced some problems, I could not decide based on their opinions.
In my case, 35 GB disk space and 1.5 million inodes were needed to start my first drupal site. (I do not know inode things apply to DH Linux servers, but my Solaris system gave me headaches on that matter.) I asked DH about their inode quota. Prompt email reply said they have no such limit. But I WAS skeptical .. There seemed to be no other way but to try it myself. Thinking that there was not much to lose, I signed up. Now I have been with Dreamhost for about three weeks -- too short? I have successfully uploaded all the data files. And no problem at all.
----------------------------------------------------
My first drupal project: http://www.orbvista.com
Orbvista::The Ultimate Earth Observation Photo Library

dnguyen’s picture

dnguyen commented

Been playing around with Drupal on my own server, now want to go to the real thing. Does Dreamhost support 5.1? And how easy is it to add whatever module I want?

studiomuscle’s picture

studiomuscle commented

Dreamhost runs 5.1 without a hitch. Modules are uploaded through sFTP or FTP. And you can tar them with SSH client

All in all I am very pleased with the stability and performance of dreamhost :-)

Walt Esquivel’s picture

Walt Esquivel commented

Uploading the Drupal 5.1 files via my FTP program (I use CuteFTP 7 Pro) onto my DreamHost-powered web site only takes a minute or two.

Steps:
1. I download Drupal 5.1 as well as any modules I want from drupal.org onto my PC.
2. I unzip Drupal 5.1 as well as any modules.
3. Using CuteFTP, I upload the unzipped files onto my server, placing them into the appropriate directory(ies).

That's it! It's a VERY easy and simple process. I'm suing 5.1 and enjoying all the functionality it has to offer on my DH-powered site.

If you need a coupon, please follow the first link in my signature; I donate part of my affiliate proceeds back into Drupal. Thank you!

Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing

vsrcorp’s picture

vsrcorp commented

hi

Can I still use MERIPOL coupon to get $22 for a year hosting? If not, can you give me any other coupon code that will work today?

Thanks
VSR

Walt Esquivel’s picture

Walt Esquivel commented

If you need a coupon, please follow the first link in my signature; I donate part of my affiliate proceeds back into Drupal. And yes, it works today. :)

Thank you!

Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing

HangOut’s picture

HangOut commented

hi

I am new to drupal. I got an account on Dreamhost yesterday and have done the following thus far:

1) Created an account ADMINUSER with shell access
2) Download Drupal 5.x to my pc (Step 1 of Drupal Installation process)
3) Created Database using Dreamhost phpmyadmin
4) Changed the dburl and base_url in /sites/default/settings.php
5) FTPed the Drupal 5.x to my Dreamhost account ADMINUSER
6) The drupal folder is in /home/.xyz/drupal/* on Dreamhost
7) I went to www.mysite.com/drupal
8) I got
Not Found

The requested URL /drupal was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Please help me how to proceed here.

Thanks
hangout

Chill35’s picture

Chill35 commented

First of all, what I would do is ftp a php file with extension php (not index.php, but say hello.php) to that Drupal folder, with that content : 

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Hi there, baby</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
</body>
</html>

And type in my browser's address bar : www.mysite.com/drupal/hello.php

If you see the info on your apache and php settings, then at least you know that Drupal is 'at fault'.

While you're at it, print this page (displayed from hello.php).

Then, delete that file.

With Dreamhost you have to wait a couple of days before your dns stuff is working.

Caroline
11 heavens

Walt Esquivel’s picture

Walt Esquivel commented

Hi hangout,

I'm not too sure about what's wrong, but try using FTP to put the 5.x Drupal files in the www.example.com directory. What I mean by this is put the 5.x Drupal files in the top-level directory on your server instead of some folder as you indicated here:

6) The drupal folder is in /home/.xyz/drupal/drupal5.1/* on Dreamhost

...and I have always simply uploaded the files that are in a Drupal folder and not the folder itself, e.g. "drupal5.1" as in your comments. In other words, upload the "drupal5.1" folder contents but NOT the folder itself.

Also, in this step:

4) Changed the dburl and base_url in /sites/default/settings.php

....aren't you using 5.1's auto-install method? In other words, you're not actually going into the settings.php file to change the dburl and base, are you? I downloaded 5.1 when it came out and I typed in the dburl and base directly in via the auto-installer; I didn't manually open settings.php to change anything. Also, make sure you use your new database's name in place of "local".

As in your example:

7) I went to www.mysite.com/drupal

...try uploading the 5.1 files to the top level directory to see if that works, e.g. www.mysite.com (NOT www.mysite.com/drupal).

I hope my answer helps. Please post back here if it does so others can benefit from your fixes.

Walt Esquivel, MBA; MA; President, Wellness Corps; Captain, USMC (Veteran)
$50 Hosting Discount Helps Projects Needing Financing

vsrcorp’s picture

vsrcorp commented

Thanks for all the help received here. Really appreciate it. Your suggestions fixed the problem and I am off configuring Drupal :-)

Thanks to all

Hangout..