Thread

I’m currently building EE sites for a company that says their old developer told them that all sites must be hosted on the company’s dedicated Linux server. When I asked why, they said something vague like “something about the URLs.”

What I do know is that the old developer used an .htaccess file to remove index.php from the URLs of his EE sites. This is the code he used, and I use it as well:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php/$1 [L]

Would this .htaccess file have anything to do with the restriction to a dedicated Linux server? Or is this whole thing total fantasy as I suspect?

The company mostly deals with GoDaddy servers/hosting, and that’s where their dedicated server is located as well.

Can any of you think of a reason why I can’t host my clients’ EE sites anywhere I darn well please (including Linux & Windows; and Shared & VD Servers)?

htaccess rules certainly don’t require a dedicated server. 

Possibly the previous developer had an affiliate account with GoDaddy? 😉

I wouldn’t look to host on Windows (it’s been done, but usually accompanied by general frustration) but if your client site isn’t a high-traffic site I’d like to put it on a shared hosting account.

That’s basically what I figured. I just needed someone more educated in EE to confirm my suspicions! And don’t worry, I plan to stay as far away from windows as possible 😊

My suggestion is to host with a proven solution - that is, one that at least another member here uses and has had good experience with.

If it is low traffic (less than 1,000 visitors per day), you should be fine on a shared server - however, some shared servers host hundreds of accounts (some busy) on a single box!

Way back in the past, I had decent results with Verio and Pair networks…...but there are lots more options these days.

I’ve heard that specifically GoDaddy shared servers can cause problems with EE sites. Does anyone have any experience with that?

I feel that no serious web developer should even consider GoDaddy, but that’s just my opinion.

As for EE2, like many shared services you must specify that they use PHP 5, otherwise they may default to 4, which will not allow EE2 to install/run since PHP 4 is no longer supported. This is a gotcha with MediaTemple(gs) and other shared services as well, but it’s usually as simple to fix as flipping a switch.

This may be why they were saying “must be dedicated”, because they might have tried a shared and not realized the issues w/ old versions of PHP.

Well opinions on GoDaddy aside, that’s what my client uses, and that’s what I have to work with. That’s why I need to know about any possible conflicts from folks who’ve used GoDaddy. My biggest assumption is that perhaps the .htaccess file for removing index.php would not be accepted on a GoDaddy shared server.